Featured Why you must understand PSA

Oh you’re going to get comments

 

Who would conclude if Christ died for our sins, referring to those born anew, it means Christ did not die for the sins of others never to be saved? Certainly not an objective seeker of truth.

Who would conclude if Christ died for the church, those already called out, Christ did not also die for those to be saved and those never to be saved? Certainly not an objective seeker of truth.

Was "all sin punished" or did Christ's substitutionary sacrifice purchase the right to forgive and forget the sins of anyone God transfers into Christ's spiritual body?

1 John 2:2 says Christ became the means of salvation for all of humanity.

2 Peter 2:1 says Christ bought those to be saved and those never to be saved with His blood.

 

I could really get into it but I won't but I remember the first mention of this after Adam and Eve sinned and God told Satan:

Genesis 3: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

And that process has been carried out through Genesis to Revelation... PSA in its simplicity is this... Christ stood where I could not stand and did what I could not do, to eternally save a wretched sinner like me... Brother Glen

 

This is not the Christian gospel. There is no mention of the resurrection here. This just proves that penal substitution advocates do not think that the resurrection is necessary for salvation. Our problem is not that we deserve punishment at some point in the future. Our problem is that we are already dead, already under God's judgments, and in need of resurrection. See Ephesians 2:1-10.

As Paul says in Acts 13:32, “We preach to you the good news (gospel) that God has fulfilled His promises to our fathers in that he raised up Jesus from the dead.” How did God fulfill His promises? By raising Jesus from the dead. The gospel is that God’s covenantal promises to restore the world from Adam’s curse (the subject of the Old Testament) are fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection (the subject of the New Testament). The gospel is God’s promise and His fulfillment of that promise in Jesus.

The atonement and justice relationship is this: Due to God’s gracious covenant, justice requires restoration for damage suffered by innocent parties. Humans have totally and severely damaged themselves by their own sin (God is not damaged by our sin. In the case of sin against God, sin is an offense that damages the offender). God desires to enact restoration for this destruction, but humans are not innocent, they are guilty. There is none righteous, not one. So the question is: How can a just God, a covenant God, enact restoration for guilty humanity’s self-destruction? Answer: God becomes a human in the person of Jesus Christ, lives completely innocently (or righteously) and therefore merits the covenantal blessings by which humanity’s destruction will be restored. Jesus then voluntarily endures all of humanity’s sinful destruction against himself by suffering crucifixion at the hands of all humans on the cross. He therefore merits restoration for all of humanity’s sinful destruction, for he alone has suffered sin’s destruction as an innocent party. This restoration manifests in His resurrection, when “God raised our Great Shepherd up from the dead through the blood of the eternal covenant (Heb 13:20).” So the correct response to the question “Why did Jesus die?” is: in order for all suffering and death to be repaired by God in accordance with his justice, all suffering and death had to be endured by a perfectly innocent and righteous person (for only innocent persons have the right of restoration for wrongs suffered) and only Jesus qualifies as that perfectly righteous person.

Divine justice is therefore satisfied in the resurrection as the reversal and reparation of all the sin that Jesus unjustly suffered on the cross. Jesus dies under the unjust judgment of humans, and is raised by the just judgment of God. Jesus’ reward, or inheritance, of the covenantal blessings applies to the rest of humanity if by the power of the Holy Spirit we participate in His death (through remorse) and participate in His resurrection (through repentance). So the gospel is not that “God substituted Himself to satisfy His own wrath,” which is not Biblical terminology. Again, the gospel is exactly what Paul says it is: “the good news that God has fulfilled His promises to our children in that He raised Jesus up from the dead” (Acts 13:32). And again, the gospel is that God’s covenantal promises to restore the world from Adam’s curse (the subject of the Old Testament) are fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection (the subject of the New Testament).

 

The resurrection of Jesus is the central answer to the human problem, and the central answer to the question of why Jesus died. that penal substitution seeks to answer those problems without mentioning the resurrection is enough to show that it is false.

If your salvation narrative does not include Jesus' resurrection as absolutely essential, then your salvation narrative is false. You know you have it wrong.

 

MacArthur was speaking on the topic of Penal Substitution. He was not speaking of salvation generally. If you read his books you will find he has plenty to say on the Resurrection.

 

But from this quotation it is clear he does not think the resurrection is essential to answering the human plight or to answering "why did Jesus die?" If he thought the resurrection was essential, then he could not have answered the question without discussing it.

 

No, that is not true. Believing that Jesus' righteousness is imputed to us can be independent from believing that Jesus died in our place in order to satisfy the wrath of God.

But the larger truth is that the Holy Spirit applies the promise, incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus to believers. This includes the imputation of Jesus' righteousness, but it is much more than that.

 

I think you are being a bit silly here. @Marooncat79 has already answered you. The first and most important fact of the gospel Paul preached was that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3). If Christ had not died, He could not have risen. But no one here denies the importance of the Resurrection. 'Who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.'

 

That is true, your sins could be forgiven but if Jesus Christ is not risen then your not going anywhere... The resurrection of Jesus Christ the Eternal Son proves the promises of his Eternal Father are also true... Brother Glen

John 14: 1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

 

Yes. Tyndale is right. The resurrection has to be true or we are still in our sins. But it is wrong to center our redemption on the resurrection if this is being done with the intention of doing away with the centrality of Christ's death. Horatius Bonar goes into this in some detail. There is a particular heresy that does this and I came across it but cannot remember where it was. In general, at some point it is simply a fact that what we are describing as penal substitution best describes the actual accomplishing of our redemption.

 

Forgiveness is restoration from a state of brokenness, which happens through the resurrection, so I would argue there is no forgiveness without Jesus' resurrection.

 

No, redemption means purchase out of bondage. Penal substitution does not constitute a payment of any currency that would actually free us from bondage or repair our brokenness. Penal substitution claims that the debt paid is one of "punishment" (which is a concept that does not exist, and punishment by itself cannot repair an offense, just as a murderer going to jail does nothing to bring the murdered back to life). The Bible makes it clear that the debt paid is obedience.

 

Right. Unless I am wrong Jesus of Nazareth, the only sinless man, who died did not die for his sin but for ours and unless I am wrong is the only man that died and has been raised out of the dead. To date, the only one raised from the dead toi die no more.

Now consider this statement.

for if dead persons do not rise, neither hath Christ risen, and if Christ hath not risen, vain is your faith, ye are yet in your sins; 1 Cor 15:16,17

If Christ is not raised, to die no more, to date the first and only.
All are still in their sin.