“The Meaning of Christ's Death, Part 2” by Romans
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Last week we reviewed, and I hope I explained well to you all why we were reviewing The Meaning of Christ's Death in the middle of December. As I said I would, this week we are going to take a second look at some of the verses I used last week, and examine them through the pens of some of the insightful commentators I defer to for greater insight into God's Word.
The first verse I would like to bring back is one that, as I look over last week's notes, I think I may have stopped quoting a verse too soon. As you may recall, one of the things I repeatedly stressed is that Jesus' sacrifice was for each of us and all of us. I quoted Simeon's words as he held the infant Jesus in his arms.
He said, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).
The Holy Spirit had directed Simeon to the Temple so that he could see and hold the promised Messiah. When Simeon saw Him he said, “Mine eyes have seen thy Salvation.” Albert Barnes writes, “Thy salvation - Him who is to procure salvation for his people; or, the Saviour.” That title, “Saviour” is a title that we usually associate with Jesus, and correctly so. But I want you all to think about what the implications of God's own words in the Old Testament when He says, “Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me” (Hosea 13:4).
If that is true, and, of course, it is, we can see that it was the God of the Old Testament, our Creator, Who, Himself, would become the Messiah. This is why, as I stated last week, when the angel announced to the shepherds that the Messiah had come, he said, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).
Jesus is our Savior, and the Word of God states that there is no Savior but God. I shouldn't need to draw a map to see what the Bible is clearly and unmistakably declaring: But I will allow the Apostle John to put it into a sentence: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:1 and 14).
I'd like to also point out that Albert Barnes' words that I quoted earlier can be misunderstood: When he wrote “Him who is to procure salvation for His people” one might be tempted to limit “His people” to just the Israelites. As we continue to read, we see that the Holy Spirit then opened Simeon's understanding to recognizing that this infant would accomplish God's Plan of Salvation that would not be limited to the children of Israel. He would also be “A light to lighten the Gentiles...”
Ten years after the Church began on Pentecost, Peter was directed by the Holy Spirit to meet with Cornelius, a Gentile Centurion in the Italian Band. When Peter arrived at Cornelius' house, notice Peter's words to those assembled: “Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for: I ask therefore for what intent ye have sent for me?” (Acts 10:28-29).
Peter had previously told the chief priests who ordered the apostles to stop teaching in the name of Jesus, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:28-29). And, he was obeying God to meet with Cornelius, but he had no idea what he was doing there. The idea of conversion was the furthest thing on Peter's mind. He asked him, “For what intent have ye sent for me?” The Holy Spirit was about to also open Peter's understanding that this same Jesus was “a light to lighten the Gentiles,” and the Savior of all mankind.
After meeting with Cornelius, and witnessing the Holy Spirit coming on the Gentiles, and their speaking in tongues as he and the other apostles had experienced, He told fellow-believers in Jerusalem when he returned and they challenged him for meeting with Gentiles, “God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:17).
Jesus' death, and His offer Salvation was to all of mankind. Perhaps we don't realize it but if you have a red letter Bible, the words “For God so loved the world,” are printed in red. Those are Jesus' words when He met at night and in private with with Nicodemus.
Alexander MacClaren writes, “God so loved the world.’ Now when we speak of loving a number of individuals - the broader the stream, the shallower it is, is it not? When we think or feel anything about a great multitude of people, it is like looking at a forest. We do not see the trees, we see the whole wood. But that is not how God loves the world.
Suppose I said that I loved the people in India, I should not mean by that that I had any feeling about any individual soul of all those dusky millions, but only that I massed them all together; or made what people call a generalisation of them. But that is not the way in which God loves. He loves all because He loves each. And when we say, ‘God so loved the world,’ we have to break up the mass into its atoms, and to think of each atom as being an object of His love. We all stand out in God’s love just as we should do to one another’s eyes...
Every man of us is isolated, and getting as much of the love of God as if there was not another creature in the whole universe but God and ourselves. Have you ever realised that when we say, ‘He loved the world,’ that really means, as far as each of us is concerned, He loves me? And just as the whole beams of the sun come pouring down into every eye of the crowd that is looking up to it, so the whole love of God pours down, not upon a multitude, an abstraction, a community, but upon every single soul that makes up that community.
He loves us all because He loves us each. We shall never get all the good of that thought until we translate it, and lay it upon our hearts. It is all very well to say, ‘Ah yes! God is love,’ and it is all very well to say He loves ‘the world.’ But I will tell you what is a great deal better-to say-what Paul said-’Who loved me and gave Himself for me.’”
As we continue to review and add commentaries to some of the Scriptures I provided last week, I would like next to go to 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” This, of course, is the means, the very heart and soul of our reconciliation with the Father.
Of this Matthew Henry writes, “As God is willing to be reconciled to us, we ought to be reconciled to God. And it is the great end and design of the gospel, that word of reconciliation, to prevail upon sinners to lay aside their enmity against God.
Wonderful condescension! Though God can be no loser by the quarrel, nor gainer by the peace, yet by his ministers he beseeches sinners to lay aside their enmity, and accept of the terms he offers, that they would be reconciled to him, to all his attributes, to all his laws, and to all his providences, to believe in the Mediator, to accept the atonement, and comply with his gospel, in all the parts of it and in the whole design of it.
And for our encouragement so to do the apostle subjoins what should be well known and duly considered by us (2 Corinthians 5:21), namely, (1.) The purity of the Mediator: He knew no sin. (2.) The sacrifice he offered: He was made sin; not a sinner, but sin, that is, a sin-offering, a sacrifice for sin. (3.) The end and design of all this: that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, might be justified freely by the grace of God through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
Note, [1.] As Christ, who knew no sin of his own, was made sin for us, so we, who have no righteousness of our own, are made the righteousness of God in him. [2.] Our reconciliation to God is only through Jesus Christ, and for the sake of his merit: on him therefore we must rely, and make mention of his righteousness and his only.”
Albert Barnes adds, “2 Corinthians 5:21
For he hath made him to be sin for us - The Greek here is, ‘for him who knew no sin, he hath made sin, or a sin-offering for us.’ The design of this very important verse is, to urge the strongest possible reason for being reconciled to God. This is implied in the word (γὰρ gar) “for.” Paul might have urged other arguments, and presented other strong considerations. But he chooses to present this fact, that Christ has been made sin for us, as embodying and concentrating all.
It is the most affecting of all arguments; it is the one that is likely to prove most effectual. It is not indeed improper to urge on people every other consideration to induce them to be reconciled to God. It is not improper to appeal to them by the conviction of duty; to appeal to their reason and conscience; to remind them of the claims, the power, the goodness, and the fear of the Creator; to remind them of the awful consequences of a continued hostility to God; to persuade them by the hope of heaven, and by the fear of hell (see 2 Corinthians 5:1) to become his friends:
but, after all, the strongest argument, and that which is most adapted to melt the soul, is the fact that the Son of God has become incarnate for our sins, and has suffered and died in our stead. When all other appeals fail this is effectual; and this is in fact the strong argument by which the mass of those who become Christians are induced to abandon their opposition and to become reconciled to God.
To be sin - The words ‘to be’ are not in the original. Literally, it is, ‘he has made him sin, or a sin-offering.' But what is meant by this? What is the exact idea which the apostle intended to convey? I answer, it cannot be: (1) That he was literally sin in the abstract, or sin as such. No one can pretend this. The expression must be, therefore, in some sense, figurative. Nor, (2) Can it mean that he was a sinner, for it is said in immediate connection that he “knew no sin,” and it is everywhere said that he was holy, harmless, undefiled.
Nor, (3) Can it mean that he was, in any proper sense of the word, guilty, for no one is truly guilty who is not personally a transgressor of the Law; and if he was, in any proper sense, guilty, then he deserved to die, and his death could have no more merit than that of any other guilty being; and if he was properly guilty it would make no difference in this respect whether it was by his own fault or by imputation: a guilty being deserves to be punished; and where there is desert of punishment there can be no merit in sufferings.
But all such views as go to make the Holy Redeemer a sinner, or guilty, or deserving of the sufferings which he endured, border on blasphemy, and are abhorrent to the whole strain of the Scriptures. In no form, in no sense possible, is it to be maintained that the Lord Jesus was sinful or guilty.
It is a corner stone of the whole system of religion, that in all conceivable senses of the expression he was holy, and pure, and the object of the divine approbation. And every view which fairly leads to the statement that he was in any sense guilty, or which implies that he deserved to die, is “prima facie” a false view, and should be at once abandoned.
But, (4) If the declaration that he was made “sin” does not mean that he was sin itself, or a sinner, or guilty, then it must mean that he was a sin-offering - an offering or a sacrifice for sin; and this is the interpretation which is now generally adopted by expositors; or it must be taken as an abstract for the concrete, and mean that God treated him as if he were a sinner... There are many passages in the Old Testament where the word “sin” is used in the sense of sin-offering, or a sacrifice for sin. (See Ezekiel 43:22, Ezekiel_43:25; Ezekiel_44:29; Ezekiel_45:22-23, Ezekiel_45:25).
But whichever meaning is adopted, whether it means that he was a sacrifice for sin, or that God treated him as if he were a sinner, that is, subjected him to sufferings which, if he had been personally a sinner, would have been a proper expression of his hatred of transgression, and proper punishment for sin, in either case it means that he made an atonement; that he died for sin; that his death was not merely that of a martyr; but that it was designed by substituted sufferings to make reconciliation between man and God.
Locke renders this: probably expressing the true sense, “For God hath made him subject to suffering and death, the punishment and consequence of sin, as if he had been a sinner, though he were guilty of no sin.” To me, it seems probable that the sense is, that God treated him as if he had been a sinner; that he subjected him to such pains and woes as would have been a proper punishment if he had been guilty;
that while he was, in fact, in all senses perfectly innocent, and while God knew this, yet that in consequence of the voluntary assumption of the place of man which the Lord Jesus took, it pleased the Father to lay on him the deep sorrows which would be the proper expression of his sense of the evil of sin; that he endured so much suffering, as would answer the same great ends in maintaining the truth, and honor, and justice of God, as if the guilty had themselves endured the penalty of the Law.
This, I suppose, is what is usually meant when it is said “our sins were imputed to him;” and though this language is not used in the Bible, and though it is liable to great misapprehension and perversion, yet if this is its meaning, there can be no objection to it. (Certainly Christ’s being made sin, is not to be explained of his being made sin in the abstract, nor of his having actually become a sinner; yet it does imply, that sin was charged on Christ, or that it was imputed to him, and that he became answerable for it.
Nor can this idea be excluded, even if we admit that “sin-offering” is the proper rendering in the passage. “That Christ was made sin for us, because he was a sacrifice for sin, we confess; but therefore was he a sacrifice for sin because our sins were imputed to him, and punished in him.” The doctrine of imputation of sin to Christ is here, by plain enough inference at least. The rendering in our Bibles, however, asserts it in a more direct form.
Nor, after all the criticism that has been expended on the text, does there seem any necessity for the abandonment of that rendering, on the part of the advocate of imputation. For first... in the Septuagint, and the corresponding... Hebrew, denote both the sin and the sin-offering, the peculiar sacrifice and the crime itself. Second, the antithesis in the passage, so obvious and beautiful, is destroyed by the adoption of “sin-offering.” Christ was made sin, we righteousness.
There seems in our author’s comment on this place, and also at Rom. 5, an attempt to revive the oft-refuted objection against imputation, namely, that it involves something like a transference of moral character, an infusion, rather than an imputation of sin or righteousness. Nothing of this kind is at all implied in the doctrine... What then is the value of such arguments or insinuations as these: “All such views as go to make the Holy Redeemer a sinner, or guilty, or deserving of the sufferings he endured, border on blasphemy,” etc.
Nor is it wiser to affirm that “if Christ was properly guilty, it would make no difference in this respect, whether it was by his own fault or by imputation.” What may be meant in this connection by “properly guilty,” we know not. But this is certain, that there is an immense difference between Christ’s having the guilt of our iniquities charged on him, and having the guilt of his own so charged.
It is admitted in the commentary, that God “treated Christ as if he had been a sinner,” and this is alleged as the probable sense of the passage. But this treatment of Christ on the part of God, must have some ground, and where shall we find it, unless in the imputation of sin to him? If the guilt of our iniquities, or which is the same thing, the Law obligation to punishment, be not charged on Christ, how in justice can he be subjected to the punishment?
If he had not voluntarily come under such obligation, what claim did law have on him? That the very words “sin imputed to Christ” are not found in scripture, is not a very formidable objection. The words in this text are stronger and better “He was made sin,” and says Isaiah, according to the rendering of Dr. Lowth, “The Lord made to meet upon him the iniquities of us all. It was required of him, and he was made answerable.” (See Isaiah Isaiah 53:6).
Who knew no sin - He was not guilty. He was perfectly holy and pure. This idea is thus expressed by Peter in 1 Peter 2:22; “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth;” and in Hebrews 7:26, it is said he was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” In all respects, and in all conceivable senses, the Lord Jesus was pure and holy. If he had not been, he would not have been qualified to make an atonement.
Hence, the sacred writers are everywhere at great pains to keep this idea prominent, for on this depends the whole superstructure of the plan of salvation. The phrase “knew no sin,” is an expression of great beauty and dignity. It indicates his entire and perfect purity. He was altogether unacquainted with sin; he was a stranger to transgression; he was conscious of no sin; he committed none. He had a mind and heart perfectly free from pollution, and his whole life was perfectly pure and holy in the sight of God.
That we might be made the righteousness of God - This is a Hebraism, meaning the same as divinely righteous. It means that we are made righteous in the sight of God; that is, that we are accepted as righteous, and treated as righteous by God on account of what the Lord Jesus has done. There is here an evident and beautiful contrast between what is said of Christ, and what is said of us.
He was made sin; we are made righteousness; that is, he was treated as if he were a sinner, though he was perfectly holy and pure; we are treated as if we were righteous, though we are defiled and depraved. The idea is, that on account of what the Lord Jesus has endured in our behalf we are treated as if we had ourselves entirely fulfilled the Law of God, and had never become exposed to its penalty.
In the phrase “righteousness of God,” there is a reference to the fact that this is his plan of making people righteous, or of justifying them. They who thus become righteous, or are justified, are justified on his plan, and by a scheme which he has devised. Locke renders this: “that we, in and by him, might be made righteous, by a righteousness imputed to us by God.” The idea is, that all our righteousness in the sight of God we receive in and through a Redeemer.
All is to be traced to him. This verse contains a beautiful epitome of the whole plan of salvation, and the uniqueness of the Christian scheme. On the one hand, one who was perfectly innocent, by a voluntary substitution, is treated as if he were guilty; that is, is subjected to pains and sorrows which if he were guilty would be a proper punishment for sin: and on the other, they who are guilty and who deserve to be punished, are treated, through his vicarious sufferings, as if they were perfectly innocent;
that is, in a manner which would be a proper expression of God’s approbation if he had not sinned. The whole plan, therefore, is one of substitution; and without substitution, there can be no salvation. Innocence voluntarily suffers for guilt, and the guilty are thus made pure and holy, and are saved. The greatness of the divine compassion and love is thus shown for the guilty;
and on the ground of this it is right and proper for God to call on people to be reconciled to him. It is the strongest argument that can be used. When God has given his only Son to the bitter suffering of death on the cross in order that we may be reconciled, it is the highest possible argument which can be used why we should cease our opposition to him, and become his friends.”
All of what I just read, in both Paul's original verse, and in the commentaries on it, are the reasons why the birth of this baby, unlike the birth of any other baby before or after Jesus, is celebrated. Our sins, all of our sins, and the punishment of death for them, were imputed to Christ. Paul phrases the imputation of the penalty of our sins to Christ with these words in Romans 5:6: “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Had that not been done we would yet be “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
But we are not aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel. We are not strangers from the covenants of promise. We have hope. We are not without God. We have been reconciled to the Father by death of His Son. This Plan of Salvation is unlike anything understood or believed or taught by any other religious system in the world. And that is because every other religious system was invented by men who would never have come up with the idea that the God they served would become a man, and lay down His own Life to pay for the sins of those who believe in Him.
Again, I cite the message given to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born. The angel spoke of the fulfillment of the birth of the Messiah, and identified Him in no uncertain terms: “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). Christ, the Messiah, the Lord. God had come in the flesh to fulfill God's Plan of Salvation for all mankind.
The formulation and execution of this Plan was described in prophecy as if it were a done deal; it is spoken of in the past tense, even though it was written about many centuries before Jesus came, and was that babe in a manger. It also speaks of the Lord choosing someone who was innocent, to be an offering for sin, and punishing that person. We read in Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.”
Of this, Matthew Henry writes, “In the foregoing verses the prophet had testified very particularly of the sufferings of Christ, yet mixing some hints of the happy issue of them; here he again mentions his sufferings, but largely foretels the glory that should follow. We may observe, in these verses,
I. The services and sufferings of Christ's state of humiliation. Come, and see how he loved us, see what he did for us.
1. He submitted to the frowns of Heaven: Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, to put him to pain, or torment, or grief. The scripture nowhere says that Christ is his sufferings underwent the wrath of God; but it says here, (1.) That the Lord bruised him, not only permitted men to bruise him, but awakened his own sword against him, (Zechariah 13:7).
They esteemed him smitten of God for some very great sin of his own (see Isaiah 53:4); now it was true that he was smitten of God, but it was for our sin; the Lord bruised him, for he did not spare him, but delivered him up for us all, (see Romans 8:32). He it was that put the bitter cup into his hand, and obliged him to drink it (see John 18:11), having laid upon him our iniquity. He it was that made him sin and a curse for us, and turned to ashes all his burnt-offering, in token of the acceptance of it, (see Psalm 20:3).
(2.) That he bruised him so as to put him to grief. Christ accommodated himself to this dispensation, and received the impressions of grief from his Father's delivering him up; and he was troubled to such a degree that it put him into an agony, and he began to be amazed and very heavy.
(3.) It pleased the Lord to do this. He determined to do it; it was the result of an eternal counsel; and he delighted in it, as it was an effectual method for the salvation of man and the securing and advancing of the honour of God. He substituted himself in the room (or, place) of sinners, as a sacrifice. He made his soul an offering for sin; he himself explains this (Matthew 20:28), that he came to give his life a ransom for many.
When men brought bulls and goats as sacrifices for sin they made them offerings, for they had an interest in them, God having put them under the feet of man. But Christ made himself an offering; it was his own act and deed. We could not put him in our stead, but he put himself, and said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, in a higher sense than David said, or could say it. “Father, I commit my soul to thee, I deposit it in thy hands, as the life of a sacrifice and the price of pardons.”
This is what the aged Simeon understood and celebrated when he saw the 8-day old infant Jesus Whom Mary and Joseph brought to the Temple. This is what prompted Simeon to declare, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;” (Luke 2:29-31).
Our Salvation included the prophesied birth of Jesus which was unlike any other birth. Our Salvation also includes the prophesied death of Christ which was unlike any other death. And our Salvation also includes Jesus' prophesied resurrection, which again was unlike the resurrection of anyone else who was raised to back to life in both the Old and New Testaments. Unlike the other resurrections, Jesus was raised back to life, and is alive forevermore.
Consider: the Apostle Paul recognized and focused his Gospel Message on Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2), but he recognized that Jesus' resurrection also was a critical part of our Salvation. He wrote, “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:17-20).
Next week, God willing, we will take an in depth review and examination of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I hope that as many of you who are here, tonight, or listening to me on Youtube, or are reading this in the Forum, can join me live for that Discussion at this same time.
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “The Meaning of Christ's Death, Part 2”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on December 22nd, 2021
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