How Could Christ Pay For Our Sins?
Atheists and other skeptics have all sorts of complaints about God,
Christianity and the Bible. Looking at their complaints can help
you understand God and the Bible better. So, today, the complaint
we're going to look at is the issue of how Christ could PAY FOR our
sins. First, we're going to look at some of their complaints. Then
I'm going to give you my answer. Christians can get bothered by my
answer. For instance, one day, I was discussing the issue with an
elder from our English language church in Chicago. While he agreed
with me about what I said, he thinks there is more to it but he did
not know what. So you're going to get something to think about.
First, skeptics often say something like this. Suppose you rob a
bank and you get caught and you are sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Could somebody else serve 10 years in prison in your place? Of
course not. YOU would have to spend 10 years in prison. And if you
murdered someone and you were sentenced to death could someone else
die in your place? Of course not. Only the guilty should pay. Only
the guilty person should be put to death. So, then, how could
Christ pay for our sins? Obviously He can't. So the whole thing
doesn't make any sense, does it?
Here is another example. One day a guy on a Google+ discussion
group some years ago said this:
sorry, but the entire concept of a god sacrificing itself to itself
to appease itself for a rule it set up in the first place makes no
sense whatsoever.
Do you get it? God makes up a rule. People break the rule. But
then God is satisfied when God (as Christ) punishes Himself. Does
that make sense? What would you tell this guy?
Or there is that atheist I mentioned last time, Marshall Brain, the
guy with a website called God Is Imaginary. Here is what he said in
one of his complaints:
Have you ever thought about how bizarre the crucifixion story is?
Imagine the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe
sitting on his magnificent throne in heaven. He looks down onto
earth and says to himself:
Those evil humans down on earth. I hate what they are doing. All
this sin...
Since I am all-knowing I know exactly what the humans are doing and
I understand exactly why they commit each sin. Since I created the
humans in my own image and personally programmed human nature into
their brains, I am the direct author of all of this sin. The instant
I created them I knew exactly what would happen with every single
human being right down to the nanosecond level for all eternity. If
I didn't like how it was going to turn out, I could have simply
changed them when I created them. And since I am perfect, I know
exactly what I am doing. But ignore all that. I hate all these
people doing exactly what I perfectly designed them to do and knew
they would do from the moment I created them. I HATE IT! I tried
killing all the humans and animals once in the flood. That certainly
did not fix the problem.
So here's what I am going to do. I will artificially inseminate a
virgin. She will give birth to an incarnated version of me. The
humans will eventually crucify and kill the incarnated me. That,
finally, will make me happy. Yes, sending myself down and having the
humans crucify me -- that will satisfy me. I feel much better now.
It makes no sense, does it? Why would an all-knowing being need to
have humans kill himself (Jesus is God, after all) to make himself
happy? Especially since it is a perfect God who set the whole thing
in motion exactly the way he wanted it? The whole story of the
crucifixion is absurd from top to bottom if you actually stop to
think about it
OK, so that's what he said. First, of course, there is a HUGE flaw
in this argument that is easy to point out. We have free will. With
free will, people can go and do whatever they like. They can do
what God wants or they can go and do whatever they think will make
them happy and ignore what God would have them do. So people are
NOT programmed to do sin and evil. We are NOT programmed the way a
computer is programmed. We are spiritual beings that are very, very
free to do whatever we want. Marshall Brain does not understand
this since he has been programmed to think that the material world
is all there is and everything and everyone just works like a dumb
machine, like a computer.
Second, here on Earth, God is giving us lessons about good and evil.
He is educating us. We really need these lessons. And then, people
who do want to give up evil can make an informed choice about how
they want to spend eternity. Either eternity with God or eternity
without God.
But we are still stuck with how Christ could pay for our sins. So
what would you say to Marshall Brain? I should just stop here and
have you answer the question but I am going to go on and give you my
answer.
The whole thing about Christ paying for our sins DOES make sense.
The problem is in how you interpret the phrase "pay for". If you
interpret it in the typical legalistic sense, where for instance,
you get punished with 10 years in prison for robbing a bank it does
not make sense. This is a pretty common way to interpret "pay for".
And in Biblical times, they had kings. And the kings made up laws.
And if you broke a law, the king would punish you. This sense of
"pay for" has gone on and on. People are still thinking this way
today.
But there is another way to interpret the phrase, "pay for" that
isn't legalistic. What we have is Jesus coming to Earth, living
among us, loving us and doing miracles for us to prove Who He is.
And He died a very painful death. And He rose from the dead. Rising
from the dead proves that God endorsed everything Jesus said and
did. All of this gets the attention of lots of people. If you look
at John 12:32 Jesus says:
And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to
myself.
So, in rising from the dead, people will want to know more about Him
and what happened to Him. And why it happened to Him. When I told
the Google+ guy this, he said something like:
Then it's all a publicity stunt!
I said that's exactly right! It is really great advertising for
what God is offering us if we want to repent and follow Him. In
fact, I can compare it to TV advertising. So you have a big event
like the Super Bowl in the US, or in the rest of the world there is
the World Cup. The game is put on TV. Of course, there are
commercials during the breaks in the game. Companies PAY FOR
commercials to be shown during the breaks. Those commercials are
VERY EXPENSIVE. The companies SACRIFICE some of their profits in
order to try to make you their loyal followers.
So when it comes to the sense behind it all, you can say this: Jesus
paid the penalty for our sins in the sense that He did what was
necessary to get our attention and make us want to follow Him.
Changing the sense of "pay for" makes all the difference in the
world.
But then there is something else that is important. Sure, Jesus'
story gets a lot of attention. It has worked great for two thousand
years. But if you want the eternal life that God is offering you,
you still have to have faith in Christ. You have to appreciate that
you are a selfish sinner. You have to humble yourself and give up
thinking you know what is best for you (and everyone else!). You
have to put everyone else first and follow God's plan for you. You
have to believe that Christ can give you the future perfect life in
Heaven that you want. No death, no disease, no problems. Instead
you will get love, peace and joy forever. You have to SERIOUSLY
WANT what God is offering. You have to trust Him that He can give
it to you.
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