Unthinkable Pardon

A robber enters a bank, steals the money and whips around to find a security guard standing before him with his gun drawn. The robber ruthlessly shoots down the security guard, killing him. The criminal stands before the judge to have his story heard and the unthinkable occurs… the judge releases the man acquitting him of all guilt.

While a flood of questions may come to the reader, like, On what basis can any just judge make such a decision? we know, for the purpose of this story, that the robber was guilty and the security guard, innocent.

What is justice? Most people have some universal view of fairness and righteousness, regardless of what, or to whom, they may attribute these standards of right and wrong. Some give God the credit (or blame) for this list of moral absolutes, however, for others, God is too nebulous and impersonal a concept to attribute any standard which apply to relational beings such as ourselves. Those who believe in God yet find it difficult to reconcile a God who allows evil to exist, or for that matter, who condemns people to Hell, may find themselves angry at the God of the Bible. They may say, The God that I believe in is purely a God of love. The truth of the matter is that, if we get to the heart of it, the god of whom they speak is one of their own making. What do I mean? Most people are familiar with the Exodus account wherein God lays down a standard that “You shall have no other gods before me” and “You shall not make of yourself a graven image”.

Some may hold no claim to believing in any god, much less making an image of a god. But when trials come, many look to the “God of the Bible” merely as one who exists to provide them with joy and happiness. In his book, The Law of Perfect Freedom, Michael Horton writes, “We think it would be unfair for God to let a twelve-year-old child die from a tragic illness, but He ends up doing just that- and so we become angry because He has violated our image of Him. We assume somehow that it is in God’s character to give us only joy and happiness. Then when things begin to fall apart, we lose our faith in the image.”

Many know the claims of the Bible, wherein God possesses the attribute of love, but some of these same people refuse to accept, or fail to understand, God’s attribute of justice. I make reference to the passages where God sends sinners to Hell.

Do you believe the passages which make references to God’s love and His redeeming people for Heaven, yet deny the passages which speak to God’s justice and sending sinners to Hell? If so, you do not believe in the God of the Bible, but are guilty of worshipping a mere image.

You may say, Well, that is because I believe that only some of the Bible is true.

If a witness stands before the court room for a period of time and it is later discovered that he lied on one account, what shall we do with all of the testimony prior to the lie? We must throw it away. The witness is deemed no longer credible. If the Bible is only true in part and we deem that some parts are not true, then how can we know that the parts that we do believe in are also not true? If there is any hint of fallaciousness, the entire Bible must be deemed no longer credible. Either the Bible retains its validity and we accept it in whole, or some parts of the Bible are invalid, leaving us with no choice but to reject it in whole.

Adam and Eve, our first parents, were made to love God freely. The Creator made them sinless. He made them to be in right relationship with Him. However, that relationship was broken when they sinned. When Adam sinned, the whole human race fell into sin (Romans 5:12). Everyone, even the indigenous tribesman in a jungle in the far corner of the earth, is born with a sin nature (Psalm 51:5). The Bible tells us that our sin nature produces sinful behavior and that all are guilty (Romans 3:23).

Using our opening illustration, most people rightly discern that the judge would be unfair in not swiftly pronouncing a proper sentencing on the criminal. Yet, the judge of the universe makes a pronouncement. While we may shake our fists at the judge who unjustly releases the criminal in our story, what is our response to the God who has decreed that sin is deserving of death (Romans 6:23)?

Jonathan Edwards, an early American preacher, speaking of the supreme Judge wrote, “The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with blood.”

While some may accuse Jonathan Edwards of literary sensationalism, note that he took seriously, as most would have in our opening illustration, a judge’s duty and obligation to take each offense seriously. As a criminal before his judge, it is very good for him to have a healthy fear of his impending fate, but the Judge of the universe says, “…Be not afraid of them that kill the body… but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear Him, which after he hath killed, hath the power to cast into Hell: yea, I say unto you, fear Him.”

Some perhaps write-off preachers of Edwards’ day as too extreme and contemporarily irrelevant, contrasting him with what we approvingly hear in many pulpits today: an emphasis on God’s attribute of love. But we cannot really know the meaning of God’s attribute of love without knowing God’s attribute of divine justice. Have you ever asked the question, Saved? Saved from what? Many hold little regard for what the Bible may say on the matter. If people knew of the consequences of their eternal fate, they would think differently on the matter of the Christian message of Salvation.

Jonathan Edwards wrote, “O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in Hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.”

Are Jonathan Edwards’ words palatable to the modern day ear? Perhaps not.
The question that ought to be asked is, What is truth? (John 18:38). If someone presented a piece of very important information to you which you were required to act upon, would you say, I care nothing of the truth, but of what merely sounds good. Of course not. Yet, when presented with the message of salvation, many are “turned off” by the truth that it brings.

Consider this verse: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Do you mean to say that the only way for anyone to go to Heaven is through the God of the Bible- that we must believe in Jesus Christ?

In order to examine the claims of Jesus Christ, it is important to first examine the person of Jesus Christ. Is He merely a historical figure that was injected into history two thousand years ago, who lived a good life and did a lot of really good things? What did His death accomplish? If what we have read about sin, eternal punishment, and a divine judge are true, how does Jesus Christ fit into this picture? How has Jesus’ death on a cross a long time ago have the capacity, or the relevancy, to influence the way we think and act, much less change the heart of a sinner?

Let’s begin with the question, Who is Jesus? The Bible tells us that He is God. But you said it yourself- He was injected in a point in time in human history, two thousand years ago. Any historian can point to this fact. Jesus, who was introduced as a baby in the New Testament, says that He existed before Abraham (John 8:58), who is recorded in the Old Testament. Is there an error in the text? How could this be? The Bible tells us that Jesus existed before the foundations of the world (John 1:1). The passage goes on further to say that Jesus – God, came down to earth through human flesh (John 1:14). Why would He do such a thing?

This is where God’s attribute of love comes in. Because Jesus is God, He is sinless. Mankind’s sin deserves God’s wrath and curse (Ephesians 5:6, Psalm 11:6). The Bible says that we are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). I cited a verse earlier relating to God’s decree of justice: Romans 3:23, which reads, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” If we read on, we find the verse which speaks of God’s attribute of love: “…and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.” Another verse I cited was Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin are death…” but the passage goes on, “…but the free gift of God is eternal life.” You see, Christ’s purpose was not to make good people better people, nor was it to make bad people good. Rather, it was to make dead people live!

Many ask the question, How can Jesus be the only way? How arrogant for any belief system to be so narrow-minded! The question that ought to be asked is, What sort of people can stand before a Holy God? The answer? Only those who are pure, righteous, sinless, and holy. Do you know anyone like that? Probably not. So it would stand to reason that:

1) None are in Heaven, or
2) Christians are duping themselves into thinking that they are going to Heaven.

The conclusion then is that there must be more to the answer, right? There is.

Jesus, because He is God, is the only one who is sinless, pure, righteous, and holy, thus the only One who deserves to stand before a Holy God. We who are sinful and without righteousness, purity or holiness are deserving of God’s wrath and curse. Yet, because God loves us, He makes an exchange. He says, “I will become the wrath and curse on the cross, bearing the full and complete punishment for your sin… and in exchange I will not count your sin against you and I will declare you righteous.” When God looks down at the believer, who is deserving of God’s wrath and punishment, He sees them, not through any righteousness or work of his or her own doing, but rather through the righteousness and work of Christ alone.

Because we are sinful, without righteousness, purity, and holiness and are deserving of God’s wrath and curse, none deserve to go to Heaven, much less stand before the holiness of God… But if we believe in the One who is sinless, pure, righteous, and holy, we are then, without fear or shame, able to stand before the Lord of creation and Savior of our souls.

Most Bible believing people will firmly say that we are not saved by works. But I disagree… We are saved by a work, but not a work that is accomplished by we the sinner. It is a work Jesus Christ accomplished two thousand years ago on an old rugged cross. This work, done by Christ on our behalf, is called GRACE. Jesus takes our punishment (a punishment we deserve) and in exchange gives us grace (something we don’t deserve).

You see, God, the eternal judge, is able to execute the just punishment which our sin deserves. All the guilt and shame of our sin is credited to Christ (and His righteousness credited to us, the sinner) in order that we may be saved. This is what was accomplished on the cross. As you can see, the correct response of the believer is that of humility- not arrogance.

The picture of the robber in the story above is a picture of you and I. Only in this case, the judge himself calls upon his son, who is innocent, to take upon himself the sentence of death which rightly belongs to the offender. The unthinkableness of this pardon is not that the sinner is set free, but that the One who is undeserving of God’s wrath and curse would willingly die in our place.

"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation" - Romans 5:6-11