https://theaquilareport.com/why-is-the-substitutionary-atonement-essential/
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, a number of prominent leaders in the emerging church movement asserted that the doctrine of substitutionary atonement is tantamount to “cosmic child abuse.” At a time when men and women were finally starting to see the need to condemn every form of abuse that had been tolerated in our culture, the allegation seemed to be a powerful argument with which to drive people away from the longstanding teaching of the Christian church on the sufferings of Christ. The question of the atonement is not, however, settled by aspersions cast by contemporary theologians but by biblical exegesis and theological coherence.
While Jesus frequently taught His disciples about the certainty and necessity of His death on the cross (Matt. 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22; 17:25; 22:22), He only explicitly tied those aspects of His death on the cross to its meaning on three occasions—in Mark 10:45, in the Good Shepherd discourse (John 10), and at the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:19–20). In these places, Jesus taught the substitutionary nature of His death for the forgiveness of the sins of His people.
When we move from the Gospels to the Epistles, an explicit articulation of the substitutionary nature of the death of Christ appears. When one considers the many instances in which the Apostles explain the death of Christ, it is incontrovertible that the doctrine of substitutionary atonement is the Apostolic doctrine of the atonement. In what is perhaps the clearest exposition of the death of Christ, the Apostle Paul teaches the vicarious sacrifice of the Savior when he declares, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Likewise, the Apostle Peter explained that Jesus “himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).
Behind the Apostolic interpretation of the death of the Savior is the Old Testament teaching on the atonement. The prophet Isaiah, in speaking of the Suffering Servant, foretold of the sufferings that Jesus would undergo in the place of His people: “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). All of Israel’s prophets alluded to the substitutionary nature of the work of the Redeemer when they spoke of the work of redemption. This, of course, also has its foundation in the nature of Old Testament sacrifice.
In his Reformed Dogmatics, Herman Bavinck explains the significance of the old covenant sacrificial system for seeking to understand the sacrifice of Christ:
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Where Can You Find Peace and Safety?
Peace and safety are granted by God’s grace through faith in His word, not through the self-righteousness and pride of religious and political activism. Paul thus humbles us, but also encourages us greatly, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-10)
In a world where everyone craves “peace and safety,” they are looking everywhere else but where it is truly found – and so wind up with neither. Our present world is in deep trouble far beyond merely the weather or the nastiest flu season in living memory. It is saddled with many juvenile political fantasies overwhelmed with economic malaise thanks to the abject legalism connected to those same political fantasies. Closely connected, our all-knowing political leaders of the world have created an extremely depressing atmosphere politically, religiously, spiritually, and psychologically – all in the face of potential nuclear war or another world war.
Yet, incredibly, so many want to “save” the world and “clean up” the planet even though they do not believe in salvation or sanctification. They want a clean environment but do not want to clean up their dirty minds, activities, or behaviors. People with sex for brains are paranoid about overpopulation and pollution. They want to tame the beasts of their dark religious dreams and replace the biblical worldview and ethics with their own nature worship cult of sustainability.
In so doing they pass policies that constantly restrict the economies of the world, particularly with regard to energy – which will only make saving the world even more unaffordable than it was yesterday. The so-called Great Reset is all being masterminded by the very folks who have already catastrophically foisted upon us staggering national and international debts across the board that are so astronomical they are literally as high as the heavens. Yet in the face of such economic absurdities, bureaucrats, politicians, and lawyers have become cultic date setters predicting a fiery end to the world if their ecological policies are not politically pursued.
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Being Angry and Doing Angry
Much of what we call righteous anger isn’t really righteous. It’s about righteous things, maybe. But it’s not actually righteous. It’s often mere words and not acting upon behalf of another. What is my anger leading me to do? That’s how we can tell if it’s coming from Jesus or our own messed up hearts.
Do you do well to be angry? –Jonah 4:4
I’ve found that those who struggle with the sin of anger tend to almost always answer this question in the affirmative. They feel angry, they have been wronged, their sense of justice is awakened, and they conclude that they ought to be angry.
Jonah was an angry man. And he came to the conclusion that his anger was justified—in fact, he was justified in anger to the point of death.
I share this about Jonah because it’s important to acknowledge this as we enter into Mark 3:1-6. That passage is filled with anger. The Pharisees are angry and Jesus is angry. But they are angry about different things and as we will see their anger leads to different results.
If I’m like Jonah, I will enter into this story and assume that my anger is like that of Jesus—righteous. But in reality it’s more akin to that of the Pharisees. How can I tell which kind of anger I have?
The Anger of the Pharisees
Why are the Pharisees so angry? What do they have against Jesus? Shouldn’t they be rejoicing that a man was healed in one of their services?
They are angry because they believe that Jesus has run roughshod over the Law of God. Somewhere along the way they had come to the conclusion that healing is a “work”. And work shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath. You could heal something that was life threatening, but if it wasn’t life-threatening then your issue could wait until it wasn’t the Sabbath.
The Pharisees, like Jonah, believe that their anger is justified. In their mind they are the ones who are honoring God. He is dangerous.
This blaspheming Sabbath breaker is gaining popularity and if they are about protecting the people, protecting the nation, and protecting themselves, then they need to stop this guy.
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Love, In the Church
Paul’s great list is a bit like the Law of Sinai. A wonderful revelation of what is right and good, but beyond our ability to keep. And so, let 1 Corinthians 13 not only confront your struggle to love like Jesus. Let it also point you to Jesus. We can only love at all because God has first loved us. May our hearts be so captivated by his love that our churches increasingly look like the body of Christ! We can only live this life in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us.
The most famous literary description of love is surely 1 Corinthians 13. It has been read aloud at countless weddings, and yet, it was not written for a wedding. It was written for a church. Actually, it was written for a struggling and divided church in Corinth. This was a church that was splintered by factions, by immature Christians flaunting their supposed superiority, and by a whole host of interpersonal tensions and issues. This was the church into which Paul unleashed “the love chapter!”
The chapter sits at the heart of a section addressing the right use of spiritual gifts in the church. It begins by underlining the necessity of love (v 1-3) and ends with the never-ending reality of love (v 8-13). And at the heart of the chapter, in verses 4-7, we find a familiar and poetic depiction of the nature of love. In just four verses, Paul offers fifteen descriptions of love.
Their world, like ours, was a confusing melee of ideas when it came to love. There was romance, passion (appropriately marital and many harmful alternatives), family, and friendship. I don’t know whether they used “love” to speak of food and sport, quite like we do in English, but let’s not imagine their culture was any less confused than ours. In the face of that confusion, Paul offered a confrontation with God’s kind of love.
What do we do with a list like this? Our tendency is to see it as a behavioural checklist and to consider it as a suggestion for greater effort on our part. The problem is, not only do we all fall short of God’s perfect love, but we are unable to self-generate genuine godly love. We can only love, John tells us, because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). So, while it may look like a list of descriptions, actually, Paul wrote it as a list of verbs. This is love dressed up and going to work!
So, as we consider this love in action, we should let it confront our own areas of lack, but also point us to the only one who perfectly lived out God’s love in this world. Let this list point you to Jesus, and then let his love flow more freely in your local church setting. As we look to Christ’s love, it will stir Christlike love in us. And when the body of Christ starts to look like Christ, we can pray for the church to have an impact like Christ!
1. Paul begins with a basic foundation: Love gives. He begins his list with two positive statements: love is patient and love is kind (v 4a). Patience here speaks of having a long-fuse with other people, giving them space and time, instead of flaring up at the first opportunity. Patience is partnered with kindness, which gives of our own usefulness for the higher good of the other. A loving church is a place where grace infiltrates every relationship. Grace for the weaknesses of others, and grace that gives of ourselves to build them up. Love gives.
2. Paul zeroes in on the Corinthian core issue: Love is not selfish. His list shifts into a sequence of nine points, most of which are negative.
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