The psalms are in the scripture both for worship and also for instruction. And there you have a psalm from the perspective of King David, chosen by the Lord to represent in a way Christ long before Christ was born incarnate among us. And you have David expressing his zeal for the justice of the Lord and he says, I'm not going to allow anyone who is characterized by evil to have a place in my house. And when he's talking about his house, he doesn't just mean his private home. He's talking about the royal household that represents God's justice in this world. King David would not suffer a wicked person to be in his household and to serve him. How much more then will Christ suffer the wicked to be his servants? And yet that raises the question because every one of us has violated and does continue to violate God's law. And when we judge ourselves by somebody else, we feel pretty good about ourselves. But when we judge ourselves against Christ, we have to acknowledge we are not worthy. We are not angels. So then how can Christ be just and yet one who justifies the wicked? Because we read in scripture that Abraham was justified while he was ungodly. Justification is being declared righteous. How can God declare Abraham righteous? So between this week and next week, we're going to be looking at a group of ideas that deal with this question. And this evening, we're going to do so beginning out of 1 Peter 3. If you haven't turned there, I invite you to do so. 1 Peter 3. As we continue in our series working through what we confess the Bible teaches on core issues, And particularly what we confess in a document called the Belgic Confession in Articles 20 and 21. I'll refer to it as we go along. And if you wish to see those words, Article 20 of the Belgic Confession, you'll find this in the Thin Forms and Prayers book on page 173. 173. Now the context of 1 Peter, he is writing, Peter is writing to Christians who are undergoing persecution and understandably some of them are struggling deeply with the injustice that is being done to them. Here they are trying to serve the Lord and they are being punished. Maybe it's that one of these is a slave and his master is giving him worse conditions because he's no longer a pagan or any other situation you imagine. These Christians are now suffering and they're wrestling with the injustice of their circumstance And Peter advises them, don't do anything wrong in reaction, because then your suffering would be fully justified. But instead, call to mind the fact that your Savior is not a stranger to unjust suffering. He hadn't done anything himself wrong, and yet he suffered in all ways. And we pick up at verse 17. We're gonna focus on verses 17 and 18 this evening. The Spirit inspires Peter to write, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. Let's ask the Lord's special blessing. Heavenly Father, may your face shine upon us this evening through the preached word. We ask whether we are considering these things for the first time or the thousandth, that you would cause us to feel again and to affirm our need of our Savior, that nothing less than exactly who and what he is is sufficient for our salvation. In order that we might cling to him fully and point others to him and nothing else. We ask that you would be glorified in the attention that you work through us, that you would be honored in the way that we heed your word, though it comes through a weak man. And all of these things we ask for you to find pleasure in the growth that you work in your people. For in Jesus' name we pray, amen. This afternoon I found myself wondering how many of us, myself included, would be surprised if somehow we could know in advance the actual way that you or I is going to die. Because I imagine that there are some people here who are reasonably confident that you know the way that you're going to pass. And I know that relative to, say, my parents. For 30 years, my father anticipated that he would pass from a certain disease, and indeed, that is what he passed from. And the Lord worked good through that whole time in that. But on the other hand, some people expect that they're going to pass one way, and then something entirely unrelated takes them from the world. By great contrast to that, nothing about Jesus' death by crucifixion caught him off guard. From his earliest life in ministry, he expresses a knowledge that he has come to do the will of the Father who sent him, to be a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And hear what Jesus says in Matthew 20. It says, as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the 12 disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, verse 18, see, we're going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles, to be mocked and flogged and crucified. Of all of the accounts of the Gospels, of all of those who observed Jesus, there is no hint of the idea that Jesus thought he was about to become the king and then was, you know, foiled in his plan and didn't see this coming. He knew this was coming. This is what he's there for. Certainly he was familiar, for instance, with Psalm 22. which is a detailed prophetic description of the cross, written more than 700 years before the event. Read it yourself. And Jesus was raised reading the scriptures. He knew what he was headed for. Moreover, he understands the reason for it, the way that Peter puts it in our passage, the reason for Jesus' death on the cross, verse 18, 1 Peter 3, that he might bring us to God. The cross is our path, the cross is our bridge, the Christ is himself bearing us through his death back to God. And this is expressed by Jesus himself in John 3, long before his death. John 3, verses 14 through 16, Jesus says to Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And again, in case one of you doesn't know or has forgotten what that is referring to, remember in the wilderness, as the people have left Egypt, they're crossing the desert, and you have people, as we heard earlier this morning, who followed the evil advice of Balaam, and God's judgment upon them was that they were bitten by snakes, and Moses is instructed by the Lord to have an image of a serpent put up on a pole, and anyone who looks at it would not die, and it's a miracle. There's no rational scientific explanation for why looking at the snake should lead to healing. And even so, you don't have to fully grasp how it is that simply looking to Christ for salvation is sufficient to remove the sting of death and sin, but it is. Christ understands that that was an analogy built into history from long before, pointing to him, that he would be counted like sin and lifted up for all who would look. And so Jesus says that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And here gave is a euphemism for death. Gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And so the cross didn't take Jesus by surprise. He knows what is gonna happen. He knows the reason why. But it's worth asking, of all kinds of deaths, was it necessary that Jesus should suffer a criminal's death? Could some other kind of death have served for redemption? Or was this needed? And if so, what was the purpose of dying by crucifixion? What I hope to do this evening with you, as we consider this and a number of other passages, is to, in the first place, look at a number of major views of the cross, four different views of the cross, and what is its significance, why did Jesus die in this way? So first, some major views. Secondly, I want to lay before you and to examine with you what it is that this church confesses the Bible to teach, and then look at passages of scripture that demonstrate why we confess what we do. And then finally, by way of conclusion, I want to lay before you some of the ways that this shapes your life and one particular exhortation. So in the first place, let's summarize some of the common theories about the cross. These have existed, all of them have existed in some form since earliest recorded church history. And as I said, there are four of them that I lay before you. They all deal with the question, Why did Jesus suffer crucifixion? Why was that God's plan? And what is its effect? What is the consequence of that? The first view, and I don't lay these out in chronological order, the first view is sometimes called the moral government view or theory of the cross. According to this moral government view of the cross, Jesus' death by crucifixion is God's ultimate way of demonstrating his disapproval and wrath towards sin. Because nothing and no one is more valuable than Jesus, he's infinitely worthy. For that reason, an eternity of judgment and hell still of itself cannot equal the demonstration of Christ who is infinite on the cross suffering. Because eternity of hell isn't proper eternity, it's just everlasting. It goes and goes and goes, but it's never infinite. And so hell itself isn't the fullest demonstration of God's disapproval of sin. Christ presented himself according to this view. He presented himself to suffer in himself the judgment of God to make a demonstration about just how much God disapproves sin. and moreover, a warning to all who need to repent. Now, it's crucial to understand this. If there's nothing else you remember about the moral government view, take away this part. Many of those who have espoused this view do not hold that Jesus' death was substitutionary. That is, he wasn't actually bearing any particular person's sin. He wasn't satisfying wrath on behalf of anyone Rather, he's just suffering himself to be a warning to others, this is what's gonna happen to you if you don't repent. Imagine a person stepping forward and saying, you know, everyone who says, you know, this word will get hit in the face, and just so you know what that's gonna look like, here, give it to me on the chin, I haven't said it, but that'll let you all know what it's gonna be. And that has been held up as a view, not just at some remote period in the past, there are people who have continued to teach us today. I'll be candid, I was, in God's providence, partly led towards the gospel through people who held that view, and they did me absolutely no good in coming to the assurance of the gospel, but the Lord did use them in terms of shaking up my sense of, the Lord's wrath is real, and his justice is real, and if he doesn't demonstrate his disapproval of sin, then there is moral disorder in the world. The second view, is usually called the ransom theory of the cross. And it has its origins in the fact that the scriptures themselves speak of Christ's death by way of the term ransom. Children are ransom in certain contexts is basically like this. Suppose that you have two armies in the ancient world who have a fight and In the fight, several of the soldiers from the first side get captured and taken over here by the other army. And the other army sends a message back to those people, and they say, if you pay a certain amount of money, send us a bunch of gold, then we won't kill those soldiers. And so they are ransomed, they are exchanged out of their captivity. And the word ransom does occur in the scriptures with respect to Christ's cross, and so it has a certain basis in the Bible. However, the first person to propose what we mean by ransom theory here was a man named Origen of Alexandria in the second century. Origen, he was very insightful, also very strange in many of his beliefs, and generally is not regarded as an Orthodox Christian. In Origen's view of the ransom, Jesus tricked the devil. Because the Bible does say that we were taken captive by the devil to do his will, that's 2 Thessalonians 2. And so what Jesus did was basically ransomed us from enslavement to the devil by telling him or implying that if I give myself up to you to be humiliated and killed, then my people go free. So there's this ransom from the devil. but the devil didn't anticipate the resurrection. And so then when Jesus is raised, oh, the devil is tricked. This view is also not just in the past. It's pretty close to the view that somebody even like C.S. Lewis represents in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, popular book. But in this view, the devil is tricked and a ransom is paid to him that delivers God's people from tyranny. What you should be aware of about this view, even though it has a small minority of, I mean very small, minority of proponents throughout time, it was largely not adopted by the church fathers. In fact, I'm only aware of one other church father besides Origen who shows any kind of countenancing of this idea that a payment was made to the devil, or that the devil had to, an exchange happened with him. However, what do you do with this language of ransom? And we'll come back to that. The third of the four views is typically called Christus Victor, and this is from Latin, and it basically refers to the victory of Christ. This view arguably was the predominant view, or at least was the main thing emphasized in the early church and throughout the Middle Ages. So what is this view of the cross and what Jesus is doing on the cross that is sometimes called Christus Victor? In this view, Jesus, through the cross, triumphed over sin, death, and the devil by doing the very thing that nobody had expected or thought was possible. By submitting to the humiliation and the judgment of sin, though he himself is not sinful, and by resisting temptation to the hilt, never giving in at any point to any of the ways that he might have been tempted to sin in this lead up to the cross and in the cross, he has given a perfect demonstration of God's goodness and righteousness, and therefore God honors Christ by awarding him a people, by awarding him a triumph. In the Roman world, rarely, this was typically once a generation, once a lifetime, a general would have such a marvelous conquest, such a demonstration of his prowess, that the leaders would allow him to have a triumph. And the triumph was the general going with a gigantic parade through the city of Rome and he would be honored and heralded. And the Bible, the New Testament, does use the word triumph to describe Christ's victory in the cross. And so this idea that Christ, it's really focusing on the effects of the cross, that Christ, in his demonstration of humility, brings life and transformation to others. This receives great emphasis in the early church The final view that we look at also finds wide reflection in the early church. Now I'll tell you by way of warning if you study this subject, I'm not sure why, but I had been told that this view was not widely represented in the church fathers. I have found by experience that is not the case. If anyone wants a long list of places in the fathers where this fourth view is reflected, I'd be happy to share it with you. Penal substitutionary atonement. Penal substitutionary atonement. Penal here refers to penalties. Substitution, any child here who's ever had a substitute teacher, that's somebody who stands in for someone else. The word atonement means to fix a broken relationship. And so in some sense, Christ offers himself in our place to bear the penalty in order to fix the relationship between God and man. This view is reflected in many, many of the early church fathers. They clearly understand some kind of satisfaction being made, and it's definitely emphasized in the church, probably most famously elaborated from the 1100s by a man named Anselm of Canterbury. In this view, notably, this view agrees with the moral government view regarding the fact that there would be moral disorder, that God's justice would be overthrown if he didn't demonstrate punishment and condemnation towards sin. He would not be fulfilling his role as the public guarantor of justice and goodness in the world if he didn't punish sin. However, this view, even in its very name, emphasizes that Christ was a substitute. and he actually satisfies wrath on behalf of those whom he represents. This view also agrees with the ransom theory in that a payment was made, but it says the payment was made not to the devil, it's made to God, and what was being paid was a debt of justice, not of money. And so these are the four most common views. The hardest work is now done. We've laid before us these views. The question is, What do we as a church confess? And what does the Bible itself teach? Why should you believe this? So by way of our second major division, what I want to do is simply examine this in the light of scripture. And again, I said on page 173, you'd find the words of the Belgian Confession. I direct you there. So I'm going to quote from Article 20 and 21. Belgian Confession, Article 20. We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and also very just, sent his son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. So which of the four does that most represent? Penal substitution. As you see it says, to assume the nature in which the disobedience would be committed in order to bear in it the punishment. So he's standing in, he's assuming to himself our role and he's standing in to bear the punishment for us. But then notice it goes on, so God made known his justice toward his son who is charged with our sin. And that echoes the idea of moral government, that God is making a demonstration of his justice in the world. He has made known his justice. And he poured out his goodness and mercy on us who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us his son to die by a most perfect love and raising him to life for our justification in order that by him we might have immortality and eternal life. And here, this has echoes of Christus Victor, that it's not simply that he's removing the guilt, but that he's bringing us into eternal life, that there's an overthrow of all that sin had broken in this world, and Christ is setting things back into order. There are elements of all of the views, but the idea of penal substitution cannot be lost. It is essential to what we confess. Now, on what grounds do we confess this? We began at 1 Peter 3. Look with me at 1 Peter 1. Verse 18 and 19. 1 Peter 1, and pay attention especially to these key phrases. You were ransomed. And let that sink in. The Christian is a ransomed person. This applies to every believer in Jesus Christ. Everyone who will ever come to know him is a ransomed person. Can you imagine how you would feel if you knew that you, in this life, had been ransomed just for a sum of money? The relief you would feel if you had been taken captive, if you had been kidnapped, and you're being held against your will, as some even this very hour are. And you'd be yearning for release. And probably it would be guaranteed at the value of dollars. And apparently that is how cheap sinners regard the lives of each other, is that they can be counted up in goods bought in this world. He says, you were ransomed, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, which is a demonstration then that Christ's blood is worth more than all the gold and all the silver in the world. Those things can perish. This whole universe, how God willed it, could be taken away, but the blood of Christ, this blood is precious beyond all things, And that's the price at which God valued us, not because we deserved it, but of grace. And nothing less would have been enough. But with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. Now this is crucial. Peter is drawing on the old covenant background of God's people. To whom were these lambs offered? In the context here, the blood is a reference to sacrifice. To whom were the lambs offered? Were they offered to the devil or were they offered to God? They were offered to God. And when Christ is paying this ransom, this payment, we should not think of it as a hostage situation. Sometimes when we try to understand a thing, we erroneously bring our analogy and enforce our analogy onto the text. When it's talking about ransom here, it's simply speaking about a payment from someone who is in some form of bondage or debt. In the ancient world, one of the most common ways to end up in slavery was debt. And how did we end up slaves to sin? It was through an indebtedness to justice. When we sinned against God, we forfeited the right to any of his good things and blessings. And it was just of him to withdraw those good things and those blessings. But here where it says that he was offered, or that his precious blood was offered like that of a lamb without blemish or spot, It's saying the payment is being made to the Father to redeem a people whom he already regards as his covenant people, those whom he had elected in him. Remember, the lambs weren't offered for the whole world at large. They're offered for his covenant people. In due time, Christ is presented as that lamb. Now look at verse 18 of chapter three, which was our initial text. Here again, it emphasizes that substitutionary aspect and the penalty aspect. For Christ also suffered once. Why was he suffering? For sins. Now, not simply to make a demonstration of what God will do to others for sin, but it says the just for the unjust, or the righteous for the unrighteous. This is substitution, that he might bring us to God, not simply that you might bring yourself if you wise up and change because you saw, oh, this demonstration, but it's in the very act of it that he's purchasing and securing for his people everything necessary to their salvation, that he might bring us to God, not you bring yourself, but in due time, Christ is the shepherd gathering his flock out of the world, being put to death in the flesh, and that language there, put to death, is, again, the language of capital punishment. He's undergoing a death that, in its very nature, is meant to signify somebody is guilty, so that all of us who are guilty have the assurance, Christ died in my place. I, who am united with him, am already dead. It's just as Jesus says elsewhere in the gospel, where he's praying in the garden of Gethsemane, if there be any other way, Father, take this cup from me. and yet he has to drink the cup of wrath, which means there was no other way to bring you to God. I think understandably, different Christians or theologians at times have tried to say they want to preserve the freedom of God, and so they say, well, God could have saved in a different way than a substitutionary death, a violent death of this sort, but this is the way he's chosen. People know more than me. I'll tell you my reading of scripture suggests to me, no, for God to be who God is, there are some things he simply cannot do. God cannot die. He cannot lie. God cannot deny himself. And this is consistent with who he is, that he cannot turn a blind eye to sin. Belgian Confession, Article 21, look with me at what we confess there. He presented himself in our name before his father to appease his wrath with full satisfaction by offering himself on the tree of the cross and pouring out his precious blood for the cleansing of our sins, even as the prophets had predicted. Again, substitution presented himself in our name, and you can put your name in there if you're a believer, to appease his wrath. And we must remember here, sometimes the atonement is misrepresented As though we think that our God is this abusive father who's beating up on his poor son, who's trying to shield us from his angry father. How grossly ignorant of the entirety of the scriptures, anyone who looks at it that way. How amazingly deceitful those who do know the scriptures and yet choose to color it that way. Jesus is the infinite immortal God who came into the world and bore our nature. He knew what he was getting himself into. He's the creator of all. When he came into the world, it wasn't like a father put him up to it. From the beginning, from time not being time, God knows that man will turn. God knows what we'll do at the tree. He knows our rebellion. And from eternity, Christ says, to use the words of Isaiah, out of order, here I am, Lord, send me. Christ wasn't put up to it and then beat up. Christ went to it and was sent to it in agreement of the Trinity. And this is a demonstration of God's nature being so unlike ourselves that maybe we would lay our lives down for a good person, but Christ, knowing what we were, presents himself to be our cleansing sacrifice. Where do we see this again? Our confession provides a litany of references, and I cite only a few of them here. It quotes Isaiah 53, where it says, the chastisement of our peace was placed upon him. Chastisement being a punishment or a consequence. And it's called the chastisement of our peace because his suffering it for us is what brought us deliverance. We are healed by his wounds. His wounds aren't just an example, they are efficacious. He was led to death as a lamb. and was numbered among the sinners. And notice, numbered, because he wasn't a sinner, but he was reckoned as though he had sinned. Psalm 69, verse 4, he paid back what he had not stolen. And then citing 1 Peter 3, he suffered the just for the unjust in both body and his soul in such a way that when he sensed the horrible punishment required by our sin, His sweat became like big drops of blood falling on the ground. And he cried, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? And he endured all this for the forgiveness of our sins. So very clearly, I believe, we see in scripture this idea that God's justice is satisfied in Christ, bearing the full weight of penalty on behalf of all those who trust in him. That's how it's satisfied. And Jesus, when he says, it is finished, he means it for our sin. It's ourselves who constantly pull our sins back out, back out, back out of the tomb, as if it's not yet finished and we have to satisfy. Don't get me wrong, God is a heavenly father and he, of course, disciplines children whom he loves. There are consequences for sin. But those consequences aren't meant to satisfy justice. They're meant to get you back on the right path or serve as a warning to others so that they don't do what is foolish. But we don't satisfy his wrath. It is finished in Christ. One final verse, Colossians, if you turn over not far away, Colossians chapter two, where you see these various ideas of these different views of the atonement come together beautifully. Colossians 2, 13 through 15. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, speaking of the fact that you did not have the Holy Spirit and you're outside of the covenant community. You who are all these things, God made alive together with him. Speaking of the union that he affected with Christ through faith. having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt, there's the language of ransom again, that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. And might you remember when you read here that this record of debt is nailed to the cross, we might picture kind of like Luther with his 95 theses, some piece of paper on the cross with the record of all our sins, but these nails pierce first through the hand of Christ before they ever go into the record of death. Paul is drawing on this graphic image of our freedom being purchased through the piercing of the sun. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. How in the cross did Christ triumph over here what he calls authorities and rulers? Speaking of all, not only those earthly rulers that united against Jesus, but especially against the spiritual powers, rulers, principalities, and high places. How did the cross triumph over them and disarm them? Well, ask yourself, what was their greatest weapon? Their greatest weapon was the accusation that, God, you are unjust if you justify these sinners. You don't have a claim to righteousness if you overlook their sins indefinitely. So sooner or later, you have to bring them under judgment. But in the cross, God himself comes and bears the penalty. And in that way, it's like he takes the sword out of the hand of the devil. There's no more power to accuse. He says, I don't have to punish them. I have punished them. And that is the glory of union with Jesus Christ. That is the ultimate sigh of relief. Every time the enemy is breathing down your neck again, you don't have a right. You're right, Satan. In myself, I don't. But you can close your mouth forever I have a right in Jesus Christ. That is the glory of penal substitution. By way of conclusion, I simply want to say one or two things. The first is this, I urge you, do not give in to the offense at the violence of the cross. It is very common to hear people raise an objection that the cross is barbaric, the Christian God is barbaric because this idea of inflicting pain upon anyone. Why can't God, if he's so forgiving, just forgive everyone? Spoken like a person who doesn't have a high regard for justice. Because they pit justice against mercy. In effect, what such a person is saying is that God should not be like God. What one person says is this, this is one theologian, taking into consideration God's role in the universe, it's entirely reasonable to think that God's forgiveness will look slightly different from ours. God is king and judge of the world. Part of his faithfulness to creation is to execute justice within it, to maintain moral order that he has established, which is not some impersonal justice, but one that is reflective of his own holy nature. In essence, to make sure that wrongdoing is condemned and punished. Justice involves more than that, but certainly not less. Given this, forgiveness cannot be a simple affair of letting it go or passing it over for God. His own character, his holiness, his righteousness, his justice, means he cannot treat sin as if it did not happen. For God, judgment is not an evil. I think that's where we get hung up. We think of judgment upon a person as an evil. No, an evil is allowing someone wicked to get away with evil. God is glorified in his judgment. What we see against every one of the fallen angels is a demonstration of something totally consistent with his character, and it's glorious. It only offends us, I think, for two reasons. We're sinful, and then second, there is a humane compassion as those who have received grace to want others to receive grace. But that grace comes at a cost, and the cost is the cross. So I urge you, don't be offended at this doctrine. Wrestle with it in scripture, because I believe you cannot avoid it in the scripture. But then secondly, cling to this. This is your great assurance. Share it with others. Trust that God uses the foolishness of the cross to save. Let's ask for his blessing now, let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for providing exactly what we needed in Christ and in his death. We ask that you would please help us to find all of our comforts in his wounds and never to seek or to invent any other means to reconcile ourselves with you than this one and only sacrifice. We thank you for rendering us perfect forever through faith. Help us to rejoice in it. Help us to live our lives generously as those who have been saved by one who is so generous. And we ask that you would help us to make this known to others and by your spirit make that effective in them too. For in Jesus' name we ask all these things, amen.