“That for delivering this message, He was put to death by the Jews and Romans, who were, however, but instruments in the hands of God, for the doing of that which He had determined before to be done—viz, the condemnation of sin in the flesh, through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all as a propitiation to declare the righteousness of God, as a basis for the remission of sins. All who approach God through this crucified, but risen, representative of Adam’s disobedient race, are forgiven. Therefore, by a figure, His blood cleanseth from sin.” Article XII
“Obedient Unto . . . The Death of the Cross”
The death of the Lord Jesus Christ, though in one way the most heinous crime ever committed in the history of man, was in accord with God’s plan of redemption. His painful expiration upon the torture stake, though precipitated by the envy and wickedness of His countrymen, was in harmony with “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23) He was, as it were, born to die. Even the selection of the Roman mode of executing criminals was congruent with the Father’s purpose in the death of His Son. For His execution by the Roman authorities was in reality an expression of God’s condemnation of sin. Paul affirms that Jesus was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). The Lord knew, obviously from an early age, the path of pain and death through which obedience to His Father would take him. The fact of Paul’s having attested to His being obedient unto death, necessarily implies that He knew and understood clearly that He must die upon the cross.
The Purpose Of His Offering
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil”. says the apostle John (1 Jo. 3:8) Earlier in the same chapter (v. 5) the writer had declared, And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins”. Sins and the works of the devil are one and the same thing. Paul, also used similar terms to set forth the reason for Christ’s death. In Heb. 9:26, he writes, ” . . . but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away SIN by the sacrifice of himself.” In the same epistle (2: 14) Paul shows that through (Christ’s) death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is THE DEVIL. The devil which was destroyed through His sacrificial death was sin—sin in all its manifestations. The death of Jesus was a ritual condemnation of sin—not sin nature. Thus, when one is baptized into the death of Jesus, his sins are forgiven because they have been ritually condemned in Christ. Sin nature needs not to be forgiven, but destroyed through a change in nature at the resurrection.
The Condemnation Of Sin
The object which the Father had in view in the death of Jesus was the condemnation of sin. This is evident in the remarks of Paul; “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” (Rom. 8:3)
What Paul is declaring here is simply that God was able to do something which the law (because of the infirmity of the flesh) could not do; viz. “condemn sin in the flesh”. The law, because it pronounced a curse upon “everyone that continueth not in all things written in the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10, Deut. 27:26) condemned the sinner, not the sin. The offerings under the law, though powerless to remove sin, were in themselves ritual prophecies. The way to the condemnation of sin, and thus to forgiveness, was indicated in their observance. Thus, John Baptist announced Jesus to be “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (Jo. 1: 29) The true condemnation of sin was to be brought about by a lamb of God’s provision. This is precisely what Paul now states in the quotation above; ” . . . God, sending His own Son in the flesh of sin, and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” (R. V. Marg.) The Revised Version’s “offering of sin” in the place of the Authorized “sin” is undoubtedly the correct intent of the verse. The Greek word is “HAMATARIA”, and has been translated in the Septuagint as “sin offering”; e.g. Lev. 4:32, 5:6, 7, 8, 9, etc. The same word appears as “sin offering” in Heb. 10:6, 8, 18, etc.
It must be borne in mind that it was God who condemned sin. This was brought about through a sacrifice or offering for sin, in which sin is ritually condemned, sentenced and executed. The preparation for this offering involved God’s sending His Son in sin’s flesh or flesh of sin. Jesus came wearing the condemned nature of man, howbeit, a sinless bearer thereof. Thus, in Paul’s words, “For he hath made him to be sin (or a sin offering) for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”. (2 Cor. 5:21) In so doing, God dealt with Him as He must deal with sin, while Christ fulfilled what is typified in the guilt offering. In His death, He illustrated that which was due sinners, by becoming subject to the consequences of sin.
Much wrong speculation has resulted from treating the last four words of Rom. 8:3 (sin in the flesh) as an hyphenated phrase—as if sin nature were the object of the condemnation. God is not necessarily displeased with man’s nature; but rather with the sin which it invariably spauns. Simply stated, God condemned sin, doing so in the flesh, even that of His Son.
Our Place Of Propitiation
Speaking of our justification brought about through the grace of God and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Paul declares, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” (Rom. 3:25) The word, “propitiation” (Grk. HILASTERION) denotes the place of conciliation, or expiation. The Septuagint always uses it, as the name of a place; e.g. Ex. 25:18, 19, 20, 21, etc. It is used for the lid of the Ark, the mercy seat, and is translated as such in Hebrews 9:5. When used in connection with Christ, it refers to the place or individual at which God will expiate or make reparation for sins. As God met with Moses only between the cherubim’s above the mercy seat (Ex. 25:22), He now communicates and reconciles man only through Jesus Christ, the true place of propitiation.
“To Declare His Righteousness”
Paul further states that the death of Jesus was necessary to declare his (God’s) righteousness—more exactly, as in the R. V., “to shew His righteousness . God, of course, was and is righteous, but the offering of Jesus was intended to display this righteousness. But, why was this necessary ? The apostle’s reason was because of God’s having passed over those sins committed before the death of Jesus. Again, the R. V. gives the proper sense of a misleading translation in the Authorized Version: ” . . . because of the passing over of the sins done afore time in the forbearance of God.”
In order to illustrate that God was righteous, and that His forbearance of past sins was in no way a condoning of sins, it was necessary for Jesus to die upon the cross as a sin offering. When it is remembered that the sin offering provided a way that the repentant sinner could vindicate and uphold the Father’s judgment upon sinners, the absolute necessity of Christ’s sacrifice becomes immediately apparent. Lest there be any misconstruing of God’s motives for not immediately executing the sentence of death upon sinners, in former ages, this present offering was made to adequately express His intolerance to sin. Thus Jesus declared or showed the Father to be just in all His appointments, including that of death for sin.
Forgiveness Through The Blood Of Christ
The forgiveness of sins can only be attained through faith in those things accomplished in Christ. The repentant sinner must illustrate his understanding and agreement with these principles by being joined with Christ, his representative, through the divinely appointed means. Because the blood of Jesus was shed in His sacrificial offering (blood being essential to life) those who are reconciled to God are said to be so through faith in His blood. As Vine declares, “By metonomy, ‘blood’ is sometimes put for ‘death’, inasmuch as blood being essential to life (Lev. 17:11), when blood is shed, life is given up; that is, death takes place.” Thus, since we can be forgiven and justified through the death of Jesus, it can be said, “His blood cleanseth us from sin.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One