If I said to you the phrase, Jesus died so that dot dot dot I would assume you would finish with so that your sins can be forgiven. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or so that you can have eternal life.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I guess what we're getting at is that that is true. Is there more? The blood of the Lord, the blood of God is shed. As that blood drips down the altar. That is what it costs to bring atonement.
SPEAKER_02I think I need to go and cry.
SPEAKER_04It's God on the altar.
SPEAKER_02And he couldn't have done that if he hadn't taken on human flesh. Correct. He took on flesh so he could bleed. Welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. I'm Naomi. I'm joined by Glenn. Hello, Naomi. Hello, Glenn. It's a couple weeks since we were sat across this table last.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02Chatting about Sin. Sin. And musicals.
SPEAKER_04That's true. We got so much into sin we had to break it into two episodes. Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And there's still more we could have talked about, for sure.
SPEAKER_04So many.
SPEAKER_02What have you been up to since who I went to Australia?
SPEAKER_04I think like the day later, the day after that, I went to Australia for a couple of weeks, mainly holiday, but then did uh a couple of things. Uh I did a conference with Questioning Christianity, Dan Patterson, Dave Dean, uh up in Brisbane. And then spoke at uh a church in the centre of Brisbane um Street Presbyterian, which I've been to uh before as well. So that was fantastic. And then when I came back, I went to Ireland to the Kinfire Festival. And if you are on the island of Ireland, I heartily recommend in August next year go to go to the next Kinfire. It's sort of a sort of a Kesicky, new whiny, spring harvesty kind of a vibe uh in Kilkenny uh in the south. And yeah, thinking about evangelism and evangelism training and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very good. You know, I'm surprised because I think I expected you to come back with Australia from Australia with a stronger accent.
SPEAKER_00How's it going?
SPEAKER_02Maybe next time.
SPEAKER_04Especially in Queensland, because they they talk real slow in Queensland. Oh, how good is it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh um Where have you been? Well, where have I been? Mostly here. Well, I've had some fun, fun times went to New Wine with my church. Um, I've had some lovely time reconnecting with my family and um the newest little baby members of my family. So yeah, it's been a nice time.
SPEAKER_04Auntie gnomes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but it's it was fun to to come back to speak life stuff and to emails and to have a flurry of communication from our listeners. People in the telling me I'm sorry. People love sin. Um and so here we go. Here's a little uh load of shout-outs. Shout outs to people that got in touch to say they appreciated the um the previous episodes on sin. So we've got Wes in New Mexico, Alan in South Carolina, who suggests um unbelief would be a good motive.
SPEAKER_04I really like that. John 16, verse 9 nails it. The Holy Spirit will convict the world with reality sin. In that, people do not believe in me. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So we should go for Jesus' definition, shouldn't we? Oh, yeah, that would have been a good idea. Oh, okay. Uh yeah. Next time. Um Dave in Australia suggested wanted to ask about the word brokenness. Yeah. And is broken like, is that a good word to use? Is it biblical? Like, when can be can when can it be confusing to use that word? Um Alban in London suggested insecurity. Hmm. Um and that in you feel insecure, not when you've um fallen short of a standard, but when you've fallen short of a person. Um I thought that was an interesting distinction. Yeah. Uh Chris in Banster, dehumanising. I was thinking about that. Maybe like the day before he emailed, and I was thinking, yeah, there's something about the de a decreation or chaos and undoing of what God has made.
SPEAKER_04So it's undoing your own humanity. Yes. Yeah, like you could dehumanize others, and that would that would be a certain thing.
SPEAKER_02It probably comes under the banner of the But you're undoing your own humanity. Like there's there's some you become less human when you sin.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right. Your own dignity is is being degraded.
SPEAKER_02Um Matt in Wiltshire, his favourite chocolate bar is Yorkes. Okay. He said independence.
SPEAKER_04Independence.
SPEAKER_02And that that is the original, that's the classic, like yeah. Yeah, walking away from dependence on God. Yeah. Um and yeah, shout out to um Martin in Hamilton, New Zealand, who also loves cricket. He shares your passion there.
SPEAKER_06Very good.
SPEAKER_02Um so yeah, really fun to have um to get to know some of our listeners from across the world and um to be encouraged that our conversation about motifs and metals around sin was helpful.
SPEAKER_04You know what I liked about it is that we we got to talking about the solutions to it as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So, you know, it's it's not just um a sort of sickness, but there's a healing that's involved.
SPEAKER_02It's it's not just I mean, how could we talk about it if there wasn't? That's the whole thing, isn't it? You can't you can't actu like repentance isn't a gift. Like to face up to a problem isn't isn't good. You can't even really fully do it if there isn't a solution.
SPEAKER_04No, right. So yeah, you won't admit to the depths of the problem if you don't think there's a solution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um yeah. So today we're gonna focus on the solution. Excellent. Good. Because there is if there is a a multitude of ways of describing what sin is and what the problem is, there is also a multi multifaceted or rich vocabulary that we can use to describe who Jesus is and what he's done. And I think sometimes we're a bit s and we're not necessarily scared of that. Maybe we have our favourites, but maybe I think there can be a desire for simplicity and to say, Yes, oh well, this is the good news of Jesus, and I can say it in a sentence and I can um be clear on it and understand what it means to be saved. But the Bible is again very storied and poetic and um uses lots of imagery. And so hopefully we can go into that thinking this is a this is a wonderful uh kind of a richness to mine, yes, rather than to be fearful that, oh, but if I use this this description and not this one or this.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes. Um, if I said to you the phrase Jesus died so that dot dot dot and you didn't know anything about me, you just knew that I was a Christian. Okay, and that I was trying to I was trying to communicate to you like the the gist, the the the heart, the heart of Christianity. And I said, Jesus died so that what would you expect? How would you expect that sentence to finish?
SPEAKER_01Wait, hang on. Who am I in this? Am I just me?
SPEAKER_04You're just you. And I'm I'm just some Christian dude.
SPEAKER_01Oh, some Christian dude.
SPEAKER_04And I say the sentence Yes.
SPEAKER_02Jesus died so that Oh, I would I would assume you would finish with so that your sins can be forgiven. Okay, yeah. Or so that you can have eternal life.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02I probably would assume one of those.
SPEAKER_04And then if somebody presses into that and so, well, how does forgiveness of sin kind of relate to the Jesus dying bit? What would you say? Jesus died. And the way he f the way his death forgives your sins is dot dot dot. What are you trying to do? There's no wrong answer. There's no wrong answer. There's no wrong answer. I don't know. I think if I if I if I'm reading like a gospel tract or something, and it's trying to summarize the Christian faith, I think it's it's like it's something like Jesus died so that my sins would be forgiven. Um because he takes the penalty for my sin so that I can be forgiven. Or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. In fact, I I was at a a Q ⁇ A um event a few months ago now, and they were giving out different different tracks, and um I probably have a bit of a funny thing about tracks. I'm like, just give out a gospel, but but I and I I was looking at them and thinking, oh wow, all of these, like they're it's like they're trying to do the hard work to make me feel really bad about myself. Yeah, I'm not meeting a certain legal standard, and therefore Jesus died to sort that out. Yes. And and I was sort of reading it through and thinking, like, well, yes, this is true, but it's sort it's a partial truth. And is a partial oh okay. It's true. Is a partial truth.
SPEAKER_04There's more truth than just oh right. Right, is a partial truth.
SPEAKER_02Because I was reading it and thinking, yes, but this doesn't warm my heart to the gospel. It doesn't warm my heart to who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_04I d I It might if it caught you in the in the right mood. And if you were if you were thinking about if you were thinking about your failures in a certain kind of light, that that message if it caught you on the right day, might be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_04Um And it's still important to take people to the law court and to convict them of of guilt that requires an atonement in that sense. But I I I guess what we're getting at is that the that is true that Jesus bears the penalty for my sin in my place and on my behalf as my substitute, and in this way brings atonement. And there's a there's a title for that, isn't it? It's penal substitutionary atonement. You know, he takes the penalty, penal, he's in my place, substitute, atonement, bringing me back to God. Yeah. And and I guess we say, Yay, and Amen, and we we love that truth.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Is there more?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. But that but I think there's also more to that. Like I think that is also a much deeper and richer, it's like a foundational It's a foundational understanding of atonement on which lots of these other things that we will talk about like kind of rest.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um but I think even peal substitutionary atonement or PSA as some people call it, yeah, um, would still go would still be, I don't know, deeper and richer. Yeah, that's true. You've done you've done some bad things and and Jesus for some reason had to die for that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_02That's true in your place because you deserved you deserved that type of death.
SPEAKER_04I don't I don't We're even reductionistic about our reduction. Well, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But it's because we want clarity, we we want to understand who who this Jesus is, what it is to be saved, and and we think perhaps there's a there's a connection between our understanding of it and its effect on us. Yeah. And that's maybe something I want to come to later is yeah does the way we understand what Jesus has done actually impact its effect in its effectiveness? Do we have to understand in order for it to do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like d do I need to be clear on that doctrine for that doctrine to have an effect on me or do the thing that it seems that Jesus did. Yeah. Maybe we'll come back to that later. I I I think there's an intuition that you have um that I I totally resonate with that I think gets us to the heart of this. Um you're not so keen on tracked, why not give people a gospel, right? I I totally agree with that. Because, you know, um, where does the Bible unpack the gospel? Well, we've got four of them. Each of them are quite lengthy, you know. It takes you more than an hour to read any of them. Um and so what it is that what it is that the Holy Spirit is doing to encapsulate and communicate the gospel is much more variegated and multifaceted than just boiling it down to I'm picturing, you know, uh someone gets up to give an evangelist talk and and if they were to just say, let me tell you a story, told a told their own kind of like parable and sat down, all the Christians in the room would be like, What?
SPEAKER_02What have you done? Like this and yet look at the way that Jesus teaches about the kingdom of God. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08He's like, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um which is what they do. You know, they tell a whole bunch of stories about Jesus, and and there's not one model of the atonement in in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
SPEAKER_02Um But there are places in the New Testament which I I can't sometimes describe them as like gospel nuggets. They're like go-to paragraphs that kind of boil things down for us. As we can tell if Paul is trying to do this, Peter's trying to do this, like maybe it's understandable that we want to do that as well. Um and so let's have a look at some of them. Should we have a look at some of them?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because yeah, I think I think one way into this is interestingly, I was I was in a group of of evangelists together, and I sort of said, like, if there was one book that you could give to a non-Christian that you know summarized the the gospel, like what would you give? From the Bible. From the Bible. And one of them said John and and another said Romans, and pretty much the whole room either said Romans or John.
SPEAKER_00What would you say?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, John, probably.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, do you think? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I just love Ephesians one to three. Oh yeah. And so that in terms of a bo a some kind of a boiling down.
SPEAKER_04Have you ever seen like I ha I have seen Romans as a kind of a standalone book that's given away to unbelievers? Very rarely. Usually it's one of the gospels. I've never seen Ephesians. Wouldn't that be cool?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, yeah, these things are written so that you may believe is what John 20, verse 31 says. So Yeah, that's true. But and that that's what one person was thinking about John, and I was like, okay, but if you were to boil down John one chapter, right? What chapter? And he picked chapter three. Okay, yeah. And then what verse, obviously, verse 16. But that verse begins for God so loved the world. Or yeah. Sorry, God so loved the world, rather. God so loved the world, which means in this way. In what way? In the way that verse 15 communicates. Okay. Which is like just as the bronze serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that anyone.
SPEAKER_02Um Ah, okay, wait, pause.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02This might need to be a little many mind-blown moment. So when it says God so loved, it's not that he loved the world so much, it's that he loved it in the way that the previous bit is talking about.
SPEAKER_04That's usually the case.
SPEAKER_02Oh, does it say the same NIV as well?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's I mean I mean K KJV as well. Um, but usually in the Greek that word is a kind of a in this way.
SPEAKER_02Um man, okay. And so basically we've just been taking this verse totally out of context.
SPEAKER_04It couldn't, it could mean God loved the world so very much.
SPEAKER_02Which yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, which is true. Which is true. Which is true. But it's it's more of a connective word. Um and you've already got the four at the start of verse 16. Um for God in this way loved the world that he gave his one and only son. Be because, you know, verse 14, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Like it is comparing Moses lifting up the bronze servant to God sending his son.
SPEAKER_02Um is it saying God's um because it it says in my footnotes it could say, for this is how God loved the world. So it's also could it also be referring to the giving his only like this is the way in which God loved the world, he gave his only son, which is it echoes Romans 5, it echoes um 1 John 4.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, definitely, but you've also got the connective for at the beginning of verse 16 that's kind of and the whole thought begins in verse 14, just as.
SPEAKER_02Yes, okay. Just as so as Moses lifts lifted up a serpent in the wilderness. So what significance does that have on John 3.16?
SPEAKER_04So when you ask an evangelist, okay, um, what boils down the Christian message? I think it's very helpful to think in terms of, well, John the evangelist kind of boils it down and he takes 21 chapters to do it. If we were to boil down his 21 chapters, we might get to something like John 3.16. But even John 3.16 kind of root it resists in its own context, it resists being boiled down too simplistically. And actually what John wants to do is connect what he's saying way back to numbers. And one of the more bizarre stories of the Old Testament. Um and if John was really after boiled down simplicity, I don't think he would have written the way that he wrote. Um he's actually he's actually wanting you to sit with something and and let your mind go back, you know, 1500 years to the strangest one of the strangest events of the Old Testament in order to give you this theology of atonement. And and so it that that was interesting that in the in the evangelism training, one guy goes to John, most of the rest of them voted for for Romans as kind of like if you were to just nominate one book in the Bible that summarizes the Christian message, I okay, let's go for Romans. And then I said, well, what chapter? Um and even though chapter eight is everybody's favorite in terms of resurrection, in terms of explaining the gospel, chapter three. Um and is there a particular paragraph? We all know what paragraph um is gonna we're gonna have. Um and then we basically did a little Bible study in this paragraph. And fascinatingly, this paragraph, Romans three from verse 21, resists simplification.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Well it's true. I mean, John 3.16, the the um problem is perishing, which is a little bit that's not particularly c clear. I mean, maybe it is purely the the death motif, but it's it's more than that, it's the kind of the decay, it's the yeah, and some sabotage is like and and so you've got like even there, like you I actually I don't think you can see the kind of substitutionary atonement in John 3.16. No.
SPEAKER_04Maybe that is like people sort of over-execute it a little bit because they they talk about in the Greek the the the word gave is in the airist tense, which is a certain it's a certain kind of tense that we don't really have in English, and very often it means a once-for-all kind of a thing. And so he gave in this once-for-all way. And so people I think they kind of over-exegute that one word to say, ah, John purely had in mind Good Friday. He didn't have in he did not have in mind the gift of the incarnate Christ and all that kind of I I find that gave his own son. Yeah. Yeah, I've I I think within John's gospel, because Jesus is constantly saying, I'm the sent one from the Father, and because the word became flesh and he's come into the world, and all that kind of language, I do think the giving of the Son absolutely culminates in Good Friday in the cross, but it's bigger than that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And maybe that's just the overall message of what we're trying to talk about, isn't it? It's like a yes, but it's more than that, and yes, but it's deeper than that, and yes, but he's better than that. Yeah. There's kind of like a Yes. Yeah. There we go. So um Romans 31. I'm gonna take I'm I'll yeah, I'll read it through uh my Bible's ESV. Um but as I go through, I'll maybe just like pause at different points where I notice that there's something that's actually like a kind of metaphorical or im image that we could we could um hang on because this even this little paragraph is full of quite a variety of ways of describing what on earth it means to have this new life in Jesus. Right. So but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, so there's a falling short. Um you described that earlier like an arrow that misses. I was thinking about like I used to work at a high ropes course, so like have a little kid that like jump jumps off the platforms, try to catch the like monkey bar or whatever it is, and just like that's hanging on their harness. Um that's what I picture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um fall short of the glory of God and are justified, so a kind of legal term.
SPEAKER_04Right. Um legal verdict on you.
SPEAKER_02Yes, a verdict, yeah. Justified by his grace as a gift. Again, I think gift, well, I mean it's an actual gift, but it's a image as well. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, so a payment, a ransom, uh um buying back.
SPEAKER_04Buying back to release you from slavery, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um so redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. Does NIV say propitiation?
SPEAKER_04Sacrifice of atonement.
SPEAKER_02Ah, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. But it is it's the Hilisterion. Okay. What's the what's Hilister? So the Greek word is it the Hilisterion, which actually refers to um the atonement cover in the temple, right?
SPEAKER_01Ah.
SPEAKER_04So the atonement cover in the temple is where Aaron on the Day of Atonement would sprinkle the blood. So having having made all the sacrifices necessary for atonement on the Day of Atonement, he would go, and and you'll know what is underneath that mercy seat cover? What's what's what's in the ark?
SPEAKER_02Oh, uh Tank Movements. Right, right.
SPEAKER_04So there's the law, right? Yeah. And what's going to stop that law from bursting out and judging the world? And you you've got this kind of this mercy cover, right? And what uh Aaron would do once a year is is sprinkle the appropriate blood. There's been a there's been a sacrifice, there's been a cleansing. There has been the satisfaction of Roth. There's been the satisfaction of the judgment that is due to us. And so, in a sense, propitiation um is is a kind of a that's an idiom in the ESV, and and sacrifice of atonement is an idiom in the in the NIV to get at this this one idea that Roth needs to be satisfied, that God is angry at sin. Yes. And the blood of the the sacrifice has averted wrath, has turned away God's wrath.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Okay.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So there's no. Yeah, yeah. So so yeah, yeah, we're in we're in the temple, and the problem here is actually not in us in some ways. As in the thing that the thing that is being solved is God's reaction against our sin. Yes. We didn't talk about that that much last time. But yeah, okay. And and I think this but I think this one we can continue through um Romans 3, but I think this one is probably the one that makes people squirm a little bit. Yeah, it's like oh okay, God's God sends himself to save us from Himself is like I've heard that preached in a way that is really glorious, and often I'm like, wow, it is amazing. And then other times it can feel a bit like ooh, this is this is a hard this is a hard one to grapple with, I think, because we're saying there is an like it sometimes feels like you're dividing the Trinity in a weird way. You've got to maybe we can get back to that.
SPEAKER_04An angry God and then an innocent substitute satisfying angry god.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's where it goes all a bit weird and sad and not the kind of thing I want to believe.
SPEAKER_04And it might sound a bit pagan as well, you know. Right, yeah. The Aztec priest sacrifices the virgin every day because otherwise the gods will be angry and they won't let the sunrise. And the only thing that will, you know, assuage the wrath of the angry gods is these innocent sacrifices. So it's pagan to people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the idea of needing to like appease God or um turn away his anger. I mean it yeah, it's it's hard to think about if you think that that's where we started. But we didn't start with God. Like his wrath is is provoked.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02It's not like inherent.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_02Did does that make sense?
SPEAKER_04It's like From chapter one verse eighteen.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the goddesses of people who suppress the tr truth by the unrighteousness. And then wrath shows up again in Romans two verse four, isn't it? Um verse five. Uh your stubbornness and repentant unrepentant hearts, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath. And then it's in Ephesians as well.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um about being children of wrath. Man, this is just a it's just a hard, it's a hard word and it's a hard concept. Yeah. Um and I I I found it really helpful a tutor of mine once said, um, God always has to be provoked to anger. He never has to be provoked to love.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Love comes from him in like it is in he is love, it comes in and he is slow to anger. He is at times wrathful, yeah. Um but but it's it is not unprovoked. And it does it's not I yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I think I think therefore, the previous two chapters, Paul Paul is preaching actually this verse as good news, because he's first convinced us that, oh my goodness, we really are messed up and God really is provoked to wrath. Um I think in in the context in in Romans, he kind of talks about the the wrath of God from chapter one, verse eighteen being revealed against all our godlessness and wickedness. And if we're not on board by chapter one, verse eighteen, what he basically does is is there there they are in Rome and a largely Jewish congregation with some with some you know Gentiles coming in as well. And he's saying, like, you know, you guys know that Roman society is really messed up, don't you? And so he kind of points the finger at all all these kinds of you know, they they exchange the glory of the immortal god for images made to look like mortal humans and birds and animals and reptiles. Oh, gross, you know, you know what Roman temples are like, and you know what Roman culture is like, and you know the sexual proclivity of the you know the people who are around you, and they you know and they're they're all going haywire. Like you you know, and they're gossips and slanderers and god haters, and they're insolent and arrogant and boastful, which is like absolutely classic Roman sin. There they are, these believers, and they're surrounded by a culture that is racked by this kind of stuff. And they're like, You you understand why God would be angry about those guys, don't you? And you can sort of see all the guys in in the Romans church, yeah, yeah, they're they're rubbish. And then he says, You therefore, chapter two, verse one, you've got no excuse, because you do the same thing. And then he talks about some really characteristic kind of Jewish sins, some characteristic people of God sins. Like So we've diagnosed the the culture out there. You can understand why that would make God angry, don't you? But but actually, and then it gets closer to home. But he's still talking in we language. It's it's it's sort of um in terms of our our characteristic sin and and we do the same, don't we? And then he just piles it all in in chapter three, and using using scriptures, um notice how he he speaks again in the in the plural. Um so chapter two, verse ten, there is no one righteous, not even one, there's no one who understands, there's no one who seeks God, all have turned away, they've together become worthless. There is no one who good does good, not even one, their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit, the poison of vipers is on their lips, their mouths. And it's it's sort of do you get the idea? You everybody believes that there are people out there in the world that are getting stuff wrong and God is rightly angered by it. And he's and he's sort of bringing the concentric circles closer and closer home to home. So that by the by the time we get to verse 19 of chapter 3, we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. And and I I think he's done a wonderful rhetorical job actually of convincing us that there's stuff in the world that would make God angry, and if we're not angry by it, we're probably sociopathic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So this is from um John Stott's uh The Cross of Christ, which is a really helpful book to to just um outline with clarity and depth um what it is that Jesus done. Um and so yeah, this way it says uh what provokes our anger, injured vanity, never provokes his. What provokes his anger, evil, seldom provokes ours.
SPEAKER_04Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And just the whole thing of yeah, actually our if we aren't also provoked to anger and wrath at the things God is, then the problem is in us. It's it's not in him. Um and so so perhaps earlier my vocabulary, like when I said like that God's wrath is part of the problem. Actually, God's wrath isn't a pro it's not a problem in terms of it being like wrong. Problematic. It's not ro it's not wrong.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's not wrong that needs to be righted, but it it's it's um bad news for us. It's an issue for us.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. Um that that's one issue that I think people have with the propitiation language, the sacrifice of atonement language, the penal substitution language. Um is that is God really angry? I think the other the other issue is it sounds like okay, angry God the Father. Yeah, lovable, innocent Jesus, the Trinity is split. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And suddenly God zaps poor innocent Jesus so that he can then be happy with you and I. Um, whereas it's um God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. So here is a chip off the old block. They are utterly united in their purpose. And Jesus says, No one takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord, right? And the utter unity of this one atoning work where the Son gladly enters into our judgment and wrath so that he can carry us through to the other side. And I think that's the that's the sense in in which um Jesus is bearing wrath in our place is is there is not a split trinity between angry father and good Jesus. There is the one God who decides to enter into all our wrath-deserving sin, take responsibility for it, and rise up on the on the far side. And and I think that yeah, there's the the unity of God in atonement is is so important.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, and again, this is from um Stotts. He's a says um the son didn't change the father's mind, he expressed it.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_02That's really helpful. He's so good that job stuff. Um yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, it's helpful knowing that He didn't change. Jesus is not Yeah, he's not like an unwilling victim of God's judgment, and and it's not like the father is is like unwilling to forgive until Jesus finally does something about it. No, right, right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Um God doesn't yeah, Jesus doesn't die for you so that God can love you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04God loves you, therefore he gives Jesus. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yes, that's it. And Stott's got a great line in the cross of Christ where he talks about all the caricatures of the cross are actually, he calls them Christological heresies. Um you could call them Trinitarian heresies, where you split the the will and the purposes of the Son from the will and the purpose of the Father. You split the being of the Son and the and the and the Father. Whereas what is being expressed at the cross is precisely God's yes, God's anger at sin, an anger that he chooses to endure in the person of his son.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And that and again, that's part of the wonder of the person of Christ is that nothing and no one can endure or bear the weight of the fullness of the wrath of God against all evil and sin. Like nothing and no one apart from God can bear that.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_02And so and so he must step but but nothing and no one can um pay for humanity's like debt other than humanity, other than humanity. Anyway, so is it but there's something there's something about that of like actually whenever we think, like we said earlier, when you think about the the the problem of sin, we can only really do that and look at it square in the face because we know that there is such a thing as forgiveness and redemption. But we also can't really let ourselves grapple with the nature of God being wrathful if if we don't if we don't also know like He is the one like in the very same breath we declare, and He's the one who sorted out His own His own wrath. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it works the other way as well. Like now that I am assured, seeing Jesus on the cross bearing wrath on my behalf, now I am assured that I can confess my wrath-deserving ways to God. Like in ways that um and if I wasn't convinced that God was angry at sin, I should look at Good Friday. Like, yeah, you know, he really takes sins very seriously.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02Back to the conversation.
SPEAKER_04So we've been to the archery range.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yes. Yeah, let's recap. Yeah, so archery um justifies. We've been to the law court.
SPEAKER_04So the law court thing is I'm in the dock, right? The charges have been read for the last three chapters, and the gavel is about to fall. Yes. And it's like justified. Yeah. Which is not just not guilty, it's like perfectly innocent and righteous. Um what? Yeah. How? Well, he then takes us to the slave market, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Redemption.
SPEAKER_04Um payment has been made to release redemption language. And then Paul takes us to the temple.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, propitiation.
SPEAKER_04And I often think like the temple. Like a ma just imagine you're in the queue. You've done that sin that you're always doing, and you you're you're about to go. And interestingly, in the Old Testament, like you you had to do it. You know, the the priest was there and they would they would, you know do some of what they had to do, but you also would have to, you know, help out. Okay. And so there you are with Flossy, and you're in the queue. You're about to get it.
SPEAKER_02Who is Flossy? The sheep. Okay, great. Thanks for thanks for explaining that.
SPEAKER_00It's like, is Flossy your wife? Like, what's who is Flossy?
SPEAKER_04I sacrifice my wife. But um But there you are. And you're and everybody's thinking, poor Flossy, what did Flossy do to deserve that? Well, you know, you did it, but there's a substitute provided. You're on your way to the front of the queue, and then you hear this booming voice from inside the temple, like right from the throne room. You just hear this get out. And all these priests hitch up their robes and they run out of the most the holy place, and they, you know, and you are ushered away, you know, far from the altar. And then you sort of look from a distance, and the Lord Himself, right, climbs down from the th from the throne. The Lord Himself marches down from the most holy place through the holy place out into the courtyard where the altar is. The Lord Himself is lying on that altar. And then imagine the high priest has to, you know, confess the sins of the people over the heads of the Lord. And then fearfully, who gets to do this job? Right? Of the the the blood of the Lord, the blood of God is shed as that blood drips down the altar. That is what it costs to bring atonement. You know, it's like Paul's doing all that just in a little sort of subclause. He's just like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think I need to go and cry.
SPEAKER_04It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, well. It's God on the altar.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's and you know, that is exactly what um Bishop Ruth Buschager was preaching at um New Wine. At New Wine. Oh man, it was amazing. She was she was speaking on um uh 1 Kings 18 and the story of the two altars, um, the altar to Baal, the altar to the Lord. And beautiful, I mean very challenging, she was saying in the beginning of the chapter, there's drought, end of the chapter, there's a downpour, well, the cloud cloud that turns into downpour of rain. And as we look around our nation and think, perhaps it's time for a spiritual renewal and like spiritual downpour, what needs to happen? She says, Well, in this chapter, we see the fire of God's judgment judgment on idolatry of the idolatry of his people, not even outside of like the church. And it was like she preached, but the bit that really has stuck with me was she was saying, um later in like in in Luke, when the disciples see Jesus rejected from a village and they say, Lord, should we call down fire like Elijah did? And he says, No. She says in in this story, Jesus is not Elijah who calls down fire, Jesus is the bull on the altar who takes it. Yeah. I was like, What? It was so crazy. Like, and I don't know why, I've never really pictured you know, I've I've pictured probably because I've seen The Passion of the Christ, I've pictured like Jesus on on the cross.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um but he's also described as the lamb who was slain in Revelation, and so and so I don't know why I've never pictured him like you just described, like the one that is literally lying on this altar.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That that is like stained with the blood of previous sacrifices, and like here we go, now it's his turn.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh. Yeah, the blood of goats and bulls does not take away sin, but his does. Yeah. The blood of God, like Acts 20. Acts 20, when Paul talks about uh we we've been bought by the blood of God. Um yeah, big stuff, right?
SPEAKER_02And he couldn't have done that if he hadn't taken on human flesh. Correct. He took on flesh so he could bleed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because at home is in the blood. Oh man, it's so rich. Honestly, we're just gonna I sometimes I have these moments where I'm like, oh wow, I get to spend all of my life thinking about this, and then I'm like, hang on, I get to spend all of eternity thinking about it. Like, there's so much in this man.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We're not even we haven't even finished the paragraph.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so let's finish, let's let's at least finish the paragraph.
SPEAKER_02So Romans 3 uh 25, good God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Um that that actually is interesting. We don't talk about our loaves, I don't think. One of the things Jesus is achieving on the cross is the f the the is addressing the sin that had been overlooked in the Old Testament. Is that what we're saying?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, seems like in Acts 17 Paul says, you know, God sort of winked at former sins and then kind of yeah. And and Hebrews, the whole of Hebrews is like all of this is like shadow, you know, the Day of Atonement didn't actually get rid of sins. Yeah. We all know that, don't we? Because otherwise if it actually got rid of sins, we'd you wouldn't have to keep doing it. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, and so even this, even if you like to think that um Romans 3 is like a distilling of some kind of a gospely nuggets message, oh gosh, there's so much in it. Like I don't know how long we've been going for, but yeah, there's um there are many different images and words and descriptions to try to get at the mystery that is the atonement and the atoning God.
SPEAKER_04And isn't that interesting that verse 27 is like you you know you've understood a paragraph when you get why the next paragraph begins the way it does.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, okay. Helpful. Especially in something like Romans, because Paul starts quite a lot of paragraphs with a question that he's assuming you're asking. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, wait, am I supposed to be asking?
SPEAKER_04He's taking both sides of the argument.
SPEAKER_02So he thinks that his his readers and listeners will then ask.
SPEAKER_04So where then is boasting it is excluded? And I well, I I I think that's what he's trying to accomplish in the in this whole thing from Romans chapter 1, verse 18, all the way through to to now. There there are there are people, especially the probably the Jewish believers within the Roman Church who well, at least we're not like the Romans, are we? We're at least we're not like Greco-Roman culture around us. It's all going to hell in a handbasket. Um, oh yeah, they're bad. And you're really bad. And all of us are in the dark, and we can do nothing about it, and but God.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um and it's all him, all him, all him, all him, all him, nothing of you, nothing of you, nothing of you, nothing of you. So shut up about your pride, aren't you? Like, wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and like I've mentioned before, it and it's similar in in Ephesians where um uh yeah, where where it says like, and this is the gift of God, like this is God's knowing. Yes. Um in Ephesians in Ephesians two, yeah, five for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. Right. It's the same the same initial response that Paul expects is that you shut your mouth and um and yeah, everything that you once took as being a source of pride just becomes flattened into like nothing.
SPEAKER_04It's just it's beautiful, isn't it? And it's sort of it's what the older kind of theologians would call law and gospel preaching, sort of the the law convicting you of sin. Got no hope, I'm in the dock, the gavel's about to fall, it's gonna be guilty, I know it, I know it. But you know, and then then gospel, and it's sort of the and the law is preached to the point where you realize the well the my hope is definitely not in me, and then gospel is but there's all the hope in the world in Christ. And it's and it's kind of and both things, both law and gospel, are getting me out of myself. Um if I'm tempted to boast in myself too much, well, maybe I need to to pay attention to the law a bit more. Um or maybe I need to see that my salvation is utterly, you know, a done deal accomplished entirely in Christ. But through law and gospel, it's both things are getting me out of myself because salvation is um Luther and others used to used to talk talk about being extra nos, so um like outside of us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_04There's there's there's this um It's a thing that happens to you. Yeah. Yeah. It's a passive righteousness that's getting to you and you're dead. And it's and is it not a wonderful thing that the good news is outside of you? You know? Yeah, yeah. Your righteousness is outside of you. Um that that's kind of what salv what atonement models, whatever whatever else an atonement model does, you know, maybe it should accomplish that in us.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yeah. So something else that Stott says is that the the order in which we describe these different um things that Jesus achieves, it matters because there's kind of like um there's a need for God's wrath to be uh averted, and then you're set free, and then you're like reinstated and as I guess that that's the justification part, and brought back into relationship, like reconciled. And I think that formed my view of what Jesus had done for quite a long time after I read it, in terms of oh right, okay, so this is process, like God, like um we sort out God's reaction to my sin, we sort out my slavery to to it, we sort out like what you know what part the devil might have had in all of that, and maybe we can talk about that in a bit as well. Um I get like you know, uh my debts paid, that brings me to neutral, and then the grace of God is like an abundant richness on top. So similar justification brings me to like a neutral and then and then adoption and reconciliation tops me up. But in these last this last year or two, I'm like, uh what we're just trying to explain in all of this is the union with Christ thing. Yeah. And that is that means it's a simultaneous, like because you are in him, yeah, and in your reconciliation with participation in the life of the Trinity, like in that you are justified rather than you required like these things had to happen in order for you to come and be reconciled. Yes. It's more s instantaneous than that. Does that make sense? I think so.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's more organically unified because it's in Christ that it's in Christ that wrath is averted, it's in Christ that his righteousness is imputed to me, it's in Christ that the slavery to sin is broken. It's in Christ. Yes, it's in Christ that the debt that my sin um has incurred is nailed to the cross and because it was nailed to Christ. And it's it all it all happens in Jesus, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's and like we've we've talked about a bit before, the like salvation isn't this thing, it's not a process, it's not a thing external to him, yeah. That he is like one for you, he's like got gone and done a thing, and then great now this is yours. Like it's him. Yes, he is yours.
SPEAKER_04And what he did is kind of it's so interesting that in if you go to Luke 15 as a model of what salvation looks like, I think most modern Christians think, oh yeah. Um, Luke 15 describes salvation because the sinful younger brother makes his pig sty plan and says his sorry spiel and he gets invited back home. And that's what salvation looks like. I think if you ask someone from the early church to pick a part of Luke 15 that really represents salvation, what they were constantly preaching about is the shepherd hoisting the sheep onto its shoulders and marching home. Which in in which point at which point the sinner is much more passive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Found in a ditch, not not making a decision in a pigsty.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. And is hoisted onto the strong shoulders of the good the good shepherd, who all by himself, the who who does not sort of give the the the sheep clear instruction on how to get home. Because Flossie is a moron, right? And and flossy needs Flossie needs to be hoisted onto the onto the shoulders of the Good Shepherd. And our sinful humanity is so lost and so far from the Father's house. Well, praise God, the Good Shepherd hoisted our humanity onto himself, right? And took it to the places where our sin demands to be taken, you know, and and took it through the wrath and the hell that it deserves, covering us, sheltering us, taking it on himself, coming through out the other side and marching us back home to the Father, where we are freed and we are ransomed and healed and delivered and all those other things. But it's it's all because in the person of Christ He has He has carried us in all these things, and it's yeah, it all happens in union with Jesus, you know.
SPEAKER_02So we talked a bit about the dimension of salvation that that concerns like um us, us and God. You might think, well, great tick, done. But um there's there's also the uh I guess fuller picture of um both what's going on in the spiritual realm, so kind of God's uh victory over evil and Satan, the the demonic, but there's also the physical realm, like the r the implications of salvation are this kind of um restoring, renewing, and um all things will be united in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. So there's like a the physical new creation, like this isn't just me as an individual with God, this is also communal as as the church is um is like it's a it's a people, it's a community thing we're saying into um and it's also a creation thing, and it's also a spiritual thing. Like there's there's just breadth and length and height and depth in this. Um how do those things fit in?
SPEAKER_04So a lot of people talk about different models of the atonement, one of one of which being penal substitutionary atonement. And I think I think we've already seen um as as you pointed out, that that even the way people reduce things to penal substitutionary atonement can be reductionistic, and we we don't even get the full wonder of even what that model is. But another angle on the cross that people talk about is is Christus victor. Um doing a lot of Latin today.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, Christ the victor over sin, death, hell, wrath, Satan.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_04He is David going against Goliath. You know, Goliath this supernatural head of the house of the wicked wearing his scale armor. What does that remind you of? The serpent and all that, and and and so praise God, with his own weapon. David defeats Goliath. And using death itself, you know, Jesus defeats him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, right? And so um there's this there's this supernatural element of Christ becoming man to truly have dominion, just the way we were meant to, from Genesis chapter one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. And he completes that work on day six. Gone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, that that's something I've been thinking about recently as well. Is the again, I mean this is more incarnation stuff in some ways, but it needs to be as well. Well, it needs to be yeah, it does. To divorce the two is just it's awful for both Easter and Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Um is that uh God had promised that man would rule and reign. Yes. But only God can sit on the throne of like the earth, like only only he belongs in that place. Right. And so in Christ the two things are are fulfilled and the right one sits there. Yeah. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_04I love that because uh like we're used to thinking that if you go all the way to Malachi and the story ended there, then that would be inappropriate because like it seems so tawdry. You can't you can't end the story there at Malachi. Then there must be a New Testament, there must be an incarnation because of Malachi. Whereas I think what you're saying is like you get to the end of Genesis 1 and you're like, I can't end there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's true. There's gotta be Christmas.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04There's gotta be Christmas.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In our in our image, made wait wait, sorry, what man is ruling the world? What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_04It's God's world, yeah, and man rules it. No, no, no, no, surely. Like, should man rule the world, should God rule the world? Well, yes. The God man, yeah, right. So, yeah, yeah. The Bible is incomplete.
SPEAKER_02Um, but yes, sorry, that was a tangent, but but it's that he rules uh not just over humanity or like the physical world, but there is a crushing Satan under his feet aspect of the cross, which is so crucial. Yes, um, yeah. And I I often think about if I'm doing like a series of evangelistic talks, I'm trying to think, okay, across across this um week or few days, I want to make sure that I am outlining a a broad perspective on what it is Jesus has accomplished. Yeah um and so to touch on I find it helpful thinking about the three the three enemies of um like the world, the flesh and the devil. So I'm thinking a bit about or or I guess um maybe four, you got death in there. So um sin, death, devil, hell, you know, there's different things that I can be talking about here that Jesus has sorted out for us. Yeah. Um yeah. I I wonder though whether and I mean feel free to say this isn't correct, that's fine. I wonder whether um the accuser is is implicit in in um Romans 3. So where it says this might not be right, but anyway, where it says um all have sinned and falls short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift, yeah. Actually there is um there is a overruling of the accuser there. And Satan is described as the as the accuser, um and it's like in the courtroom, I I think now I think I got this from a and a brilliant preacher by Daniel McLeod um a few years ago, but I went to find it and I couldn't find where I got it from in his preacher. So anyway, maybe something else, but this image of in the courtroom, it's not just that God is you know listing out your your sins of your life and then and then saying, and who's gonna pay the penalty? It's that it's that it's that the accuser a bit like in the story of Job, yeah, the accuser rightly is saying, but look, but look at what she's done.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02How could you like and and and calling out true things um but it's only a partial half truth because he obviously will not call out what Christ has done um at the same time. And so this this image of the justification of God is not just um for my ears. It's like in the in the in the ears of the accuser, it's like, yes, true, she has done this, but Christ has done this. Right, right. And and he completes the second part of the truth. Right. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_04That's totally there. And and and he completes the thought in Romans 8, verse 32, isn't it? Um verse 33. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It's God who justifies us. Yes, yes. And then is the one who condemns. And then the NIV kind of you know adds the the no one, which is implied in the Greek. Christ Jesus, who died more than that who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Yeah. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The defeat of the accuser.
SPEAKER_02And and I think I I think the the sermon I I was referring to, I I think it stuck with me so much because I'd never seen the um legal, penal substitution, justification language combined with the Christmas Victor like defeat of the accuser in the same way and realize that it happens at the same time in such a beautiful way. I think that's I would love us to do more of that in how we talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_04What would that look like? I think part of it is is getting people to inhabit these word pictures. Like I I think I think these models are not meant to be kind of propositions that we learn, but but that we're meant to go to the archery field, and then we're meant to go to the law court, and we're meant to go to the slave market, and we're meant to go to the temple, we're meant to have that experience of God is on the altar.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And we're meant to we're meant to Paul is definitely bringing to mind who then is the is the accuser. Who then who then shall shall make that accusation? Like we're we're meant to actually enter into these things, not just sort of correctly define atonement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yes. Oh no, that's good. I yeah, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. We're to be living this and inhabiting it.
SPEAKER_04So there's there's kind of peel substitution atonement, there is Christus victor, the the victory of Christ over all the principalities and powers and all that kind of stuff. And you might want to throw in Colossians 2 as well, and and there's there's plenty of language like that there, and Ephesians 3 and places. Um There's there's sort of there's there's a demonstration kind of angle. Um we we see some demonstration language there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and this is what um John Stott says in The Cross of Christ, says there's three main things Christ has accomplished um salvation, revelation, and conquest.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_02And that's that's another way to maybe summarise them. So yeah, um you can either talk about these different contexts we've been in, the temple and the law courts and the home as we're reconciled to the family and adopted. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, we're skirting around now. But but well, okay, you've asked about um adoption. It's helpful maybe we go back to what you said before about how would you complete the sentence, Jesus died so that, dot, dot, dot. Yeah. Um and so you've had here like, you know, Jesus died so that your record of debt is cancelled, Jesus died so that um your slavery to sin and Satan is broken free. There are different ways you could say that. One of the things you can say, like in in Ephesians 1, it says that um we are predestined for adoption as sons in Christ.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So Jesus died so that we would be um adopted into the life of the Trinity, and adopted because that is the thing the Son can give. It's his relationship to the Father. Right. If we're in him, we relate to the Trinity the way Jesus relates to the Trinity, which is as the the children in that, as the Son.
SPEAKER_04So J.I. Packer said if you wanted to boil down the New Testament three words, it would be adoption through propitiation.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Right. Oh, I didn't know Okay, adoption through propitiation.
SPEAKER_04So we've already talked about propitiation as this sort of technical word that that speaks of the sacrifice of atonement and Jesus bore rough on our behalf. But if it just if we are just left like imagine the temple um scenario and God's died on the altar, you're like, okay, I need to have a lie down now. But if he rises up again and says, Come with me and and let's feast. Right. Um in if we're invited home to call him father. I think that's that's the whole point of the propitiation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. To call us home into the adoptive love of God. You know, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes may may not perish but have eternal life, so that we can be sons and daughters in the one and only son brought to the Father.
SPEAKER_02So Yeah, well it's uh and I think about this because um I'm gonna do a little bit on it with some students later in the term where it's like with with toddlers that just keep asking why, why, why, why? I feel like we don't do that enough when it comes to talking about what Jesus has done. If it's like, well, why did Jesus come? Why so he die on the cross? Why are you die on the cross?
SPEAKER_06Why able to forgive us of our sin?
SPEAKER_02Why did he forgive us of our sin? Oh, oh, okay, now this is this is worth thinking about.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Why are we forgiven of our sin? Oh, so that we can be adopted as sons in the Yeah, right. So that we can participate in the life of God. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um I rem I remember John Piper preaching at the Evangelical Mil Ministry Assembly in um St. Helens Bishopsgate. It must have been 2006, I think, 2005, 2006, something like that. He blew the doors off with his preaching. He's just this this pocket rocket. Because he's he's not he's not a big guy, John Piper, but my goodness, he he kinda he preaches like a giant. And um and he talks about exactly this this language, and and he he sort of laments the fact that so much preaching is only in the legal frame.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And not in the adoption frame.
SPEAKER_05Not in the familial.
SPEAKER_04And he and he's like, you know, and I get it.
SPEAKER_05You're talking to me like I'm in the dark, and I get it. I get that I'm forgiven and I'm declared innocent. I get it, but there's part of me that just thinks, so what? And the whole thing is so good. That's in Helen. That's in Helen is just yes, John Piper. So what? I don't just want to judge. I want a father. Give me a father.
SPEAKER_02That's a very good impression.
SPEAKER_04You gotta go for it with John Piper. You gotta absolutely dive in with both feet with your with your John Piper impressions. That's just what you are. But it's unforgettable. It's unforgettable once you once you've heard John Piper say that, it's just unforgettable that you can preach in the legal frame.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And what? Yeah, and what? I want a father. Yes. And it's that's similar to what we were talking about with the the sin metaphors, is it's the relational part. It's when you start talking about because we aren't just um we aren't uh I'm not just a slight a slate that's been wiped clean. Like Yeah. Um, there's like a there is yeah, it's important to talk about the fact that this is all for the purpose of relationship.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02All of the the the wiping away of God's anger, the wiping away of our sin and our past, the conquering of Satan. All the it's like he's clearing all these obstacles for the purpose of relationship. And if you miss that bit, well, why are we talking about all the other things?
SPEAKER_04Although it's it's even more it's even more like he's grabbed me as a lost sheep, put me on his shoulder, and he's gotten through the obstacles with me on his shoulder to march me home to the feast, you know, to sit at table. Come on. And like, can I do a little bit on Hebrews 2? Yes. I know we don't have we don't have ages, but um why did Jesus die? Um in Hebrews he he takes people to Psalm 8, and he's like, Well, you know the one who is ruling God's creation, you know that's ultimately not Adam. Of course that's Jesus. The Bible could not end at Genesis 1. There had to be a second Adam. And he sort of goes through Psalm 8, and and then he says in verse 10 uh of uh Hebrews 2 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. So the pioneer of salvation, like as we've been saying, Jesus himself is salvation, it's not a thing. And and he is the one who goes ahead as the pioneer. Um both the one, verse eleven, both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family, so Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. Um so that's a very Christmassy verse, like he wants to join our family as our brother. But then verse twelve, what's it a quote from? I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters in the assembly, I will sing your praises, which is a quote directly from Psalm.
SPEAKER_00Psalm 22.
SPEAKER_04This incredible Psalm of the Cross. What is Jesus doing on the cross? He's like the high priest of all creation. I will declare my your praises. I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters in the assembly, I will sing your praises. John Calvin talks about uh Psalm 22, verse 22 as Christ is the heavenly choir master tuning our hearts to sing God's praises. And so there there he is, standing between heaven and earth, the ultimate reconciler. And he is our brother and our pioneer going through the wrath and the death and the hell on our behalf. Um just skip on down to verse 14. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity. So we got Christmas, so that by his death, Easter he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's seed, Abraham's descendants. Um the word for helps is a really strong word. It's a word for sort of Caesars, and and again it's that idea of Jesus didn't take angelkind by the scruff of the neck and march it home. Yeah, yeah. Jesus took us by the scruff of the neck and marched us home. That's the sort of very hands-on help that he's given us for this reason. He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, Christmas. In order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, Easter. And that he might make atonement for the sins of the people, because he himself suffered when he was tempted. He is able to help those who are being tempted. So to complete the sentence Jesus died so that dot dot dot. We've got so many answers here. Um but one of the one of the answers is the Son of the Father becomes our brother and as the pioneer of our salvation takes out sin where sin deserves to go and rises up again that he might embrace the children of man as the children of God. And it's it's it's that kind of there's that kind of adoption thing. Um he's bringing many sons to glory, many sons and daughters to glory through through what he does. And what Hebrews refuses to do is to divorce Christmas and Easter, divorce incarnation from atonement.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that brings another model into play, I think. We've we we've got you know penal substitution atonement, we've got Christas Victor, we've got um this sort of demonstration of God's language, uh God's love. Um there is also exemplary people sort of talk about, you know, he suffered so that we can suffer and we get a bit of that in verse uh 18 here. But there's representation, I think, that that um a theologian called T. F. Torrence talked about a a lot, and it's the high priesthood of Jesus as as Hebrews is talking about here, taking us to himself and as the pioneer of our salvation, he's putting the old man to death. He is destroying the old humanity with all its divisions, which Ephesians 3 talks about, you know, like how are we able to have due gentile relationships? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ephesians 2, yeah. He actually draws that together with the cross because he has div destroyed the dividing, you know, the wall of hostility in his body on the cross. So the old humanity, so so Jesus was a a a descendant of Abraham, like he so he comes into a Jewish humanity in order to rise again as a universal humanity, right? And but it's all representation stuff. It's all he's representing man, taking what man is meant to take. And he's remaining man, which is so important because the whole point of atonement is being at one, right? At one moment. And so he rises up as one, as the very one who died for us. Um because he's held on to us the entire time. All the way up to the Father's house, yes, where we feast. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so I suppose that's a good reminder that what we've done here is zoom in on the the death of Christ and what it what it means in his achieving. But in doing that, we're realizing actually it's it's connected to the whole work and person of Christ, which spans back towards eternity past as the eternal sun, but especially the incarnation that's been mentioned a few times, but also um, I guess the death and resurrection we often might group together, but let's not forget his ascension and present session and return. And we probably need to do some episodes on those.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. We will, and we will, yeah, and we will. So, what does that what does that mean for us then? Like, because we do we do want to simply proclaim Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, here at Speak Life, we love Jesus, share Jesus. Um, we can't always take an hour to do that. So yeah, what are what are some things that we can do?
SPEAKER_02Um well, a couple of things come to mind. Uh one for me is to think if I'm uh if I'm doing a so like I said before, if I'm doing like a series of talking talks in one place to try to make sure I'm using a variety of metaphors and taking us to the different rooms the temple, the law courts, the the family home, whatever it might be, um, across the the week. Uh knowing that not everyone's coming to all of them, but at least I know that in my dem like my explanation of who Christ is and what he's done, it's been holistic. And maybe that's something for those who are preaching week in, week out as as pastors of churches to keep in mind. Um I think it's helpful if you're gonna if you're gonna be so either um like all this kind of to be fair, lots of this talk about different metaphors and vocab, for me the interest came from reading Sam Chan's Evangelism in a skeptical world, where he has a chapter where he talks about different um biblical metaphors for Jesus, for sin, for life with him, without him. And and so I think about this a lot in the context of like evangelism, I guess. Um and so I'm thinking either from my um like if I'm going to speak from a passage, what this gives me freedom to do is to really, really stay in the passage. Yeah, is to be like, I don't have to pluck this like um Christus Victor piece and make sure it fits into a justification that I and unless it does, or I don't have to have to talk about um like a specific part of like God's redeeming or or paying a ransom for us if the passage is more talking about um like it's demonstrating God's demonstrating demonstration of the God's God's love. So there's kind of it gives you freedom to say if this passage that I'm speaking from or dwelling in or you know leading Bible study on, if it's not using the other models of the atonement, it's okay for me to also just sit in this for a bit and mine it for the glories it's got without thinking, oh no, but I'm not talking about penal substitution, oh no, but I'm not talking about defeat of the devil. Like that's okay. Yes. Um, but it's also helpful on the other side of thinking if if I'm in a conversation with someone um or I'm engaging with particular film or music or whatever, and I'm thinking, ah, there's a th there's something about Jesus here that can I I've got an opportunity, what do I do? How do I see this? Again, I've got a whole toolkit of things, different ways to explain what on earth the cross is about. Yes. Um, which I can I can choose from depending on the nature of the conversation or the topic I'm thinking about. And again, that's quite freeing. Yeah. Because it's not like I'm just gonna shoehorn in this thing about like satisfying the law or like um or being slaves that need freeing. It's like, well, well actually we right now we're kind of talking about like light and darkness, or we're talking about like cleansing and healing.
SPEAKER_04Folly on wisdom or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah.
SPEAKER_04So that's really helpful because of our previous episodes on sin. So we don't have to define sin always one way, we don't have to define salvation always one way. There's one way called Jesus. It's like Jesus is the one way of salvation, yeah. But the ways in which Jesus saves uh are very varied. But isn't that an interesting point of unity then? In amidst all the various models of the atonement, there is Jesus himself. And and wouldn't it be good if if he was the thing that we he was the one that we kind of focus on the entire time? Sometimes you get sort of atonement wars, and it's it's it's sort of um it reminds me of like imagine back in Levitical days, and imagine you had some Old Testament people and they were debating about which was the most important part of the day of atonement, and one person's like, No, the scapegoat is the most important. No, no, it's the it's the other goat that was sacrificed. No, it's the bull, and and the whole time Aaron is there. And and like actually it's it's Aaron who does all those things.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yes.
SPEAKER_04He takes it all into his own hands and he lays his hand on the scapegoat and he sacrifices the other goat and he does the bull stuff and he changes his clothes, and he's the one who goes up into the most holy place, he's the one who like changes clothes and comes back down. It's Aaron, it's Aaron, it's all Aaron. And everyone else is debating, like, no, I actually think it was you know the knife that was the most important thing.
SPEAKER_02Yes, okay, yeah. So so ultimately we're saying, as long as you're talking about some some one of these very true aspects for Jesus done, as long as you're talking about Jesus, it's probably good.
SPEAKER_04As long as you're talking about Jesus good, and if you talk about a mechanism without reflecting on the the one who is doing the mechanism. Yeah. Yeah. It might that's you're not even doing the mechanism.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, yeah, like we said, it's for like the kind of so whatness.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, so what? Yeah. It's full relationship. Okay, but with who? Can you tell me more about this? This person?
SPEAKER_04Which brings it all back to like when I asked those evangelists, like if there was one book, what would it be? And and and you know, so how does Paul summarize Romans? He says it's the gospel of God's Son. Or how does Matthew or Mark or Luke or or or John kind of define what they're doing? It's it's the good news of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, you know. And so if we're if we're looking for if we're looking for anything to be the the boiled down essence, um please may it be Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Rather than models of the atonement or mechanisms or or doctrines. Um yeah. If and and that then is liberating in preaching and it's liberating in personal conversation. Like I actually I don't actually have to work people through the 3-2-1 presentation right now. You know, I don't I don't I don't need to do this these seven steps or like but communicating something of the fact that Jesus is Lord by life and lip.
SPEAKER_02That's what I yeah, yeah. That's what I often say is the gospel's not a message, it's a person. And I describe it as the per the the character and story of Jesus. My goal is to share something of who he is, what he's like, and what he's done. Yeah. And that is that's good news.
SPEAKER_04Character and story. Is that like personal work? Like usually personal work, yeah, yeah. That's how I do it. I I translate it to his eyes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, his character and his story. Um you've ramified it.
SPEAKER_04I like it.
SPEAKER_02I like it. But it's helpful here that we've we've zeroed in on the death part of his story in particular. Um and and even in that, as we zoom in on that, we're like, oh gosh, it's just so rich. We've got salvation and what that involves. We've got um his revelation of what God is like, we've got the conquering of of evil. Um, and I'm sure that there's lots more that we could have said that we've missed. That's why we need to be able to do that. And so that is why that's why this is an ongoing conversation. So um, podcast at speaklife.org.uk, if you have if you spot our blind spot, what have we missed um in what Christ has accomplished on the cross? Has there been anything we have shared that um will be particularly helpful um or that you haven't thought about before? Let us know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, we we love getting your feedback. It's um yeah, it's a conversation, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Indeed, indeed. Um, and something that I just I find helpful to keep this not just as an intellectual thing, uh nice, rich, deep conversations, but as all deep to be directed back, to be doxological. Okay. Worshipful. Gosh. Um we've got all the words today. All the words, so much jargon, which I normally would hate. It's more a Greek word doxological. Yeah. Um so yeah, keeping it worshipful is just to think, oh, there are there are some brilliant worship songs out there that help to remind us of the different aspects of what Christ has done. Often they are found in older hymn books. I have little old Presbyterian hymn book in my shelf that I use sometimes in morning prayer. There's a more recent song by City of Light called Um It Was Finished Upon That Cross. And so I recommend if you're listening to this on Spotify, maybe click on that next. It was finished upon that cross. Um, and it just beautifully outlines a few different things that Jesus has done. It says, Um, though the sun had ceased its shining, though the war appeared as lost, Christ had triumphed over evil, it was finished upon that cross. Now the curse has been broken. Jesus paid the price for me, full the pardon he has offered, great the welcome I receive. Boldly I approached my father, clothed in Jesus' righteousness. There is no more guilt to carry, it was a finish upon that cross. Death was once my great opponent. Fear once had a hold on me, but the Son who died to save us rose that we would be free indeed. Free from every plan of darkness, free to live and free to love. Death is dead and Christ is risen. It was finished upon that cross. Onwards to eternal glory to my Saviour and my God. I rejoice in Jesus' victory. It was finished upon that cross.