Featured Biblical Penal Substitution

Here is a masterpiece by Charnock;
CHRIST MADE SIN

(The Imputation of Sin to Christ)



by Stephen Charnock (1628-1680)

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor. 5:21

Our sins were imputed to him as to a sacrifice. Christ the just is put in the place of the unjust, to suffer for them (1 Peter 3 :18). Christ is said to bear sin, as a sacrifice bears sin (Isaiah 53:10, 12). His soul was made an offering for sin. But sin was so laid upon the victims, as that it was imputed to them in a judicial account manner according to the ceremonial law, and typically expiated by them. Christ would not have taken away our sins as Mediator, had he not borne the punishment of them. As a surety, 'He was made sin for us' (2 Corinthians 5:21), and he bore our sins, which is evident by the kind of death he suffered, not only sharp and shameful—but accursed, having a sense of God's wrath linked to it.

(1) Imputation cannot be understood of the infection of sin. The filth of our nature was not transmitted to him. Though he was made sin, yet he was not made a sinner by any infusion or transplantation of sin into his nature. It was impossible his holiness could be defiled with our filth.

(2) But our sin was the meritorious cause of his punishment. All those phrases, that 'Christ died for our sins' (1 Corinthians 15:3) and was 'delivered to death for our offenses' (Romans 4:25) clearly mean sin to be the meritorious cause of the punishment which Christ endured. Sin cannot be said to be the cause of punishment, except by way of merit. If Christ had not been just, he would not have been capable of suffering for us; had we not been unjust, we would not have merited any suffering for ourselves, much less for another. Our unrighteousness put us under a necessity of a sacrifice, and his righteousness made him fit to be one. What was the cause of the desert of suffering for us was the meritorious cause of the sufferings of the Redeemer after he put himself in our place. The sin of the offerer merited the death of the sacrifice presented in his stead.

(3) Our sins were charged upon him in regard of their guilt. Our sins are so imputed to him as that they are 'not imputed to us' (2 Corinthians 5:19), and not imputed to us because 'he was made a curse for us' (Galatians 3 :13). He bore our sins, as to the punishment, is granted. If he were an offering for them, they must in a judicial way be charged upon him. If by being 'made sin', be understood a sacrifice for sin (which indeed is the true intent of the word sometimes in scripture), sin was then legally transferred on the antitype, as it was on the types in the Jewish service by the ceremony of laying on of hands and confessing of sin, after which the thing so dedicated became accursed and though it was in itself innocent, yet was guilty in the sight of the law and as a substitute. In the same manner was Christ accounted. So on the contrary, believers are personally guilty, but by virtue of the satisfaction of this sacrifice imputed to them, they are judicially counted innocent. Christ, who never sinned, is put in such a state as if he had.

Now, as justifying righteousness is not inherent in us, but imputed to us; so our condemning sin was not inherent in Christ, but imputed to him. There would otherwise be no consistency in the antithesis: 'He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin' (2 Corinthians 5:21). He knew no sin, yet he became sin. It seems to carry the idea further than only the bearing of the punishment of sin. He was by law charged in our stead with the guilt of sin. Our iniquities were laid upon him (Isaiah 53:6). The prophet had spoken (verse 5) of Christ bearing the chastisement of our peace, the punishment of our sin, and then seems to declare the ground of that, which consisted in God's imputation of sin to him in laying upon him the iniquities of us all. What iniquities? Our goings astray, our turnings every one to his own way. He made him to be that sin which he knew not, but he knew the punishment of sin. The knowledge of that was the end of his coming. He came to lay down his life a ransom for many. He knew not sin by an experimental inherency [something in his own nature], but he knew it by judicial imputation. He knew it not in regard of the spots, but he knew it in regard of the guilt following upon the judgment of God. He was righteous in his person, but not in the sight of the law pronounced righteous as our Surety until after his sacrifice, when he was 'taken from prison and from judgment' (Isaiah 53:8). Until he had paid the debt, he was accounted as a debtor to God.

The apostle distinguishes his second coming from his first by this, 'He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation' (Hebrews 9:28). It is not meant of the filth of sin, for so he appeared at first without sin. But he will appear without the guilt of sin which he had at his first coming derived or taken upon Himself to satisfy for and remove from the sinner. He shall appear without sin to be imputed, without punishment to be inflicted. At the time of His first coming he appeared with sin, with sin charged upon him, as our Surety arrested for our criminal debts. He pawned his life for the lives which we had forfeited. He suffered the penalty due by law that we might have deliverance free by grace. In his first coming he represented our persons as a substitute for us. Our sins were therefore laid upon him. In his second coming he represents God as a deputy, and so no sin can be charged upon him.

He cannot well be supposed to suffer for our sins, if our sins in regard of their guilt be not supposed to be charged upon him. How could he die, if he were not a sinner by imputation? Had he not first had a relation to our sin, he could not in justice have undergone our punishment. He must in the order of justice be either supposed a sinner really, or else by imputation. Since he was not a sinner really, he was so by imputation.

How can we conceive that he should be made a curse for us, if that which made us accursed had not been first charged upon him? It is as much against divine justice to inflict punishment where there is no sin, as it is to spare an offender who has committed a crime or to 'clear the guilty'. This God will by no means do (Exodus 34:7).

The consideration of a crime precedes the sentence, either upon an offender—or his surety. We cannot conceive how divine justice should inflict the punishment, had it not first considered him under guilt.

Though the first designation of the Redeemer to a suretyship or sacrifice for us, was an act of God's sovereignty, yet the inflicting punishment after that designation and our Savior’s acceptance of it was an act of God's justice, and so declared to be, 'to declare his righteousness, that he might be just' (Romans 3:26), that he might declare his justice in justification, his justice to his law. Can this highest declaration of justice be founded upon an unjust act? Would that have been justice or injustice to Christ, for God to lay his wrath upon the Son of his love, one whose person was always dear to him, always pleased him—had he not stood as a sinner regarded so by law in our stead, and suffered that sin, which was the ruin of mankind, to be cast with all the weight of it upon his innocent shoulders? After, by his own act, he had made himself responsible for our debt, God in justice might demand of him every farthing, which without that undertaking and putting himself in our stead could not be done. This submission of his and his readiness to suffer for it is expressed twice, by his not opening his mouth (Isaiah 53:7); and no wrong is done to a voluntary substitute.

Add this too. It is from his standing in our stead as guilty, that the benefit of his death redounds to us. His death would have had no relation to us, had not our sin been lawfully adjudged to be his; nor can we challenge a plead for pardon at the hands of God for our debts, if they were not our debts that he paid on the cross. 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities' (Isaiah 53:5). The laying hands on the head of the sin-offering was necessary to make it a sacrifice for the offender; without which ceremony it might have been a slain—but not a sacrificed animal. The transferring our iniquities upon him must in some way precede his being bruised for them, which could not be any other way than by imputation whereby he was constituted by God a debtor in our place, to bear the punishment of our sin. Since he was made sin for us, our sin was in a manner made his; he was made sin without sin; he knew the guilt without knowing the filth; he felt the punishment without being touched with the pollution. Since death was the wages of sin and passed as a penalty for a violated law (Romans 6:23) it could not righteously be inflicted on him, if sin had not first been imputed to him. In his own person he was in the arms of his Father's love—but as he represented our sinful persons, he felt the strokes of his Father's wrath.

Charnock devestates the other positions all by himself.

 

I think these persons linked here give solid teaching concerning substitution;
There are no shortcuts. Each thought needs to be looked at.
Spurgeon - Christ was not guilty, and could not be made guilty; but he was treated as if He were guilty, because He willed to stand in the place of the guilty. Yea, He was not only treated as a sinner, but He was treated as if He had been sin itself in the abstract. This is an amazing utterance. The sinless one was made to be sin.

Isaiah speaks of how Jesus was made to be sin...

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried, yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. (Isaiah 53:4, 5, 6)

Comment by John MacArthur: The Father treated Jesus as if He were a sinner by charging to His account the sins of everyone who would ever believe (Ed: Some would say the sins of everyone for all time). All those sins were charged against Him as if He had personally committed them, and He was punished with the penalty for them on the Cross, experiencing the full fury of God’s wrath unleashed against them all. It was at that moment that

Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying,...'My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?’ (Mt 27:46).

 

I have to drive long tomorrow

, so I am posting much now to enter this into evidence.


It is crucial, therefore, to understand that the only sense in which Jesus was made sin was by imputation. (Ed: Webster on to impute = to lay the the responsibility or blame for often falsely or unjustly; to reckon, account or credit to one what does not belong to him; to charge something to a person's account). He was personally pure, yet officially culpable; personally holy, yet forensically guilty. But in dying on the cross Christ did not become evil like we are, nor do redeemed sinners become inherently as holy as He is. God credits believers’ sin to Christ’s account, and His righteousness to theirs. (MacArthur, J: 2Corinthians. Chicago: Moody Press)

“Oh, hear that piercing cry!

What can its meaning be?

’My God! my God! oh! why hast thou

In wrath forsaken me?’

“Oh ’twas because our sins

On him by God were laid;

He who himself had never sinn’d,

For sinners, sin was made.”

Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary adds: In addition to guilt imputed from Adam’s sin, all people are also charged with guilt for their personal sins. This Paul describes as “imputing their trespasses to them” (2Co 5:19). The Lord Jesus, whose supernatural conception and birth freed Him from guilt from Adam’s sin and who committed no personal sin, had no sin counted against Him. But when He died as our substitute, God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2Co 5:21) so that He “bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1Pe 2:24). This is made explicit in the Book of Isaiah, where the prophet says of the Lord Jesus, “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6). (Youngblood, R. F., Bruce, F. F., Harrison, R. K., & Thomas Nelson Publishers. Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary)

MacDonald adds...We must beware of any idea that on the Cross of Calvary the Lord Jesus Christ actually became sinful in Himself. Such an idea is false. Our sins were placed on Him, but they were not in Him. What happened is that God made Him to be a sin-offering on our behalf. Trusting in Him, we are reckoned righteous by God. The claims of the law have been fully satisfied by our Substitute. (MacDonald, W & Farstad, A. Believer's Bible Commentary: Thomas Nelson)

Hughes makes a good point reminding us that...Not for one moment does He (Jesus) cease to be righteous, else the radical exchange envisaged by the Apostle here, whereby our sin is transferred to Him and His righteousness is transferred to us, would be no more than a fiction or an hallucination.

Sin (noun) (266) (hamartia) literally conveys the sense of missing the mark as when hunting with a bow and arrow (in Homer some hundred times of a warrior hurling his spear but missing his foe). Later hamartia came to mean missing or falling short of any goal, standard, or purpose. Ryrie adds that "this is not only a negative idea but includes the positive idea of hitting some wrong mark." Hamartia is a deviation from God's truth or His moral rectitude (righteousness). It is a deviation from the straight line (and the strait gate), clearly marked off by the "plumb line" of God's Word of Truth (Col 1:5-note, 2Ti 2:15-note, Jas 1:18-note). As someone has well said ultimately sin is man's declaration of his independence from God -- the "apostasy" of the creature from his Creator!

From a Biblical perspective hamartia describes the missing of the ultimate purpose and person of our lives, that purpose being to please God Who is also the Person the sinner misses in time and in eternity, unless they receive by faith the message of reconciliation.

Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in,
When God, the mighty Maker, died
For man, the creature's sin.
--Isaac Watts

Murray writes that when we try to expound on God making Christ sin...we penetrate to the center of the atonement and stand in awe before one of the most profound mysteries in the universe. All the interpretations of the phrase have in common the idea of identification, the understanding that God caused Christ to be identified in some way with what was foreign to his experience, namely human sin. (International Greek Testament)

Oswald Chambers explains this profound truth this way...

What these verses express is beyond the possibility of human experience; they refer only to the experience of Our Lord. The revelation is not that Jesus Christ was punished for our sins, but that, “He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin,” that by His identification with it and removal of it, “we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

God made His own Son to be sin
that He might make the sinner a saint.

The Bible reveals all through that Jesus Christ bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. He deliberately took upon Himself and bore in His own Person the whole massed sin of the human race, and by so doing He rehabilitated the human race, that is, put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what Our Lord did on the Cross. (Approved unto God)

 

A few texts? Hardly. This presents the teaching very clearly. No one answers these in a comprehensive manner. Others offer this idea or another that does not deal with the issues raised by these men.
You of course can deny these teachings and believe whatever you want.
I am pretty sure many have not read these things so that is why they are posted.
Have other ideas been put forth? Yes. Each with defective ideas
People do not intentionally offer error.
They may have an idea that has some merit, but they are rejected because serious deficiencies surface.

 

Thanks for posting this, Icon I've got quite a bit of Puritan literature on by shelf, but nothing by Charnock. I think he's wrong in allowing that hamartia can on its own be translated 'sacrifice for sin' (cf. Hebrews 10:12, 26) as I shall try to show later, he's right on the money for the rest of it.

 

"According to the Scriptures"

I'm so thankful @Iconoclast brought this up!

Psalm 16:10
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.

Christ took on the judgment due to mankind--death, unjustly--and then His Father vindicated Him--by raising Him from the dead. We can agree that Christ took on the penalty for sin--death--but in what regard? He took on humanity and died for humanity to release humanity from the bonds of sin and death:

Hebrews 2:9
But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

And what was the result of this?

vs. 10
In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

vs. 14
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--


Now, let's look at the "Scriptures"

And i'll make this one point and leave for y'all to ponder it.

Isaiah 53:10
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Some translations say "it pleased the Lord to crush Him". Let's go with that for a second--Some of you think it pleased the Lord to see Christ get "beat and put to death for sin". That is morbid, unbiblical and Anti-Scriptural. You think it pleased the Father to see His Son get beat and crucified on a Cross?

Ezekiel 18:23
Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

If God takes no pleasure even in the death of the wicked, why would you think He takes pleasure in the DEATH OF HIS OWN SON?!

There is only one reason why God took pleasure in this event...BECAUSE OF HIS TOTAL OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF GOD!

2 Peter 1:17
He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Isaiah 42:1
Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

Philippians 2:8
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-- even death on a cross!

Hebrews 10
9Then He adds, “Here I am, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Psalm 40:7-8
6Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears You have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require. 7Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll: 8I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.”…

Christ's willing death on the cross reversed the curse. He took the judgement of sin--death--upon Himself, crippling the powers of death and sin. His obedience brought God pleasure, but not the fact that he was beat and crucified for sin--sins he did not commit. And God vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead! Hallelujah!

So, when we Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that God raised Him from the dead, we are made righteous. When we identify with the Lord in His death, we too have died to sin.

God's wrath is poured out on the unrighteous--the Lake of Fire.

God's blessings are poured out on His righteous ones. And Christ proved this to be so. If you think Christ was Treated as unrighteous by the Father, you misunderstand "according to the Scriptures" big time.

We have hope because even through Pure evil, Christ was treated well by His Father--NEVER leaving Him or forsaking Him. And He raised Him from the dead--which is what He will do for us as well.

 

I think it went OK. It was my second YouTube sermon (the first was the Good Friday one). I felt I was looking down too much in the first one, so I tried to look directly into the camera more. Whether that worked is for others to say. I missed out something by not looking at my notes enough It will be posted on Sunday DV. I may link to it if I remember.
My pastor has done 3 or 4 now and has chosen to do them as armchair talks rather than sermons. I didn't feel quite comfortable with that so I've done them in the church as sermons.

 

I was thinking--

I believe the reason we have different "theories" of the atonement is because we see the atonement working in different aspects of Scripture.

For example--when we view the atonement through only the lens of the LAW, we we see only the "Penal" aspects of the Atonement. Which, in my personal opinion, this creates a narrow view of the atonement.

When we zoom out and look at the whole of Scripture, we see a greater view of the atonement, The Righteous suffering on behalf of the unrighteous.

I think that is why we see different elements of each atonement theory woven throughout Scripture.

 

Jesus dealt with the sin problem. our spiritual death, as he himself told us that ALL in Him shall never really die again!

 

Only the Pst view of the Atonement provides for God the way to be remaining Holy and the righteous Judge and yet also be able to freely forgive and justify lost sinners!

 

Jesus experienced that while atoning for our sins, as He was receiving upon Himself what we all deserve!

 

We all would agree that Jesus is Lord, but how is the wrath of God towards sin and sinners accounted for in your theory?

 

Oh yea? Then why do we still die?

 

Wrath of God had to be appeased, how is it in your theory?

 

@JonC, @JonShaff, @Iconoclast,
I promised to do something on 2 Corinthaians 5:21 and explain why I don't believe that hamartian can mean 'sin offering' there.
I want to give three reasons: the contextual reason, the linguistic reason and what I shall call the figurative reason.

So here's the verse, in the NKJV: 'For He made Him who knew no sin [hamartian], to be sin [hamartian] for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.'
The suggestion is made that the second use of hamartia in the verse should be translated 'sin offering' rather than 'sin.' First of all, hamartia is used 57 times in the Pauline epistles (I exclude Hebrews, as most people do) and every time it means 'sin.' I cannot see another place where it might reasonably be translated 'sin offering' (but I'm prepared to be proved wrong ).

Secondly, the two uses of hamartian are separated by just three words in English and only two in the Greek. It makes no sense to say, 'He made Him who knew no sin offering to be a sin offering for us,' and to use the word twice so close together and expect people to pick up the different meanings seems to me to be a massive stretch.

Next, we come to the linguistic argument The terms 'Sin offering,' 'offering for sin,' sin sacrifice' or 'sacrifice for sin' only occur in one chapter of one book of the N.T., namely Hebrews 10. It is my case that hamartia on its own is never used in the N.T. to mean 'sin offering.' The Greek word for 'offering' is prosphora, and so in Hebrews 10:18, 'offering for sin' is, in Greek, prosphera peri hamartias (genitive case). the Greek word for 'sacrifice' is thusia, so in Hebrews 10:12, 'sacrifice for sins' is, in the Greek, huper amartion [gentive case] thusian, and in Hebrews 10:26, peri hamartion thusia. [if there is a significance in the different prepositions, I'm not aware what it is]

Now in the Septuagint Greek translation of the O.T, of course, 'sin offerings' and other offerings would come much more regularly, especially (though not exclusively) in Leviticus, so they seem to have developed a sort of shorthand, so that prosphera peri hamartias became just peri hamartias. And so you find in Hebrews 10:6, where the LXX is being quoted that 'sacrifices for sin' translates peri hamartias, and the same is true for 'offerings for sin' in Hebrews 10:8.

But hamartian (accusative case as in 2 Cor 5:21) is never used in the LXX, or elsewhere in Greek literature SFAIK, to mean 'sin offering.'

I will deal with the figurative meaning in a subsequent post.

 

Jesus stated that though we die, yet shall we still live!