Was God Unfair at the Cross?
00:00:00.000 | We're about to begin our third and final day of the 2014 Pastors Conference here in Minneapolis
00:00:09.200 | and it's been a wonderful conference, so thank you for your prayers over the last few days.
00:00:13.520 | Today's APJ question is about the Gospel and it comes from Melody in Ithaca, New York.
00:00:17.720 | She writes, "Pastor John, how can it be just to punish someone innocent in the place of
00:00:22.660 | someone guilty?
00:00:23.660 | I've heard it said that the cross was unfair, but I can't bring myself to say that God would
00:00:28.160 | do anything that's unfair."
00:00:29.960 | No, we surely cannot say that God would do anything unfair and that is not a small question,
00:00:37.920 | it's a biblical question.
00:00:40.080 | Justice does demand that punishment happen to the one who committed the sin.
00:00:50.200 | Deuteronomy 24, 16, "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall
00:00:55.480 | children be put to death because of their fathers.
00:00:58.480 | Each one shall be put to death for his own sin."
00:01:02.040 | Period.
00:01:03.040 | That's why the cross is an offense to the Jews and should it be?
00:01:07.760 | That's the question.
00:01:08.840 | Is it just?
00:01:09.840 | Does it break God's law?
00:01:11.120 | Did God break God's law in presuming to cause Christ to be a substitute?
00:01:17.600 | And it's the very heart of the Gospel, so you can't ask a question any more essential
00:01:22.240 | than this because 1 Corinthians 15, 3 says, "Christ died for our sins."
00:01:26.960 | 1 Peter 3, 18, "Christ suffered once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous."
00:01:33.280 | Just as blunt as it could be that this seems wrong.
00:01:37.520 | How can a righteous person die in place of an unrighteous person?
00:01:42.280 | He didn't do the sin.
00:01:43.960 | Or Isaiah 53, "We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
00:01:48.000 | He was pierced for our transgressions.
00:01:50.320 | He was crushed for our iniquities."
00:01:52.640 | So her question is massively central, massively important.
00:01:57.000 | How is it just?
00:01:59.640 | And over the years of my reflecting about this, two different ways of answering the
00:02:05.800 | question have seemed helpful.
00:02:07.400 | I'll give you both of them as quick as I can.
00:02:10.080 | The first one is the doctrine of union with Christ.
00:02:18.160 | God has the right and the ability to constitute, to make a union between Adam and humanity
00:02:27.000 | so that when Adam fell, we all fell in him, so that the punishment that came on Adam also
00:02:34.920 | came on us because we were in union with Adam.
00:02:39.680 | And God can do that.
00:02:40.840 | He can constitute a union.
00:02:44.600 | I would recommend Ever's book on Original Sin.
00:02:47.280 | That was the most helpful of anything I've ever read on how God does that.
00:02:52.640 | Because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man on everyone.
00:02:59.280 | As one trespass led to condemnation for all, Romans 5, 18.
00:03:06.000 | And the same principle is operating when Christ, the new Adam, dies for his people, the new
00:03:15.640 | humanity.
00:03:16.640 | "For as by one man's obedience the many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience the
00:03:23.640 | many will be made righteous."
00:03:27.720 | So the reason Christ can bear our punishment and become our righteousness is that we are
00:03:33.920 | in him.
00:03:35.840 | There's a union that God constituted between us and Christ that makes his death our death.
00:03:43.400 | 2 Corinthians 5, 21.
00:03:45.680 | "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him, in union with him,
00:03:53.640 | we might become the righteousness of God."
00:03:57.400 | So this union does not exist between a son and a father.
00:04:06.440 | So it would be unjust for a father to be punished for his son, like Deuteronomy says.
00:04:11.760 | God established a union between Christ and his people, and that's unique.
00:04:17.880 | And only God can create that union, and that establishes Christ as our representative in
00:04:24.240 | such a full way that it's virtually true that we are being punished in him.
00:04:31.440 | That's the first way to think about it.
00:04:33.520 | Here's the second way, and this comes from Anselm.
00:04:37.800 | And I think Anselm's book, "Why the God-Man," is massively important.
00:04:42.200 | There are two main reasons why a mother cannot justly go to jail and serve the rest of her
00:04:49.520 | son's life sentence while the son goes free.
00:04:52.320 | Number one, the crime against the state, the crime was against the state, and the mother's
00:04:58.320 | willingness to go to jail does not repair the injury done to the rights and the honor
00:05:03.200 | of the state.
00:05:04.800 | It's a sign of compassion for her son.
00:05:07.600 | The worth of the criminal to her, not the worth of the honor of the law, is her main
00:05:13.120 | concern.
00:05:14.120 | But with Christ, it is different.
00:05:17.480 | Christ did come to vindicate the righteousness of God, Romans 3.25, and he did come to repair
00:05:23.280 | the glory that was done to his father in our sin, John 12.27, "For this purpose I have
00:05:29.120 | come.
00:05:30.120 | Father, glorify your name."
00:05:31.120 | So that's the first difference.
00:05:33.120 | Second difference is this mother's desire for her son to go free provides no guarantee
00:05:39.120 | that this will not release a criminal onto the community and make him law-abiding.
00:05:46.800 | There's nothing certain about that at all, and it looks like we're playing fast and loose
00:05:50.600 | with whether criminals go free.
00:05:53.640 | That's not the case with Christ, and this is unique to Christ.
00:05:57.720 | Everyone whom he saves by dying for them, he sanctifies.
00:06:02.080 | That's the point of Romans 6.
00:06:03.920 | When he died for us, we died in him.
00:06:07.380 | Our old self was killed, was dead, and therefore substitution is always transformation.
00:06:14.520 | Substance not true in ordinary jurisprudence.
00:06:18.080 | So those are my two ways of approaching this problem.
00:06:22.580 | The one is union with Christ, and the other is the difference, the deep differences between
00:06:29.840 | the way Christ provides a substitute for us and the way, say, a typical mom would try
00:06:35.860 | to take the place of her son in prison.
00:06:38.520 | Yeah, that's very good, Pastor John.
00:06:40.360 | And this conversation reminds me of our recent podcast, which was titled "Muslims vs.
00:06:44.400 | Christians on the Sovereignty of God," where you talked about God's wrath, justice, and
00:06:48.720 | sovereignty in contrast to Islam.
00:06:51.600 | That was episode number 234 in the Ask Pastor John archive.
00:06:55.360 | Tomorrow we'll talk about what you, Pastor John, believe to be the single most important
00:06:59.240 | verse in all of the Bible.
00:07:01.160 | Hmm, I'm very curious about which verse you're going to choose.
00:07:04.760 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:07:05.760 | Thanks for listening.
00:07:06.620 | [END]
00:07:07.120 | 1. What is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:08.120 | 2. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:09.120 | 3. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:10.120 | 4. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:11.120 | 5. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:12.120 | 6. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:13.120 | 7. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:14.120 | 8. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?
00:07:15.120 | 9. Which verse is the single most important verse in the Bible?