Was Christ's Death Meaningless towards Redemption?

[JonC]

@Martin Marprelate made a comment that Christ became “sin” in the way that we become the righteousness of God. He further stated that this was accomplished prior to Christ’s death on the Cross (that this had been accomplished by the time Christ cried “it is finished”).

I’m using his posts because it was the most recent, but I’ve read similar posts by others and this created some questions.

If our redemption was completed prior to Christ’s death on the Cross, is there a reason for Christ to have died?

I ask because if our “debt” was paid before Christ died, then it seems that Christ’s actual death was meaningless, which is in stark contrast to historical Christianity which viewed Christ dying on the Cross (Christ’s physical death) as suffering the fate of all mankind in order to deliver man from the bondage of sin and death.

 

[Alan Gross]

@Martin Marprelate made a comment that Christ became “sin” in the way that we become the righteousness of God. He further stated that this was accomplished prior to Christ’s death on the Cross (that this had been accomplished by the time Christ cried “it is finished”).

I’m using his posts because it was the most recent, but I’ve read similar posts by others and this created some questions.

If our redemption was completed prior to Christ’s death on the Cross, is there a reason for Christ to have died?

I ask because if our “debt” was paid before Christ died, then it seems that Christ’s actual death was meaningless, which is in stark contrast to historical Christianity which viewed Christ dying on the Cross (Christ’s physical death) as suffering the fate of all mankind in order to deliver man from the bondage of sin and death.

The "debt" wasn't paid when Jesus was made sin.

The wages of sin is death.

It was our sins Imputed to Jesus that caused His death.

The life of the flesh is on the blood.

Although, Perfectly Righteous, God turned His back on Jesus and could not look upon sin, and separated Himself from Jesus the Son.

God forsook Jesus the Son in His Office, when Jesus cried, " My God, My God".

Upon His death, the debt was paid and God accepted His blood sacrifice.

How do we know God accepted Jesus payment of the sin debt of His people?

Because, He Raised Jesus from the dead.

"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21.

 

[tyndale1946]

The "debt" wasn't paid when Jesus was made sin.

The wages of sin is death.

It was our sins Imputed to Jesus that caused His death.

The life of the flesh is on the blood.

Although, Perfectly Righteous, God turned His back on Jesus and could not look upon sin, and separated Himself from Jesus the Son.

God forsook Jesus the Son in His Office, when Jesus cried, " My God, My God".

Upon His death, the debt was paid and God accepted His blood sacrifice.

How do we know God accepted Jesus payment of the sin debt of His people?

Because, He Raised Jesus from the dead.

"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21.

Alan you are forgetting one scripture that denies our sin killed Christ... Even as our substitute... The sinners sin results in his death... Not so with Jesus Christ... I agree with Martin... If our sin killed Jesus Christ then this scripture means nothing... He finished the work and died on his own volition... He was already dead when the Roman Centerion pierced his side... Brother Glen

John 10: 17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

 

[37818]

Good thing correctly understanding Christ's death was two deaths is not a matter to understood in order to be saved.

Isaiah 53:9.

 

[JonC]

Alan you are forgetting one scripture that denies our sin killed Christ... Even as our substitute... The sinners sin results in his death... Not so with Jesus Christ... I agree with Martin... If our sin killed Jesus Christ then this scripture means nothing... He finished the work and died on his own volition... He was already dead when the Roman Centerion pierced his side... Brother Glen

John 10: 17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

I agree. Christ died for our sins.

But, given your agreement with Martin, why did Christ's death not actually matter?

What I am getting at is Martin has argued (and continues to argue) that Christ's death did not matter in terms of our redemption because this was accomplished on the Cross prior to Christ's death.

The problem is Christ, in that view, could have cried out "it is finished" and then saved Himself and hopped off that cross. It negates Christ dying for our sins. It negates Christ purchasing us with His own blood.

It reduces the Cross to God punishing Christ instead of us. It is a "bloodless" cross insofar as Christ's death - His blood - is not relevant to our salvation.

 

[Alan Gross]

Alan you are forgetting one scripture that denies our sin killed Christ... Even as our substitute... The sinners sin results in his death... Not so with Jesus Christ... I agree with Martin... If our sin killed Jesus Christ then this scripture means nothing... He finished the work and died on his own volition... He was already dead when the Roman Centerion pierced his side... Brother Glen

John 10: 17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

You have Jesus committing suicide?, of His own volition?

I agree He had the Power to "give up the Ghost", but not until my sin debt was paid.

Do you see John 10, His laying down His Life, or the Determinant Counsel and Forknowledge of God, as being the "cause" of His death?

Or that saying, "it is Finished" immediately prior to Him giving up the Ghost as separate and completely apart from His death and not including it, in any way?

I can't go there.

I see Jesus as the Surety and the Testator.

I hope you don't see His suffering our debt as Him being a sinner.

Moganism says,
"He took not the stain of our sins, but the guilt of them. Now in guilt there is two things.

1. A worthiness and desert of punishment.
2. An obligation and binding over thereunto.

"Christ took not the desert of punishment upon him, from any fault in himself; he took whatsoever was penal upon him, but not culpable.

"As he was our surety, so he everyway discharged our debt, being bound over to all judgments and punishments for us.

"Now we owe unto God a double debt.

1. A debt of obedience; and if that fail,
2. A debt of punishment.

"And both of these hath Christ freed us from; first, by obeying the will of his Father in everything; and, secondly, by suffering whatsoever was due to us for our transgressions."

Christ, Our Surety | Monergism


Then, Morganism calls "not being a Surety", heresy.

Not me.

I do call it "Anti-Christ", though.

"Some heretics that would shake the foundation of our faith, will grant Christ to be a Mediator to intercede for us, and a Redeemer to set us at liberty from slavery, etc., but not to be a surety to pay our debt, by way of satisfaction to God for us.

"Let us remember, that God's pleasure to redeem lost mankind, is not so much by way of power and strength, as by way of justice, and therefore it is said,

Heb. 7:22, "Christ is become our surety;" and Paul, when he became a mediator to Philemon for Onesimus, a fugitive servant, did it by way of surety,

"If he owe thee anything I will discharge it," Philemon 18; and Christ Jesus our Mediator blessed for ever, so intercedeth unto God for us, as that he fully satisfies his justice for our offences."

Christ, Our Surety | Monergism

see Gill: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.primitivebaptist.net/Articles/John_Gill/Book%20II%20-%20Acts%20of%20the%20Godhead/12%20-%20Of%20Christ%20as%20The%20Surety%20of%20the%20Covenant.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi7nprGv779AhXBmGoFHQc2CwMQFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2RT51EGx_6yiolKw0aRvwt

 

[JonC]

You have Jesus committing suicide?, of His own volition?

To be fair, Jesus said that He is giving His life willingly and nobody is taking it from Him. (John 10:18).

Or that saying, "it is Finished" immediately prior to Him giving up the Ghost as separate and completely apart from His death and not including it, in any way?

I believe you have identified the problem here.

Any theological system that places our redemption primarily on anything except Christ dying for our sins is a serious error - even if it is a beloved tradition focused on redemption via our sins being punished.

@Martin Marprelate 's theology does not need the Cross, much less Christ's death, as long as our sins are punished apart from us. Christ Himself becomes nothing but an empty vehicle for punishment and His actual death a meaningless exit. The focus is not Christ, not really God, but a single attribute of God through which the Father is enslaved.

 

[kyredneck]

a matter to understood in order to be saved.

So, going to heaven depends on head knowledge? Wow, all those poor ignorant souls that don't understand it 'exactly right'.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

What I am getting at is Martin has argued (and continues to argue) that Christ's death did not matter in terms of our redemption because this was accomplished on the Cross prior to Christ's death.

Would you care to tell us all where exactly I have ever claimed that our Lord's death 'did not matter'?

 

[JonC]

Would you care to tell us all where exactly I have ever claimed that our Lord's death 'did not matter'?

I mean it in terms of our redemption.

You have repeatedly argued against my insistence that our redemption was accomplished by Cheiat's death (His physical death) on the cross by insisting that our redemption had been finished prior to His death (just before He gave up His Spirit).

 

[Alan Gross]

from: http://0352182.netsolhost.com/pdf/An Examination of the Alleged Discrepanc.pdf

"Holiness.

"Jesus, He is Holy.

Isaiah 43:9
Hebrews 4:15
Hebrew 7:26

vs.

"Jesus Is sin.

II Corinthians 5:21
"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

"The word "sin," in the latter text, doubtless means "sin-offering." 1 In this view concurs, Augustine, Ambrose, Erasmus, Lightfoot, Macknight, Stuart, Whitby, and many other commentators.

Chrysostom says, "Him who knew no sin, who was righteousness itself, he hath made sin; that is, hath suffered to be condemned as a sinner, to die as a person accursed."

1 Schleusner, Lexicon to the LXX, defines the original Greek term, ltP.a.P7[a., as "peccatnm, etiam poena peccati, et sacrificinm piaculare." Biel gives, also, "sacrifieinm pro peccato."

"Examples of the secondary signification arc Ezek xliii. 22; xliv. 29; xlv. 22. According to Gesenius, the corresponding Hebrew term 1"1~~M, with two kindred words, means both sin and sin-offeriIlY.

"Fnerst s~is -r,~~\'1 denotes sin in 1 Sam. xx, 1; Psalm lix. 4; Job xiii. 23; and sin-ojfering-in Ex, xxix. 14; Lev. iv.8. The Greek word mentioned above has clearly its secondary or Hebraistil' sense in 2 Cor. v. 21."

...

Jesus Blessed,

Psalm 45:2
Psalm 72:17
Revelation 5:12

vs.

Jesus, A Curse,

Galatians 3:13; (corrected verse)
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us:
for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree:"

"Luther and some other commentators, taking the language in Galatians too literally, have supposed that by some mysterious transference of human guilt to Christ, he actually became a sinner.

"This interpretation is, however, uncalled for, and repugnant to our feelings.

"Conybeare renders: "He became accursed for our sakes."

"Ellicott and Meyer think that the abstract word" katara," curse, is chosen instead of the concrete, to "express with more force the completeness of the satisfaction which Christ made to the law."

"Barnes: "Jesus was subjected to what was regarded as an accursed death. He was treated in his death as if he had been a criminal."

"As Christ suffered in the stead of those upon whom the curse properly devolved, he might be styled "accursed," or, in the sense just explained, a " curse" for us.

1 Phases of Faith, chap. vii. (third edition)."

 

[Martin Marprelate]

I mean it in terms of our redemption.

You have repeatedly argued against my insistence that our redemption was accomplished by Cheiat's death (His physical death) on the cross by insisting that our redemption had been finished prior to His death (just before He gave up His Spirit).

All I have said, in a post not addressed to you, was that when our Lord said, "It is finished," it was. From that you have manufactured a farago of lies about me without ever asking me what I meant by it.
But again, I ask you: do you believe that when the Lord Jesus said, "It is finished," He made a mistakeand it wasn't?

 

[Martin Marprelate]

"Jesus Is sin.

The text does not say that Jesus is sin, it says that He was made sin.; that is, our sins were laid upon His sinless shoulders (Isaiah 53:6), and He bore them on the cross (1 Peter 2:24).
If you want a list of commentators who agree with that, it would be a very long one..

 

[JonC]

All I have said, in a post not addressed to you, was that when our Lord said, "It is finished," it was. From that you have manufactured a farago of lies about me without ever asking me what I meant by it.
But again, I ask you: do you believe that when the Lord Jesus said, "It is finished," He made a mistakeand it wasn't?

Again, no. I believe that Christ spoke truly when He said "it is finished".

I just do not agree with you that our redemption was accomplished prior to Christ's death.

I told you I could have misunderstood you, and apologized if that were the case.

You had accused ke of calling Jesus a liar for stating that He died for our sins, and perhaps that led to a confusion about what you believe concerning Christ's actual death.

BUT to be fair, you have refused to provide clarification. Until such time as you able able to explain exactly what you believe Christ's death accomplished, I (along with this board) have to take your words at face value.

I ask again -

What did the death of Christ (His physical death His "blood shed", on the Cross after declaring "it is finished" and committed His Spirit into the hands of the Father) accomplish in terms of our redemption?

 

[JonC]

The text does not say that Jesus is sin, it says that He was made sin.; that is, our sins were laid upon His sinless shoulders (Isaiah 53:6), and He bore them on the cross (1 Peter 2:24).
If you want a list of commentators who agree with that, it would be a very long one..

The text dies not say "our sins were laid upon His sinless shoulders". It says He was made "sin".

I said this was Christ being made the sin offering of Isaiah 53, bearing our sin. You rejected that as it isn't what the first instance of Paul's use of "sin" in the verse means.

Now you agree with me? You can't have it both ways.

 

[percho]

Good thing correctly understanding Christ's death was two deaths is not a matter to understood in order to be saved.

Isaiah 53:9.

I agree with you concerning the two deaths of Christ just as in Adam;

Gen 2:17 YLT and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.'

When Adam ate of the tree, he became under sin and death and 730 later that death came to fruition. Dying, Adam did die.

When Christ was made sin, sin was finished in Christ and death followed. Dying, Christ did die.

 

[Alan Gross]

The text does not say that Jesus is sin, it says that He was made sin.; that is, our sins were laid upon His sinless shoulders (Isaiah 53:6), and He bore them on the cross (1 Peter 2:24).
If you want a list of commentators who agree with that, it would be a very long one..

Those were two categories

"Jesus, He is Holy.

Vs

"Jesus Is sin.

where those two contrasts were being explained as Alleged Discrepancies in:

http://0352182.netsolhost.com/pdf/An Examination of the Alleged Discrepanc.pdf

 

[37818]

When Christ was made sin, sin was finished in Christ and death followed. Dying, Christ did die.

Death in Isaiah 53:9 is plural in the Hebrew. By tradition is understood to be translated in the singular. On the cross Jesus finished the atonement by time of John 19:28 and then said so in John 19:30 just before He said to His Father to receive His spirit for His physical death, Luke 23:46.

 

[JonC]

I agree with you concerning the two deaths of Christ just as in Adam;

Gen 2:17 YLT and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.'

When Adam ate of the tree, he became under sin and death and 730 later that death came to fruition. Dying, Adam did die.

When Christ was made sin, sin was finished in Christ and death followed. Dying, Christ did die.

I wouldn't say that is two deaths. The verse simply uses "die" twice. In Hebrew this is typically used to make an emphatic declaration (like Jesus' double "amen"). So I'm good with the translation "surely die" (death, as you pointed out, became certain rather than a potential).

The reason I disagree with two deaths is Scripture tells us that "it is appointed man once to die and then the Judgment", and Jesus describes Hell being cast into the Lake of Fire as the "Second Death".