The crucified and risen Christ is the highest and latest form of the wisdom of God towards men. “God was in him, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” In Paul’s day, he was a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the philosophers: but he was none the less, as Paul alleged, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” To others who have risen since, the cross has become the theme of folly and the subject of profanation. Superstitious men have made it the symbol of implacable Deity: superficial men have proclaimed it a meaningless accident of a martyr’s life, and others have construed it as a transaction of mechanical law between God and man, in which the subject has been profaned by the importation of “claims” and “obligation” and “rights.”
The one element in the case that gives it its whole character, and apart from which it is inexplicable, is the one element that the carnally-minded are least capable of taking into account, viz., the kindness of the living God of Israel, operating of His own initiative, to bestow His favour while conserving His supremacy. It is forgotten, if ever realised, that the whole arrangement is God’s own arrangement and an arrangement of “grace” (favour)—not of law or works or rights. Whenever the death of Christ is looked upon as the satisfaction of a debt or the enduring of a vicarious punishment, grace is clouded, the forgiveness of sin made impossible, and the judgment seat of Christ disestablished. The following propositions define the matter as it is scripturally testified:—
- That the work of God in Christ for the salvation of men, is a process of grace or favour from God, and not of works or obligation.
“The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared” (Tit. 2:11).
“After that, the kindness and love of God towards man appeared” (3:4).
“He hath predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, whereas he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:5, 6).
“Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life” (Rom. 5:20–1).
“If by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace” (Rom. 11:6).
- That its operation is by free forgiveness of sin and not by obtaining any satisfaction in the sense of the payment of debt.
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2 Cor. 5:19).
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).
“Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 13:38).
“Be baptised for the remission of your sins” (Acts 2:38).
“That they may receeive forgiveness of sins . . . by the faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18).
- That nevertheless, the death of Christ was necessary to lay a foundation on which the forgiveness of sins could be offered in love without compromising the supremacy of God.
“Christ died for the ungodly. God commandeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:6, 8).
“Christ also hath suffered sins; the just for the unjust that he might bring us unto God” (1 Pet. 3:18).
“The Son of Man is come to give his life as ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).
“It behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations” (Luke 20:40).
- That the purpose served by the death of Christ was the public declaration of the righteousness of God in the condemnation of the sin of the world in its own flesh, and that the flesh of mortal nature might be repudiated as a rule of action before God.
“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of the sins that are past through the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3:25).
“God sent forth his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3).
“Our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Rom. 6:6).
- That in order to accomplish this result, it was necessary that Jesus should have the identical nature that is under sin, that in him it might be redeemed: otherwise, his death would not have been a righteous death, and the salvation accomplished not a salvation for us.
“In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren” (Heb. 2:17).
“For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy that having the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).
“The seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3).
“Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of Antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come” (1 Jno. 4:3).
- That for all these reasons our sins are considered as having been laid on him and taken away by him, and nailed to the tree with him.
“Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” (Jno. 1:39).
“The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Is. 53:6).
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body to the tree” (1 Pet. 2:29).
- That by a similar figure, we are considered as “washed in his blood,” because our sins are forgiven for his sake, that is for the sake of the acceptable obedience he rendered in submitting to the declaration of the righteousness of God in the shedding of his blood on Calvary.
“He hath washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev. 1:5).
“God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32).
“Obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted him” (Phil. 2:8, 9).
“It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell, and having made peace by the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself” (Col. 1:19, 20).
From all which it follows that the resurrection of Christ, after suffering for sin, was an act of God’s grace, granted freely in His kindness, because of His pleasure in the acceptable submission of His son to what He required at His hands in vindication of His way with man, preparatory to the manifestation of His kindness in the bestowal of eternal life through him. It was not a thing that any claim could be made for, or which God was under any obligation to bestow. It was God’s own act in God’s own grace because of the righteousness of Christ that pleased Him whom He sent to open the way thus for the manifestation of His kindness in our salvation on our submitting to him. In Christ crucified, God was exalted and man humbled in the dust. This relation of things, heartily and humbly recognised, is the basis of all God’s kindness to man. The result is, as yet, limited to Christ, but is afterwards to be extended by Him to all who obey Him. It is the grace of God, the favour of God in Christ. In him only can men have access to this grace. Apart from him, men are still in their sins, and without hope, whatever their creature peculiarities may be. By grace are we saved through faith; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. In the doctrine of the cross, rightly seen, it is “grace that reigns through righteousness, unto eternal life,” the righteousness being Christ’s perfect compliance with the will of God, and our compliance with the will of Christ as expressed in his commandments.
Robert Roberts The Christadelphian 1893 page 84–85.
