We're doing our study through the Heidelberg Catechism and we have copies of the books we're using. If you're a guest or you don't have yours this week, just raise your hand. If you'd like a copy, Quentin will get you one. We're on questions 12 to 15 this week. If you have your book and you'd like to turn there to Lord's Day 5, which begins on page 26 in the books provided for you. So again, if you get one of the books from Quentin today, if you can remember to put it back in the box at the end and try to keep track of your own copy. If you're going to be here every week, I'd really encourage you to keep making notes in those books. And that way, when you come back to look at this later, you can see some of your notes and thoughts from this time. So as always, I want to get our bearings in the Heidelberg Catechism. So who can tell me what the three sections of the Heidelberg Catechism are about? There are two alliterative ways to remember it. Sin, salvation, and service, that's one way to think about it. The other one is guilt, grace, and gratitude. So the first section, after a brief introduction, the first section deals with our sin, our guilt, our state of sin and misery, to use the language of the Westminster Catechism. And then it moves into a section on how we are redeemed, how we're saved. So that's the salvation or grace section. And then it goes into a section on service or gratitude, how we respond then to that gracious salvation. And so keep that in mind as we keep studying that three-part structure that we've already covered the sin and the misery of our situation. And now we're just beginning the section on our redemption. The good news. So we've had a few weeks of bad news in a sense. And we're starting in on the wonderful good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. And so, essentially we're in the logic of the questions and the way they flow from one to the next. We're moving now from what we know about our sinful condition to then what can be done about that. And how can we be redeemed from this situation. And that's what we jump in with in question 12. So question 12 goes like this. Since then, by the righteous judgment of God, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment. How may we escape this punishment and be again received into favor? The answer, God wills that his justice be satisfied. Therefore, we must make full satisfaction to that justice, either by ourselves or by another. In the previous questions, we've established the idea that God is a just God and His justice is not cancelled out or overwhelmed or changed by His love or His mercy. That His justice and His mercy must go together. That we can't sacrifice one for the other. And so that's what our answer communicates again here. It says that His justice must be satisfied. If we serve a just God and we want to be redeemed from our state of sin, then God's justice needs to be satisfied. And I want to spend a little bit of time on this idea of God's justice being satisfied here. Satisfaction in this case, the meaning of satisfied here, means that the requirements are met. or fully paid, or fully satisfied in that sense. Something has been done to make it, to fulfill what is necessary in terms of justice. And so the answer here tells us that we need to make, satisfaction needs to be made, either by us or by someone else. That God's justice needs to be satisfied. And so we need a substitute to make, to be in our place, or we need to pay that price ourselves. And so the question then is, if this is what we need, if this is what salvation means, is for the justice of God to be satisfied, is that the way most people think of the cross? Is that the way most people think about what happened when Jesus went to die for us? And as you think about that, you may have encountered a variety of views of the atonement, as it's usually put. The different views on the atonement. What happened when Jesus died on the cross? Why did he have to suffer? When we talk about being redeemed, who is being paid, or what is being paid in that redemption. And this is a really important part of how we understand our salvation. And you'll find there are a pretty wide variety of beliefs about the atonement. Going back through church history, there's the ransom theory of atonement. And this was popular in the early church, popular for many years in the medieval church especially. The ransom theory is the idea that Jesus' death was a payment to the devil. That the devil owned us and that he needed to be bought off or needed to be paid what he was due and so Jesus went and paid that price to the devil and ransomed us from him in that sense. That he took our place under the power of the devil and paid the price to free us from him. Probably the most popular depiction of this comes in the Chronicles of Narnia. If you think about Aslan and what he does for Oh dear, Edmund, no. Edmund, that's right, sorry. Oh man, I almost failed the CSO's test. What he does for Edmund there is a perfect example of what people think of as the, what is called the Ransom Theory of the Atonement. That he gave himself over to the power of the White Witch to take Edmund's place because Edmund, she deserved, she was owed a life. And so she took Aslan's life in the place of Edmund's life. But then Aslan, of course, broke the old magic and he was raised and all that. And it's a wonderful picture of Christ's self-sacrifice, certainly. But I remember the moment in seminary when we were learning about these different views of the atonement, and I'd always loved that story of Aslan. I realized it's actually, it's not really what happens in our atonement, that the price paid on the cross is not a price paid to the devil. It's God's justice satisfied. And the place where payment was needed was payment to God himself. a payment to satisfy His justice. And we'll get to that here in a moment. I'll tell you what I think is the correct view of the Atonement here in a moment. But that ransom view teaches that we have to pay the devil something, or the devil needs to be paid something. When in reality, he's not owed anything. There is a sense in which we're ransomed or bought from the power, being under the power of sin, and under the power of the devil, and from serving him. but there's no payment being made to him. And that's a really important idea here, is that this satisfaction needs to be made to God's justice. Another theory of the atonement is called the Christus Victor theory of the atonement, often, or Christ the victor. And we're gonna spend some extra time on this question, because the other questions are gonna end up being answered later, so we're gonna spend the bulk of our time on this question and answer, just in case you're wondering. But this Christus Victor theory is very similar to the ransom theory. There's the sense in which Jesus gave himself over to the power of the devil and took our place that the devil, that we owed to the devil. But then there's more of an emphasis on Jesus conquering the the devil and his forces through doing that. And the idea is there's sort of a picture of Christ going down into hell and giving himself up to the power of the devil, but then the devil realized he couldn't hold him and Christ busted out of hell and conquered the forces of evil. And so again, I'm not real clear on the distinction between that and the ransom theory, but there's more of an emphasis on on Jesus conquering our enemies on the cross. But again, the problem is that the emphasis is on our enemies and on the evil one and that somehow he is the one who needs to be dealt with or placated or paid. in the atonement. And again, that's not really what needs to happen on the cross. Then there's also the moral influence view, which is even further out, which is the idea that Jesus just set us an example on the cross of what it means to be self-sacrificial, and that's what we follow his example when we sacrifice ourselves, and that that's all that was happening there. There was no deal with the devil, there was no justice or wrath of God or anything like that. Another view that's very close to what this catechism here is teaching is called the Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement. And the Satisfaction Theory was most clearly communicated by Anselm of Canterbury in the, I think, 11th century. And he said that no, it's not a payment to the devil. The devil isn't owed anything. Our problem is that our sin has insulted the infinite God. And so that affront to God himself needs to be taken care of. So he got closer in a way where he It's got an orientation towards God in this view of the Atonement, where we have insulted God, we've insulted His honor, and for us to be made right with Him, that needs to be rectified. Someone needs to be punished because of that insult to His honor. Next week, you're gonna look, Byron's gonna be leading us through this, through the next week, but as you look at why God had to be, why Jesus had to be God and man, Anselm was one of the best people, earliest people in church history to get that really clearly articulated in a good way, and it was because he understood that a payment needed to be made to God, that something, God needed to be satisfied in the atonement. But again, I think, Anselm was just a little bit off in the sense that he made it into an idea of honor, that God's honor had been insulted, and that he needed to be placated because of his insulted honor. And there's a sense in which we insult his honor when we sin against him. But in the Reformation, a lot of, it became That view was taken a little bit further, I think, to its right conclusion, in the way we read scripture, to what is often called the penal substitutionary view of the atonement. The substitutionary view of the atonement. And that's what this catechism is teaching, and I think what people did believe earlier in church history, I think you can see in Augustine, you can see some of this, and some other earlier people. It's not like we made it up in the Reformation. But the idea of penal substitution, penal meaning punishment in terms of justice, that Jesus has taken the just wrath and punishment of God in our place. That when Jesus died on the cross, he was satisfying the requirement in our relationship with God for justice to be done. and that God's justice was satisfied. And saying that, that may seem like common sense to you, or like, well of course that's how we view the cross. And that's because you've heard it, hopefully you've heard it here before, and maybe heard it other places, and that's a common view of the atonement in Protestant circles in general. But that hasn't always been that clear in different parts of church history, in different parts of the church. It's very much under attack in liberal Protestantism today. In the process of researching this, I was... I came across the fact that one of the mainline denominations here in the U.S. had asked the authors of In Christ Alone, the hymn, if they could sing an edited version of the song, where they changed the line, the wrath of God he satisfied, to the love of God he glorified. And the Gettys and Stuart Townend who wrote the psalms said, nope. They said, that's the gospel that Jesus sacrificed to satisfy the wrath of God. And many people just don't have a place for the wrath of God, and they're thinking about him. And they don't have a place for thinking that God justly has wrath on sin. And so they don't want to talk about Jesus paying for that or suffering the wrath of God for us. So, I do think there have been some helpful things written recently that have encouraged us not to think of the Atonement only in terms of penal substitution. There is a truth, there is a sense in which we have been freed from the power of the evil one. There's a sense in which we have been that Christ is a victor in what he's done, and he does set us an example in what he's done, but I think the heart of the atonement is Jesus paying the price of God's wrath that we owe to God, and that that justice needs to be satisfied. So, the long and short of it is, God is a just God, and that justice must be satisfied. And none of these other theories of the atonement on their own deal with that problem. And they either sacrifice God being a just God, or they just don't deal with that part of the question. If you look at Exodus 34, verses six and seven, this verse was actually, it's cited under question 11 in your book, so it's right there on the facing page. When God revealed who he is to Moses, he talks about how merciful and loving he is, But then in the very next line he says, but will by no means clear the guilty. And those things are stuck right next to each other. There's no getting around the two of them being together. That God is merciful and loving, and that he will not clear the guilty. There's going to be a just payment and punishment for that sin. And you see, I've mentioned this in the last week or two, and I want to go over it again here because I think it's so key in this whole discussion. But Romans 3, 23 to 26, is probably the clearest place in scripture where these ideas go together to put God's justice and his loving salvation together in the person of Jesus Christ. So listen to Romans 3, 23 to 26. Some of these are familiar words to us. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood. I'll just pause there for a moment. Propitiation, it's a term that means it's a covering, and it's something that makes God propitious towards us. It makes Him approve of us or accept us, and makes us pleasing in His sight. And so, In Romans 3 here, Paul says that Jesus is a propitiation by his blood. And going on here, it says, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And so in Jesus Christ, you have justice, and justification. And that's so important in our understanding of what happens on that cross, of what we need in salvation, is that God's justice needs to be satisfied, and we also need justification. And then in the rest of our questions today and next week, you're gonna find out why Christ is the only one who can have done that for us. He's the only source of that kind of just and merciful salvation. So there is a requirement that needs to be fulfilled for our sins. We need that justice fulfilled. And so the next question follows, question 13. Can we ourselves make this satisfaction? And the answer is certainly not. On the contrary, we daily increase our guilt. We don't have any ability to fulfill the justice of God ourselves and to come out on the other side, if you want to think about it that way. We can't fulfill that justice and survive and come out on the other side redeemed. We don't have the ability to do that. Psalm 49, verses 7 to 9. Psalm 49, 7 to 9 says, Truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life. for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit. Psalm 130 that we sang earlier, Psalm 130 verse three says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? And this isn't a popular idea in the way that our world looks at things or the culture around us, that we just can't do it. We aren't gonna be good enough. There's nothing we can pay to God to redeem ourselves. There's nothing you can do, or pay, or give, or sacrifice for that to be enough for God. And instead of that view of things, in our culture today, you see many people adhering to this idea of karma. And that karma is sort of the overarching system of justice of sorts in the way that life works. You know, what goes around comes around. If you don't do enough, if you do some bad things, you better go do some good things because you've got to kind of balance it out. You've got these scales, an idea that comes out of Hinduism originally, that you've got these kind of a balance and you've got to keep that balance where it's a little more good than bad. And you think about how often you see that just in pop culture around us. I remember A few years back, I think when I was in high school, there was a show on NBC called My Name is Earl. And the whole premise of the show was he'd lived a terrible life, and he realized karma was going to come for him. And so he needed to make a list of good things to do to balance out every single bad thing he'd ever done. And they made a show out of it where he's going to try to do all these good things for people. But the premise of it is if you do enough good, you're gonna balance out the bad that you've done. And we've gotta be ready to talk to people about this and to point out that this just, this is our way of thinking, and it makes us comfortable because we get to keep a half of our life that's sinful, basically. We get to be comfortable with still having just under, you know, 49% of our life that's insulting to God. And it's achievable in a sense, we feel like, but friends, it's just not the way that God looks at things. And we have to bring, we have to always force ourselves to not look at things the way that we want to or that's comfortable for us, but to look at the word of God and to see that as we read in Psalm 130, oh Lord, if you should mark iniquities, who could stand? And that we can't ransom ourselves, we can't pay for ourselves. You see this in Christian circles of all stripes. You see this especially in Roman Catholicism. The system of penance that was created was not originally created with this kind of idea, but the system of penance ultimately becomes like this. If you do enough If you sacrifice enough, if you suffer enough, if you do enough good things, that cancels out the bad things you've done. And so, again, we've got people all around us that look at life that way, and we have to be ready to explain to them and show them from Scripture that this is just not true. Romans 3 verse 20. Romans 3 verse 20 says, For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So we just, again, we just have to keep working with people to help them see that their idea of what is right and wrong and how to make it right is not necessarily God's idea. And we have to be aware of that in our own hearts as well. So then if we can't provide what we need to satisfy God's justice, what other option do we have? So go on to question 14. Can any mere creature make satisfaction for us? Answer, none. For first, God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man committed. And further, no mere creature can sustain the burden of God's eternal wrath against sin and redeem others from it. The first part of this answer says that God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man committed. And this is an idea that you see most clearly in the book of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel chapter 18, there's a whole section there that talks about how God punishes sin. And he says very clearly that the father, well I'll read it here, Ezekiel 18 verse 20. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. God doesn't punish in a legal justice kind of sense. He does not punish a child for their parent's sins or a parent for their child's sins. And you are not going to pay for the sins of the person next to you. This is something that Paul talks about in Galatians 6, 4 and 5. He says, Let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will have to bear his own load. That when it comes to the judgment day, No one is going to pay for anybody else's sins. No mere human is going to pay for anybody else's sins. God is a just God in that. He's not going to punish someone who's innocent of a sin. we're working our way towards seeing that the only way for that to be taken care of then is for God to take it on Himself. That it's not unjust for Him to put Himself in there to self-sacrifice to pay for that, but He's not going to make someone else besides Himself pay for your sins. So there's no way for someone else, another person, to pay for your sins. It's also important to say that Animal death doesn't pay for your sins. And that might sound like an odd thing to say, but animal sacrifice does not pay for your sins. Hebrews is very clear about that. In Hebrews 10, 10 verse 4 says, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. And the Old Testament sacrificial system never took away their sins. It wasn't something that worked for a while for them, and now we have a different system. That never actually satisfied God's justice. It was always a reminder and a shout out to point a head to Christ. And so we can't rely on animal sacrifice either. And people in the old covenant who truly trusted in God for salvation never trusted in those sacrifices to actually save them. So you see then that As the book says there in Hebrews 2, I think what verses are included there? Hebrews 2, 14 to 18, and verse 16 or 17 there, it says that Jesus had to be made like his brethren. And that's the sense that it had to be a human sacrifice, and we'll get into this next week, but it had to be a human sacrifice. It couldn't have been an angel. to sacrifice for us, because angels are just spirits, they don't have body and soul. It couldn't be an animal, because they're just bodies, they don't have souls. It needs to be a sacrifice that is both body and soul. Again, we can, we'll see if Byron wants to talk more about that next time, but the, it had to be a truly human sacrifice, and it can't be any other human besides us. So we're, again, we're kind of working our way towards seeing how it has to be Jesus Christ. So then, the result then in question 15 is what kind of mediator and redeemer then must we seek? It says, one who is a true and righteous man, and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is also true God. We need someone who's a man, who is righteous, who's fulfilled that righteous requirement. but we also need someone who can bear the full weight of God's wrath. So again, I'm not gonna go into all this, because this is where the next questions come in. But I hope that overall this week you've seen that what is needed because of your sin is God's justice to be satisfied. And there are good reasons from scripture and from reason to see that the only way for that to be accomplished is for Jesus Christ to be the sacrifice for you. For the God man to take that just wrath of God on himself. We can't make this right. Somebody else can't make this right on our behalf except for Christ himself. And no sacrifice on this earth is gonna make that right either. We need the God man, Jesus. So this week and next week as we talk about how important the person of Jesus Christ is and what he's done for us, what we're learning these weeks is so important for interacting with other people who believe they have a forgiving God but do not believe in Jesus Christ. whether that's Muslims who believe that Allah forgives them, or Jehovah's Witnesses who think that Jesus is an archangel and not actually God, or Mormons, or a whole variety of people who believe in a God of some kind who forgives and is merciful. We need to know this stuff about how God's justice is satisfied and how it can't be any other way besides the God-man Jesus Christ. Especially with the sort of the popularity of Mormonism as sort of trendy kind of They're they're affluent and they're all over Instagram and stuff. You know, they they We need to be especially able to to combat these Heresies the false views of Jesus Christ that take away the means of our salvation that take away the only way that we can be saved so so I'm I'm saying next week's really, really important, so Byron, you got this. Along with this week, there's this picture of how important Jesus is as the God-man. Are there any questions today? Robert. I'm kind of concerned in a number of modern translations, not using the word propitiation. Yes. And at first I thought, sometimes it's just a choice of words. It was specifically said that God has no wrath towards sin. He loves sinners. And that Jesus' death on the cross did not, propitially, did not cover God's wrath or sin. And I really think that drops the gospel very keenly. Yes, I agree. And that has been a very intentional change, like you're saying, that you'll see some new versions that don't use the word propitiation. And I think if we could have a better word that meant the same thing in more modern English, that would be great, but we don't. And you can't change any of the substitutes currently don't really communicate what propitiation means. And like you're saying, it's a very intentional change. It's just like the mainline denomination I was talking about that took out the wrath of God being satisfied in that hymn. It's something that people in more conservative churches who don't believe in the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ have learned not to make a real obvious issue because they know they're going to get slammed, especially with the way things blow up online these days. People know not to admit that they don't believe in this, but there are a lot of sneaky ways that people are trying to take this out. And I don't want to be making it into conspiracy theorists or anything, but there is really a movement in Western Christianity to remove this idea of Jesus propitiating us to God and His sacrifice and taking that wrath of God. And you have to take, you can't just take the word propitiation out and think that you've taken the wrath of God and being satisfied out of the Bible. I mean, it's all through the whole message of salvation, so you end up sacrificing so much more of Scripture in the process, too. And Jesus specifically says that he is going to drink a cup of God's wrath. So it's really not some question, it's kind of interpretation of one word. Right, yes. Yeah, Jesus suffered. I need to, I'll have to look for that reference. I wasn't aware of that. But Jesus suffered the wrath of God for us. Any other questions? I'm not saying you can't read Lionel Rich in the wardrobe, I think it's a great picture of Christ as a sacrifice, but just be aware, it's not quite accurate.