series on the atonement – 4

How many of you think that at this stage of things that you have a pretty good grasp now on the problems that God faced. It’s maybe a little bit more complex than what you had thought. God was able to, in a marvelous way, accomplish many, many things through that one act of His suffering and death on the cross. Hallelujah. Charles Finney said that if the benevolence manifested in the Atonement does not subdue the selfishness of sinners then their case is hopeless. It’s that moment when God becomes regretfully conscious that the means at His disposal to secure our obedience has been exhausted. If He can hang on a cross and pour out his life blood for us and that doesn’t move us and that doesn’t motivate us, what else can He do? And that’s why, in the book of Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews reminds us, that if we sin willfully, as a matter of life, we make sin a matter of life, after we have confronted the words of truth, that there remains no more sacrifice for sin. If the sacrifice that Jesus made doesn’t work, nothing will. We need to understand this afternoon, how important this subject is that we’re discussing. Not only in understanding and making it work in our own lives but in working the message of the cross effectively and accurately into the message that we share with others who don’t know the Lord. If that message, if this message, doesn’t work. That’s it. There’s nothing else that we can say.

God’s ultimate solution to the many, many complex problems that He faced in the matter of reconciliation was, of course, the life and the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. And as Malcolm Muggeridge, observes, one thing at least can be said with certainty about the crucifixion of Christ and that is that it was manifestly the most famous death in history. No other death has aroused 100th part of the interest or been remembered with 100th part of the intensity and concern. Of course, we’re all aware of the fact, I’m sure, that even history itself was split right down the middle as the result of the death of Christ. There are more plays, more remembrances, more memorials to the death of this one man than anyone else who has ever lived, by far. And if you think about that, that in itself was extraordinary, who was this man, Jesus? I mean at that time in Palestine, it was just a provincial outpost of the Roman empire, nothing really all that special. He was just a Jew who came from the city of Nazareth in upper Galilee. And He was crucified at a time when thousands of Jews were being crucified. Why do we remember His death? Why does the whole world know about it and remember it and think about it?

The death of Jesus Christ and the events which surrounded His death, were extraordinary, not in the fact that a man died, but rather in who it was that died. If Jesus’s life had not registered revolutionary significance and notoriety, then His death would have gone unnoticed. As just another victim of the Roman epidemic of the day. His death became meaningful because of His life. On several occasions in the New Testament, God declared His good pleasure over the manner of life that His Son was leading. And Jesus was referred to in the Bible as being the second Adam. Only two people have been born directly, well yeah, I guess that’s true, by God, from God, even Eve was really taken out of Adam’s side after he had already been created. But Adam and Jesus were born directly of the Holy Spirit. And God had great plans and hopes and ambitions for Adam which to certain degree, to a certain extent, were unfulfilled, were disappointed. But as a result of Christ’s obedience, He as the second Adam was able to bring to God’s heart what the first Adam never did. The pleasure and the joy of somebody who obeyed Him perfectly and completely. And this beautiful portrait of Christ’s obedience has been marred by a theological concept called impeccability. In a nutshell, this theological concept teaches that Christ could not have succumbed to temptation; it was impossible for Jesus to have given into temptation.

Can you explain to me the nature of temptation that is impossible to comply with? Describe it for me. That’s about it. If I can’t give in then how can I possibly be tempted?

There are things that I realize are impossible for me to do. As a result I’m not tempted to do them. I’ve never been tempted to fly over the roof of my house. Never. I’ve never been tempted to swim across the Pacific Ocean. I’ve never been tempted to bear a child. A temptation that is impossible to succumb to or to comply with is really not an honest temptation at all. And the work of God refutes this concept of impeccability. In Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus’ life was intended to serve us as an example of how we are to overcome and if it was impossible for Christ to exceeded or given into temptation then he was certainly not tempted in the way that I know I am. He could not have served us as an example since there was nothing for Him to overcome. If Christ could not have succumbed to temptation then he could not have loved us either for love is a proper choice between at least two alternatives.

Then there are others who believe that the essence of Christ’s Atonement existed in His obedience to the moral law on behalf of sinners. Christ obeyed during his life the moral law for us and that’s really the essence of the Atonement. This is also questionable for several reasons. First of all, the moral law required the obedience of Christ Himself. Had He not obeyed the moral law then He would have disqualified Himself as an affective substitute. Secondly, if Christ had obeyed the law as our substitute then why should we be required to obey it if it’s already been obeyed for us? Thirdly, had Christ obeyed the law for us then why would God require Him to die also, as if there had been no obedience, and then go on further to require us to repent and obey as well? I think the person who wrote the song, Amazing Grace, must have been thinking about this because it’s certainly amazing grace that requires a debt to be repaid repeatedly before an obligation is discharged.

Now, I’d like to take a minute, a couple minutes actually, if you don’t mind, and give some thought to this concept of payment. Where do we get the idea, the concept, that Jesus paid for our sins? ……………….. That’s pretty good right there. We pick up on phrases and words like this and it’s pretty easy to come to the conclusion that the Atonement or the the work of Christ on Calvary was some sort of a payment, some sort of a legal business. It’s very easy to come to that conclusion. The important thing when we confront these kind of words, phrases and passages in the Bible, and it’s not just on this issue with regards to these words and phrases but with any subject, we would want to interpret these words and phrases and passages in light of the overall teaching of the Word, in this case on the subject of salvation. What does the whole council, the whole Word of God, teach on the subject of salvation? Then its easy for us to see how these words and phrases fit in to the overall teaching of the Bible on the subject of salvation. The payment theory, which is also sometimes referred to as the satisfaction theory, originated with a man by the name of Anselm of Canterbury. He became a major Catholic theologian. And he taught what was called, and still is, an objective Atonement. An objective Atonement is a theory of the Atonement that’s very widely held today, that God is the object of Christ’s work on the cross. That the Atonement, that the death of Jesus Christ was for God’s benefit, that He was the object of the Atonement. Jesus dies on the cross for the benefit of His Father in heaven and God is the object of the Atonement and God is reconciled through the satisfaction made to His justice. He’s reconciled to us, poor sinners, through a satisfaction that is made to His justice.

The difference between an allegory and a metaphor has caused much confusion between these two types of communication. It has produced problems in the body of Christ – not just on this doctrine but on a number of other doctrines, as well. For those of you who aren’t sure or don’t know let me give you the difference between an allegory and a metaphor. So that you’ll know.

An allegory is a story that is created, we’re talking about biblical allegories now, an allegory is a story created to portray a spiritual truth. It can be taken literally with the details pressed for meaning. An allegory is a story that is created to portray a spiritual truth and it can be taken literally with the details pressed for meaning. A religious metaphor, on the other hand, while it is also intended to convey a spiritual truth, is not to be taken in a literal, physical way. Can you give me some examples of a metaphors, biblical metaphors. That He is the door. That He is the door. ………What are some other metaphors?

A Camel going through the eye of a needle. They are stories that are meant to convey or word pictures meant to convey some spiritual truth but we don’t press these metaphors for some kind of literal or physical meaning. And if we do, well, we’re going to have to recreate the universe. Yes. The camel going through the eye of the needle is literal. That’s what some people think, that’s a possibility but even so it would still be a metaphor. There was a gate near the walls of Jerusalem that was called the eyes of the needle. Maybe so. Let me give you another metaphor. You are bought with a price. That is a biblical metaphor that is very often interpreted as an allegory. Another thing that you might find interesting, is that in that scripture where we are told that we are bought with a price, the word price can be translated to read honor. Now there’s a concept here, there’s a cost factor that God is trying to convey. He’s trying to say, “now listen, it cost a great deal to bring you back to Myself, it wasn’t cheap, it cost a lot”. But He is not trying to convey some exact literal transfer, some legal transfer again where ‘X’ number drops of blood paid literally for ‘X’ number of sins. Let me read a quote from another book on the subject of the Atonement. “Where ever analogies from legal procedure are employed (in the Bible), they are usually assumed to prove the presence of the objective or judicial view of the Atonement. There is need, therefore, of the greatest caution in the exegesis of the language used in the Atonement”. All of this legal terminology, these words that we put down that we have to be very careful about how we approach these words and phrases and not just immediately jump on them and begin to form this whole concept of a legal transfer between the first and second members of the Trinity. It will mess up our understanding of the character of God and it will also fail to provide a powerful sin deterrent barrier in our lives in the future.

I’d like you to write this next statement down. Christ has not redeemed us by giving His life as a ransom for our sins in order that He might release us. Put a big dash now. For God never kept man captive in sin. On the contrary it was He who wanted to make us free. Christ has not redeemed us by giving His life as a ransom for our sins in order that He might release us – for God never kept man captive in sin.

Let me read you another description from Dr. Beamon’s book on the Atonement, the nature of the Atonement. I’m just going to read you kind of a lengthy quote here, so you don’t need to copy anything down unless it strikes you. Just listen carefully. “The scriptures frequently describe the Atonement in language of a figurative character, and the literal construction, or interpretation, which has been put upon this language has no doubt sometimes misled the honest inquirer. We are informed by the pen of inspiration that Christ hath purchased the church with His own blood. Christians are said to have been bought with a price. These and many other passages of similar import are often pressed into literal exposition while their figurative character is entirely overlooked.”

When the scriptures tell us that Christ hath purchased the church or that believers are bought with a price, they do not intend to teach us that salvation of sinners through Atonement is a pecuniary transaction, regulated according to the principles of debit and credit, but that their salvation was effected in the moral government of God by nothing less than the consideration, the stipulated consideration, of the death of His beloved Son. To these figurative expressions are super added others of human origin, such as Christ has paid our debt, has answered the demands of the law and satisfied the justice of God in our behalf.” The Bible doesn’t say that. “If we say that Christ has paid our debt, it is true only in a figurative sense and can be no more nor less than this; that the sufferings of Christ accomplished the same purpose in the divine administration which would have been accomplished by our rejection and punishment. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” We need no other proof than that suggested in this passage that Christ did not pay the debt or literally suffer the penalty of the law for His people. He prepared the way for our debt to be remitted. Or in plain language, dispensing with all metaphor, He made it consistent and proper and honorable for sin to be forgiven according to the prescribed terms of the Gospel.

The truth is Christ paid no man’s debt. It is true indeed that our deliverance is in scripture sometimes called a redemption And this word refers to the deliverance of a prisoner from captivity which is often affected by the payment of a sum of money. Christ is also called a ransom and we are said to be bought with a price but again it must be remembered that these are figurative expressions. They are designed to communicate this idea; that as payment of money, as the price of liberty, is the ground on which prisoners are released from captivity; so the Atonement of Christ is the ground upon which sinners are pardon or set free from a sentence of condemnation. Do you understand what we are saying here? These passages, thus understood, appear intelligible and consistent, where as understood literally they would contradict other plain declarations of the word of God. It is evident therefore that these are metaphorical expressions and were never designed to be taken in a strictly literal sense. What God is saying is, He’s likening the payment of a debt in a ransom situation, to what he did on the cross. He’s saying “what I did is similar to this but you are not to take this thing and press it literally.” You’ve got somebody who is being held captive, they’re bound, and they can’t help themselves – somebody needs to intervene on their behalf and offer something of value so that they can be released from their bondage. And that’s what God is saying that Christ did for us. And that’s all He’s saying.

If we press this literally, now let me ask you this, when you read in the newspaper or you hear on television about a kidnapping and a ransom what do you think about? You think the person who has been kidnapped is being held against their will. Who receives the ransom? The person that’s holding them in bondage receives the ransom. Whose holding us in bondage? Is it God, the Father? It’s sin isn’t it? And Satan and sin? That’s what God is wanting to free us from. So you can’t press it literally, there are differences and we’ve got to see those differences. He’s just saying again, that this matter of ransom, this payment idea, is a figurative expression to help us understand that God came and intervened on our behalf when we were held bound by the kidnapper of sin. And God offered something of great value that we might be released from the power of sin. That’s true. But it is not true that God was the one that was holding us captive in sin and therefore He should receive some kind of literal payment in order to release us. God wasn’t holding us captive. In fact, the whole time, all along, He was the one trying to set us free. And if He wants to set us free, why does He need any kind of payment. Only in His role as a governor, the righteous moral governor of the universe, does He have certain requirements. Not on a personal level or a personal basis.

On a personal basis God could say the second after a sin is committed, “hey, I forgive you”. He doesn’t hold any grudges or bitterness, He doesn’t need to be paid back before He can forgive. There are no strings attached to His love. But He’s got to be careful in His role, not as our father, but in His role as righteous, moral governor of the universe, that Hhe’s not careless in extending forgiveness so that it encourages others to sin. He can’t do that. What we are saying is that while we’re bound by sin, we are not able to help ourselves. We needed some external agency, something or someone, some force outside of our situation to come with some great power with some great value, to set us free. And of course, the value was the life of God’s own Son. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” The only way that we can get this exact, literal, commercial transaction theory is to divide the Trinity. We have to divide the Trinity. One member of the Trinity paying back another member of the Trinity . God paying Himself. But we have to see that Jesus and the Father are one; their thoughts, their intents, their purposes are always one they’re not divided. Jesus on the cross was only an extension of the Father on the cross. Jesus is the heart of God hanging on the cross.

There’s a very real sense in which salvation did cost something. There was a very high price for the Father to pay. For the Father it cost His Son; For Jesus it cost his Life. C. S. Lewis said, “It cost God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion.” There’s another cost factor that we need to talk about. Another aspect here. And again, we go back to this spiritual equation that intimacy is proportional to grief. The more you love someone, the deeper that you can be wounded. Simply because God deeply loves us and wants us back and has expressed His willingness to take us back in welcome, open arms, does not mean that his forgiveness is without cost. I’ll give you another quote along this line. “In the first place, it isn’t always that simple to forgive other people. If someone hurts you in a small way and apologizes, it’s easy to accept the apology but the greater the wrong or the injury the harder it is to forgive.” Isn’t that right?

If a husband is unfaithful to his wife but comes back and asks forgiveness, she may be willing to forgive, but the forgiveness will not be an easy or a casual thing. It will cost a great deal; it will hurt. For the essence of forgiveness is that you accept the wrong or the injury that has been done to you and you bear the consequences of it without retaliation and without being bitter or resentful. And there is this sense in which our spiritual whoredoms and our moral harlotry has hurt God deeply and He wants to extend forgiveness, His love is unconditional, but our sin has been deep and grievous and He must accept the consequences of the hurt that sin has caused Him without retaliation, which He does, He’s willing to do that but as we’ll see that cost Him His life. It was that hurt and that grief that took Jesus’ life in the end. The danger lies in this matter of discussing payment and so forth, in the redefining of God’s personal effort and sacrifice in the Atonement to indicate some type of commercial transaction.

There was a cost; there was a payment; but we’re talking about God’s personal effort, His personal sacrifice, when we’re talking about payment and cost and so forth. We’re not talking about some kind of a commercial transaction between two members of the Godhead. If we accept the premise that Jesus literally purchased, that He literally purchased our salvation with his blood…and He paid the Father…then this approach, first of all portrays God the Father as being vindictive and blood thirsty and totally incompatible with biblical forgiveness. It also presents another grave difficulty. If Jesus literally paid for our sins with His blood, and a paid debt is no longer a debt, and He died for the sins of the whole world, then we can only come to one conclusion and the theological word for it is Universalism. Which means that everybody will be saved. That means you’d be saved as soon as you were born. That’s right. Every man woman or child has had their debts paid.

Jesus literally purchased our salvation with his blood. It is done. He’s paid God the Father back. God has that $100.00 in his hand again. We don’t owe Him anything, it’s done, it’s taken care of. And whether we know that or not is irrelevant, it is done and we’ve all had our way paid. Everybody – there are people who believe this – there are whole denominations and cults based on Universalism. If salvation is basically a legal transaction, a legal transfer, then I have no debt or obligation remaining. It’s been done and my ignorance of the situation would not alter the fact. So, you know, some people look at the situation, they believe in a legal exact literal payment, but they look at this situation and say, ” well yeah, there’s a problem there.” And so they offer an alternative, it’s called a the limited Atonement; the doctrine of limited Atonement. And it’s part of the main five points of Calvinistic theology. And this view holds the same premise as the Universalists; that the Atonement was an exact, literal payment for sin but the limited Atonement adherence differ with the Universalist, in that they are willing to concede that not all are being saved in the world. Therefore, according to them, the Atonement was not made for all but was limited to the elect. The elect is a neat group of people.

One day, God didn’t have anything better to do in Heaven so He just sort of arbitrarily started pointing out people that He was going to save and they were called the elect. You understand? Jesus blood that was shed on the cross literally paid for ‘X’ number of sins and a paid debt is no longer a debt. If Jesus then died for the sins of the whole world then everybody’s going to be saved. The limited Atonement people look at the world and say “Hey, everybody’s not being saved but we still believe that Jesus’ Atonement was an exact literal payment for sin therefore He must not have died for everybody. He only died for the elect”, the limited Atonement – it’s what all Calvinists believe. But since the concept of a limited Atonement is conspicuously absent from the scriptures then we can only conclude that this the is the result of man’s presumption.

The doctrine of election is clearly refuted in the Bible and let me read a few scriptures here, the limited Atonement. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life”; and 1st John 2:2, “And He Himself is the propitiation of our sins and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world”; Revelations 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with me”; Timothy 2:3&4 “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the Truth”. So God’s approach in the Atonement was to everybody. He was wanting to open up a way to a new relationship to every human being in the world. No question about it. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. A general Atonement. We also, you know, those of us who would fool around with the doctrine of election, we also face the problem with knowing whether or not we happen to be one of those fortunate enough to be elected to salvation. It’s a rather dreadful thing to contemplate the fact that we might be commanded to repent of our sins under penalty of death with only the possibility that an Atonement was made for us.

Now, I’d like to take a couple of minutes to talk to you about the difference between suffering and punishment. A lot of people say, “Hey, what’s the difference; if you are punished you suffer.”; that’s true, but if you suffer you are not necessarily being punished. Adherence to the commercial transaction theory of the Atonement rightly believe that guilty sinners deserve to be punished. They do. The theory falters however when it represents Christ paying the Father an equal amount of suffering in His own person that sinners would have otherwise be liable for. It’s impossible that Christ was punished to purchase our salvation for the following reasons:

1. If Christ was punished to purchase our salvation this would require satisfaction of retributive rather than public justice. And we need to remember this fact. No amount of punishment will render a sinner less guilty. No amount of punishment will render a sinner less guilty. Guilt can only be forgiven, it cannot be punished away.

Second reason, why it is impossible that essence the Atonement was in Christ being punished to purchase our salvation is that punishment implies guilt and it would be unjust for God to punish an innocent person. Again, the difference between suffering and punishment is simply this: one is involuntary while the other can be voluntary. The Bible clearly teaches that Christ willingly suffered and died for our sins.

John 10:17-18, “Therefore doth my father love me because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me; but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father; and then in John 19:10-11, Then said Pilate unto him, speaking of Jesus, “Speakest thou not unto me: knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?” Jesus answered, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above; therefore He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.” It’s all part of the plan. Jesus was voluntarily giving his life; was voluntarily suffering for our sins. Do you understand that difference between suffering and punishment?

I’d like to go back into the Old Testament for a little while now and look at trying to get some understanding of the Old Testament sacrifices because we realize that there is something that we can learn about the Atonement by going back into the Old Testament and examining the sacrificial system. The death of Christ, The Lamb of God, on Calvary, was only the capstone of the long process of revelation and we want to also understand the significance of the blood. As we consider the Old Testament procedures relating to offerings and sacrifices we can learn a great deal about God’s method of forgiveness. These offerings and sacrifices in the Old Testament can be divided into two categories. How many of you who went through this session before remember what they are? Sin offerings and thanks. Two types of offerings and sacrifices basically two categories in the Old Testament. Offerings and sacrifices for sin and offerings and sacrifices for thanks. The offerings and sacrifices for sin were generally bloody while the offerings and sacrifices for thanks were generally bloodless. We need to notice immediately that these sacrifices did not represent a substitutionary suffering for the sinner.

These sacrifices did not represent a substitutionary suffering for the sinner. We draw this conclusion for the following reasons:

1. When an animal was offered as a blood sacrifice, it was not tortured slowly but was put to death very quickly. So if the offering or sacrifice, if the essence of it was in the suffering, they would have tortured these animals. And dragged it on and on and on and let them writhe there and let the suffering do its work but they put them to death swiftly and quickly.

2. The second reason why the sacrifices did not represent a substitutionary suffering for the sinner was that no sacrifices could be offered for crimes that deserved capital punishment. Anyone guilty of a capital crime was executed. So no substitutionary suffering could take their place, if their crime was one deserving of capital punishment. Third reason was that in a case of poor families a bushel of fine flour was accepted for a sin offering in place of a blood sacrifice and it’s obviously impossible for flour to suffer. Remember this passage in Hebrews; and it’s been quoted like this, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins”. Remember that scripture? How do you quote it accurately?

“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins”; “For one may almost say ‘without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.'” And the word almost was a reminder that in the case of poor families an offering of something other than blood such as flour or foodstuffs that also produced the cost recognition could also be brought.

Of course, if God were the bloodthirsty, vindictive being He’s often made out to be this would never be satisfactory. Neither was the death of the animal or the sacrifice a vicarious payment for sin. It wasn’t the suffering of the animal, it was the essence. Neither was it the death of the sacrifice that was a vicarious payment for sin. For several reasons:

1. Again no sacrifice could be substituted for someone deserving capital punishment, their life was taken no other life could be substituted.

2. The second reason the death of the animal was not a vicarious payment for sin was that on the day of Atonement, this is the second reason, on the day of Atonement confession of sin was made while the priest placed his hands on the head of the goat; this goat to which the sin was confessed onto was called the scapegoat and that goat was released; while, later another goat was slain; thirdly, and this is key; the Atonement was related to the blood of the sacrifice not to the death that produced it, the blood, but to the life that is in it. The Atonement is related to the blood of the sacrifice not to the death that produced it but to the life that is in it. We’ll come back to that and talk about it a little more.

The Old Testament system of sacrificial offerings accomplished two important functions. First the blood sacrifices were especially designed to allow God, again according to public justice, to pass over the people’s sins and set aside the penalty. The blood sacrifices were especially designed to allow God according to public justice to pass over the people’s sin and set aside the penalty. Again, God had said “The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die”. That was the law, He was the Lawgiver. And the blood sacrifices were designed to allow Him to change that and to pass over the people’s sins. In order for pardon to be granted under public justice, the normal execution of the penalty which upholds the law or gives it it’s teeth must be replaced with something equally as affective in upholding the law. The sinner needs to see how awful his sin is in God’s eyes and he must have a realization of his own guilt and all of this could be accomplished on a limited and a temporary scale in the Old Testament sacrificial system.

You’ll remember when a sinner was ready to offer up a sacrifice for his sins, it was necessary in the case of an animal that it be without spot or blemish. Why was that? The killing of anything less than perfect would diminish the impact of the event in the eyes of the beholder. I’m sure you can think of certain animals that you wouldn’t mind seeing killed at all. Good riddance. You know, wolves, snakes, sharks…get rid of them. There are certain animals that we view as being predators and being tormentors as being kind of evil or mean. Nobody has, or very few people that I know, have warm feelings about sharks or about rattlesnakes or wolves. Farmers will go out and kill wolves that prey on these innocent sheep…lambs. And then there are other animals that are..you know..they need to be put out of their misery. They’re just old and crippled, they’re hurting and you just want to end it for them. When you kill certain animals, it just doesn’t do anything to you, or very little, they either deserve to die or they need to die. That’s why God chose animals like doves or like lambs that were almost universally viewed as being innocent, helpless not hurting anybody or anything. And not ones that were lame, or that were halt, or that were discolored, but that were in the prime of health. There was no reason for them to die. When an innocent animal, in the prime of life, when it’s life was taken it did something to people who were watching. So the sacrifice was to be without spot or blemish so that the impact on the beholder would not be diminished. The lamb was to be a picture of health and innocence prior to slaughter. This again is undoubtedly due to the fact that our inclination to see sin as a cruel and reprehensible phenomena is in direct proportion to the goodness and innocence of the victim.

If Charles Manson’s are executed, they deserve it. If Idi Amin, somebody does him in, he deserves it. Adolph Hitler was done in, he deserved it. But when we see some young child, in the prime of life, happy, the picture of health, happy-go-lucky, struck down and killed by some maniac or some drunken driver, doesn’t it make us feel angry? Our inclination to see sin as a cruel and reprehensible phenomena is in direct proportion to the goodness and innocence of the victim.

Malcolm Muggeridge recalled in his book, Jesus Rediscovered, an experience that he had at a sheep shearing in Australia. “As the lambs looked up with their gentle, frightened eyes, it quite often happened that the mechanical shears drew blood and the sight agitated me abnormally. The blood so red against the wool so soft and white. And why did I feel as though I’d seen it before long ago? Why was the sight somehow familiar to me?”

Do you remember the story of Uriah, Bathsheba and David? Remember that story? It is a sad story, all the way around. Uriah was the husband of Bathsheba that David decided he wanted as his own property. And while Uriah was gone, David took her and committed adultery, and she became pregnant. David had big problems on his hands. He wanted to cover his sin. Of course, he forgot at that point that the Bible says, “Who so cover his sin shall not prosper”. And he decided he was going to bring Uriah home from the battlefront. You can imagine if you’re Uriah out there fighting, you’re just an average private or sergeant, and somebody comes with a message that the king wants to see you. “Huh? Me? What? You must have made a mistake. Not me.”; “No. Aren’t you, Uriah?”; “Yeah.”; “King David wants to see you.” Can you imagine how he must have felt? Comes back to Jerusalem and meets with the king. Man, privileged audience, he must have been so excited. And David says, “Why don’t you go on home and spend some time with your wife.” See, of course, that way, nobody will know what had happened. She delivers a child and everybody will think, including Uriah, that it’s his.” But see, Uriah was a man of real integrity and that was something David hadn’t reckoned with. Instead of going home to his wife, who wasn’t too far away… He’d been out in the battle, he gets that close and instead of going home and sleeping with his own wife, he sleeps on the steps of the palace, saying, “I’m not going to come here and enjoy what my colleagues on the battlefront can’t.” Oh, boy, David was trying desperately, trying to get him drunk. Nothing worked. So finally he sends Uriah back to the battlefront carrying a message to Joab, the captain, that in essence says, “put him on the front lines and then pull back.” And here’s Uriah out there on the front lines, after this audience with the king, fighting like a patriot, more loyal than ever before. He doesn’t even notice, perhaps, that his own troops are quietly retreating behind him and he’s open prey for the enemy and he’s killed.

We read a story like that and it really stirs our emotions. If Uriah was some kind of a cad, a snidely-whiplash type, then who cares? Good riddance. He deserved it, he was a schemer anyway. He was a selfish man. But here’s this man, so righteous, so full of integrity…and again our ability, our inclination, to see sin for what it really is…as a cruel and reprehensible phenomena is in direct proportion to the goodness and innocence of the victim. It doesn’t mean that if the victim is not good or innocent that sin is not cruel and reprehensible. It still is. But we don’t see it unless the victim is really good and innocent. Then we really see it. That’s the whole point of the Old Testament sacrificial system. God wanted us to see what sin really was.

The Bible, unlike many of us does not associate blood with death but with life. In Leviticus 17:11&14 we read, “The life of the flesh is in the blood..And I have given it to you upon the alter to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. For it is the life of all flesh. The blood of it is for the life thereof.”

The Bible associates blood with life. It’s common, many different passages in the Bible, for the word blood to represent life. For example, when Jonathan declared to his father that David was innocent, his father Saul, said, “wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood to slay David without a cause”, 1st Samuel 19:5. “Wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood to slay David without a cause.” He was saying, “Why will you be taking an innocent life for no reason?” In the New Testament, the words “life” and “blood” are often interchangeable. Mark 10:45, “The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many.” And yet, in Ephesians 1:7, he says the same thing in a different way saying, “We have redemption through His blood.” or through his poured out life. The one means the same as the other. God intended to put a premium on the concept of life through the blood. And this was one of the reasons, by the way, that Israelites were forbidden to eat blood. Life is a prize of ultimate value and when taken, the sinner is brought to a sobering realization of the significance that God places on sin. The combination of the sacrificial lamb’s perfection, it’s innocence and it’s death, was to make a profound impression upon both the individual and the nation.

I’m going to go ahead and reread a story to you that I think helps to illustrate this. It is a fictional story but it is based on Old Testament descriptions of the day of Atonement in Israel. I think it must have been about the third or fourth time that I went through these concepts that God began to shed revelation in my heart about what His death really did and what it really signified. So, I’m going to reread this story that I’ve shared with you, some of you, before, about the day of Atonement. And, again, try as hard as you can, to place yourself there, in space and time, in your imagination. It’s your family, it’s your life, it’s your experience in the nation of Israel. Very, very typical. I spent a lot of time researching this fictional story. Looking at customs and practices of ancient Israel and I think it is probably very, very close to the way things probably happened in those days. This story is meant to help illustrate the effects of the sacrifice upon the sinner in ancient Israel. You’ll remember, you’ve heard me say this before, some of you, and no doubt you’ve read this, it was very typical of many families in that day to keep different kinds of animals as pets. Some of them kept birds and this is still very, very common in the middle east today in Arab countries, as well as in Jewish homes. Today, in the United States, we have pets too, usually we’ll have a dog, or a cat, or a parakeet, sometimes a hamster, or something like that but there they didn’t have really those kind of animals, so they kept, almost invariably, Jewish homes would keep lambs, young lambs, as pets. Most every family had sheep or goats and they would keep goats and sheep as pets, sometimes birds.

In the Old Testament, in old ancient Israel, the children of these Jewish families would grow very, very attached to these lambs and to these goats. And goats are alright when they are little, when they’re young, they’re kind of cute. Still, today, just last October I was over in the middle east on a month long research trip and I saw lots of little kids playing with animals, with sheep, with goats, just like they did hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years ago. So, I am going ahead and read the scenario to you to help you understand how the Old Testament sacrifices had an effect on children and adults in that day so you can just kind of use your imagination here and help me, maybe close your eyes and put your pens and pencils down, and put yourself in one of these Jewish families in ancient Israel as one of the children.

One evening as you and your brothers and sisters are running around outside your house, your father arrives home to put a halt to all the horseplay and after hustling you in for dinner he snatches up your favorite lamb and ties it inside the door. On most days Dad’s arrival is a highlight but today something must have gone wrong. He’s too serious tonight. It’s not like usual when he throws you up on his shoulders and carries you through the door.

And then tomorrow, you discover the family is going to the temple but what’s really great this time is that lamb gets to go along too. Early the next morning, your mother wakes you up early, very early, tells you to clean up and put on your best clothes. The fact that breakfast was skipped this morning for the Lord wasn’t new but again Dad has just never looked so serious, so sober. Anyway your guess is that he’s tying the lamb’s feet together so he won’t get lose in the temple during the meeting. Finally the family is on it’s way. Dad’s in front with the lamb on his shoulders with Mom and all your brothers and sisters in tow. As you near the temple, you notice that some of your friends are arriving also but Dad won’t let you talk to anybody. Once inside the temple all you can see are the back of the legs of a forest of grownups. Nobody’s talking, they’re all just crying and moaning and wailing loudly. And every so often a family or group of people press their way through the crowd and head for the door of the temple. It’s hard to figure out what’s happening exactly. You’d never really noticed the peoples faces the other times and this was the first time too that Dad had ever let the lamb come even though many other people had brought theirs before. And after a very long two hours you’ve crept up near the front and occasionally you can see the priest’s legs and bare feet around the alter through a crack in the crowd. The wailing and the moaning near the front is almost deafening. Finally your family is standing in front of the alter and there is blood all over the ground and it’s splattered on the priest’s clothes. While your attention is fixed on all the blood, Dad has handed the lamb over to a priest. After saying something to Dad he lifts his head and speaks again, probably praying. His hand’s are both resting on the lamb when you notice for the first time the long, menacing knife at the side of the alter. The lamb anticipates it’s future with a meek struggle that the leather cords hold firm. And after the priest finishes praying he picks up the knife and puts his hand under the lambs jaw pulling its head back and horror struck you watch the priest plunge the knife into its throat and the blood spills out onto the breast of the lamb, and the priest and the alter. And after one last spasmodic convulsion the life of your lamb is over. As the priest spreads the blood around, of your lamb, the reality of the whole gruesome spectacle begins to melt your frozen stupor. As you leave the temple, as others before you, the tears flow uncontrollably pressing through other Jewish families waiting their turn to approach the alter. And nothing at all was said on the way home. But that evening, Father lifted your little frame off of your tear stained pillow and gently explained, as he had to your older brothers and sisters in prior years, how a lamb could die instead of you.

Now one might suspect that the child in our story, began to grasp, began to grasp, how revolting sin is to God after he saw the event in the temple. There may not have been a thorough theological understanding in his little mind, or her little mind, but it can doubtless be said that at least for a while sin would not be taken lightly by that little child. Blood signifies a cleansing agent – not a peace offering to an angry God. The blood when it was sprinkled on the alter and on the mercy seat was a sign to God that men had seen a life taken and that they, like this youngster in our story, had realized the awfulness of sin and were not inclined to hurry out and commit more. So, the Atonement was in the bloody realization of God’s view of sin and His law and in it’s ability to humble the sinner, who recognized his own guilt and responsibility in the death of that good and innocent victim. If I hadn’t sinned, my lamb wouldn’t have had to die. When a person came to that point. When they were confronted with this horrific spectacle. They were sobered; they became serious; they were reminded that sin was death and that to keep them alive, life had to be poured out,.which was represented by the blood. They realized that they were responsible; they were guilty and; they were humbled and broken by the event. When they were in that condition; when they were humbled and broken and accurately viewing sin, they were not inclined to go out and commit sin. And when they were in that condition, that frame of mind, then God could pardon them and reconciliation could take place. And the Atonement became the At- one-ment.

And so we said that again, according to the law one may almost say that all things are cleansed with blood. What was cleansed? All things are cleansed with blood. It washed away our inclination to go out and commit sin. If blood was shed but it didn’t take away our desire or inclination to go out and commit sin then it didn’t work and we weren’t forgiven. Without the shedding of blood there couldn’t be any forgiveness because people did not accurately realize how serious sin was. When life was taken, an innocent life was taken, it produced an awareness in the mind of the beholder that was critical to God justly passing over their sin. God could not issue forgiveness to somebody who wasn’t seeing things the way they really were. He’d be adding to their moral delinquency. He would be saying, “Hey, go ahead and continue to live in sin and I’ll give you forgiveness to boot.” He could only give forgiveness if it was done very carefully and very wisely. And see that substitute there for the normal execution of the penalty which would have been their own life had the same result. They saw sin accurately, they saw how God viewed sin. It did the same thing but the problem with this system is that it could only do that temporarily for short periods of time and then the whole procedure had to be repeated all over again. Poor families who didn’t have any animal to bring, they would bring foodstuffs. Now, when you’re poor and you just have a little bit of food that represents life to you. That represents existence and when you gave that up it, like blood, produced a powerful cost recognition in your mind and you realized that it was a serious thing that you were dealing with.

There are many interesting scriptures in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, minor prophets which indicate that if there is no hard realization, no contrition, and no impact on the one who offers the sacrifice, that blood or no blood, it wasn’t pleasing to God. Blood wasn’t magic, it was a means to an end. It was a tool that God could use to produce what He wanted in our minds and in our hearts.

Hosea 6:6, “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings”;

Hosea 8:11-13 “Since Ephraim has multiplied alters for sin they have become alters of sinning for him. Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of my law, they are regarded as a strange thing. As for my sacrificial gifts, they sacrifice the flesh and eat it. But the Lord has taken no delight in that. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish them for their sins. They will return to Egypt.” Even though they had actually sacrificed to God, blood sacrifices, He didn’t accept them and He wasn’t pleased with them. Blood isn’t magic. They sacrificed blood on the alter of God; God saw the blood; He wasn’t satisfied.

In Amos 5:21-27, God makes it very clear, he says, “I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to me burnt offerings and your grain offerings and I will not accept them. And I will not even look at the peace offering of your fatlings. Take away from me the noise of your songs, I will not even listen to the sound of your hearts. But rather, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Did you present me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, Oh, house of Israel? Yet, you also carried along Sicrah, your king and Kiah, your images; the star of your God which you made for yourselves. Therefore I will make you to go into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the Lord of Hosts.

Micah 6:6-8, “With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my first born for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He’s told you O man what is good and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly before your God.”

Hebrews 10:5-6 “Therefore when He comes into the world, He says “sacrifice an offering thou hast no desired but a body thou has prepared for me and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast taken no pleasure.”

For many, the sacrifices had become nothing more than a tiresome ritual and people grew hard and callous and eventually began to engage in deceit and profiteering in the temple. What was going on was, the sacrificial system had been instituted now for so long that people were getting used to it and they were coming before and offering sacrifices and it no longer was making any hard impact on some of them. There was no contrition, there was no breaking, there was no humility, there was no hard realization of what sin really was. It came to the point where people, greedy people, in order to make some money would bring animals in cages and pens into the foyer of the church or the temple so that men on their lunch breaks from work; they could call home and say “Honey, I’m going to run over to the temple and offer a sacrifice this afternoon during my lunch hour.” They could buy a sacrifice; no attachment to it; and sometimes they were lame and hurt; they weren’t pictures of health and innocence; it was just an animal. Let’s just get it over with; go in before the alter, have the priest kill it, walk out; did my duty. The problem was that when people came with their sacrifices in this manner; when there was no hard contrition, no impact; that there was also no forgiveness. God didn’t accept; He could not wisely issue forgiveness because their minds and their hearts were not where they should be. Twice, Jesus had to drive out merchandisers from the temple who were there just to make enormous profits from animals sold to sacrifice. And it was against this perversion that Jesus burned with indignation when he went in there with His leather cord.

But this practice, however, was nothing new, as we know from the book of Malachi, “Oh, that there were one among you that you would shut the gates, that you might not (interesting word here)..that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my alter. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you. From the rising of the sun even to its setting My name will be great among the nations and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name and a grain offering that is pure, for My name will be great among the nation,” says the Lord of Hosts. “But you are profaning it, My name, in that you say the table of the Lord is defiled and as for its fruit, its food is to be despised (because they were bringing lame and halt and blemished animals). You also say, my how tiresome it is, and you disdainfully sniff at it,” says the Lord of Hosts, “and you bring what is taken by robbery and what is lame or sick and so you bring the offering. Should I receive that from your hands?” says the Lord. “Cursed be the swindler who has a male in his flock and vows it but sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord for I am a great king,” says the Lord of Hosts, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.” Malachi 1:10-14

So the point was, the point is that God is not a blood-thirsty being. That just seeing blood and just seeing suffering and just viewing death was not what God was after. It was the sacrifice was not to have an impact on God, it was not an objective atonement. God was not the object of the act. The sacrifice itself, what was done, what was taking place was to have an impact on man. Man needed to change. Man needed to be affected. If man was not affected, if his heart was not changed, if there was no impact, no humility, no contrition by the blood sacrifice, it didn’t work. So, it is. The poured out life of Jesus Christ must have an impact on our lives and on our hearts or else it doesn’t work and we’ll talk about that tomorrow morning.

Let’s pray just briefly. Father, thank you, for the wonderful plan of salvation that you’ve instituted. That you’ve worked so hard to reveal to us what our actions ought to be and what your heart is really like. Help us to work through some of these concepts and these truths to understand how you really feel.

I pray Lord you prepare our hearts for this tremendous climax tomorrow morning of Calvary. Show us Lord what a marvelous thing it was that you did. In Jesus name.