Christ died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God (I Pet 3:18).
For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (II Cor 5:21).
These Scriptures give a picture of the great transaction that lies at the heart of the gospel. Remove the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and there is no gospel. God died for us. The death of Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Now we are free in the eyes of the law.
But not everyone likes this idea. Here are some objections people sometimes raise.
1) This transaction of removing sin through the Cross is not fair. If we are the ones who sinned, then we ought to be the ones who pay. It is not fair to have someone else pay for our sin. After all, we do not allow someone to go to jail in place of the criminal. He must serve his own time.
True enough. But our criminal justice system does take checks. If you violate the law and incur a $500,000 penalty you cannot pay, a wealthy man who loved you could write a $500,000 check and you would be free. Is that fair?
Now if someone put a gun to the wealthy man’s head and said, “Write that check,” that would have been unfair. But Jesus went to the Cross willingly out of love. No one forced him; He freely laid down his life. And if the wealthy man freely wrote the check out of love, we would not call it unfair either.
But this objection does not see reality either. You see, if we wish to be strict about it, then I’m afraid we shall not be able to pay for our sin. The price is too great. We are like a two-year-old with a trillion dollar debt. We are, thus, left with this dilemma. We could think ourselves noble and insist we pay what we could never pay. Or we could accept the transaction on our behalf. God has written the check. We are certainly free to say, “No thanks. I’ll pay it myself,” but that would be a bit foolish. Headstrong too. Here is someone lovingly offering to give us a gift and genuinely desiring us to take it, but we turn him down with some high notions that we can do what He did. That is not noble. That is arrogant.
Finally, this objection is built upon the notion of works. We must work our way to God. We must earn what we get. This is why Muslims so often raise this objection, for Islam is based on works. If somehow, however, we were to earn our way to God, then God would actually owe us something. No! A thousand times no! This, too, is arrogance. The gospel of God is based on grace. God gives us what we could never have otherwise. It takes humility to admit this fact and to say, “Thank you.” Sometimes receiving a gift is harder than giving one, especially for prideful people.
2) If God is so great and loving, then why does he need a transaction to forgive? Why all the drama? Why not just forgive and be done with it?
There was once a judge who presided over the court of a small town. He was such a merciful judge that whenever he found a criminal guilty, he simply issued a decree of forgiveness and wiped away the penalty. What do you think of that judge?
The idea that God should just forgive and be done with it asks God to be that judge. It asks God to ignore justice. If God forgives without any payment for sin, God is unjust. In that sense, this objection is naïve.
The real situation of redemption is more like this. There was once a judge who presided over the court of an entire province. Since he was the only judge for the province, he saw every case. One day his teenage son stood before him, accused of stealing. After hearing the case, the judge concluded that his son was guilty. He ordered that his son pay the penalty for his crime — restitution to the offended party up to five times what the son had stolen. The son, of course, had no way to pay the penalty and was facing the prospect of debtor’s prison for a long, long time. That night when the father was home, he filled a bag with gold from his personal treasure, and the next day when he went to court, he paid the court treasurer in full the amount that he had ordered his son to pay.
That is the story of redemption.
The transaction is necessary not only because it is just but also because it shows great love. The Cross demonstrates the love of God far more clearly than a vague “just forgive and be done with it.” In the parable, we see the judge’s love for his son through the transaction. If the judge had merely “forgiven” his son and written off the penalty, we would not view the action as loving. Those who say that God can just forgive and be done with it don’t have much of a god left. Who wants to worship that judge? “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rm 5:8).
3) This idea of a sacrifice for sins is ancient and barbaric. Surely we cannot in today’s sophisticated world believe such nonsense.
In response to this objection, I almost don’t know what to say, for this objection doesn’t attempt to make any arguments. It simply assumes that modern ideas are superior to ancient ones. This is what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery. This objection avoids any intelligent discussion by lumping an idea into the category of ancient and barbaric. It is a cultural argument. What if someone said that the idea of a certain black man is absurd because it came from a backward African culture? You would clearly reject the rationale and rightly so. OK. This objection does the same thing. Ancient cultures are not necessarily inferior to modern ones. To say that they are betrays an arrogant prejudice and says more about the person raising the objection that it does about the actual merits of the Atonement.
