Evangelical Attacks On The Cross

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Well, I bless the Lord for the joy of being with you all today Most of you have never met before and here
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I am in Western Mass versus Central Mass Standing together with people singing the hymns of the faith that blesses my heart and I praise
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God I thank you all for your kindness to me Especially to your pastor. Well, I've been asked to speak on three kind of controversial topics
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It makes me wonder if I have a reputation which I may but it's alright my goal today is not to be controversial but rather to Seek to uphold a unifying principle if you say, okay
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You've got three talks this morning one evangelical attacks on the cross to this whole theistic evolution thing that's going on Three gender issues in the church.
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What's this all about? Well, I would have you open your Bibles to 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 Which I have to say as a chapter that weighs heavily on my heart as a minister of the gospel
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I I really see this is what ought to be my philosophy of ministry and just the first couple of verses look at what
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Paul Says here Therefore having this ministry By the mercy of God, we do not lose heart
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But we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word, but by the open statement of the truth
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We would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. I think that's the issue
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With these and any number of other controversial issues we could have talked about this morning Our willingness to humbly embrace that kind of ministry where Paul says
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I have given up manipulative Tactics, I'm not trying to be clever anymore. I if I ever was trying to do that.
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I'm not I'm not trying to Find the right way to have the right thing to say and and to know where to make the right compromises.
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I well known leader Said to me not a while ago Rick We have to be mature enough to know where to compromise
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God's Word and I said well you may be but I am NOT And that's not my definition of maturity
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I am NOT that's a very Dangerous game and we're gonna see this morning three ways in which that's really happening in our generation
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And so I hope the point I hope we gain discernment on these issues and a resolve more above all a resolve
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To follow the practice of Paul sets forth there. Let's I don't know if the world's gonna think of us I don't know how clever we are
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I don't know if we're the hot thing But I do want to be the person who's holding forth the word in simplicity in Honesty and integrity and I want to be able to say what
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Paul says in verse 13. I have believed therefore I have spoken and Not because we think it'll work not because we think it's the right way to attract people today
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But because it's the truth of God's Word, that's enough for us. Let God be true and every man a liar
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Well, let's uh ask his blessing and so father We ask that you would give us power because what
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I just said Lord is a renunciation of fleshly power And so we cast ourselves upon you that you would do a sovereign work that gives glory to you
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And you would strengthen us to be despised by the world as we need to be as the cross is despised
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And I pray especially as I do this first address Lord on the doctrine of the Atonement today
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Oh Lord, let us be those like the Apostle before us who said may we never glory in anything else
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But the atoning death of your son for our sins we glorify him we ask your blessing in his name.
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Amen. I Don't know if you're aware of it or not But to many non -christian peoples and increasingly to our secular society this doctrine that you all keep talking about the blood of Jesus is considered gross and bizarre
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When the first Narnia movie came out in the UK the Lion the witch in the wardrobe the
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British newspaper the Guardian big paper for them did an editorial warning parents not to let their children go see the
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Narnia movies because this is a metaphorical way of presenting the vile and Dangerous Christian doctrine of the atonement and they actually actually accurately described
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How the atonement is depicted in the line which in the wardrobe and then they said you must protect your children
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From this bizarre and evil teaching that promotes abuse. Is that interesting? But on the one hand, we're not surprised to hear that from the world a number of years ago
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I ran across the statement the complaint of Bishop John Shelby Spong You know who
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Bishop Spong is is the Episcopal Bishop was uh, he was actually the religion editor of penthouse magazine
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That's all the credentials the man needs, right? And he wrote a lot of books very ultra liberal
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Episcopalian and I'm not surprised when I read a guy like him say this that I would choose to loathe
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Rather than to worship a deity who required the sacrifice of his son It's a little hard to read but when
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I was coming from a rank liberal who denies the Bible and hates the Bible Well, I'm not surprised But I am surprised when
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I read say statements like that in books published by evangelical publishing houses that have gained a reputation of Trustworthiness among the
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Bible believing people of God and coming out of seminaries and institutions That make essentially the same statement recently one best -selling book published by Zondervan decries the myth of Redemptive violence and the author
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Steve Chalky decries the traditional evangelical doctrine of the atonement what you and I were out of stride this morning as Penal substitutionary atonement, that's the technical term for what you tell your little children when they go to bed at night
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He decries it as cosmic child abuse Cosmic child abuse
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Zondervan a and that's a Chalky is one of the main evangelical leaders in England Denny Weaver writing for evangelical publisher
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Erdman's Contends that this theory of the atonement that Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins makes sense to Christians only he says because of the context of contemporary understandings of retributive justice in Western systems of criminal justice
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So we're just reading off the Western tradition of justice and imposing it upon the
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Bible He further argues that for us to exalt in the willing suffering of Jesus on the cross
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Well that harmfully promotes an ethic of victimhood in society He says this theology can be particularly harmful in a society that conditions women to accept abuse
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Moreover, he contends children who are taught to trust in Christ willing death are made vulnerable to the abuse of adults
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A favorably quotes feminist theologians He says if God is the patriarchal father to whom obedience is owed by the
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Son Well, then the charges that God is a divine child abuser are indeed true the image of a
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God who would offer his son to die for others is merely a Construct in the minds of ruling class men who are frightened by their own embodied passion sensuality and yearnings for mutuality
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But the problem is this coming from us out of a evangelical so -called scholars published by evangelical books
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Let me go again inner varsity press who's ever heard of inner varsity press their book recovering the scandal of the cross by Joel Green and Mark Baker Complains that penal substitutionary atonement
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Jesus dying on the cross to pay the penalty in your place for your sins They complain that this violates the unity of the
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Trinity They say rather than presenting a father and son who are one this doctrine of the atonement has one member of the
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Trinity punishing another member of the Trinity Moreover, it presents a
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God whose love is hampered by an abstract Concept of justice don't you love it people call biblical?
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Righteousness an abstract concept of justice the satisfaction theory of the atonement presents a
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God who wants to be in a relationship with us But he is forced to deal with a mere problem of legal bookkeeping that blocks that relationship
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They complain that the traditional evangelical view presents Jesus as saving us from God rather than to God, of course, it's true, you know
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But it's not something to complain about They listen to this They affirm that God is a
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God of love and yet this feels a little like having the owner of a dog who is barking Growling and straining at its least saying don't worry.
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He doesn't bite Maybe it's true. But the combination of messages we receives makes us keep a safe distance from that dog
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No, I mean on several levels, you know the dog God metaphor. I know just the letters are interchangeable,
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I guess You know, it's hard but this is evangelical Scholars and they say this this model moreover does not intersect with the day -to -day reality of actual people
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This is irrelevant doesn't connect with people people don't get it doesn't meet their needs So why are we preaching it? That's describing the atonement as a legal transaction with the gut within the
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Godhead Removes it from the historical world in which we live leaves it unconnected from to personal and social
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Reconciliation and so we see these arguments going on and I could go on and on where we're being told that the threat to the health of The evangelical church today is the preaching of the atoning death of God the
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Son Your pastors deal with us. I when I pass the church in Florida particular people would come to me
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They would say you're killing the church by preaching sin judgment and the blood of Christ on the cross and I would go
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Help me out here son of God Left heaven. He came to earth took up a human flesh
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So that in that human nature he could offer a sin atoning death So as to redeem his people from his sins you shall name him
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Jesus. It's like it's a big deal he will save his people from their sins and you're telling me that the proclamation of The great work by which the
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Son of God glorified himself in salvation the preaching of that is a detriment to his church No, it may be a detriment to your church, but not to his
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This is what we're dealing with today and you need to be aware of this that the evangelical movement as a movement is increasingly
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Well, what's happening is the evangelical movement historically? Many generations ago went from being a reformed biblical movement to being a pietistic movement
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If you've been in a Christian bookstore, you know this I spoke at the I did a book signing at the
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Christian Booksellers Association Three years ago and boy was that enlightening because there weren't many books being sold there
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There's a lot of trinkets and chains and bumpers stickers and it became a sentimental pietistic movement, but the but pietism is always the pietism says doctrine doesn't matter experiences what counts and But that the next step is always liberalism
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What's happening is a liberalizing of the evangelical movement, by the way I've always thought of myself as evangelical But this movement this phenomenon in America that most of us have been a part of is now turning against the cross of the
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Lord Jesus Christ Ten or so years ago. I saw a cover story of Christianity Today magazine
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Which in some respects is a bellwether of evangelicalism in America and the question was what is an evangelical like?
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What are the essentials of being an evangelical? This is like maybe 15 years ago And I remember how struck and shocked
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I was at the time because the Atonement did not make the list The belief that Jesus died on the cross for your sins was not considered a necessary Part of being an evangelical
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Christian that just shows me that one could be an evangelical without being a Christian Because as Paul says in 1st
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Corinthians 15 you this is the primary importance You have believed in vain unless you could believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins
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The three things they said were necessary were some view of the Bible as a holy book.
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Let's not go too far Let's not say inerrancy or some scary word like that, but just some idea the Bible's a holy book
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Some born -again experience was not to try to define that and then a desire to share it with others. That was evangelicalism
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Well, if that's true, we're not surprised at what we're seeing and now within our movement You're you will and your children will hear in Christian schools on Christian radio
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Things in Christian these books are all sold in Christian bookstores by evangelical publishers Vigorous and blasphemous attacks upon the cross of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. We would maintain that Jesus died Precisely to pay the penalty for sins that he did not commit because if he did not do that We would have had no one to pay the penalty for our sins
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We would pay the penalty in eternal damnation not because of a mere bookkeeping transaction But because of the unchangeable glorious holiness of a
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God and we'll talk about that a little bit and that God does Satisfy the demands of his law at the cross and he did turn aside his wrath from us by Turning it on his son.
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That is what we call penal substitutionary atonement Jesus died to pay the penalty as the substitute for others
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That's what we're gonna be talking about in this session mainly now that is not the only theory of the atonement
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There are historically when I talk about theories of the atonement. The question is this How do we understand what
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Jesus did on the cross how did it work how did his death on the cross Accomplish salvation and there have been historically a number of answers to that question
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The leading view of the ancient church was called the ransom theory Which is really built around Matthew 20 28 the
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Son of Man came not to be served But to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many and the problem with that view is the church fathers mainly
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Conceived of Christ dying to offer his blood as a ransom to Satan To purchase his people back from Satan by his blood.
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Now, what's the problem that it gives Satan too much credit? Well, it's true that we were placed under bondage to Satan and the
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New Testament will say that many times He never had a legitimate legitimate, right? And Jesus died to pay a ransom to the justice of God, but that was one view that developed really it's interesting
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Maybe the first millennium of the church the dominant view and it's not it's completely wrong
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It's a little tilted but it's it's called the the ransom theory It also had that what Saint Augustine called the mousetrap theory
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He's Augustine would teach that God tricks Satan by and by the way This is this is really what you see in CS Lewis, by the way, the
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Lion, which in the wardrobe That's a wonderful movie, but it's really the mousetrap theory where Satan is tricked into Swallowing the bait.
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There's there's some truth to that, but that's not the primary Biblical way we understand the cross. Well in the 11th century a man named
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Anselm of Canterbury came along He was Bishop Archbishop of Canterbury and he realized that there was a problem with this and he authored what is called the
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Satisfaction theory of the atonement which is what most evangelicals have been taught to believe and should believe and he said no
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By our sin, we have personally offended a holy God and Anselm was in a medieval context
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And so he thought more in terms of his noble honor Rather than the legal demands of his law and today we kind of tweaked that but generally he's right that look we have
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Committed a gross offense against a holy God and now we owe him
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First of all, we owe him on her in obedience But now we have debts to pay and we don't have anything to pay it with That way
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I remember John MacArthur was saying that he had a friend whose father was just a wonderful guy
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And everybody loved him and he was a life of service and he was a great father and a great guy And he just wasn't a
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Christian and he was about to die and his kids are going there The problem is he doesn't confess his sins It doesn't think he has any because he's a great guy and they got
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MacArthur to go see him in the hospital I've actually used this following MacArthur many times and MacArthur meets with a guy and says man
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I've heard you're a great guy. I've got a great life been a great dad Climbed mountains. Wow, and now you're dying.
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I goes well, thank you. No, I've led a great life MacArthur goes But are you gonna tell me you haven't sinned? The guy goes, oh,
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I mean, yeah, I'm sure I've sinned then MacArthur looks him in the eyes and goes well my friend What are we gonna do? about those sins
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Because you're gonna stand in the presence of a holy God shortly and You know,
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I think you've been a great guy, but you've transgressed the law of a holy God and I remember, you know, if you know the
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EE training the evangelism explosion One of their good illustrations is let's just say for math purposes that you sin three times a day
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I mean you said many more times than three times a day, but the math works out Well, let's say you sin three times a day.
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That's a thousand times a year Roughly and let's say you live to be 70 years old. That's 70 ,000 transgressions of the now if you were good to go to the
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Worcester Sheriff's Office and stand before the judge and oh We bring the case of Phillips Richard D He is here with 70 ,000
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Transgressions of the legal code I go your honor. I've led a basically good This is just not gonna fly, right?
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70 ,000 transgressions in fact, we have Many many more.
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What are we gonna do with your sins and Anselm points out that we don't have anything to do with it Man owes the debt, but man is not able to pay the debt
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And so God who can pay the debt, but does not owe it became man
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So that one who is a man and had the ability to pay it would pay the debt so that man would be saved
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And that's in his book her days homo. Why the God man one of the great books of Christian theology
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And people go I could never read that. Yeah, of course you could read. It's a great book There's a reason why it's a great book but We owe a debt to God's justice his wrath must come upon us and so in his mercy and grace
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God sent his son to take up flesh to deliver his people by paying the debt in their place.
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That's the satisfaction theory Let me give you a quote from the same Anselm here It would not have been right for the restoration of human nature to be undone and it could not have been done
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Unless man paid what was owing to God for sin But the debt was so great that while man alone owed it only
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God could pay it So that same person must be both man and God Thus it was necessary for God to take manhood into the unity of his person
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So that he who in his own nature ought to pay and could not should be in a person who could the life of this one man was so sublime so precious that it can suffice to pay what is owing for the sins of the
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World and infinitely more it's beautiful It's the satisfaction theory of the atonement more or less what
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Christians have believed ever since now another alternative shortly afterwards Whenever there's a great teaching there's bound to be a heretic to attack him and the heretic here was
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Peter Abelard He was one of Anselm students and he gave what is called the subjectivist or the moral
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Influence theory of the cross if you grew up in a liberal church like I as you guy what did you heard this?
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Jesus didn't die on the cross to pay a debt to some abstract justice It was a symbol of love designed to win your heart
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And so Jesus wasn't it wasn't a legal transaction God's not punishing his son But John's just showing you how much he loves you so that you would be willing to love him
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This is preaching every liberal church in America today. It's there. It's their doctrine Fortunately, he was declared a heretic at that time, but he's continued
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Well, there's other models one of the most recent models that has being greatly promoted today is called the
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Christus Victor model of the atonement He's who's heard of Christus Victor. You ever heard of NT, right?
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Yeah Okay bad, but the okay big promoter, but not the only one here. This is
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Victor says this No, no the primary way to Understand the death of Christ was not that he's paying the penalty for your little sins as if you were so important to God Which you are
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But the Christ is overcoming and defeating the cosmic powers of evil, which is true, of course and they will emphasize that this picks up on the conflict the motive motif of Cosmic confluence within the
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Bible and it shows that Christ was not he was it wasn't so much that he was buying his people out of sin or paying their debts
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In fact, they deny that but he was defeating the powers of evil in the world And they will point out that this was a very common teaching in the early church
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And it was they they will point out that instead of poking us on Jesus death It helps us to talk about his life, you know,
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Jesus cast out demons and then he continued that work He healed the sick and likewise
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Jesus defeated evil and death through his work on a cross and they'll say see this is relevant today because the gospel message today is also about overcoming evil through the
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UN and UNICEF and and we need and it becomes a very social gospel and we need to meet the real -world needs of people just like Jesus did
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And so these are various theories that are being set forth with respect to the doctrine of the cross
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The real is the real thing going on and all of these theories as they're going on today There is some truth in most of them
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But what's really happening is a great desire to replace among evangelical
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Christians The penal substitutionary atonement theory and they but the big drive today is to get us to Reject that and bring one of these other models into place and let me give you four arguments
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For criticisms that are being made against penal substitutionary atonement also known as the gospel
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You witness to your little children? Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins. The first one is that this
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Harmfully presents God as being an angry deity and the opponents assert that the atonement was not
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Penal it wasn't Punishment why because God repealed God is not an angry
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God and they'll say look here We are in this post -modern world with all these start people and you
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Rick Phillips get up there And you talk about the wrath of God and you expect people to believe that the answer is I don't
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Unless God should sovereignly send the Holy Spirit in which case they will I fucking the
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Casey he drove me yesterday, and he was tell me how you save reading about the wrath of God Being proclaimed now.
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What's what's the answer to that criticism someone says to you? dude Like you're talking you know like you're angry
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And you're taught where you're saying God's angry and you're you're talking about God Like hell and God burning people and this is just not attractive today.
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What's our answer to that? Well, it's God is angry at your sin God is a to the problem is you and I as Anselm says and read by the way read
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Anselm Courteous homo one point Bozo who's his dialogue partner says you know basically the same thing
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I actually I wonder if the whole Bozo the clown thing I think it comes from this medieval work
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Bozo is an actual person who goes the Canterbury spiritual problems wants to know the gospel and the book is a dialogue between Anselm and Bozo as he is
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Okay, stop laughing at Bozo, but the and at one pump Bozo says you know I should talking about sin a lot and Anselm says the problem is is that you fail to appreciate the exceeding gravity of sin
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God is a holy God now you may not like that as someone has said to me once you know
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I am just not willing to worship a God like that because I only worship God's in my own image and in my own making
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And my answer was he is not willing To change for you. You know people say if you loved me you'd change for me.
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God is not going to do that Who does he think he is God or something? Yes, he does and the scriptures
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Overwhelmingly represent the God who reveals himself in Holy Scripture who is a God of grace and a
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God of love As a gout God whose wrath burns against evil in fact
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Were it otherwise he would be a moral monstrosity Isn't it interesting when you're sinned against or you think about you know
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Hitler and whatnot? Oh, yeah, that guy should be judged, but I like to do what I'm witnessing people this way They say
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I don't believe in hell. I don't believe in wrath. I said let's just go right to the top Adolf Hitler Oh, yeah, that guy deserves hell. Okay, so now the principle of hell is affirmed.
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Well. What about Charles Manchin? I like I and I you know what about George Steinbrenner? And I go hey man.
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I'm moving in your direction What's gonna cause me to stop no no no no all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God And he's a holy
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God. He is not a moral monstrosity John Stott writes the wrath of God is his steady unrelenting unremitting uncompromising antagonism to evil in all its forms and Manifestations a
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God who is not a God of wrath is a God who forfeits his glory and And so we may say in our in our political correctness
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We don't think that the idea of wrath is appealing But we must reckon with God himself and not with a
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PC Establishment wants to hear at the end of the days God is going to come and there will be a judgment And we proclaim this
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I mean you know Hypothetically, I'm wrong, but then the Bible's wrong And I am overwhelmingly persuaded that the
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Bible is not wrong and therefore we proclaim what the Word of God says Among others that God is a
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God of wrath to his glory you know Spurgeon once has this illustration where he says you know when you do not
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Receive God the way people go to an auction You don't bid on the parts that you like and want to take home
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And he talks about you know when you're if he imagines that in Spurgeon's brilliance He imagines an auction where the attributes of God are being bit off and they get to mercy and oh the
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Beverly wants mercy oh, but everything they get the wrath nobody wants wrath but you know the
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God is a God of mercy and a God of wrath and And the purpose of history is that God would be revealed in his glory and not just the parts of God that you and I like But yes his faithfulness his love his power
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His justice his holiness his wrath and as Jonathan Edwards taught God glorifies his attributes by Exercising them and God is going to exercise his wrath to the glory of his name, and we should unashamedly
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Compassionately and lovingly declare to our friends exactly what they're complaining about yes
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The God of the Bible is a true. God. He is not a moral midget
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He is a God who hates evil with an unrelenting Animosity and you're in my problem is that we are evil and so yes
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We I love our she strolls put it we are being saved from God by God To God the stories told in RC's book to save from what little book.
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That's great book He talks about being a witness to in college and some evangelical guy gets in his face It says do you want to be saved and Sproul said from what and the guy couldn't answer the question
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The answer is from God from the wrath of God upon our sins so that complaint
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We acknowledge what they complain about us. We acknowledge is true, but we say it is to God's glory Then they will say that penal substitutionary atonement.
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This is one of the criticism that it wrongfully assumes Retributive justice on God's part now.
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Here's what they go You're just downloading Western justice onto the Bible and the Bible does not teach
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God You know, God doesn't take a pound of your flesh. God doesn't get even God doesn't take vengeance
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And I want to go have you read the Bible? Noah's Flood That was retributive justice.
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God is paying sin back for what it deserves Ananias and Sapphira The fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar Jesus teaching of his second coming.
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What does Paul say in 2nd Thessalonians? He will come with wrath to pay those who have done evil the writer of Hebrews says how shall we escape?
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That retributive justice if we neglect so great a salvation It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
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Living God. No retributive justice is not Actually Western Western justice really increasingly does not practice it
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We don't really have the idea of paying the penalty that you owe. It's all therapeutic now Well, he's going to jail to help him out.
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Well, what about paying the penalty for murdering my dad? Oh, you're legalistic well, the
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Bible believes in retributive justice and when the Son of Man returns and sits on his great white throne the books are
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Going to be open and it is going to be Retributive justice to the glory of God. Well thirdly they'll can still they'll argue that Penal substitutionary atonement teaches that God Punishes his innocent son for crimes.
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He did not even commit and that's true, of course and This but it's true
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But it's it's deceptive it imagines a breakdown in the inner Trinitarian fellowship as if God is angry at his son in an abusive way and it presents
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God as a monster It's what they'll say look we got enough Don't we have enough problems with violence in our society and here you have
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God solves his problem by slaying his son How sick are you Christians? You're going to hear that you're gonna go to jail for preaching that probably during our lifetimes
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It will soon be labeled as an evil moral monstrosity not by the liberals or by the evangelicals
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This teaching that we are promoting violence and we're imagining a
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Breakdown in the Trinity. What's the answer? The answer is the Trinity because the Bible does not depict the cross as the father
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Abusively inflicting violence on his innocent son The Bible presents the cross as a work that the father and the son planned and accomplished together.
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I Have come to do your will, you know in Jesus You know the garden of Gethsemane not by my will with mine. He's not saying in the
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Lord, you know Why are you doing this to me? He's saying father you and I are doing this together that that my people might be saved
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It was for the joy set before him that he took up the cross. Is that a child being an abuse? It's a terrible blasphemy
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Moreover when we remember the co -inhering of the persons of the Godhead That wherever one is involved the other three are involved and it is perfectly right to say that God Suffered and died on the cross
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He did so in the human nature that Jesus took up to be sure But God the father was was present with God the
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Son So this whole idea of of God being depicted by us as an angry father
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Beating his son is as a gross blasphemy Against the beautiful doctrine of the
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Trinity where God the Father and God the Son loved us enough to pay the price
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Together that we might be delivered that we might enter into their fellowship of love They will say finally that penal substitutionary atonement
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Involves a violation of the very ethics of peace and love that Jesus taught
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What about the Sermon on the Mount they say here let me quote Chalky It makes a mockery of Jesus own teaching to love your enemies and refuse to repay evil with evil
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So you're saying Jesus says love your enemies don't pay even hand here God's doing I mean God's saying do as I say not as I do
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What's the answer? Yes? Right. Why because he is God and we are not in fact biblically the basis
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For the Sermon on the Mount's teaching and elsewhere in the New Testament do not take vengeance.
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Why? Because I will God says and let me listen to Jay Packer This criticism is profoundly perverse
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For it shrinks God the Creator into the image of the creature And so the very reason why we are able not to take vengeance is because there will be vengeance
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I mean we are not to we're not to stand upon our rights Because we know they are gonna be stood upon by God Christian salvation is not one that just kind of writes things off.
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That's just don't worry about it No, God dealer is justice to the glory of God and because God does that we do not now notice what
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I'm doing in this most of the criticisms they're making against the cross are
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Upon things that are true and the tendency for us as these things are being miscast. I mean you present
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God is angry What's wrong with you and the tendencies for us to go? Oh, no, no, we don't and our answer is nothing.
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Yes, we do but in a biblical way not the false way You're serving Satan by corrupting and counterfeiting and manipulating what the
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Bible says is a beautiful thing and and they say oh you you have this Retributive system of justice, you know, the people don't like that today
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Our answer is that's because they're in rebellion to God and I praise God that way Isn't it interesting that as our justice system no longer believes in a retributive justice we now have a system for the victims families to be present and to ask for and so we we
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Recognize that there is victimhood to sin and there is an obligation to pay penalty and and that's the way
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God is people say You know God is your view of the cross violates the beautiful teaching of Jesus and our answer is the beautiful teaching of Jesus is based upon the person and saving work of God and so that's what we're going to say for the the
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Atonement Now what I want to do is I want to go look back at this Christian Christus Victor view of the
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Atonement Remember I said one of the alternatives I think probably the chief alternative today to the main
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Evangelical historic teaching penal substitutionary Atonement is this doctrine called the
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Christus Victor Theory and you're going to be Hearing this your children are going to be taught this and it is a theory that properly understood is true
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But the problem is it's wrongfully being made a substitute for the main doctrine of the cross and here's the problem
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With emphasizing that what the cross is really about it's not God causing his son to pay the penalty of your sins
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But Jesus in a general way overcoming the cosmic powers of evil the question
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I want to ask is it is true that Jesus Conflict with Satan is a biblical theme
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But is it true that that is the central theme of the New Testament and the answer is no over and over in the
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New Testament the central theme is the Individual sins before the throne of a holy God and the need to deal with the penalty of our sins
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And so it and it is true in a certain sense that the New Testament talks about societal structures
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Isn't true that that's the main emphasis of the New Testament. I mean do we see Jesus do we see the
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Apostles does Paul? Go into Corinth and attack the social structures Do we see him and it's interesting because I think the
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Christians do have an obligation to stand up against things like abortion And I have personally been involved in anti -abortion protest, but that's not the primary work of the church to oppose
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Social structures the primary work of the church is to proclaim The law and the gospel for the salvation of sinners and so while there is a certain truth to the
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Christus Victor theory that yes Praise God. He does overcome the cosmic powers of evil. That is not in fact the primary way the
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New Testament Understands the the cross now secondly this Christus Victor view sees sin primarily being a matter of social and political power rather than Individual transgression
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I I'm kind of dimly aware of what's going on in the Glenn Beck show.
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Are you aware what's going on with this? You probably are what you're this is probably a relatively conservative audience I'm not here to endorse that but apparently
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Glenn Beck has been on Fox News complaining about evangelical churches
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Talking about social justice and emphasizing social justice and Glenn Beck has said if your pastor starts talking about social justice
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You should leave your church because what they're really doing is they're denying the gospel and they're going to a social gospel
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I want to say that he is right in general There is a tendency among evangelicals to say let's not talk about individual salvation
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Because Christianity is far more than whether or not you go to heaven. I'm gonna go. Well, it's not less you know and a lot of the
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New Testament is in fact about the individual becoming right with God and being forgiven and What's happening is
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I think I'm not quite sure why maybe it's kind of a white guilt thing But there is an embrace of social gospel.
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We need to not talk about the gospel saving centers We need to do Habitat for Humanity a lot of folks will talk about we're redeeming culture
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Look, you are not redeeming culture unless you are proclaiming the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins
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It is good for you to do you have Habitat for Humanity I would never speak against you doing that but it is not the gospel unless you are proclaiming the blood of Christ This whole idea of saying we're gonna live this it was actually said to me by a friend of mine
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He should know better. He says, you know, I embrace the saying of st. Francis. Okay, let me say right now We do not embrace the sayings of st.
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Francis in general I would says always preach the gospel and when necessary use words
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No, no, you are not preaching the gospel without Proclaiming the death of Christ for our sins and you being nice to your neighbor is pre evangelism be nice to your neighbors get and do
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Good works because you have the love of Christ, but that it's not a substitute that is not redemption redemption only takes place through the blood of Christ paying the penalty for sinners and Reconciling them to God through his blood
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And we need to get away from this loosey -goosey talk of redemption. I am NOT involved I'm a downtown church in it and one of the greatest heard today that actually
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I heard the other day There's a US Air magazine did a big spread on my city the beautiful Greenville, South Carolina, and it is
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What do you do in living up here in the north? Anyway, yeah I know you got the socks, but this
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Camden Yard right come to see the socks at Camden Yard the but the But I am
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NOT redeeming Greenville I am proclaiming The blood of Christ to sinners that they might be snatched out of the fire
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They're departing the culture of the world to enter into the church through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ And this talk to know what the cross is really about is is it is improving societal structures is
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There's a path of social gospel that has led to the loss of the gospel many times before Here's one of the things if you ask the
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Christus Victor people, okay, you say that by his death on the cross Jesus what he mainly did was he defeated the cosmic powers of evil.
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Okay, I'm with you How did the cross accomplish that? What did
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Jesus do on the cross that allowed him to defeat cosmic and here's what they will actually say let me quote
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Greg Boyd He says this that we Obviously this account leaves a number of unanswered questions that we might wish for being answered
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But at the end of the day, we must humbly acknowledge the scriptures simply do not answer our questions, dude
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The scriptures do answer the question the way that Jesus overcame the cosmic powers of evil was penal substitutionary atonement
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It is it is true Praise the Lord that Jesus broke down the house of the strong man and he overcame him and he delivered the captives and he he
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Set his people free from Pharaoh and he overcame the cosmic powers of evil and Satan is cast down The way he did it was by paying the debt of our sins to the justice of all of God And so you pull out penal substitutionary atonement and you lose everything and Now I will say that penal substitutionary atonement is not the only thing to be said about the cross
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I embrace Christus Victor that Christ conquered the cosmic powers But he did it through penal substitutionary atonement and and for us to humbly say, you know
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We should not ask this questions is a rebellious unwillingness to believe the overwhelmingly clear teachings of the scriptures
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Thomas Schreiner says this the New Testament regularly argues that forgiveness and justification
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Were accomplished when Christ died and was raised and does not clearly subordinate victory
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Forgiveness to victory over demons and Satan's forgiveness is not a subset
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Under the category of Christ War with Satan it is the the primary thing
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Here's the last thing we want to say to the people who are arguing for this Christus Victor view a
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Nebulous sense in which Jesus conquers cosmic powers. We advance that cause today by getting involved in social action in our cities
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If Jesus if all that we can say about the cross is that Jesus defeated his cosmic powers and why is there hell?
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Why is there hell if there's no wrath Why is there hand what a question when I ask are these people attacking the cost do you believe people are now?
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They get very angry. Go dude. You may be make me very uncomfortable Why because there is a hell and people are going to hell and if we don't proclaim the mercy and love of a holy
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God of justice and wrath who has sent his son to deliver his people and his people are Those who believe in the
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Lord Jesus and if we don't how should they believe unless the Gospels preached? If we don't do that Well as some place in the
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Bible say we are guilty of the blood of our neighbors. There is a hell I have close friends who are unsaved and I confess that sometimes
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I lie awake at night thinking about what hell's gonna be like for Them and it's morbid and it's probably not that healthy for me
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But you know what it makes me do it makes me get out of bed get on my knees and make two prayers Lord Would you sovereignly?
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By your mercy Save them by convicting themselves of the need to believe in the blood of Jesus to forgive them of their sins
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Prayer number one prayer number two Would you give me enough love that I would boldly witness to them and even though they may say to me, dude
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You're what's wrong with you? You're the wrath of God, but I hold forth the Word of God first 2nd Corinthians 4 2 and I don't practice trickery
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I don't do manipulation. I go brother The the Word of Truth from the Word of God and I rely not on my persuasiveness not on my evangelistic technique
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Not on my contextualization wizardry but by the Spirit of God Blessing with power the
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Word of God to the glory of God as God saves sinners through the blood of his Son We lose that we lose everything and we will become completely what they're saying is you are irrelevant
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We say we cease to be relevant When we no longer preach the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of sinners
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Well, I've been talking a lot about penal substitutionary atonement Let me conclude by proving it biblically because maybe you haven't heard it before maybe you're not a
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Christian you got out What you're been saying that? The Son of God died to pay the penalty for sins that he did not commit
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But that you committed and he willingly took it and God's wrath poured upon him that God's justice
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Towards your sins would be satisfied in the death of Jesus and my answer is yes. He goes show me that well
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I want to make three statements from the scriptures that make this clear. The first is that man is sinful Romans 3 23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God you say what is said?
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What do you mean by sin biblically sin is transgression against the commandments of God? God made the world he owns the world.
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He is the Creator He is the Lord his his own character has moral requirements
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They're expressed in his law James 2 10 and 11 says whoever keeps the whole law
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But fails in one point has become accountable for it For he's he who said do not commit adultery also said do not commit murder if you do not commit adultery
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But do murder you become a transgressor of the law folks. That is not abstract concepts of justice It's the law of God and we have violated we have transgressed
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God's law and secondly sin is Personal you and I here's answer them again, you know your problem
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Bozo is that you have not yet considered the exceeding gravity of sin You've also not considered that.
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It's not just people go. What's the big deal? So I slept with my girlfriend. Who am I hurting? you are
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Grievously offending the person of the Holy God and our sins against one another and our all of our transgression of God's law are a
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Personal affront and offense and grief to the sovereign and Holy God This is what
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David is getting at Psalm 51 when he says against you you only have I sinned David's not denying that he sinned against Uriah when he slept with his wife stole or had a murdered that was a sin against Uriah But he says primarily above all that I have offended you
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Personally and when you and I sin the sins that I've committed in my thoughts and in my action
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I speech today Personally, we're not for the blood of Christ Offend God and so it's not abstract piccadillos that I'm just you know,
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I'm obsessed with no Their personal offenses to a holy God Thomas Reiner says the norms of the law express
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God's character and the beauty and holiness of his person Sin is an offense to God Personally a people will say, you know law -breaking is impersonal.
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Okay, if your spouse commits adultery Is that sin affect you present a sin against you personally?
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Yes, it's not just an abstract legal construct It's a sin against you personally. We know that our sins against God moreover sin is universal
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All have sinned and we need to go to our dying friend and say are you gonna tell me you have not sinned?
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but what if what we can do with your sins you are in the presence you will soon be in the presence of a holy
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God and you have sinned and Because of sin we need a substitute point number one
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Because we have sinned and because what sin is we must have a substitute to stand in our place
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We cannot stand on our own before God. This is one of the big issues in evangelism
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I can stand on my own two feet before God. Oh brother, you cannot and if people go Oh, that's just a
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Western thing. I go to Africa for a mountain. One of these I do there's evangelism here I am witnessing in these
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African villages to Muslims and what do they say when we ask them how they're going to heaven? What do they say?
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I'm a basically a good person It could be a shopping mall in Worcester Man across is Endemic demand to say oh
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I can handle myself before God and we want to say brother You cannot you need a substitute you have sinned against God Secondly, we want to proclaim not only the man is sinful, but the
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God is holy Leviticus 19 to speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel say to them you shall be holy for I the
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Lord Your God am holy and he requires Perfect obedience
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I just said that out of John James 2 10 and 11 if you Hypothetically kept all the law and you broke it at one point.
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Guess what? You've broken the law and it requires perfect Obedience to the law and Paul makes that point
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Galatians 3 10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse for curse
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It is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law to do them
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And so when we say look God's standard God is not great on a curve, you know He used to go a 70 % is like a
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C right the path not great, but it's a passing grade not for God He is a holy
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God. He cannot look upon evil He cannot allow wickedness and evil to stain his holy heaven
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And so we only perfect righteousness will attain for him and so God is holy and he must punish sins
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By the works of the law. No one will be justified in his sight Sin through the law comes knowledge of sin now furthermore this holy
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God Practices whether we like it or not. He practices retributive justice Noah's Flood Adam and Eve the
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Tower of Babel Achan sin on and on and on God punishes sin.
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God's wrath is just God's wrath is the expression of his personal holiness
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Therefore we need a substitute who pays a pen the penalty of our sin
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We need a penal substitute we need someone to stand on our behalf before God in our place and remedy this problem above all other problems the penalty due to me to my sins and Then finally we want to say that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is that penal substitute that we need
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The atonement is primarily God's Son Being the substitute to stand in our place and to particularly pay the penalty of our sins
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They can the Old Testament sacrifices the day of the atonement. What would the highest priest do? He would lay his hands on the scapegoat.
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What's he doing? He's Transymbolic a liturgical transfer of guilt an
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Imputation of guilt from the people to that which was going to be sacrificed and that was which to be cast out from the camp
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The laying on of hands shows that the the death of that animal was substitutionary and God's satisfaction is requires the the the
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Receipt of his wrath. I was in Peru three weeks ago, and they took me to I usually when
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I go on mission trips I kind of worked the whole time I never see anything and this time I had a day off finally and they took me to the temple of the moon among the
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Moche people of pre -Incan people What's the temple of the moon about propitiation?
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They got an altar about this Conceptually, it is not different from the Old Testament temple fascinating to me
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They is typical of the and these peoples they had sacred combat and the loser would be sacrificed
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But the the guy so you lost the game. It's like a basketball game I couldn't understand it like baseball basketball but if you lost it then you'd be
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Sacrificed and the priest would take you to the top of the temple and the people would gather around at the bottom and they would
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Drive and they would do it a propitiate you're going. It's not interesting At these people who are not incorporating
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Western standards of Retributive you know to choose the pre -Incan
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Moche people of being influenced by Thomas Locke and David Hume I'm just you can't make that argument and They know that something's wrong
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Because there's floods and there's earthquakes and so somebody's mad and they are aware that they're sinners and they're
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Desperately seeking some way to propitiate the wrath of that God and they realize that sin is so Serious that that death must be the penalty
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But the problem is they don't hear this the Mayans especially you know that when the Mayans would capture a village
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They would sacrifice all of them, and you know what's wrong with them They were desperately trying to get right with God, but they didn't have an atoning sacrifice
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That was effectual And so the reason they did so many was because they didn't work and then that fascinating But God provides here's the key to the doctrine of propitiation
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God does not say to sinful man. You must provide a sacrifice to turn aside my wrath
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God says I will provide a sacrifice to satisfy my wrath
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Romans 3 25 God set forth his son to be the propitiation of our sins and We rejoice that the
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Lord Jesus Christ came and this is at the heart of our gospel that we have sinned
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We need a substitute God is holy and he must judge all evil We need that substitute to be a penal substitute to pay the penalty of our sins
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And we rejoice in Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world by paying
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The penalty in our place before the wrath of the Holy God that we might be received into his love
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My friends let me just say I'm gonna wrap it up Don't lose that Don't let some if your pastor reads a book and starts teaching against that go up to him like good
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Bereans and say pastor You know if I do you know we must hold fast to the cross.
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There's a reason why at the heydays of spiritual activity of gospel of vitality in any culture be at the
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Great Awakening or or Things in Africa that the hymnody that is written is always redemptive hymnody about the cross of Christ You know
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There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel veins and sinners plunged with beneath that flood lives all their guilty stains
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People will go you are weird sick people And we say my friends you have not yet considered the exceeding gravity of sin and the exceeding holiness of God and the exceeding grace of Jesus Christ on the cross and so we rejoice may
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I never boast except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ and let us beware that this
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I bring this to you as a Harbinger of warning that this is coming to you through your
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Christian bookstore through your Christian reading I don't know your Christian bookstore, but through the evangelical media is this
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Secularized denial of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must not give into it
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Let me conclude finally by saying really what it is is we must always remember the exceeding sinfulness of our own sin
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The exceeding holiness of God and the exceeding wonder of grace in the precious blood of Christ.
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Let's pray Father I pray that you would bless us not only in being aware of error and attacks
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But this would just help us to realize the truth of the cross and Lord I don't know perhaps someone is here
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Lord Who's not really understood what the gospel is and doesn't under is troubled by this talk of atoning blood
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Father, would you convict that person even as I need to be convicted anew that I am a great sinner and you are a
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Greatly holy God, but Jesus is a great Savior who offered his blood freely with joy
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He took up the cross that sinners like me might be redeemed and saved by his blood
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Cause us to glory in this cause us to preach it and Lord Would you thwart and oppose those who in your church would rise up against the cross?