The Cross of Christ - Chapter 6

The Cross of Christ by John Stott is the current Challies' choice for his "Reading Classics Together" series. As I read through the book, I thought I'd share highlights from each chapter with you and include a link to Challies' full review. After having a taste, I hope you will want to spend time in this influential book yourself! 

There is so much good material in this chapter, I hardly know where to begin! So I will start where Stott does, by tying the OT shadows of substitutionary atonement to their NT fulfillment. That's quite helpful for most of us who don't have the familiarity with the OT that we should have. As you read through the Bible, always keep in mind that it is ONE book ultimately composed by ONE person, the Holy Spirit. (2Pet.1:20-21)  God is telling ONE story, progressively revealed.

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"The Self-Substitution of God"

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life."  (Lev.17:11)

Three important affirmations about blood are made in this text. 

First, blood is the symbol of life. This understanding that 'blood is life' seems to be very ancient. It goes back at least to Noah (Gen.9:4) ... The emphasis, however, was not on blood flowing in the veins, the symbol of life being lived, but on the blood shed, the symbol of life ended, usually by violent means.

Secondly, blood makes atonement, and the reason for its atoning significance is given in the repetition of the word 'life' ... One life is forfeit; another life is sacrificed instead .... T.J. Crawford expressed it well: 'The text, then, according to its plain and obvious import, teaches the vicarious nature of the rite of sacrifice. Life was given for life, the life of the victim for the life of the offerer', indeed 'the life of the innocent victim for the life of the sinful offerer'." [Doctrine of Holy Scripture, 237, 241]

Thirdly, blood was given by God for this atoning purpose. 'I have given it to you', he says, 'to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.' So we are to think of the sacrificial system as God-given, not man-made, and of the individual sacrifices not as a human device to placate God but as a means of atonement provided by God himself. [cf. Heb.9:22, 10:4 No forgiveness without blood meant no atonement without substitution.]

But the OT blood sacrifices were only shadows; the substance was Christ. (Col.2:17) For a substitute to be effective, it must be an appropriate equivalent ... Only 'the precious blood of Christ' was valuable enough (1Pet.1:19) ... The possibility of substitution rests on the identity of the substitute.

Our substitute then, who took our place and died our death on the cross, was neither Christ alone ... nor God alone ... but God in Christ, who was truly and fully both God and man, and who on that account was uniquely qualified to represent both God and man and to mediate between them ... The only way for God's holy love to be satisfied is for his holiness to be directed in judgment upon his appointed substitute, in order that his love may be directed towards us in forgiveness. The substitute bears the penalty, that we sinners may receive the pardon.

Christ is not an independent third person, but the eternal Son of the Father, who is one with the Father in his essential being ... For in giving his Son he was giving himself. This being so, it is the Judge himself who in holy love assumed the role of the innocent victim ... Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice.

The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone ... The theological inference is that it is impossible to hold the historic doctrine of the cross without holding the historic doctrine of Jesus Christ as the one and only God-man and Mediator ... The incarnation is indispensable to the atonement. In particular, it is essential to affirm that the love, the holiness and the will of the Father are identical with the love, the holiness and the will of the Son. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. (2Cor.5:19)

The second inference is personal. The doctrine of substitution affirms not only a fact (God in Christ substituted himself for us) but its necessity (there was no other way by which God's holy love could be satisfied and rebellious human beings could be saved). (Jn.14:6) Therefore, as we stand before the cross, we begin to gain a clear view both of God and of ourselves, especially in relation to each other. Instead of inflicting upon us the judgment we deserved, God in Christ endured it in our place. Hell is the only alternative. This is the 'scandal', the stumbling-block [Greek: skandalon], of the cross. For our proud hearts rebel against it. We cannot bear to acknowledge either the seriousness of our sin and guilt or our utter indebtedness to that cross. Surely, we say, there must be something we can do, or at least contribute, in order to make amends? ... The proud human heart is there revealed. We insist on paying for what we have done. We cannot stand the humiliation of acknowledging our bankruptcy (Mt.5:3) and allowing somebody else to pay for us. The notion that this somebody else would be God himself is just too much to take. We would rather perish than repent, rather lose ourselves than humble ourselves.

But we cannot escape the embarrassment of standing stark naked before God. It is no use our trying to cover up like Adam and Eve in the garden. Our attempts at self-justification are as ineffectual as their fig-leaves. (Gen.3:7-10) We have to acknowledge our nakedness, see the divine substitute wearing our filthy rags instead of us, and allow him to clothe us with his own righteousness. (Rev.3:17-18)

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to your Cross I cling;

Naked, come to you for dress;

Helpless, look to you for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash me, Savior, or I die.

[Rock of Ages, Augustus Toplady]

[Challies' review of Chapter 6]
[Selections: Chapter 1; Chapter 7, Part One; Chapter 7, Part Two]