Jesus Saves! But How? PART 4: Jesus' Death and God's Justice

Andrew Grey continues this adult Sunday School teaching on "Jesus Saves! But How?"

This is part 4: "Jesus' Death and God's Justice" from Sunday 7th December 2025

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I hope you've got a Bible and a handout. Please would you open Isaiah chapter 53. So Isaiah chapter 53. And if you've got a Black Church Bible, 613, page 613, in the Black Church Bibles. Our topic this morning, it is Jesus' death and God's justice. So let me pray and then I'll read. Father in heaven, we bless you that in the Lord Jesus you have given us a Saviour, and we pray that you would teach us of Him, of His person, of His work, encourage our hearts, help us to depend on Him, praise Him, and hold out the fruits of His dying and rising to others. And we ask that in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So Isaiah 53, I'm going to read verses 4 to 6. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Thanks be to God for his good word to us. We're approaching the cross of Christ. The backdrop, of course, to the cross of Christ is our plight. So on the one hand, we have a holy God. He is all holy. And we have our sinfulness. Do you remember back in session one we thought about our need of a saviour? We thought about our total depravity. That is, every single bit of us by nature is inclined away from truth, scripture, good, Christ. And we are therefore totally unable. Total depravity entails total inability. We cannot save ourselves, we cannot change ourselves. And so we come before a holy God as one who is a righteous God who must punish sin. We saw the wonder of the incarnation, how the Lord Jesus became a true man and also a new man, and he came in order to save us, but the incarnation alone is not enough. And so we come to the cross of Christ. And what we're going to do today is to study and be led to praise Christ's person and action as our high priest. Sometimes the New Testament does talk about the cross simply as a shorthand for what Jesus has done. For example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. But it's not actually by the wooden object on the hill outside of Jerusalem, the hill of Calvary, that Christian people are saved. It is by Christ's person and action upon the cross. And specifically his person and his action as our high priest. Now, in his office of high priest, he's got two roles. And he continues to intercede for us. And it's the first of those two things which we're considering this morning. The New Testament tells us, Hebrews chapter 5, verse 1, that priests, in the Old Testament, they were appointed by God to act on behalf of men in relation to God. Why? Well, so as to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. And the Lord Jesus Christ, he is our great high priest, and what he has offered is himself. As he says in John 10, 18, I lay down my life of my own accord. It is a priestly self-offering. So here's a paragraph from the Westminster Confession, chapter 8. The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal spirit once offered up unto God, has fully satisfied the justice of his father, and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for those whom the Father has given unto him. And it's that once-for-all time offering of himself that we're considering this morning. So what it is he did and the fruits that flow from it. So turn over to the second side of the handout. At the very base, at the very bottom, is this. Through it, Christ worked a penal and substitutionary atonement. Now it's an unwieldy phrase, worth saying, too, that it's not necessarily a popular phrase. You might sort of glean a few insights why, but it is essential in understanding what the Lord Jesus Christ was doing when he died upon the cross. So the word atonement that sums up the achievement of the cross. It is an English word that was invented to describe the achievement of the cross. It literally is made up of at one-ment, bolted together to make this word. So God and his human creatures were enemies. They were not at one. Through the work of Jesus on the cross, atonement is achieved. But in what way? And the answer through penal substitution. Now, penal, it has to do with punishment. So the penal system is another name for our prisons and the other sort of paraphernalia of punishment that surrounds them. So as the Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross, Jesus was punished. That is the penal bit. And substitution has to do with a swap, with people exchanging places. In a football match, one footballer goes off and another comes on and takes his place. Jesus' death is substitutionary because he was punished for us instead of us. So an illustration. So if my hand here represents your life, then let this book here represent all that God can rightly hold against you: your sin, your transgression, and your iniquity. So all of the ways in which you have gone astray from God, and it is a heavy book because it carries with it the penalty of death and hell, because God is holy, he is righteous. Now let my other hand represent Jesus. And so as the Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross, he bore my sin and the wrath of God at my sin that I might be free from it. Now, how do we see this in the Bible? Now, if you've still got your Bibles open, please, at Isaiah 53. Notice penal substitutionary atonement in those verses. See those words that speak of punishment. This servant of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was stricken by God. He was smitten, afflicted, pierced, crushed. We read of punishment and of wounds. And wonderfully we read of substitution. Do you notice? He took up our infirmities. He was pierced for our transgressions. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And the results. Well, it's peace. And it is healing. And when you come to the New Testament, this is the New Testament's understanding of the cross work of Christ also. So, for example, in 1 Peter 2, 24-25, where the apostle quotes from Isaiah, well, it teaches the same. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you are like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your souls. And this is where all of our hope is found. The Bible teaches us this in so many ways and places. So in the Old Testament, in shadow form, in the Passover, the Day of Atonement, the whole sacrificial system, this wider section in the book of Isaiah, the prophecy of Isaiah, the work of the servants, Isaiah 52 and 53. We see it taught in the Gospels and then preached in the New Testament epistles. Leon Morris put it like this. Was there a price to be paid? He paid it. Was there a victory to be won? He won it. Was there a penalty to be born? He bore it. Was there a judgment to be faced? He faced it. And imagine the opposite for a moment. The terrible opposite, that this is not true. Or that it's not true for me. So if Christ is not my substitute, I still occupy the place of a condemned sinner. If my sins and my guilt are not transferred to him, if he did not take them upon himself, then surely they remain with me. If he did not deal with my sins, then I must face their consequences. If my penalty was not borne by him, it still hangs over me. There is no other possibility. Wonderfully it's true. But here's the question: how is it true? How is it true? And more specifically, how is it just? How is it righteous? God is holy, and in his word he says things like, I will not acquit the guilty, and he does not leave the guilty unpunished. So this actually really matters for the vindication of God's name. And here is the Bible's answer. The Saviour bore the sin and punishment of those joined in union with him. And let me try and explain this. Suppose for a moment that I murder someone. Sunday morning has gone very badly. Now, no one else can be tried for that crime. It would be utterly unjust if someone else were tried and punished for that crime. Because I should have been tried and punished. Now, question is this not what this understanding of the cross and the atonement actually does? And the answer is no. Because on the cross, Jesus bore the sins of those people who were joined in union with him. Wonderfully, God does not always deal with us as individuals. He also treats us in those special relationships where he has placed us. He deals with us in covenant relationships where there is an appointed leader or head or representative. In the Bible, there are two notable heads. And we've talked about them already, haven't we? Adam and Christ. And Christians, by the grace of God, through faith, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in union with him. We're actually going to have a whole session in the new year, God willing, on union with Christ. And we read things like this in the New Testament. You'll see Romans 6.5 down there on your handout. Paul writes, For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. So just stop and dwell on that phrase for a moment. We have been united with Him in a death like His. In the sovereign plan of God, in the will of God, as the Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross, we were with Him. In the mind and in the plan of God, we were with Him. We were united with Him. So God does not deal with His people apart from us in relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice how very personal it is what the Lord Jesus did. God the Father gives a people to Jesus. We read in John 17 and in other parts of the New Testament also. He gives a people to Jesus. And then to purchase eternal life for those people, God the Son gives himself for them. He says in John 10, I know my sheep, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And so what we are talking about here is an effectual atonement. Much better a term than is sometimes used, limited atonement. So it is not that Christ makes salvation hypothetically possible, he actually saves actual people. So 1 Peter 3.18 we read that Christ died to bring you to God. He actually takes a person, a man, a woman, a boy or a girl, and brings them to the Father. Specific people who had been given by the Father to the Son in the plan and the counsels of God. And those ones are the ones for whom Christ died in order to bring them to the Father. There's much more we could say on that, but just a note. Scripture teaches, and you know, the Bible's doctrine of the atonement requires, divine justice requires that atonement be effectual, actual in this way. And this is significant because our union with Christ, it permits an exchange. It's in this union alone that a just exchange can take place. An exchange of righteousness and of wickedness. And, and this is the point, this is righteous. So the Lord Jesus Christ, he receives my wickedness. And it is personal. I have sinned, I am a sinner, I deserve hell, I deserve guilt. It's not just a general mass of sins for which Christ dies, he died in my place, bearing what I should have borne. So he represents and bears actual and specific sinners in his work upon the cross. So in union with him, joined to him, Christ bears my infinite demerit. But also, there's a second exchange, isn't there? So he takes something from me, but he also gives something to me. I receive Christ's righteousness. He bears my guilt. I am clothed in his righteousness. The word used to describe this is imputation. Something is imputed from me to Christ and from Christ to me. Something is put upon me, clothed around me, in a legal sense, a real sense, and an utterly personal sense. So I wear the righteousness of Christ. Just an illustration of this is found in human marriage. And this is one of the reasons why human marriage exists. Two people get united. Two become one. God says that. Imagine for a moment. An impoverished bachelor who is 500,000 pounds in debt marries an heiress who brings 40 million pounds to the marriage. Now there's an exchange, okay? She gets the debt, he gets countless riches, and that is righteous. It is just and proper because of the nature of their union. They have become one. Now, a really important verse for us here is 2 Corinthians 5, 21. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Now, union with Christ, that is described in those two precious words in Him. They're two of the most important words in the whole Bible, in Him, in Christ. You're in Christ. And because we are in Him, notice sinless Jesus is made to be sin. You know, that is how powerful this union is. And in turn, we become the righteousness of God. It's glorious. Now, turn over to the back of the handout. And just for a moment, before we finish, let's think about three specific fruits of the Lord Jesus' work on the cross. Well, we've just seen one, haven't we? Reconciliation for Christ's people. Sin is imputed to Christ, it's not counted against us. We bear the righteousness of Christ, and therefore we are reconciled to God the Father. We gain admission to his heavenly kingdom. He becomes now our Father. Not going to say any more. Dare I say it though, that is not the most important fruit of the cross. Even more important is that God be glorified. And God be publicly glorified. Now, wonderfully, in the mercy and the grace of God, God's glory and our eternal good, they always go hand in hand. But the glory of God is the most important end in this universe. And in the cross of Jesus, we see the glory of the triune God, especially in his justice and in his public victory over Satan. Just think about that. That point about justice. On the handout, I've put a couple of Really important verses from Romans 3. Let me read those. Talking about the work of Jesus, whom 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. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So in the Apostle Paul's mind, the greatest disaster would be that God might appear unrighteous. After all, he passed over former sins. So just think, Old Testament. King David committed adultery. King David committed murder. God did not condemn him on the spot, but forgave him. How? God must be shown openly, publicly to be righteous, to be just, and this really matters. And so he put forward the Lord Jesus as a propitiation. Another critical word at the heart of the gospel. That is, one who would turn aside the wrath of God in order that he could be two things: just and a justifier. So he is just. Sin is punished, and it must be. But also to be a justifier. That is, sin is punished in the Saviour, and his righteousness is then given to the one who has faith in Christ. At the start of our time, I asked you to read 1 John 1.9, where we read this sentence. He is faithful and just to forgive us. And I think that's that word just, that is the most extraordinary sentence. We probably gloss over that verse often. We sometimes preface confession in gathered worship with it. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just. How is it just? Or here is how. An open stem demonstration of God's justice, also, lastly, it is public victory over Satan. Colossus 2 13 to 15. And you who are dead in your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. It is even more important that our forgiveness through the cross of the Lord Jesus has robbed Satan of his ability to accuse us, and therefore Satan is openly put to shame. Now there's a very dense couple of verses. I can't say everything that needs to be said about them. The powers and the authorities, that's code for Satan and those beings that serve alongside him. And Christ has disarmed them and openly shamed them, you know, exposed their weakness and defeat. And he has done that by his cross, and therefore all glory goes to him. I'm gonna pause there. Covered a lot of ground actually. Why don't we take um five minutes just to discuss with a neighbour, share any encouragements, share any puzzles, and then God willing, we'll have somewhere between five and ten minutes just for questions. So the role of the Holy Spirit in the work of Christ on the cross. Probably we'll say a little bit more about that next week. We're going to think about the cross and the Trinity, but just really briefly, the work of Christ on the cross was the united work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Son had a proper and a particular work to do, but he did not do it without the Father or the Spirit. The New Testament teaches that the man, Christ Jesus, was indwelt by the Holy Spirit from the moment of his conception, and everything he did in his obedient life and his obedient death was done in the power of the Holy Spirit. And it was by the power of the eternal spirit that he offered himself and he offered this offering unto the Father. So I guess when you look at it from the kind of the as God, the Trinity, all three persons working for our redemption, the man Christ Jesus also empowered by the Holy Spirit in this offering. So I mean that's just the headlines. Might say a little bit more next week. It's a glorious thing. So how do you explain this to an inverted common as nice people? That is such a good question. I mean, it is a it is a work of the Holy Spirit to know that you actually need this. You actually see yourself as you really are. And you realise actually I'm not the kind of person I thought I was, and maybe I don't even meet the standards I set myself, let alone uh the Holy God, and I have such a problem. So I guess you know, praying for that conviction of sin, being brought to a true knowledge of yourself, trying to get someone in the pages of Holy Scripture, um, trying to encourage an honest encounter with the law of God. I mean, the law of God is a good thing, it's a holy thing, and one of its one of its uses in the hands of the Holy Spirit is to lead us to Christ. You know, sort of having an having an honest conversation about the Ten Commandments. And you know, particularly as the Lord Jesus would have us understand the Ten Commandments. Um it's hard, isn't it? It's not Natalie, go and speak to that.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Yeah, I was just gonna check in a little bit, and I think it's um I think two common we can minimise um our things, and actually we often think about how people like to recognize all the things we have to commit and that's important and it's it's kind of it's it's a little bit more than.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

And also the I find it helpful to remember that like the the law is a whole because it reflects a whole God. And you know, someone might think, well, I I don't know, I'm I'm struggling a bit on numbers one, two, three, and ten, but I'm I'm absolutely smashing seven, eight, and nine. Well, you're not, okay, because that I mean that's just a blasphemous and stupid thing to think. But the the law is like a it's like a perfect plate. I mean, I'd imagine a perfect bit of pottery or something, and this is absolutely perfect apart from the massive chip over there. It doesn't work like that, does it? But I guess coming to realise that I have a big problem is a big deal, isn't it? I have a problem with God, but I don't actually also love other people as I ought. Um, yeah.

unknown 27:29

Go on.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

So there are lots of churches out there who would say we accept that Jesus had to die on the cross physically as a substitute for our sins, but we reject this notion of him being punished or taking the wrath of God. That's kind of you know cosmic child abuse, that's something more than the Bible teaches. Uh it seems that's kind of distinctive reformed um understanding of it. So, how do we kind of defend that from the word? Is it kind of Isaiah 53? Is that the kind of strongest? That Jesus actually drank our hell on the cross.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

I think there are, I think there are many, so in other words, defending penal substitutionary atonement against those corners of the wider church that very tragically, like you say, see some place for the work of Christ on the cross, but reject the idea that Christ bore sin and punishment in our place. So the the texts that I have just in very brief outline mentioned there on the second side of the handout, there are there are many Bible texts that really explicitly teach what is rightly called penal substitutionary atonement. I guess just other kind of broader doctrinal considerations around the nature of God. If he really is holy and righteous, then there is no alternative. There is no possibility of salvation unless Christ does a work like this. So, in a sense, the bigger problem is do you really believe that God is holy and he is righteous? And who would want to live in a world with an unholy or an unrighteous God? It's a terrible place to live. I mean, there are other there are other massive kind of doctrinal fault lines to do with the Trinity. So lots of the stuff that has gone down over the last few years is is just because people don't understand God, the Holy Trinity. People don't understand the being of God. We're going to talk a little bit about this next week, what sometimes is called the simplicity of God. It's not that uh God is like a pizza with different segments of different attributes, and well, wonderfully, his love attribute is much bigger than his holiness attribute. So if you what a relief, his love can sort of squash his holiness. God is not like that. You know, his love is holy love, his righteous, his he's he's a simple being, and that has massive implications. But I think bottom line, if you if you don't like the God of the Bible, you will have a problem with this nature of atonement, and sadly that has rather infected the wider church. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

I'm interested in the sufficiency versus the efficacy. So you've got down here um the sacred border sin and punishment of those joined the union with them, which is obviously not everybody, because not everybody receives the offer of salvation. So I just I'm interested in that all sufficiency versus effectualness.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Yeah, all sufficiency of the atonement, the efficacy of the atonement. So the Lord Jesus, he died on the cross in his human nature, but God the Son died in his human nature. Acts chapter 20 can actually talk about the blood of God. So, in other words, that's one little indication that the offering of Christ on the cross was of infinite worth. Infinite worth. Because he was not just a man and not just a perfect man, he was also God, the Son, dying in his human nature. So the offering of Christ was of infinite worth. It could it could save as many, many, many, many people as, and here's the determining bit the sovereign God determines that he will save. Now, the offer of the gospel is made to everyone. We don't know who the Father has given to the Son. We don't know who our elect or predestined, we'll come to predestination specifically, God willing, in the new year. And you know, it's it is our job to make a if you like a universal offer of the gospel to anyone. And the gospel says anyone who hears and repents and believes will be saved. So that's so that's our job, and the offer of the gospel is universal. Um, but those for whom Christ died are those who the Father gave to the Son in eternity, and they will also be the ones to whom the Holy Spirit, in his own good time, will make Christians regenerate them, justify them, adopt them, and so on. So I think I think that's probably the best way of uh thinking about those things, trying to distinguish well, what is what is God's will and God's job, then also, okay, where do we fit in? Well, there are some some things that are just God's business, right? Okay, church, over to you. Hold out the gospel to all, and anyone who repents and believes will be saved. So that that would probably be my sort of headline answer to that, I think. Do ask other questions about that, and God willing, next week we'll continue on the cross and think about the cross and um the trinity, the cross and the being of God. So shall I pray? Father, we've been talking about holy and wonderful things. Uh, we bless you for our Saviour and for his wonderful love, you know, his love for you, his obedience to you, his love for us, your love for us. And we pray that you would help us to hold fast to, find all of our hope, all of our joy in our Savior's work. Pray that we would be cross-shaped people. Pray that we would show that in our lives of repenting and believing and resting in the cross and in the gospel that we share with others. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.