How Jesus’ Death Saved All of Us

How Jesus’ Death Saved All of Us

If it weren’t Jesus, who else could have saved all of mankind?

Khen Lim

The Irish Potato Famine (Image source: AwesomeStories)

Introduction

Here’s a story to start with…

The years between late 1845 and 1852 are now known as the Great Famine. It was a time not just of mass starvation but tragic outbreak of disease and then emigration. 

All of this was happening in Ireland and it began because of a potato crop failure caused by late blight, a disease that brought devastation to the vegetable’s leaves and the edible roots or tubers, which is why it was also called the Irish Potato Famine. Over a million men, women and children were killed and another million fled.

During this time, Irish society was essentially agrarian in nature. Its crops sustained some eight million people who were among the poorest in the known Western world then. Literacy rate was poor – only a quarter of its population could read and write. At about 40 for men, life expectancy was also shockingly short.

Introduced to Ireland around 1590 from South America via England, potatoes soon became popular because it grew well in the cool moist soil and with little labour. In fact, an acre of fertilised potato farmland could produce about 12 tons of yield, which was more than enough to feed a family of six for the whole year. 

It was so well accepted that by the 1800s, it became Ireland’s staple crop particularly in the impoverished regions that accommodated some three million of its peasantry. Little wonder when you realise that potatoes are rich in protein, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins including riboflavin, niacin and Vitamin C.

In 1845, Ireland was anticipating a good bumper crop. The weather was conducive and everyone was excited. What they hadn’t realised was that a form of potato blight had already been identified in the Isle of Wight and with the right conditions, it could spread. And so when it came time to dig up the potatoes, all they got was black gooey mess. 

In fact, the disaster persisted for three straight years and the Irish had little to fall back on. By the following year, the loss of potatoes was estimated to be a staggering £3.5 million (est. £384.4 million today).

In many of the small towns, the poor either died of starvation or they fled the country, looking for survival elsewhere. America seems to be a popular destination besides some pockets of townships in England. Those who remained fought to stay alive, which wasn’t easy since potatoes were what they had been counting on for so long. With the corn introduced by Sir Robert Peel, it became nothing short of disaster as there were little to no mills around to ground them before they could be consumed.

Irish Potato Famine (Image source: ThingLink)

Many had resorted to thieving just to keep their families minimally fed. This was after all a very severe famine where food was as scarce as one could imagine. Many were actually stealing from one another so much so that eventually one of the town’s mayor came to know about it. 

He realised that if this thieving doesn’t stop, it would be the death of everyone and so he issued a decree that whomsoever caught stealing would be brought to the town square so that he or she could be strapped to the pole and flogged before everyone else’s eyes. Notices were put up on every corner and in every window of every shop so that all were forewarned of the dire consequences.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for someone to be caught. With enough prying eyes out looking through windows and all, the thief was brought to justice. Of course, it could be said that there were many such thieves and catching one might be seen as making him a scapegoat but the law was the law and it had to be meted out. 

With the thief caught red-handed, he was cloaked in a huge gunnysack and brought to the town square where the people including the mayor himself had all gathered around. Everyone had wanted to see who the thief was and to witness for themselves how the punishment would be served. 

Those who had been stolen from would look at this spectacle as a deserved outcome. Those who knew someone doing the thieving within their own families might now think twice seeing the punishment that was to come.

One million died in the Irish Potato Famine (Image source: Daily Mail)

With everyone peering at the thief, the mayor gave the word to uncloak him. As the captors lifted the gunnysack, everyone gasped in shock. Many were wide-eyed while the women covered their mouths, horrified by who they saw. It was the mayor’s own young son. The mayor and his wife were taken aback. The wife fainted and he had to quickly grab her before she could hurt herself falling. As he quickly took stock of the situation, many had trained their eyes on him, looking to see what he was going to do. In fact, what could he do?

The mayor was well liked by the people. He was honest and he got along with everyone. He was as friendly as he was helpful. And he cared very much for his people. His integrity was never in question and for him, the law is the same fairly for everyone. Including himself? That was what people were now trying to find out. 

Not because they were looking to grind their axes; in fact, many were now very concerned as to how he was going to respond. Balanced in between his love for his one and only son and the need to do the right thing by the people was the most perplexing decision he could ever have to make in his life.

His young son was all of 14 years old. He was a reedy little guy and the flogging might kill him if not seriously injure someone this young. If he survived, those injuries might permanently disfigure him. He might not be able to physically work because of them. 

The mayor had a wonderful and happy family. He loved his wife and the son she bore him. He doted on his son. He spent as much of his days spending time to teach him. Now, he stared blankly into space, not knowing how or what the next step must be.

How could he make his own son suffer? What could he not have him suffer and still let justice be done? What would the people say if he let his son go with a slap on the wrist? How would people respect the law or him as their mayor if that were the case? 

On the other hand, how could he look his son in the eye if he let the flogging begin? He knew he had to make a decision and he couldn’t make the people wait any further.

So the mayor ordered the captors to bind his arms firmly in front of him and around the pole. Next, his shirt was removed so that his back became exposed. With a grim face, he gave the signal that the flogging could now commence but right before then, he did something unusual.

The mayor now stepped forward and walked towards his son. He stood between him and the flogger who wielded the deadly looking whip. Before he issued the order to begin, he removed his own shirt, much to the great surprise of all who were witnessing. No one had expected this to occur. And no one really knew what to anticipate next especially as he now covered his son’s back with his.

As he stretched his broad frame to fully shield his son, he looked tersely at the flogger and commanded him to begin the punishment. The flogger was initially too stunned to do anything. He just stood there, rooted to the ground, unable to and incapable of understanding the instruction. Before his eyes was the mayor everyone loved and respected. 

Like the others, he knew him to be a great man, a person everyone looked up to, someone whom anyone could run up to, even in the middle of the night, to seek his help or counselling or both. He fondly remembered the time when he gave him a bed to sleep and food to eat when he was kicked out by his home by his own father. If not for the mayor, he wouldn’t have had anyone to go to.

Now, he looked at the mayor in shock horror. But the mayor was in no mood to be stood down. He raised his voice and told him sternly to obey his order. And reluctantly or not, he did as he was told. Flogging after flogging, the cords of the whip struck the mayor’s back but not his son’s. Each flogging tore at his flesh, leaving angry red welts to form streaks across his back. Blood was everywhere.

Yet the mayor took the full brunt of the punishment, a penalty that he took for his son in an act of incredible love and yet justice was seen to be carried out. As no one was left unaccounted for in any such punishment, it was he who took it as it befell his son. In absorbing every bloody flogging, he suffered so that his son may live just as he carried out the act of paying for his crime.

The real thing

Image source: noticias.gospelmais.com.br

While the mayor took the beating for his son, Jesus did it for every one of us since time immemorial till today. Whether all of us knew it or not, He took the punishment for us because time and again, we are guilty of transgressing God’s laws. Each of us bears sins for a myriad things we’re ashamed of doing. 

Some of us might even be bragging about the sins they commit but yet, Jesus died for them too. Most of us don’t even know how to stop committing sin. We just don’t know how or when or what to do to stop sinning even when we look at the mirror at ourselves, we all know deep in our hearts how wrong we are. We may not have the guts to say so in front of others but other than God, we know ourselves better than others.

Scripture is very clear on how intolerable God is when it comes to sin:

“O God, You take no pleasure in wickedness; You cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked.” (Ps 5:4, NLT)

It is God’s holiness and moral justice that makes sin unbearable to Him as these two verses attest:

“I have sworn an oath to David, and in My holiness, I cannot lie.” (Ps 89:35, NLT)

“They will declare, ‘The Lord is just! He is my rock! There is no evil in Him!” (Ps 92:15, NLT)

Sin is crime of the worst nature to a just God. And sin earns no rewards but instead, severe penalties and eventually, they are all payable with our lives. What many are impervious to is that while it looks like there is no immediate reciprocal response to sin in life, the judgement comes – after we’re dead – and before God who sees to it that every penalty that we incur will be paid in full.

Our sins are not just signs of transgression. They are the clearest evidence of rebelliousness against a perfect God who cannot do wrong. That is why our sins carry a deadly weighty penalty. This deadliness is not just physical. We don’t just die once on Earth but drenched in sin, we die the second time where our spirit and soul will be separated from God forever.

This is the hell that Scripture talks about where the weight of darkness, emptiness and meaninglessness is matched to eternal thirst and inferno. This is a hell we have no imaginable idea of because nothing on Earth is going to be like this. It will be dimensionless. It will be depthless. It will be so beyond void it will drive us insane after death. Read Psalm 88 to get an idea, if you like.

Yet this is a God who loves us deeply. It seems paradoxical (and more of this later) but He is our Creator and He only wants good things for us. He actually does everything possible so we may not be punished. He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in those who welcome Him so we may be guided, if only we heed Him. He offered us His Word so we may read and know what our purpose is in our lives and how we can be a vessel for Him to act out His will. As His will be done, He hopes that we are inclusive and not exclusive to His plan.

Without a doubt, the Apostle John puts it most famously:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16, NIV)

So what God did with sin is that He has declared all of us guilty. None of us escapes. If we sin, we are guilty. We don’t have a top-notch attorney to bail or acquit us. Neither do we have a jury that he can convince. Before God, the penalty is the same, meaning we are all condemned to die. For those who are unaware, this death is eternal. 

Once condemned, there is no turning back. God would have effectively turned His back on us. No matter how much He doesn’t want to do this, the choice isn’t His but ours. It is our actions and refusal to change that brings about such an outcome.

To make all of this possible, God had a plan that He put into motion a little more than two-thousand years ago. In His covenant with us, God promised we would be given the opportunity of salvation. We didn’t have to earn it or work for it. There would not be any labour programme by which we must enlist like a pogrom. What we’re offered is an offer to be led by Christ, to acknowledge that He is the Son of God and that only through Him, can we be saved.

So to do this, the plan was to send the Son of Man to Earth. Jesus became man and inevitably, took the toll for us. He was lashed before he was then hung on the cross to die. For us. As He was crucified, Jesus stepped into the space between God the Father and us and by doing so, He took the blows so we didn’t have to. Jesus knew that had we taken the blows instead, we wouldn’t live to know what eternal life means. 

He stepped into our guilty shoes even as the Father demands that justice be done. It was an act that no one could ever do. It was also an act that finally defeated death and send Satan reeling. No longer can death have its grip over us anymore.

Jesus paid for our sins with His life. He didn’t deserve death because it wasn’t He who sin (or sinned). In His perfection, He was the only One with the purity to take on death and win. As He absorbed the scorn of punishment, He did so knowing that our debt would be paid in full. And He did this for everyone. 

The problem isn’t with Jesus; it is with us because ultimately each and every one of us have to make the decision whether or not to accept what He has done. If we do not accept, it will be our life that we will pay the debt instead.

Why Jesus? Why not someone else?

Image source: Better Off Read

Yes, it was Jesus who died for the sins of the world (that’s you and me and everyone else in history and today and in the future). But why Him? Why not someone else? Why did God have to pick His Son to do His bidding? After all, the Bible does tell us of highly virtuous people whom He could have used. 

The blameless Job (Job 1:1,8) is only one of many others. Enoch who walked with God was taken up and didn’t die (Gen 5:24) – he could have been a candidate. Why not Elijah who was taken up by God’s chariot (2 Kgs 2)? He too didn’t die and might have worked well also.

Let’s be clear about what our sins are. Sins of any nature, scope, size and depth are abhorrent to a sinless God. God had never wished for us to be sinful. In fact He made us in His image so that He may have communion with us in the Garden of Eden among His other creations whom we are supposed to have complete dominion over, beginning with the authority to give them names. Instead we disobeyed Him and from Adam and Even down the entire human race till today, we carry that costly price.

Sins are defined by just one word in the Bible – disobedience. God calls us ‘stiff-necked’ for a very good reason – because we simply don’t and won’t listen. Here are just two passages in the Bible:

“‘I have seen these people,’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiff-necked people.” (Ex 32:9, NLT)

“‘You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!’” (Acts 7:51, NLT)

We change only when we are confronted with a serious threat or when we see the devastating way that God responds. But we inevitably return to our sinful ways time and again. That’s what stiff-necked means.

Disobedience means our failure or refusal to heed God’s rules and to accept His divine authority in our lives. It is the one thing that resonates throughout the entire Bible. From the Old to the New Testament, disobedience is the hallmark that condemns us, that does not save us and that marks us for life and unless we cover ourselves with Christ’s offer of salvation, it will subject us to permanent perdition.

When every one of us is tainted by sin, then none of us is either blameless or flawless. None of us is any better than the person next to us. No one can hold up their breath and qualify, in other words. If we cannot find anyone on Earth then as it is now to die for our sins, then who must take that place? How will we lose ourselves from sin’s grip? How can we gain salvation if God doesn’t recognise our good works alone? What can we do when God knows that we can never toe the line with His laws?

For someone to die for our sins and to pay the ultimate penalty for them, that person must love us so deeply. That person must be so unthinkably generous with his life to the extent that he would let us avoid paying the penalty and instead accept it on our behalf. Not even our best friends would understandably do that. While we do hear, from time to time, true stories of people who die to save others, they wouldn’t have died to save everyone the way Jesus did.

Moreover, their dying to save others carried a completely different motive than it is with Christ. Christ died to save us from sin’s eternal damnation while those who died to save others often did it so that they may continue to live their lives on Earth. In other words, they still cannot save them from eternal death.

God’s wrath has always been with our sins and He took it upon Himself to place the burden of guilt and punishment on His Son, Jesus. In many ways, we can say that the Son of God was made a sinner (though He isn’t one) for every one of us so that we may be made righteous in exchange. 

That righteousness gives us a certain way back to the Father so that we may re-commune with Him once more. It is the importance of this righteousness (though not in every aspect of my behaviour!) that God may see in us. This is what Scripture calls it ‘justified by His blood’ and what the Old Testament recorded as animal blood sacrifice:

“Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!” (Rom 5:9, NIV)

This is where the priest placed his hands on the head of the condemned animal for the guilt of the people to be transferred to it before it is then killed for their sins. In that way, Jesus is akin to the Lamb sacrificed for our transgressions.

Since we are then justified through faith, we can have peace with God through Jesus:

“Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.” (Rom 5:1, NLT)

This faith is faith in Christ, not faith in man or anyone else. This is faith in the One who took the blame for us and in dying for it, there is that vital exchange where He took on our sins and in return, gave us peace, righteousness and eternal salvation… just as He promised then and now. 

Before Jesus died on the cross, our lives were headed for death. Condemned by our deadness, there was no way out of our road to damnation. We were unsalvageable. We were not worth anything. God the Father could not look us in the eye because of our impurities.

Then the exchange happened. Through Jesus, the undoable was doable. The impossible became possible. The unimaginable became very imaginable. He came so we may be forgiven, made holy, given salvation and offered the grand ticket to Heaven. When we say that Jesus died for our sins, this is what it means. 

It means, in pure simplicity, that only Jesus could save us. It is a job that no one could apply for and carry out with such stunning effect. It is a job that no one would probably want anyway. It is also a job that requires a résumé that only the Son of God could qualify.

But for this exchange to take place, we must embrace it personally. In other words, it requires our belief, our trust and faith, without which, the exchange becomes meaningless and insignificant. It would just become a nice little story and it would never impact the wholeness of our very being. It is only when we accept this exchange that our lives become so impacted that it would transform us inside out.

When that happens, repentance takes place and that road to redemption begins. We take up our cross and we walk with Christ. We embrace our faith in Him and then witness that exchange where we trade our sins in for the righteousness to be accorded. Because of this, while Jesus died for everyone, sadly, not everyone would receive His gift.

The importance of reconciliation

Image source: Quora

It is also this exchange that brings us into reconciliation with God. To reconcile with God is to restore our broken relationship with Him. Once frowned upon, we may now look favourable in His eyes only because His Son made it all possible. In reconciliation, there is no longer God’s wrath that hangs over our lives but His love that warms our lives.

The word ‘reconciliation’ when used to denote the state of relationship between God and man through Jesus’ death came about in 1526 when the great theologian William Tyndale was labouring over his English translation of the Bible. When he came across the Latin word ‘reconciliatio,’ he introduced the word ‘atonement,’ which when deciphered, is at-one-ment, meaning the reconciliation of men and women to God made possible exclusively through the death of Christ Jesus.

Yet interestingly, there is not one doctrine concerning atonement in the New Testament. Perhaps more amusingly, there is no official Church definition either. However the New Testament does offer a few descriptive imageries that shape the word in view of Jesus’ death. One of the more popular ones is through the image of sacrifice where John the Baptist described Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”:

“The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29, NIV)

Modern historical interpretation mainly considers Jesus as a political radical who was put to death in a collusion between Roman officials and Jewish authorities for interference more than anything else. Yet Christians take on a far different view in which Jesus was the centrepiece of God’s covenantal plan to save man. 

Humanity, in other words, was at stake and God put His plan into motion, beginning with Jesus. Through His death at the cross and His resurrection, thus was founded the Christian faith that fully defined the meaning of Atonement in which our broken relationship with the Lord may be put back in order.

Contrary to what some may think, this reconciliation (or atonement) is vital. Without it, a world already creaking under the immense weight of sin will simply collapse and we will go along with its destruction without any way out. Through this reconciliation, we now have a way back to God. 

Reconciliation shows us clearly that we were once perfect but we no longer are. It reminds us of how the devil had tempted Adam and Eve and through this lure, man was baited to bring sin into the world and with this, all of us are born with depravity firmly but undeniably entrenched in our very nature. This sin has been the dividing point between us and God and without the reconciliation, we have no hope whatsoever of re-harmonising with our Creator.

A job only Jesus can do

Image source: Pt.aleteia.org

Even before Jesus came to be nailed to the cross, many had died the same way prior to Him. In fact, Roman authorities have been crucifying their opponents in this fashion for years. It is, after all, the foremost capital punishment for the Romans in which the victim was tied, then nailed and then finally left to die, which they normally do within the next few days. All told, the estimate count is around 6,000 crucified just along the Appian Way alone but on a wider scale, it could easily be more like hundreds of thousands.

Yet none of those crucified before or after Jesus could do His job. None qualified no matter the yardstick. To Christians, only one yardstick measures up – Jesus’ sinlessness – for which no one could compare with then as it is today or anytime in the future. 

He is not only a Messiah but he is the Messiah. We can easily find hundreds of thousands of good people throughout the world in history or today who have made their own sacrifices. Mother Teresa is just one of them but of course, there are others but none of them could ever offer their lives in exchange for the sins of all of mankind. That is the difference and that alone tells us that the job of saving man could only be performed by Jesus for it is only He who is pure and perfect. And free of sin.

Unlike Jesus, none of us is able to face up to an infinitely holy God. Unlike Jesus, we are but finite in our very nature. We cannot make an infinite debt payment the way the Son of God could. Only He can make the kind of sacrifice that perfectly held up full payment to cover the whole of mankind because His sinless blood could wash away our sins as atonement for our transgressions. Since Adam and Eve, each and every one of us is born in a perpetual state of sin that only Jesus could remove.

In his article called, ‘How Does the Death of Jesus Saves Me?, Chuck Swindoll wrote this: “By shedding His blood on the cross, Jesus took the punishment we deserved and offered us His righteousness. When we trust Christ for our salvation, essentially we are making a trade. By faith, we trade our sin and its accompanying death penalty for His righteousness and life.

“In theological terms, this is called ‘substitutionary atonement.’ Christ died on the cross as our substitute. Without Him, we would suffer the death penalty for our own sins… The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way: ‘And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness’ (Heb 9:22). For God to forgive our sins, His judgement had to be satisfied and that required the shedding of blood.

“Some object, ‘Shedding blood seems so barbaric. Is it really necessary? Why doesn’t God simply forgive us?’ Because God is holy, He must judge sin. Would a just and righteous judge let evil go unpunished? At the cross, God poured out His judgement on His Son, satisfying His wrath and making it possible for Him to forgive us. That’s why Jesus shed His blood for your sins, my sins and the sins of the whole world.

“At what moment during the crucifixion ordeal did God pour out His judgement on His precious Son? Many theologians believe it was toward the end of the three-hour period of darkness when Jesus cried out, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Mk 15:34) By taking upon Himself the sins of the world, Jesus removed Himself from God’s holy presence, and God, in turn, removed Himself from His Son. It was a temporary but excruciating separation, for at that moment, the Son of God became Father-forsaken.

“God unleashed His wrath on His Son so that we might be spared that awful fate. This is the central message of the cross and the reason for our hope: God forsook His Son so that He might never forsake us. God assures us, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you’ (Heb 13:5) Isn’t that a wonderful promise?”

When Christ died for us, His sacrifice truly underscores how much He wanted to pay for our sins and no matter the ordeal He had to go through, He did it because He loved us first:

“We love because He first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 Jn 4:19-20, NIV)

It is this kind of love that we call unconditional, the kind that none of us dead or alive could ever do.

Why not just forgive and forget?

Dr Jeffrey John (Image source: BBC)

In his Lent talk on BBC Radio Four in April 4 2007, cleric Dr Jeffrey John, Dean of St Alban’s, chose to attack God, making Him appear ‘a monster.’ It was an interview that begged many questions about his suitability as a clergyman.

“What sort of God was this, getting so angry with the world and the people He created and then, to calm Himself down, demanding the blood of His own Son? he ranted.

“And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing somebody else? It was worse than illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a psychopath. If any human being behaved like this, we would say they were a monster.”

It’s little wonder that these were his thoughts. After all, since the age of 10, the cleric had viewed the crucifixion as “pretty repulsive as well as nonsensical.” However, of course, it is completely ironic that he would become an Anglican priest in the first place. As for the cross, he said his opinion had remained unchanged since his younger days.

“Well, I haven’t changed my mind since. That explanation of the cross just doesn’t work but sadly, it’s one that’s still all too often preached.” 

Four years earlier, it was he, outed as a gay priest, who was persuaded to stand down from his appointment as Bishop of Reading by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. But Dr John isn’t the only one who holds such antagonistic wayward views of the cross. 

He is, in fact, part of the growing amalgam of liberal clerics who are boldly challenging the Church in the way we view what Jesus has done and how God brought salvation to mankind. In no uncertain terms, the broad liberal understanding is that if Jesus had died as Scripture says to save the world, then God is tyrannical, psychopathic and vengeful and a child-abuser. This is a view that they reject.

Another liberal renegade of the Gospel is Rev Steve Chalke whom the BBC spoke to even before Dr John was interviewed. Chalke also opposed substitutionary atonement, which faith conservatives like Chuck Swindoll embraces. 

In his book ‘The Lost Message of Jesus’ he said that such a concept would make people regard God not as a loving Father but as a vengeful tyrant who “suddenly decides to vent his anger and wrath on His own Son.” Another typical one, feminist theologian Rita Nakishima, called it “a form of cosmic child abuse.”

Image source: Daily Mail

For all liberal Christians (a complete irony if ever there’s one), substitutionary atonement completely turns the ‘God is love’ message upside down. It also pose the most serious challenge against Jesus’ own exhortation to love our enemies and His call for us to refuse paying evil with evil. No doubt in conservative evangelical circles, the message propagated by these liberals is purely heresy and blasphemy.

It appears as if the more modern society becomes, the less people understand the divine significance of penal substitution. True Christians affirm that it was on the cross that Jesus could trade places with us sinners so that He could voluntarily take on the brunt of the worst possible punishment meted out for us. 

We deserved the punishment but He took them all for us. We have no justification to not die but He took that away from us. We have no place before God the Father but His death pay for our debt in full. It was Jesus and only Jesus who could propitiate an angry God.

Liberals have no understanding or that they vehemently reject the very notion of an angry or vengeful God. The modern almost-secularised message of God is purely love and nothing else. Scripture passages have been taken out of context to exclusively promote a mono impression of just God’s love and thus has consistently and persistently swept aside the other palpable sides of His character. To acknowledge that He can get angry is anathema to liberal Christians. Therefore to set His own Son to the cross to die for our sins is unthinkable to them.

Yet they fail to understand the covenant that was put into motion in the Old Testament. They forget that prophecies had long foretold the coming of the Messiah who would do exactly all that the Gospels revealed. When liberals focus errantly on just the love aspect but throw everything else out of the window, they basically reject God for who He is. That is why every single claim that they have made is nothing but heretical and blasphemous.

While secular media like the BBC defends their provocations by reminding Christians that at no time in the history of the Church was the crucifixion itself singularly and indisputably defined. 

In other words, there has not been a complete consensus in terms of a solitary orthodoxy that the ecumenical council could agree on. In fact, even the most diametrically different theories on atonement continue to be intensely scrutinised by theologians throughout the world. And with all of this, the argument goes, why should anyone stop such an issue from be further explored.

Image source: Apologetic Report

The problem with all these ‘explorations’ is that media is aided by liberal clerics and theologians in the systematic deconstruct of God. A holy God judges sin. He does not ignore it. He cannot just say, “Oh, let’s just forgive you of all the horrific sins you have committed. I’ll just wipe the slate clean and pretend I don’t know about them. I’ll conveniently forget about them. Just don’t mention them in My presence again.” 

A holy, just and righteous God, instead, will never let evil get away. Remember, it was God who told us that it is in His vengeance to pay our enemies. On a broader context, the Apostle Paul’s words were:

“Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘I will take revenge; I will pay them back,’ says the Lord.” (Rom 12:19, NLT)

And in the following two verses:

“Instead, ‘If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.’ Don’t let evil conquer you but conquer evil by doing good.” (Rom 12:20-21, NLT)

All three verses are commands of the same loving God. The same God can be as loving as He can be angry. In His justice and righteousness, His response, be it love or anger, reflects how He views our actions. In all things sinful, God is angered but in all things that reflect our obedience to Him, it is His love that we see and experience. A sovereign God has complete rights we cannot fathom. 

This is the God who created life and the whole Universe and He is the one who rules over everything. In sovereignty, He makes decisions that we cannot always understand, let alone accept but we are to comply humbly rather than to get upstart and challenge Him.

Image source: hebbsters.blogspot.com

So the picture is unchanged no matter what the liberal spin is. At the cross, God poured out His judgement on His Son. In doing so, He achieved two things; firstly His wrath is satiated and secondly, He could now forgive us. By His blood, Jesus has washed away our sins and the sins of the world. 

The 325AD Nicene Creed, the only ecumenical creed to be acknowledged as authoritative by all the major Protestant churches as well as Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches, spells it out clearly. In the creed, two portions hold significance in terms of salvation and the issue of crucifixion. I have used bold text to highlight them here:

“And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day, He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

As a summary of Christian doctrines, the Apostles’ Creed offers us further affirmation and again, the highlights in bold are mine:

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.”

In both creeds, the message is reinforced and the same.

Further reading sources

-    Chalke, Steve (2003) The Redemption of the Cross in Tidball, Derek and Hilborn, David and Thacker, Justin (eds) (Dec 2007) The Atonement Debates: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan). Available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Atonement-Debate-Papers-Symposium-Theology/dp/0310273390

-    Chalke, Steve and Mann, Alan (Mar 2004) The Lost Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, First Paperback Edition). Available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Message-Jesus-Alan-Mann-x/dp/0310248825

-    Crawley, William (Apr 2007) Will God Look Like a Psychopath This Easter? in Will & Testament (William Crawley’s Blog), BBC. Accessible online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2007/04/will_god_look_like_a_psychopat.html

-    Nakashima Brock, Rita (n.d.) And A Little Child Will Lead Us: Christology and Child Abuse in Carlson Brown, Joanne (ed) and Bohn, Carole R. (Nov 1989) Christianity, Patriarchy and Child Abuse: A Feminist Critique (New York, Pilgrim Press)

-    Petre, Jonathan (Apr 2007) Crucifixion Makes God Seem Like a Psychopath, says Cleric in The Telegraph (London, UK). Accessible online at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1547665/Crucifixion-makes-God-seem-like-a-psychopath-says-cleric.html

-    Swindoll, Chuck (n.d.) ‘How Does the Death of Jesus Save Me?’ in Insight for Living Ministries (Frisco, TX). Accessible online at http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/insight-for-living/read/articles/how-does-the-death-of-jesus-save-me-11604.html