This blog begins chapter nine of the book in process Conversations About God. It originated as a series of lectures by Graham Maxwell in 1984. After each lecture Maxwell took written questions from the audience mediated through the pastor of the Loma Linda University Church at the time, Lou Venden. This marvelous series has never been put into book form, so I am attempting to do so and sharing the results in progress here with permission from the Maxwell family. I realize today that growing up Seventh-day Adventist, I was rather afraid of God. I wish I had known this then. The words that follow are Maxwell’s oral presentation, edited by me.
This chapter is the ninth of twenty conversations about God; another look at our Heavenly Father in the larger setting of the great controversy over His character and government. This chapter is entitled “There is no Need to be Afraid of God.” I believe that to be afraid of God is to misunderstand, even to deny, the truths that He paid such a price to reveal. Though God is infinite in majesty and power, He values nothing higher than the freedom of His intelligent creatures. He desires that their love, their worship, their trust, their willingness to listen, may be freely given. Not only does God prefer things that way, as any parent would, but He knows that if our love and trust are not freely given, then there is really no freedom in His family. And God would rather die than preside over a universe that is not free.
Besides these considerations, He also knows that the obedience that springs from fear will actually turn His children into rebels. Rebelliousness is the very essence of sin. God sent His Son to do away with sin, you recall, in Romans 8:3. But in order to do away with rebelliousness and distrust, He must first do away with fear. Because it is fear that has turned so many away from God. It is fear that has inspired rebelliousness even in the hearts of those who seek to obey Him, but do not know Him well. And God gave His life to make it eternally clear that there is no need for His children to be afraid of Him. While He is infinite in power, He is also infinitely gracious, so there is no need for us to be afraid. Surely such a God is worthy of our love, our reverence, our worship, and our willingness to listen and obey.
Lou: All right. Here’s another question: “If death is not the penalty for sin, how can we understand the text that says, ‘Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin’ (Heb 9:22)? Why then does Jesus say to His Father, ‘My blood, My blood,’ when our name comes up for review?”
Graham: In Hebrews, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,” is a reference to the Old Testament ceremonial system, where blood was constantly shed and appropriately applied. But one has to read on in Hebrews (10:3): “You see, the purpose was to be a constant reminder of sin.” Hebrews is clear that all that blood did not lead to forgiveness of sin (Heb 10:4), and it didn’t handle the problem of distrust. The many sacrifices were all pointing forward to the day when Christ would come to do it once and for all (Heb 10:10-14). Without His death there would be no answer. What is the use of being forgiven if you are going to live in a chaotic universe of continual war and distrust?
Lou: What about the words of Jesus, “My blood, My blood?”
Graham: Jesus is saying, “Remember why I died. Remember the meaning. Remember the answers that I gave. Remember how I made it possible and safe to forgive and heal sinners and let them into the Kingdom.”
Lou: But the implication here, if I heard you correctly, is that Jesus isn’t trying to talk the Father into feeling differently.
Graham: We’ll take a look at that in the next chapter. We will note Jesus saying, “There is no need for me to plead with the Father, for the Father Himself loves you.”
Lou: The Bible says things like “vengeance is Mine.” It also speaks about the wrath of God and the destruction of the wicked. What do you say about those kinds of expressions when speaking about our Lord?
Graham: Those questions will fit very well into the next chapter, “There Is No Need to Be Afraid of God.” But let’s take up the idea of “vengeance” briefly right here. In a couple of places the Bible says, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay” (Deut 32:35; Rom 12:19). In the first part of Romans 12:19 Paul says, “Leave room for the wrath of God. Don’t avenge yourself. Let Him do it.” God is saying to us, “Look, let Me take vengeance on My children because I love them all. But if I take vengeance on this enemy of yours, it might win him. Would you mind?” And you say, “Wait a minute. I’m not going to let You take vengeance, if vengeance means You are going to win my enemy over.” You see, the beauty of that is God saying, “Let Me discipline My own children. I might win some of them.” No wonder many of us don’t really want God to do the avenging. When He does, there’s the hazard that I might turn up in the Kingdom and meet my worst enemy there, because God has won him through the discipline of “vengeance.”
Lou: That means God is using the word “vengeance” in a quite different way than we might be capable of doing on our own.
Graham: I see God saying, “Let Me give your enemy what I think he needs.” And for us, that is hazardous. God might win your enemy and you’ll end up neighbors in heaven.
Lou: Someone else writes: “It is wonderful to know that God is a merciful, kind, loving, fair and just God. John 17:3 says, `This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the Father, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou has sent.’ Now here’s my question: How can a person really know Him and be sure that he knows Him?”
Graham: That’s beautiful. First of all you have to know about Him. If that doesn’t happen, how would you know Whom you are knowing? Then you need to understand the Biblical meaning of the word “know,” as we have discussed before. It’s even used for the relationship between a husband and his wife. Adam knew Eve his wife, and they didn’t just become acquainted; they had a baby. In the biblical sense, to know God is to love Him, to become friends. By way of contrast, when God says, “Go away; I never knew you” (Matt 7:21-23), He means, “We never were friends.” So to claim that one knows God means that one really loves and admires God for His wise and gracious ways. It means that one would really like to be regarded as God’s friend. It means being proud to be a friend of God. When you know God, I think it will show. It will show in the friendly feelings we have toward God. It will show in the jealousy we have for God’s reputation. We will want Him to be seen as He really is.
Lou: Last question. “I have always been concerned about people who wake up in the wrong resurrection and are truly surprised to find themselves there. They had worked in God’s name or Jesus’s name and done many wonderful works (Matt 7:21-23). If I were to die tonight, how would I know which resurrection I would come up in?”
Graham: It seems to me that the people described in Matthew 7 were involved in legalism. They were serving God for the wrong reason. From our perspective today, these would be individuals who are surprised to find they are lost because they think of all the tithe they have paid, and all the Sabbaths they have endured when they could have gone to the ball game. But they have never been God’s friends. So He says, “Go away; I never knew you.” Friendship is the very essence of the relationship God desires to have with His children.
One more thing. Friends are not afraid of each other, so the next chapter is entitled, “There Is No Need To Be Afraid of God.”
Lou: Could you say something about the idea of “substitutionary?”
Graham: It’s true that He died in our stead. He died as a substitution. After all, either He dies or we die. However, that’s where the comparison ends, because if God let you and me and all other sinners die, all it would have proved is the truthfulness of His warning, “If you sin, you will die.” And God could say to the universe, “Was I right? I said sinners would die, and look, they’re dead.” But the universe would not have had answers to questions two and three. But when Jesus died, there was no doubt in the minds of the universe that God was not killing His Son. They were clear about that. And they also saw clearly the horrible consequences of a punitive picture of God. The death of Christ answers all three questions. It’s more than just us or Him. His death is infinitely more significant than ours. But had He not died, we would have been left to reap the consequences and we all would have died. So in that sense, yes, He died in our stead. But beyond that there’s no comparison. His death is infinitely more significant than the death of every sinful man or angel who has ever lived. The death of angels and men would not have answered the questions.
Lou: What you’re saying, then, is that the “satisfaction” idea doesn’t encompass everything that’s involved in the atonement, does it?
Graham: Oh, I think it makes it much too small. I think it puts God in a very bad light. And on top of that, it doesn’t answer the questions of the great controversy. Many folk who prefer other understandings of the plan of salvation do not understand that there has been a universe-wide great controversy over the character and government of God. As I mentioned in Chapter One, even Luther, hero of the Christian world that he is, could not conceive of these larger issues because he didn’t appreciate the book of Revelation. Not many through the years have seen the sixty-sixth book picture of a universe-wide controversy over the character and government of God. And so they have seen the death of Christ as primarily a plan just to save you and me, for which we are very grateful. It’s just that the larger view makes the cross much more significant.
Lou: I guess it comes back to this. What one understands the problem to be has everything to do with what the answer to that problem is.
Here’s an important question. “Are you suggesting that how Jesus died is the way the wicked will die at the end of the thousand years, that God will give them up as He gave up His Son?”
Graham: As far as the giving up is concerned, I believe that’s the meaning of the third angel’s message. He will “pour out His wrath without mixture” (Rev 14:10). This is the last time God’s wrath is expressed and, as a result, all the wicked will die.
Lou: Is that God becoming furious then?
Graham: My understanding would be that if we should look up and see Christ looking at the death of the wicked, He would be crying, “Why will you die? How can I give you up? How can I let you go?” But we still would die.
Lou: Does that mean you share the view that God doesn’t kill anyone? Is that what you are saying, that God never has and never will?
Graham: Well I honor anybody who wants to put God in a good light, but I think some have gone too far, and that raises its own problems. It seems clear to me that many, many times in the Scriptures God has put His children to sleep. Take the firstborn in Egypt. They didn’t die because they were bad. They died because they were the firstborn. Someone suggested that the devil does God’s killing for Him. But the devil is not that cooperative, you can be sure. No, the firstborn in Egypt died because the angel of the Lord put them to sleep. And it’s possible some of them may arise in the resurrection of the righteous. Who is to say they were all bad boys? In the Flood, with the 185,000 Assyrians, and on many other occasions, I see God Himself putting His own children to sleep. But as Jesus said, it’s only sleep. He resurrects them too. Those boys in Egypt who went to bed that night, they are awake the next morning, as far as they are aware, without any consciousness of the time between.
Lou: But now you are making a distinction that is biblical, that is, a distinction between the first and second death. What about the death of Jesus? Did He die the first or the second death?
Graham: The first death is the death we all die if we live long enough. It is a death that is followed by a resurrection, whether righteous or unrighteous. It is the consequence of living in a world of sin. Even relative saints like Isaiah and Elisha died. The second death is the one the Bible warns us of, the death from which there is no resurrection.
Which death did Jesus die? Had He died of crucifixion alone, He would have died the first death. But He died to demonstrate that awful second death. How come, then, did He rise on Sunday, if there is no resurrection after the second death? I don’t think Jesus came to show that in the second death you die and stay dead forever. How could you demonstrate that anyway? We would have to live forever to see it. There’s no way you could really answer that. Rather, He came to demonstrate how His Father is involved in that death. And even before He was dead, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Then on Resurrection Sunday He went up to Heaven to see if the heavenly council agreed. And He heard them say, “Yes, it’s finished. You’ve cleared up all our questions.” So I think He answered all the questions that needed to be answered in the only way that they could be answered, and we don’t need to ask more of the cross.
One more point, if Jesus died to pay the legal penalty, and the legal penalty is the second death, you have a real problem. The crucial feature of the second death is that you never rise again. So if the cross is all about a legal system, if He died to pay the legal penalty, then He should still be in the grave. In that case, since He went up to heaven on Easter Sunday, none of us is paid up and we are in serious legal trouble.
Lou: So the resurrection is one of the most significant reasons why the strictly legal model would not be adequate.
Graham: When He went to heaven, the angels didn’t say, “Wait a minute. You are supposed to stay dead for eternity to pay the price for sin. Hurry back to earth, we won’t tell anybody we saw you out of the grave.” Instead they said, “It’s more than enough. You could have come up on Friday!”
Lou: So then “power in the blood” is a shorthand way of saying, “There is power in the death of Christ. The meaning of His death has the power to change my life.” It’s much more than just the image of being washed in blood.
Graham: That’s right. I remember when I was baptized up at Pacific Union College, the a capella choir stood out there and sang, “There is a fountain filled with blood,” and you could probably sing the rest of it.
Lou: “Drawn from Emanuel’s veins.” I love that song.
Graham: That’s right. I like it. I’ve sung it many times myself. But the older I get, the more I think of the meaning of it. In fact, sometimes when we’re singing it, I have to stop and think about it. There’s no power in just repeating the words. But there’s power in the meaning; why Jesus had to die, how the cross is the most costly and convincing evidence, and how the cross will provide security throughout eternity. I’m definitely not going to make light of the blood. But it’s a symbol. We have to ask what the meaning behind that is.
The same is true with “paying the price.” That can be interpreted in various ways. Some have wondered if maybe God paid a price to the devil to buy us back, for example. But no, I just think it’s a way of saying, “This is what it cost to do away with sin. This is what it cost to handle the breakdown of trust and trustworthiness.” For example, when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, he paid a heavy price to do that. He used to fall to the ground unconscious as he crossed the finish line. He left just enough energy to make it to the finish, he had nothing left. But the price he paid to run a four-minute mile was not paid to anybody else. That language is a metaphor of all the effort it took to break the four-minute mile. Similarly, Jesus did die to pay the price of sin, but let’s not over-read the metaphor. As always, let’s let the rest of Scripture guide us as to the meaning we should read into those words.
Lou: So some of the illustrations that we have used can give the wrong impression.
Graham: All illustrations are hazardous, so the Bible way is to give us many illustrations. One illustration can cover the shortcomings of another.
Lou: But what about such metaphors as the “satisfying of justice” and “the demands of the law?”
Graham: He died to satisfy the demands of the law. But that raises the question, what does the law demand? Paul says, “Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:10). Jesus (Matt 22:37-39) and Moses (Deut 6:4-5; Lev 19:18) said the same. So the law would seem to demand our love, but love can’t be demanded. If love has to be commanded, it’s not real love. So what does the law say? “You have to love God and love each other, or you will be executed in the most painful way known to our Heavenly Father?”
Some of our good Christian friends live under the awful weight of believing that God has said, “You either love and obey Me, or you will be tortured in sulphurous flames for eternity.” That such good folk can still love God is a real tribute to them, but it is not a tribute to God. Because they truly love Jesus and are faithful, I believe they will be in the Kingdom. But what an awful burden to live under! Yet I think Jesus will love to introduce such people to the Father. He’ll say, “Would you like to meet the Father?” And they’ll say, “Well, if You will go with us.” And He’ll respond, “There’s no need, but I’ll go with you anyway.” What a marvelous surprise it will be to millions of these people to meet the Father in the Kingdom and discover that He is just as loving and gracious as the Son. We will cover this topic in the next chapter, “There Is No Need To Be Afraid of God.”
Speaking about “the demands of law” belongs to a very legal conception of what has gone wrong in the universe, which we discussed in Chapter Two. In that view, what has gone wrong is that we have “broken the rules,” and the law demands that God execute us for breaking the rules. Jesus died so that somehow God could justly forgive us even though we have broken the rules. I’m not sure we have been able to make too much sense out of that. But it goes along with the other one, “satisfying justice.” Whose justice? I have friends who say, “If God does not give (Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, etc.) several days in the fire, I will not regard Him as a just God.” They have that strong a feeling about the satisfaction of justice. I think they really mean it, and I respect them for that. But I would also love to relieve them of that burden. If I want to know why Jesus died, I should go to the cross, see how the Father is involved, and then fit what I see back into Scripture. I don’t see God fulfilling the requirements of a legal model.
In the original lecture series done in 1984 at the Loma Linda University Church, Graham Maxwell spoke for about a half hour each Friday night followed by written questions and answers from Lou Venden and also from the audience. The next several posts contain questions and answers from the eighth presentation, “The Most Costly and Convincing Evidence.”
Lou: If I hear you correctly Graham, you’re saying that Jesus died primarily to say something about God, to make the truth about God clear to us. But what about the moving appeal that Jesus died for you? That Jesus died for me? Isn’t it a wonderful thought that if I had been the only one who had responded, Jesus would still have come and gone through it all just for me! How do you bring that together?
Graham: I still believe in that, and I think God would want us to rejoice in that. I think it’s understandable that as beginners, perhaps, we tend to be preoccupied with our own salvation and what God has done for me, and you, and those we love. But as one learns to read the Bible as a whole and get this larger view of the whole great controversy, one realizes that the all important thing is not what happens to me personally, but the settling of these issues in the great controversy. What counts is the establishing of the truth that confirms the peace of the universe for all eternity.
Lou: Are you saying, then, that I need to “get over” this? Is it childish for me to feel so moved about Jesus dying for me?
Graham: Fortunately, what God says about Himself is what makes it worthwhile being saved. Until God has established the fact that He is not the kind of person His enemies have made Him out to be, there will be no security. We’ll be saved, but in a universe of conflict. So first this must be settled. And, fortunately, that settlement includes you and me as well. It’s not one or the other. The good news about what Jesus has done for me comes in this larger setting. The way He has sought to win you and me is also the way in which He has won the war. It’s the same task, the same mission.
Lou: I think that’s helpful. But now listen—there are many words and terms associated with the cross that I didn’t hear in your presentation this evening.
Graham: A few score, at least.
Lou: For instance, I was just reading a book on the substitutionary atonement, the idea that Jesus died in my place. Another one is that Jesus died to satisfy the demands of the law, to “satisfy justice.” You haven’t used that kind of language. And what about paying the price of sin? And there’s this emphasis upon the blood, right in Scripture. What about that kind of language, which is familiar to all of us. What do you do with that?
Graham: The Bible is full of that kind of language. Let’s take the word “blood” first. Sometimes we, with all reverence, act as if the blood has some magical power. We sing, “There’s power in the blood.” We even sing, “There’s power in the Word,” and almost treat the Bible as if it had magical power. I remember Jesus’s words, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life” (John 5:39). But there’s no life in the Book as such. It is just ink on paper or words on a screen. The Book has power because it witnesses to the truth about the One who has the power. Only God saves. The Bible doesn’t save.
I would very reverently want to say the same thing about the blood. Blood simply represents the death of Christ. It represents His life given in death. Apart from the meaning of His death, the blood has no power. But the blood has great power in its meaning. When we come to understand why Jesus had to die, that’s going to secure the universe against apostasy and defection for eternity. In that context I can sing, “There’s power in the blood.” But as I am singing, in my mind I’m saying, “It means the following.”
Lou: All right. So you can still use the words.
Graham: Indeed. It’s very biblical to use the words.
To some of us, nevertheless, the cross is great good news. Yes, it is true that sinners will die, but that doesn’t mean we need to be afraid of God; in fact, He died to prove that we don’t need to be afraid. And this message has great power to win all who will listen to repentance and to trust. Paul was so proud of this good news. Notice what he says in 1 Corinthians 1:17, 18:
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. And not with eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (RSV).
The gospel is the powerful good news about the cross, which is the clearest revelation of the truth about God and His government. Now compare 1 Corinthians 1 with Romans 1, where you find that very famous verse about righteousness by faith:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith . . . for in it the righteousness of God is revealed” (Rom 1:16-17, RSV).
This text tells us that the gospel (good news) is powerful for those who trust in God, and that power is in the revelation of God’s righteousness. The good news is that God is not the unrighteous kind of person his enemies have made him out to be. Even in the Old Testament, before the clarity of the cross, it’s wonderful to see that God had good friends who trusted Him to always do the right thing. They were proud to know Him and proud to speak about Him to others. Look at Jeremiah 9:24:
Let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight, declares the Lord (NIV).
Jeremiah was able to repeat those words with feeling long before the cross. But now such confidence in God has been confirmed by the way Jesus suffered and died. And among God’s friends, whether angels or men, this meaning of the cross will have power to hold God’s great family together in loyalty and in peace forever.
But there was a third question that needed to be answered. Gethsemane by itself would not have been enough. The third question is this: Why is it so important to understand that God does not execute his sinful children? This question had to be answered, too. And so an angel came to strengthen Jesus in Gethsemane so he could continue on out to Calvary. And there, once again, He answered the first two questions. But He was also this time tortured and crucified. By whom? By the Father? Or by most devout group of Sabbath-keeping, tithe-paying, health-reforming, Bible-quoting “Adventists” the world has ever known? Before they tortured him to death, they even said He had a devil (John 8:44). They obeyed God out of fear because they did not really know God. Look at John 19:31:
Then the Jewish authorities asked Pilate to allow them to break the legs of the men who had been crucified, and to take the bodies down from the crosses. They requested this because it was Friday, and they did not want the bodies to stay on the crosses on the Sabbath, since the coming Sabbath was especially holy (GNB).
You see, they nailed their Savior to the cross and then rushed home to keep that Sabbath especially holy. They did it to prove they were God’s true people. That’s the awful result of serving God from fear because you do not know the truth about God. Now the three questions were fully answered. Does sin result in death? Indeed, it does! But is it torture and execution at the hands of our gracious God? Indeed, it is not! What’s so dangerous about misunderstanding this and serving God from fear? The service of fear produces the character of a rebel. Fear turns people who are dedicated to obedience into harsh rebels, and they become God’s worst enemies!
Jesus did not die to win over His Father. Paul is extremely clear about this. 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (RSV). Nowhere does the Bible suggest that God had to be reconciled to us. Never once! Instead God paid the price to reconcile us to Himself! Jesus did not die to pay a mere legal penalty. He died to reveal the truth about God and the falsity of Satan’s charges. And even the angels had to learn this. Look at Colossians 1:20: “. . . And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (RSV).
John 12:32 agrees with this: “When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw everyone to me” (GNB). The “everyone” here is not limited to the human race, it is everyone in the whole family of the universe. These texts point us to the larger setting of the Great Controversy in order to understand the cross. The way in which Jesus suffered and died is the greatest revelation of the truth about God and His government that the universe will ever see or ever need. Correctly understood, the message of the cross is final defeat for the adversary. No wonder Satan has worked so hard to obscure, misrepresent, and even pervert the meaning of the cross.
So in imagination let’s go to the cross and watch Jesus die. First of all, did He really die? The soldiers were surprised to find he was already dead. Crucifixion was usually a very slow way of dying. Evidently something else had happened. Is it true that Jesus was dying the death of a sinner, to show us how the sinner really dies? That’s what we find in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” (RSV). So Jesus died the death of a sinner. And what caused Jesus to die? As you watch him dying on the cross, is God killing His Son? Is he torturing his Son to death? Is God pouring out His wrath on His Son; something the Bible so often pictures God doing toward sinners for whom there is no further hope?
Well it all depends on the meaning of wrath. What does the Bible mean when it talks about God’s wrath? One of the clearest explanations is in Romans 1. The entire chapter is worth reading, but let’s at least look at the following four verses:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth . . . . Therefore, God gave them up . . .For this reason God gave them up . . . And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up. (Rom 1:18, 24, 26, 28, RSV)
The “truth” Paul is talking about in 1:18 is the truth about God. Three times it states in Romans 1 that God’s wrath is simply His turning away, in loving disappointment, from those who do not want Him anyway. God’s wrath is leaving them to the inevitable and awful consequences of their own rebellious choices. Is that what happened to Jesus on the cross? Was Jesus given up? Look at Romans 4:25: “. . . Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses” (RSV).
There is nothing in the Greek, actually, that says He was “put to death.” The Greek word translated “put to death” is actually paredothê, exactly the same word translated “gave them up” in Romans 1:24, 26, 28. Translators ought to leave them the same to show that Jesus died under the wrath of His Father. But the real meaning of God’s wrath is His turning away, leaving sinners to the inevitable and awful consequences of sin. And this concept was not new with Paul. It’s all through the Old Testament, most dramatically in Hosea, chapter eleven: “My people are bent on turning away from me . . . . How, oh how can I give you up, Ephraim! How, oh how, can I hand you over Israel!” (Hos 11:7-8, Phillips).
Did Jesus understand that this was the experience He was passing through? Did Jesus know He was being given up as Hosea and Paul describe it? What did Jesus cry just before He died? Did He say, “My God, my God, why are You beating Me up? Why are you torturing Me? Why are you killing Me?” No! “Why have you forsaken Me?” (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34). In other words, “Why have you given me up?” Jesus knew.
This part of Jesus’ journey began in Gethsemane. There He began to demonstrate the truth about God’s gracious but awful warning, that the wages of sin is death. There Jesus fell to the ground, dying. And the angels were watching too. Was God killing his Son in the Garden of Gethsemane, or did Jesus feel the unity with His Father breaking up? There He began to feel the awesome loneliness of being given up. Had Jesus died in the Garden of Gethsemane, could anyone say that the Father had killed the Son? Jesus Himself made that clear earlier in John 10:18: “No one takes My life from Me. No one can. I lay it down of Myself. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up.”
The angels knew who Jesus was. They knew that He was God. And they knew the meaning of His words when He said, “No one takes My life from Me.” The angels knew that was the truth. And if Jesus had died in the Garden of Gethsemane, it would not have been because His Father had killed Him. Instead, the Father was giving Him up, and both of them suffered together. As in Hosea the Father was crying, “How can I give you up?” The Son who had assumed humanity was the One who died. And so two questions were answered in Gethsemane. Is death the result of sin? Indeed it is. Is it because God kills his wayward children? No, He did not lay a hand on His Son.
Paul tells us that when the fullness of time came (Gal 4:4), God showed His Son publicly dying as a means of reconciliation, as an answer to questions, to be grasped by faith. The death of Christ was to demonstrate God’s own righteousness. For in His divine forbearance He had seemingly overlooked men’s former sins. The death of Christ was to show that God Himself is righteous and therefore can set right those who have faith in His Son. What I have just said is based on Romans 3:25-26 although I used some different English words:
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (KJV).
Now there is a difficult word in there, “propitiation.” Propitiation in English generally means appeasement, and that is a most regrettable translation. Propitiation is what you husbands may offer your wives when you promised to be home on your anniversary at 6 p.m. to take your wife out to dinner, and now its 11 PM and you’ve just remembered. So on the way home you find an all-night florist shop and you buy some flowers and some chocolates and whatever else you can lay your hands on. As you approach the front door with some trepidation, you open it and hand the flowers and the chocolates in. You are trying to propitiate the righteous wrath of your deeply disappointed wife. That’s propitiation; that’s appeasement.
In Romans 3, the word translated “propitiation” is “hilastêrion.” In the Old Testament, that is generally the Greek word used for the “mercy seat” on the ark of the covenant. Actually, the Bible does not mention the idea of “mercy seat;” Luther made that up. When Luther looked at the Hebrew word used for the cover of the ark, he found that it means a “covering.” So he translated the covering “Mercy Seat” or in the old German, “Gnadstuhl” (now written “Gnadenstuhl”).
Luther first did this in l524. Then in l525 Luther’s friend Tyndale brought that translation over into English and several versions followed him. So that’s where “mercy seat” came from. The cover of the ark was never called the mercy seat until the early Sixteenth Century. But considering some of the options, it was not a bad choice. It’s just a pity that our King James Version uses mercy seat in Exodus (Exod 25:17-22; 26:34, etc.) and also in Hebrews 9:5, but does not use mercy seat in Romans 3:25-26. Instead, it uses propitiation. I think mercy seat would have been much closer to Paul’s intention. For the Greek word hilastêrion means literally “a place or means of reconciliation;” a place where unity and at-one-ment take place. And so I ventured my own translation of this passage.
For God showed him publicly dying as a means of reconciliation to be taken advantage of by faith. This was to demonstrate God’s own righteousness, for in His divine forbearance He had apparently overlooked men’s former sins. It was to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, to show that He Himself is righteous and that He sets right everyone who trusts in Jesus (Rom 3:25-26, Maxwell).
Jesus died to answer the questions about His Father and to prove that God was not the kind of person His enemies have made Him out to be. So when Paul talks in the above text about God apparently overlooking men’s former sins, it means that people hadn’t died as God had warned in the Garden. So one purpose of the cross is to show that God had not lied about sin leading to death. He sent His Son to answer those kinds of questions.
Of all the sixty-six books in the Bible, I believe Paul in Romans gives the clearest explanation as to why Jesus died. First of all he recognizes the truth of God’s warning in the Garden of Eden. In Romans 6:23, Paul agrees with the record in Genesis: “Sin pays its servants: the wage is death” (Phillips). But the natural connection between sin and death is not the only charge leveled against God. We also recall Satan’s charge that God had lied about His concern for human good. Look at Genesis 3:4-5: “But the serpent said to the woman, `You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it [the Tree of Knowledge] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God'” (RSV). Notice the additional charge that God is selfishly withholding something that would be for their best good.
Now who is telling us the truth? God, or the great former lightbearer, Lucifer? How do you determine who is telling the truth? Did God gather His family together and say, “I am telling the truth, the Devil is lying!” Which would only encourage the Devil to say, “No, I am telling the truth. God is lying.” As we have emphasized so much, matters like this cannot be settled by claims or denials. God’s way was to take His case into court. Look at the marvelous words of Romans 3:4: “That you may be shown to be right in what you say, and win your case when you go into court.” (Goodspeed)
Now the Bible often speaks of such councils of the heavenly family. And if you wonder how many attend such meetings, look in the book of Daniel where it says a hundred million beings are present as the court meets. The heavenly council is also described in the first two chapters of Job. There we have a powerful example of how God resolves questions, particularly when the charges of Satan are leveled against Him and His friends before the heavenly court. In the council scene of Job, Satan accuses God of manipulating Job’s faithfulness, and he accuses Job of being unworthy of God’s trust. Did God say on that occasion, “That’s a lie Satan; this man is perfect!” No, instead He said, “You’ve raised a serious question. The only way to answer it is to show you.”
We find that demonstration in the rest of the book of Job. Did Job show himself to be a trustworthy friend of God? Did he trust God because he was being richly rewarded or did he still trust God in the face of seeming abandonment? The book ends with God saying, “Thank you, Job, you’ve said of Me what is right” (based on Job 42:7). Job was God’s friend all the way through and God could then turn to the heavenly court and say, “Do you need any more evidence about the falsity of Satan’s charges and the trustworthiness of my friend Job?”
This is God’s way. God Himself has been accused. But He does not merely deny the accusation. He says: “Let Me show you, My children. Let Me show you the falsity of these accusations and the truth about Myself, and you decide.” Imagine the humility of the Infinite One submitting His character and government to the scrutiny and investigation of mere creatures. But that’s God’s way, and it is the only way to really establish love and trust while maintaining the fullest sense of freedom.
