The Quality of Christ’s Death
We have come now to the point of considering the preciousness of the blood of Christ, i.e. the quality and consequent efficacy of his sacrificial death, in its bearing on both man and God.
Christ’s death is superior to any other, even another man’s heroic death for the sake of others. It’s superiority lies in the perfect demonstration of two opposing forces. These two forces, as moral influences within and upon him, climaxed as this son of man/son of God expired upon the tree. The opposing forces were of course the “law of sin and death” and the “law of the spirit of life” Romans 8:2. Law being used here in the sense of a set influence or power, as when we speak of the law of gravity.
Sacrifice and Offerings
The ideas and concepts involved in sacrifices and offerings are wonderful and manifold. We refer, however, here, to the most basic concept upon which all others are surely built, i.e. that Yahweh provides the sacrificial victim which is a representative and perfect demonstration of The Truth. Men are called upon to offer their “faith in,” their “identity with”, their acknowledgement that Truth has been lived out perfectly by the victim, to the vindication of God and the condemnation of sinning mankind. Romans 3: 19-26; Romans 6:1-5.
This perfect demonstration of Truth when affectionately believed on by lesser men and women has a converting effect upon their direction of life, where they turn from iniquity toward righteousness. Now because God’s ways of truth have been, at last, historically upheld by Christ’s sacrificial death once and for all, God is able to rightly forgive and be reconciled to converted believers. A Death has been found into which believers can be united by Faith, acknowledgement and action. This death not only upholds the demands of judgement, but it also invokes the mercy and help of God.
What is the Truth?
Jesus Christ as a King and therefore a “Chief Leader” of our salvation, had a first and primary duty and that was to bear witness unto The Truth. For Pilate it was unknowable, but not to a believer in the Gospel. Christ taught
“The Truth shall make you free,”
“sanctify them through thy Truth, thy word is Truth”.
If Truth sanctifies why then a sacrifice to sanctify? The answer lies in God’s methods; viz. “every word of the Lord is tried” i.e. tested by active manifestation. Christ’s sacrifice was The Truth lived out and declared in word and deed John 1:14. Now in respect to Christ’s sacrifice work, The Truth can be divided into two general headings, that bear directly on God’s moral relationship with Sinning mankind. They are the Truth’s concerning:
- Man’s sin
a) Its source — Weak, mortal, sin prone inherited human nature.
b) Its results — Transgression, character corruption.
c) Its Sentence — Death. Romans 5:12; 18-19. - God’s Holiness
a) Its Sources — God’s word and will in the intellect and higher moral faculties
b) Its results — Derived holiness and obedience even unto death.
c) Its sentence — Resurrection, immortality, and the Kingdom of God.
Here are two sets of truths perverted and misunderstood by all men, in varying degrees, according to the degree of blindness that their respective personal sins and ignorance have imposed upon them as it is written:
“All have sinned”
“and come short of the glory (holiness) of God” Romans 3:23.
Christ’s dual sacrificial mission
Christ then had a complimentary two-fold mission:
- To perfectly demonstrate, representatively, sinning, sin prone, mortal man’s proper relationship to the righteous judgements of God. This work climaxed in the mode of his death.
- To perfectly demonstrate, representatively the power and efficacy of holiness derived from God to produce character and conduct, that alone Merited resurrection, eternal life and the Kingdom of God. This moral victory also climaxed in his death. John 1:14; Acts 2: 22-24.
Let us note that perfection and completeness is required in these matters, else the demonstration fails on the accepted fact that actions speak louder than words, for example, a man who agrees with God in condemning transgression, yet who sins himself, has failed to agree with God fully, for his action belies his word.
The Proximity of “The Death” to both Sin and Holiness
In respect to sin, The Death has an obvious relationship. The sin of Adam brought the physical effects of sin proneness and the sentence of death upon himself and upon his weakened progeny :
“death reigned … even over them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.”
They also lack the inclination and ability to fully appreciate God’s holiness and to render a character and obedience that merits resurrection and immortal life. Death is right for sinning man, begotten of the will of the flesh. The separating effect of personal sins leaves man hopelessly in the grip of death.
Jesus Christ was tempted in all points as we are and was able to observe the conduct of his contemporaries. So with the clear sightedness of a sinless character Christ willingly and fully condemned sinning “sin in the flesh” as rightly mortal by birth and worthy of death by conduct when he submitted to a sinners death on the tree. He was therefore, a human vindicator of God’s righteous judgements upon sin, Romans 3:25-26. God was honoured, he could rightly forgive those who would identify with that declaration.
In respect to the power of God’s word for holiness unto life, this was also demonstrated in his death. The “secret of Godliness” was “God manifest in the flesh” I Timothy 3:16. Is God’s word as powerful a force as it claims? Can it “work within to will and to do his good pleasure?” When we look at Christ impaled on the stake, externally we view him who was “made sin for us” but when we view his inner man we see the character — the righteousness of God who “knew no sin” II Corinthians 5:21. Here we see that great moral victory of a holiness derived from God over the weakness of sin’s flesh — obedience unto death even the death of the cross Philippians 2:8. Externally we see a temporary physical victory of the forces of the law of sin and death, embodied in the hands of wicked men. These men sinned the great representative sin of a representative “generation” when they crucified the “Lord of the glory.” Physical victory would soon come for the Lord by resurrection and change to immortality. In the meantime a greater victory was won — a moral victory of perfect character and perfect obedience even unto death. This was fought successfully by the word of his power for thirty odd years Hebrews 1:3.
A Unique Accomplishment
Here was a God vindicating work but no other man has, or has been fully able to achieve. We as lesser men and women cannot vindicate God by a complete repudiation of sin on each and every occasion, nor can we from moment to moment manifest continuously God’s righteous character.
We can however believe that Christ did so and be persuaded to pursue the same direction of life. To that extent, we at least identify with his vindication of God. It is called “faith in his blood to declare the righteousness of God , for (as basis for) the remission of sins,” Romans 3:25.
Dying with Christ
In the death of Christ God has found a ransom, one among a thousand who would shew unto man God’s righteousness, Job 33:23-30. Man must still die, but now one could die with Christ in baptism, in probation and in literal death itself. Where we cannot fully condemn sin in the flesh by sinlessness and where we cannot fully manifest God’s character, God accepts our recognition that the ideal seen in Christ alone merits life eternal, that Christ’s acknowledgements in his sacrifice alone fully vindicate God. In view of this recognition — faith in his blood — God grants us a joining with Christ to complete that which is lacking on our part Romans 6:1-14, Romans 3: 19-26; Colossians 2:10; Romans 8:1-4. As the apostle so graphically describes it:—
“I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live in faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me,” Galatians 2:20.
We are said to die with Christ at baptism, Romans 6:3. So also in our way of life we are said to “bear about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus” II Corinthians 4:10. Lastly when we finally do die we are said to “sleep in Jesus.” So then in every phase of our association with the Lord we receive this benefit so that in our endeavours to follow his exemplary “obedience unto death” our sins of omission and commission are forgiven in this manner.
The Diabolos Destroyed (rendered of none effect).
Through “the death,” then, that condemned sin on the one hand and recommended holiness on the other, God had established a method of reconciliation based on faith in that death. This allows Him to rightly forgive and strengthen converted sinners who would otherwise be held in the grip of their own guilt and weaknesses. The diabolos is the law of sin which all, but Christ, have served and are therefore held in the grip of its power — death. The only way to break that grip is to be raised out of death by resurrection and changed to an immortal righteous nature. However sinners have no title to attain unto that resurrection without forgiveness of sins. Identity with Christ’s death has provided that blessing from God and thus the diabolos’ power is broken. Through our death with Christ that ensures our resurrection to life eternal.
God then has not set aside his just and necessary law of sin and death. He has provided a way of life which calls upon ALL, sinless and sinners, to pass through death as a necessary part of obedience. These processes develop an appreciation of all the principles involved in our relationship with God. God is holy, just, and yet a saviour, desiring that his creatures (upon proper lines) might attain to the “image and likeness” of his own person, so that in the ages to come we might be for the “praise of his mercy” Ephesians 2:7.
The Solution