The Great Exchange (Pt 1 - Penal Substitution)

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me this morning to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and go to verse 21.

The title of today's message is The Great Exchange and I want to go ahead and let you know that this is going to be a two -part message.

Today we are going to focus on the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement and its negative sense in which our sins are laid upon Christ and next week we are going to look at it in its positive sense with the righteousness of God being credited to us.

And so normally there are times where I don't know that a sermon is going to go long, well this morning

I knew. So I said, you know what, I'll just go ahead and tell you. It's going to be two parts.

When we come to this passage I am reminded of Psalm 119 verse 11 that says,

Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.

That particular passage reminds us that as much as we are encouraged to read the

Word of God we should also seek to internalize the Word of God and memorize the

Word of God. As the writer of the Psalm tells us that we take the

Word of God and we put it in our heart so that we would not sin against God.

Thy word have I hid in my heart. And I bring this out this morning as the introduction to the sermon because if there is a passage in your

Bible that deserves to be memorized, that deserves to be repeated in your mind over and over, that deserves to be on your lips when you are sharing the gospel with unbelievers, that deserves to be in your house when you are engaging in worship with your family and your children, that deserves to be in your private meditations, it is the passage that we are looking at today, 2

Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21. I will commend it to you for memory.

I will commend you to memorize it, internalize it and make it part of how you talk about your

God. Just last night I was having a conversation with my dear friend

Aaron Bell, he is the pastor of Redeemer Church in Yulee and he used to be our worship leader.

And I was telling him what I am preaching. We often talk on Saturdays and we talk about what we are going to be preaching the next day.

And I told him that this morning I would be preaching 2 Corinthians 5 .21. And he said to me, and it was an encouragement to me to hear, he said, you know, because he ministered here and ministered alongside me for many years, he said it was your constantly repeating that passage that buried it in my heart.

He says and even to this day, almost every time I come to the communion table I speak that passage.

So I can say, at least based on the words of a good friend who has known me now some almost 20 years, that yeah, this passage means a lot and it means a lot to me.

In fact if you walk out to our lobby and you look on the table where Brother Andy has his book table, you'll notice the tablecloth under the table.

It is a tablecloth we had made for when we go out and share the gospel in the community. We bring that tablecloth with us.

We put it on our table so people know who we are. But at the very bottom of that table, if you've never noticed, you look at it today when you walk out, it is 2

Corinthians 5 .21. This passage, I truly believe, is the heart of the gospel.

This passage comes to us as Paul has been defending his message. He has been defending himself as the messenger of God, the apostle of God.

He has been defending not only himself but he's been defending what he has said. He has called himself in chapter 3 a minister of the new covenant and now in chapter 5 he defines his ministry as a ministry of reconciliation.

Which tells us that the new covenant is the covenant of reconciliation.

But how is reconciliation made? How is a sinful man reconciled to a holy

God? That is the question that everyone must ask when they realize that God is holy and we are not.

That God is righteous and we are wicked. We must then ask the question, how can a righteous

God receive a wicked man? How can a sinful man be reconciled to a righteous

God? That is the question that we will ask and over the next two sermons hopefully answer.

So I invite you to stand with us now as we read 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 and we are reading from the

English Standard Version. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Father in heaven hallowed be thy name and Lord when we say those words, when we say hallowed be thy name,

Lord it is often that we simply speak them into the ether as if they mean very little but that very opening of the

Lord's model prayer reminds us to whom we speak. We speak to the one who

Nadab and Abihu were so foolish as to seek to offer up strange fire before.

We speak to the one who Adam was so thoughtless and careless and rebellious that he would go and take what you had commanded him not to take.

We speak to the one whom we ourselves have sinned against and we say hallowed be thy name.

Holy are you O God and perfect in your righteousness and Lord it is so easy to forget just how precious it is to consider the fact that you are holy, holy, holy.

So Lord today I pray that you would fill this place with the knowledge of your holiness, with the knowledge of your righteousness, with the knowledge of your nature as we discuss today

Lord so many different concepts regarding justice retributive and restorative and we discuss the concepts of legal and personal forgiveness

Lord as we consider all of these consequences and realities of the text

I pray O God that you would keep me from error. As you know Lord I have spent this week nay even my entire ministry life trying to understand this text better and I pray

O God that I would bring forth a right understanding of it. Keep me from error, open the hearts of your people to see and hear the truth and Lord God if there be those here who do not know

Christ who have not yet had their sins laid upon the Savior I pray O God that today would be a day of repentance and Lord that they would be born again by the power of your spirit.

We pray all this God in Jesus name and for his sake Amen. From the moment that we have man sinned he was according to scripture at war with God.

That is the language that scripture uses that is not language that was created by John Calvin, that is not language that was introduced by Martin Luther, that is not language which was contorted and conformed to the teachings of Augustine but that is the word of God that from the very moment sin entered the world death through sin entered the world and enmity between God and man entered the world.

I stress this and I will stress this throughout today because there is rising within the evangelical church today a growing faction of those who are in their outward application and proclamation denying the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

This week as I was preparing my notes and considering all that I wanted to say

I spent a lot of time engaging with those who want to deny this doctrine, listening to debates, reading and trying to consider why it is that men would want to abandon what

I believe is the very heart of the gospel. One of the arguments is that God does not engage in retributive justice.

That is one of the most common arguments against the doctrine of penal substitution is that God is not after his pound of flesh.

That is the language that they use not the language that I am using in their place. That is the very language that Brian Zahn and several others who

I have listened to who argue against this position would say God does not need his pound of flesh.

God does not need to be satisfied and if you believe that your God needs to be satisfied in regard to justice then you serve a monster

God who engages in child abuse. That is the language that is being used against our

God and against this doctrine. So if I seem a little infused with emotion this morning you understand why.

They will argue the Eastern Orthodox Church has not believed this doctrine. Why should we believe it?

Well the Eastern Orthodox Church believes a lot of things that we do not believe. The Eastern Orthodox Church does not hold to penal substitution.

They also venerate icons and do a whole lot of other things that we could talk about that we would disagree with. But on this issue beloved it needs to be said from the outset that the argument against this doctrine is the argument that God does not engage in retributive justice.

So I need to explain what that means. For those who may not understand and I know many of you do and I certainly don't in any way intend to diminish anyone's intellect.

I know we have many good scholarly people here but there is always those who when I say things don't understand.

Children are here, younger people are here, people who are new in the faith may not understand these things. And so when

I say the word retributive, retributive comes from the idea of retribution.

Receiving a penalty that is due based upon an action.

And what is being said today is that God does not engage in retributive justice, only restorative justice.

You say well what is the difference? Restorative justice has the idea that a man be restored to his original position if he has fallen.

So for instance if you have a man who has committed a crime and he is forgiven of that crime and he is restored back to his place in society that would be referred to as restorative justice.

Now here is the problem with that. If that happens without retributive justice it is unjust.

But the argument that is being made is that God only engages in restorative justice, He does not engage in retributive justice.

Beloved that is foolish. And I will prove it to you from the very opening of our Bibles. In the very opening of our

Bibles we are told a story. And the story is this. God creates the world in seven days.

Six. He rested on the seventh. I always have to correct myself. He creates the world in six days.

On the seventh day He rests. He puts man in a garden which

Brother Mike this morning gave a wonderful explanation in his Sunday school class discussing the fact that that garden was not only a garden but it was the very presence of God.

That they were in the presence of God. They were in the dwelling place of God. And in the dwelling place of God they had full reign to eat of every tree.

I've heard people say, why would God limit them? God did not limit them. God gave them everything except one thing.

It wasn't a limit. It was liberty. You are free to eat from every tree of the garden except this one.

For on the day that you eat of it, you are free to eat. You will experience retributive justice.

Because this tree comes with a penalty.

That penalty is the penalty of death. I remember when

R .C. Sproul, prior to his death, I was in the audience when this happened.

He was asked by a group of, or he was asked during the question and answer time during the

Ligonier National Conference. They always have the speakers come up and ask questions. And R .C.

Sproul was asked the question, why was the punishment so severe?

All they did was eat a piece of fruit. And R .C.

Sproul, in his inimitable way, groaned. And he said, time out.

And his countenance fell. And he said, this creature from the dirt has spit in the face of his creator and the punishment is too severe?

What's wrong with you people? That's what he said. Because that's the way we think.

We think in terms of ourselves rather than who it is we have offended.

We say, I didn't do that much wrong. No, but the one that you have offended is infinite.

And therefore the offense itself is an infinite offense. And it deserves his just punishment.

Adam and Eve found that out. Because Adam and Eve, who had experienced the presence of God, unfettered, undiluted, unveiled, were now told that they would have to leave the presence of God.

That they would be removed from this garden estate.

And then the cherubim would be placed at the entrance to the garden so that Adam and Eve would continue in exile, separated from the presence of God.

When someone says God does not engage in retributive justice, I say, what do you call that?

That is the application of a penalty based upon a crime.

That's the very definition of retributive justice. A crime incurs a penalty and the person receives the penalty that they are due.

Some argue, well, no, that's not retributive justice. That's just restorative.

God was going to restore Adam and Eve. And he did give them mercy. He gave them mercy in the garden when he clothed their nakedness.

That is true. God did clothe their nakedness. But they still underwent the penalty of their sin, did they not?

Brother Mike said it this morning. The Hebrew says, dying they shall die. The moment they ate, they died spiritually.

Nine hundred and some odd years later, they died physically. They inherited the penalty of their sin.

And that penalty has carried down through the ages. To every person who is born of Adam, we are born with that penalty due.

What does the Bible say? Sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and death spread to all men.

Why? Because all sinned. The very reason why we experience death is because of sin.

Now, you may not experience a death because of a sin you did. For instance, when

Jesus saw, or when Jesus was asked about the people who had the tower fall upon them, he didn't say, well, the tower fell upon them because they're worse people.

What he said was, unless ye repent, you will likewise perish. Why? Because we all have it coming.

That's Luke 13 in a nutshell. You all got it coming. I mean, we've all got a date with destiny.

Unless Jesus returns before our last breath, we will all experience the penalty of sin.

And by the way, I want to thank William Lane Craig for this because he opened up an idea that I never really considered when

I was studying this week. William Lane Craig said this. He said, eschatological judgment has to be retributive because it's not restorative.

God doesn't send people to hell and then give them a parole.

But God sends men to hell as the just penalty of their sin.

And it is not restorative because they will never be restored. Think about that.

It is only retributive. That's heavy to think about.

That's powerful to think about. But understand, and you may, I hope I haven't left anybody behind right now, but this is so important because we haven't even gotten to the text yet.

I'm just trying to help you understand that the God that we serve is a God who will in fact punish the guilty.

And we will either receive the punishment in ourselves or someone will take the punishment in our place.

But that punishment will in fact be levied because God is a just God.

The word just means righteous. When we see the word justice,

J -U -S -T -I -C -E, that means the application of righteousness.

But if you see the word justice spelled J -U -S -T -U -S, like my son

J -J, that means righteousness. So I -C -E, justice with an

I -C -E, means to apply righteousness to a situation. Righteous, God is righteous.

He enacts in His righteousness a law. And when that law is violated, justice,

I -C -E, is applied to the person. You see? And that is called retributive justice.

A penalty has been incurred and a payment must be made.

I don't understand why this is so hard, but it is for so many people. Because they say if I believe that,

I have to believe that God is a moral monster. Because God has to have

His pound of flesh. Understand this, beloved. God does not have to have

His pound of flesh because He's some emotional crybaby who just has to have His own way. That's the way

He's pictured by those who would deny this. No. The reason why God must enact

His justice is because He's just. That's why. It's because it's an integral part of His nature.

I remember Brian Zahn in his debate. He said, well who does God have to be just for? Is Lady Justice standing up and telling

God what to do? There is no such thing as Lady Justice. God is just.

That's the point. The Bible says certain things about God. The Bible says

God is loving. In fact, it doesn't even just say that. It says God is love. But the

Bible also says God is righteousness. In fact, next week we're going to see the blessing that if you are saved, the righteousness you have isn't yours.

But it's the righteousness of God that becomes yours by faith. That's the blessing because God's righteousness is the only righteousness that stands in the courtroom of eternity.

God's righteousness is the only righteousness that stands because all of ours fail.

And beloved, I can't help just to continue to press upon you the idea that this concept of penal substitution, this concept that Christ has in our place taken our punishment, is the heart of the gospel.

And there are those who would say, but wait a minute. Throughout the decades and centuries and millennia of the church, there have been different theories about atonement.

And we're talking about atonement. By the way, what does atonement mean? We talked about last week. Reconciliation.

Thank you. But you know what, though? Reconciliation is what atonement means.

But it actually means more than that. I said last week that the word reconciliation is how we understand atonement.

And that is true. Atonement is where the word comes from. Atone is an English word that was put together from the phrase at one to bring two separate parties together at one.

That's atonement. But the words in the Hebrew and in the Greek identify more than just reconciliation, but they also identify cleansing and covering and forgiveness.

That's all how the atonement is made. Throughout the decades and centuries and millennia of the church, there have been different understandings of what happened on the cross.

Irenaeus wrote between 125 and 202 his lifetime.

He wrote about what was called recapitulation. Irenaeus said, what

Adam lost, Christ gained. Recapitulation. That's what that means. Adam lost it.

Christ restored it. And that's what happened on the cross. Do we agree? Yes.

I agree 100%. I don't disagree with Irenaeus. And what he said about what happened on the cross,

I would affirm. Later others would write some things

I would disagree with. There were early church fathers who wrote about the ransom theory.

And the ransom theory, of course, is based on certain passages. Are there not scriptures that talk about ransom? He gave his life a ransom for many, right?

So the word is in scripture. But the problem with the early church and the ransom theory was the idea that the person needing to be ransomed was

Satan. That when Adam did what he did, we were given over to Satan.

And so Satan had to be appeased. So Christ dies as a ransom to Satan. That's not the truth.

That's not how we understand the atonement. And as early as the early church fathers were, they got some things wrong.

Proximity does not always equal doctrinal fidelity. Now there are some things about ransom theory that are true.

Was a payment made? Yes. Were we enslaved? Yes. Did the payment make for our release?

Yes. So all those things are true. So ransom theory in and of itself is true. We just have to understand who's getting the payment.

We have to understand who's receiving the payment. It's not Satan. There are several other theories like Peter Abelard in the 11th century.

He wrote about the moral example theory that basically Jesus died as an example of moral righteousness for us.

Well, that's true. I mean, that's true as far as it goes, but it's not enough.

Recapitulation is true, but it's not enough. Ransom theory can be true in some of its understandings, but it's not enough.

You understand, I don't have a problem when people say, well, there are different theories of the atonement. I will say, yes, there are, but all of them are woefully insufficient without our penalty being paid.

In fact, I want to quote Michael Brown. That's a name you won't hear me quote often, but he's right about some things.

I would say he's right about a lot of things. Michael Brown's got some weird stuff, but his stuff on the atonement is really good.

He's the one who debated Brian Zahn, and if you want to go home and listen to a good debate and spend the next two and a half hours of your life engaged in listening to both sides of this argument, go look up the monster

God debate, but I will tell you this. There's no way anyone with any intellectual honesty can say

Brian Zahn won that debate. Michael Brown dunked him like Michael Jordan. I mean, it was absolutely not even close, but here's the thing.

Michael Brown said this. He said, there are other theories of the atonement, but whatever truth is in them is true because of penal substitution.

There are other theories of the atonement, but the only reason why they're true is because Christ has paid the penalty for our sin.

Without that, the other ones wouldn't be true. They depend upon this.

Probably the most common one you'll hear today, and if you're a nerd like me and you spend your time studying these types of things and listening to the arguments of people who you disagree with, one of the most common arguments today you will hear is called the

Christus Victor view. I won't ask for a show of hands of how many of you have ever heard that phrase, but I'm going to tell you, you're going to keep hearing it more and more.

The more and more people are denying penal substitution, they are adopting a view called Christus Victor.

Christus Victor is supposed to be the position that is held for the first thousand years of the church, and it's supposed to be the position that's held by the

Eastern Orthodox Church, but it's hard to nail down exactly what they're saying, but this is the ultimate view. What Christus Victor is, is

Latin for Christ the victor, or Christ the conqueror, and what it says is that Christ, when

He came into the world and He died on the cross, He died on the cross to conquer sin and death, and in conquering sin and death in Himself, He conquered it for all of us, and therefore, it's not about penal substitution, it's about Christ conquering sin and death, and they will quote

Colossians chapter two, which says that He put the powers, that He destroyed the principalities and powers when

He was on the cross. Here's the thing. I agree. Christ has put down the principalities and powers.

Christ has crushed the enemy. Christ has put Him under His feet, but how did

He do it? Christus Victor does not stand without penal substitution.

You can have Christus Victor. You can have Christ the conqueror, and you should, and I'm not telling you it's wrong.

I'm telling you it's insufficient. Without the penal substitutionary nature of Christ's atonement, all other atonement positions fail, because God must be righteous, and God's righteousness must prevail.

Christ must be established. One of the arguments I heard somebody make this week, well, Charles Finney didn't believe in penal substitutionary atonement.

Trust me, you don't want him on your side. Mike said, that's right.

If you're looking for a hero, that is not the one. One of the arguments against penal substitution that comes up often is this.

Well, why can't God just forgive? Why can't God just forgive?

Why does He have to have a punishment paid, or a penalty paid? Why can't, if I can just forgive you, or you can just forgive your neighbor, why can

God not just forgive? And the argument that is often made is they will run to the story of the prodigal son, and they will say, when the prodigal son came home, his father didn't demand a payment, but rather received him in full forgiveness.

Well, let me respond to that. First of all, the parable is more about the other son.

That's the part that's often missed, is that when God receives someone in forgiveness, the other son thinks he doesn't deserve it.

And the picture is Israel, and the picture is so much more than what we normally take out of that parable.

I remember one night I was driving a person who had visited the church. They needed a ride home. Jennifer and I are driving the person home, and she says,

I just love the story of the prodigal son. I says, well, what do you think the other son represents? And she goes, what other son?

Because she loved the story of the forgiveness, but she didn't recognize that there's more to the story than that.

But also understand this. When we talk about the concept of forgiveness, we have to understand forgiveness in at least two ways.

Forgiveness can be either relational or it can be judicial.

And there is a difference between relational forgiveness and judicial forgiveness. Here's an example.

If you commit a crime against me, and Adam representing the state comes, he's a police officer, and he comes and arrests you for your crime against me, you are now being charged with a crime, and the state is charging you with that crime.

Now I may go up and say, I don't want to press charges, and Adam may say to me, it's not up to me, because the crime's been committed.

They now owe a debt to the law. Right? Now there may be some ways I can not press charges, but on some crimes,

I don't have that right. I don't have the right to come up and say that. I can go to that person in jail, and I can say, hey man,

I do forgive you, and the person can say, I receive your forgiveness. But guess what? He's still going to be a legal, he's still going to have a legal fine to pay.

He's still going to have a legal debt to pay. Understand this. Our sin against God requires both relational and judicial forgiveness, because God is

Father, but He is also Judge. And the Father does provide us relational forgiveness, and this is why when we're forgiven, we can come back into the presence of the

Father. We can be given the ring, and we can be restored, and we can be clothed, and we can be brought back into the house, and we're no longer slaves, but we're sons.

Yes, there is relational forgiveness, but it's based on the fact that the

Judge has taken our punishment and placed it on someone else, so that we no longer bear that punishment.

So we receive judicial forgiveness and relational forgiveness at the cross.

This is the beauty of what happened. What happened at the cross wasn't just one thing. It was a myriad of things that are all happening.

This Wednesday night I'm going to be looking at the text in Mark where it says that the moment that Jesus said it is finished, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom.

Why? One, to show that God did it. It was God tearing the veil from top to bottom, but also it was opening up the holy place, which had been held behind the veil all those many years, and now there would be open access to the presence of God through Jesus Christ.

Many things happened on the cross. Many things happened, but we must never forget or never replace the fact that on that cross when

Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. Beloved, I cannot stress for you how important it is to understand that truth.

In fact, let's look at the text. Now that the introduction is over, let's actually look at the first half of 2

Corinthians 5 .21 and just look at what it says. There's two clauses connected by the word hinnah, which means the second clause is a hinnah clause, which means it's a purpose clause, and so you have the first half of the sentence, or the first half of the verse is the first clause, and it says, in fact

I'll bring it up here for you to see. This is literal reading.

The first line, it's 15 Greek words, the first line is the one not having known sin.

That's the way it's written in the original language. The one not having known sin. Who is that?

It's Jesus Christ. The Bible says explicitly that Jesus Christ knew no sin.

Hebrews 4 .15, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

You understand that? Jesus underwent the full weight of temptation and yet never sinned.

Paul Washer in his explanation of this text made a wonderful example, and I'm sure, wish

Tim was here to hear this one, he'd like this one. He said, if you imagine me standing next to a weight lifter and they put the bar on our shoulders, the bar weighs 45 pounds, we can both handle that, but then they put two plates on, now it gets a little heavier.

Then they put two more plates on, it gets a little heavier. After about the third plate on each side, I'm going to be crumbled under the weight of that bar.

But the weight lifter, he says keep them coming. And he holds the weight and he doesn't move an inch.

We are tempted by sin and we crumble so easily.

Christ was put under all the weight of sin and he held it firm and he never once budged an inch.

What a beautiful picture. He knew no sin.

The one not having known sin, for us, sin he made.

Now I know that doesn't sound smooth, but I just want you to see how it is constructed.

The idea here is for, huper, on our behalf, in our place, for our sake,

God made him who knew no sin to become sin.

For us. Some people say, well Paul doesn't mean Jesus became sin, it just means that Jesus became a sin offering.

This is one of the arguments against penal substitution. They say he didn't really become sin, he became a sin offering.

And I step back and I say, well nobody is saying he literally became physical sin, but what we are saying is that he became the embodiment of our sin.

What does it say in Colossians? That the very written legal document against us was nailed to the cross.

Christ became our sin.

Have you ever thought, have you ever really considered how many sins, how much sin that you have?

I don't have to ask you to explain it, because I know my own heart.

And if I were to sit down and count my own sins, just from this past week, it would be an overwhelming reality.

If I had to sit down and consider the amount of sins for 2024, even though we are only half way through the year, it would be an overwhelming reality.

And if I had to consider the fact that all of my sins, throughout all of my life, are owed a debt to God, I would be absolutely undone.

Have we ever considered that all of those sins are owed a debt to God?

We are charged to Christ. Christ in his ledger, and I have used the ledger analogy so many times,

I know you have heard it, but repetition is the key to learning. But in the ledger marked righteousness,

Christ is full, and in the ledger marked sin, Christ was empty. But in the ledger marked righteousness for Keith Foskey, it was empty.

He said, but haven't you done some good things? Yes, but the righteousness of God standard

I've never met. And I'm going to talk about this next week. You've never loved the Lord your

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loved your neighbor as yourself perfectly. Now you can try, and you can work toward it, and that's our goal, is to love our neighbor and love our

God, but you've never done it perfectly. You have never met the standard of the righteousness of God, but you have sinned.

So your ledger, which has naked, blank slate on the side of righteousness, has a side of sin that it was as if you had to keep unfolding the paper and keep, like one of those old printers that you had to put in with the thing with the, old people know what

I'm talking about, the one that just kept going, had the little circles you had to tear off the sides. Dot matrix printer, just keep it coming.

I think about that day. I think about Revelation 20 where it talks about the books will be opened.

My book by itself is filled, and God made him who knew no sin to become my sin, to take all that sin that I deserved, all that sin that even just one of them would require the retributive justice of God, because God is holy and just, and God took all of that sin and gave it to Christ.

As we close, I want you to turn to Romans chapter 3. I want you to look at this with me, because someone may ask, and you may even leave today asking, why?

Why did it have to be done this way? Why? Why couldn't God just forgive? Why couldn't

God just wipe your slate clean? Why did he need the blood sacrifice? And the Bible does say that without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin, so why is it necessary?

Why is Hebrews 9, 22, when it says that, why is that true? This is the reason why. Romans chapter 3, beginning at verse 21.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption, redemption means to be purchased, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God put forward as a propitiation, a propitiation is a satisfactory atoning sacrifice, whom

God put forward as a propitiation, but by His blood to be received by faith, this was to show

God's righteousness. Notice what it says, it was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance,

He had passed over former sins, God hadn't crushed the world because He was waiting for Christ to come to do what

Christ did, and what did Christ do? He showed His righteousness at the present time so that God might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

God is holy and just and He will not give up His justice, but He is loving and merciful and desires to justify, and so how can

He be just and the justifier? By taking the penalty we deserve and giving it to Christ, and Christ takes it willingly on our behalf.

He's not a whipping boy or a scapegoat in the sense of being some kind of person who didn't want to do it.

He's a scapegoat in the biblical sense because He bears the sin, but not in the sense that He was drug out to do it.

No, He came for the purpose of it. He set His face like Flint to Jerusalem and He said, this is the very purpose for which

I came, and on the cross He said, Tetelestai, it is finished.

What was finished? The wrath of God was satisfied in Him.

Don't give up penal substitutionary atonement. It's the very heart of the gospel. Let's pray.

Father, I thank You for Your word. I thank You for Your truth. I pray, O God, that today,

I pray it has not been confusing. I pray it has not been so scholastic that it might be in a way unrelatable.

But I pray, Lord, that it has been relatable, that we would all understand that our very justice that we deserved has been taken by Christ.

And next week, Lord, as we look at the blessed righteousness that we have in Him, help us to be reminded,

Lord, how good You are to give us what we didn't deserve and take what we did.

Lord, thank You. Thank You that now, as we gather around this table, we're reminded of Christ's blood and the sacrifice that was made in His blood.