01.02.05 - The Spiritual Death of Christ

5. The Spiritual Death of Christ: And walk in love, just as also Christ loved you and gave Himself up as sacrifice and offering for a sweet [sacrificial] aroma to God. Ephesians 5:2. The words “sweet [sacrificial] aroma to God” clearly indicate that the Father was well-pleased with Jesus’ sacrifice, that it was effective or “efficacious” in satisfying the righteous demand of His divine justice that the full price be paid for our sins before we could be saved. But if the words used here for our Lord’s death, “sacrifice and offering” and “aroma”, while calling upon the symbolism of the animal sacrifices of the Law, are not actually meant to be understood as referring to His physical death (since His body was not immolated so as to produce a "pleasing aroma" in the manner of the Levitical sacrifices) or literal blood (and since salvation was accomplished before He gave up His spirit, and since He did not bleed to death, clearly they do not), and are instead likewise meant to be understood symbolically (which clearly they are), then the question then becomes, “what precisely do these words represent?” The answer to this question as suggested above is that “the blood of Christ”, the phrase which sums up all the Old Testament symbolism which foreshadowed the cross, refers to the penalty paid by our Lord in the darkness on the cross in bearing and expiating our sins, that is, it refers to His spiritual death. But what precisely do we mean by the term “spiritual death”? In addressing this question, Dr. L. S. Chafer makes the following comment: In respect to spiritual death, there is no clear indication how far Christ entered that realm. He of course did say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Where God is silent the devout mind should hesitate to intrude.

While agreeing with Dr. Chafer’s circumspection in general terms, and while acknowledging that there is much about our Lord Jesus’ death for sin through which we are saved that cannot be known this side of heaven, it is also fair to say that scripture does provide a good deal of information on this subject (even if of necessity somewhat obliquely). Given that there is no more important event in the history of the universe than Jesus’ death whereby we are delivered from a fate worse than mere physical death, we would be remiss in not investigating this question as fully as possible. It will be our task in this section, therefore, to say as much as can be said without, it is hoped, saying more than should be said. a. Christ Died Spiritually: This is a key point deserving of reiteration (see sections I. 5.l. 2.1-3 above). The physical death of our Lord which took place when He lay down His life by exhaling His human spirit (Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:36; Luke 23:46; John 19:30) occurred after He had been judged for the sins of the world. It is this prior judgment in the darkness wherein Jesus paid the penalty for our sins that we are studying here, namely, His “spiritual death”, otherwise known as the blood of Christ, as a result of which our sins are forgiven.

He lay bare His life unto death, and was dealt with as transgressors [are], so that He bore the sin of the many, and substituted [Himself] for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:12 b (8) He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even [His] death on [the] cross [for us all]. Php 2:8. In all such passages as the one above, “death” means spiritual death, not physical death. Our Lord’s spiritual death wherein He underwent the judgment due us for all our sins had already taken place at the point when He gave up His human spirit and expired. Jesus’ emphatic statement from the cross, tetelestai!, “It has now been accomplished!” (John 19:30 Greek: τετέλεσται), is a forceful and powerful proclamation of victory, underscoring the already completed fact of salvation won by His blood – not a physical bleeding to death, but the pouring out of His life unto spiritual death in paying the price and penalty for our sins.

After [all] this (i. e., His physical suffering and His spiritual death for the sins of the world), when Jesus knew that everything had now been accomplished in order for the [prophecy of salvation found in] scripture to be fulfilled, He said, “I am thirsty”. Now a jar of wine-vinegar lay there, so they placed a sponge full of the wine-vinegar on a hyssop [stalk] and brought it to His mouth. So when He had taken the wine-vinegar, Jesus said, “It (i. e., salvation) has [now] been accomplished!” , and having thrown back His head, He gave up His spirit. John 19:28-30.

Spiritual death has always been the problem for the human race, for physical death is a result of spiritual death, not the other way around (i. e., Adam and Eve lived many years after they ate of the fruit of the tree whose penalty was “dying thou shalt die” – immediate spiritual death followed eventually by the physical death which results, and, absent salvation through the grace of God in Jesus Christ, finally by eternal death). By dying spiritually in our stead, our Lord won the greatest victory in universal history, freeing us from the evil one and from the otherwise sure and certain condemnation which had otherwise awaited us. And though you were [spiritually] dead in your transgressions and in the un-circumcised state of your flesh, [God the Father] made you alive together with [Christ], having forgiven you all your transgressions. [God] has erased the charge against us along with its particulars (i. e., our sinful nature and personal sins) which opposed our [relationship with Him], and He removed it [as an obstacle] between us by nailing it to the cross. [For by means of the cross, God] has stripped [demon] rulers and authorities [of their power] and subjected them to public humiliation, having triumphed over them in [Christ]. Colossians 2:13-15. b. Christ Died Spiritually for us: The great victory of the cross won over the devil and his minions in this invisible conflict in which we are all presently enmeshed was fought and won for our benefit. We are the recipients and beneficiaries of the boundless grace of God poured out upon us as a result of what Jesus did for us on the cross. He died spiritually for us, and it is by His spiritual death that we are saved, for that death removed our sin forever as an impediment between ourselves and the holiness of God. For not only did Christ die for us while we were helpless – He even did so at the critical time, [dying] on our behalf, ungodly though we were. For scarcely will someone die on behalf of a righteous person; and perhaps someone might also risk death on behalf of a good person. But God commends His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8. For it is the love of Christ that constrains us, having brought us to this conclusion: One died for [us] all; so then we all have died [in Him]. And He died on behalf of all so that those who are [now] alive might no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised [from the dead]. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15. And I no longer live myself, but Christ lives in me. And that which I now do live in the flesh, I live in faith in/for the Son of God, the One who loved me and who gave Himself up on my behalf. Galatians 2:20.

[Jesus Christ] who gave Himself on our behalf to redeem us from all lawlessness (i. e., sin; cf. 1 John 3:4) and to cleanse for Himself a people [to be His] own unique possession, zealous for good works. Titus 2:14. c. Christ Died Spiritually to Expiate Sin: Solving the “sin problem” is the way in which Christ’s spiritual death benefits us. That is the primary image behind the “blood of Christ” which, in the simile, covers our sins. In animal sacrifice, the death of the sacrificial animal is obvious from its spilled blood, while the one making the offering is cleansed symbolically by the sprinkling of that blood (Hebrews 9:13-21; Hebrews 11:28; Hebrews 12:24; cf. Exodus 24:6-8; Exodus 29:16-21; Leviticus 1:5-11; Leviticus 3:2-13; et passim in Lev. and Num.).

He made Him who had no [personal] experience of sinning [to be] sin (i. e., a sin offering) for us, so that we might have (lit., “become”) God’s righteousness in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:21.

Thus, in the analogy, actual blood represents the spiritual death of Christ which, when sprinkled on the worshiper (a picture of faith: 1 Peter 1:2), cleanses from sin. The spiritual death of Christ was necessary in order to remove sin as an impediment to salvation. As a result, it is sin – all human sin ever committed, past, present or future – which is the object or “target” of Christ’s spiritual death on our behalf. He died spiritually to expiate all sin and remove its penalty, impossible impending obligations for which no other human being could ever hope to atone. For what He died, He died to sin, once and for all, and what He lives, He lives to God. Romans 6:10. For I entrusted to you as of primary importance what I had also received, [namely] that Christ died on behalf of our sins according to the scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15:3.

[Jesus Christ], who gave Himself on behalf of our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. Galatians 1:4. d. Christ Bore our Sins in His Body: Human beings are universally dichotomous, possessing both a body and a human spirit. The body is the place where we are subject to the material world, and it is only through the interaction of body and spirit in our “heart”, “mind”, “soul” (i. e., our inner person where the body and spirit interface) that we are presently capable of experiencing pain. In eternity, both in heaven awaiting the resurrection (where we will possess an interim body), and after the resurrection, where that body will be perfect and eternal, for believers, pain and suffering will be entirely things of the past (cf. Revelation 7:14-17). To expiate our sins, that is, to remove them as an issue or “barrier” between ourselves and Holy God (Ephesians 2:14-18), Jesus had to bear them in His body, that is, He had to suffer the penalty for every sin ever committed by receiving the full pain of punishment for them in His body – literally. That is why His incarnation, His taking on of a true human body as a genuine human being (in addition to His undiminished deity) was absolutely essential for us to be saved. Without a body, Christ could not bear our sins in His body, could not, that is, suffer the punishment due for those sins; and without His suffering on our behalf those sins could never be removed as an impediment to our salvation. Thus our Lord’s taking on of a human body was the fundamentally necessary step for Him to be able to die spiritually in our place, and thus make salvation available for the whole human race.

Therefore as [Jesus Christ] was coming into the world (i. e., at His birth) He said, “You [Father] did not desire sacrifice or offering, but you have prepared a body for Me. In burnt offerings for sin you have taken no pleasure. At that time (i. e., His birth) He [Jesus Christ in His deity] said, ‘Behold, I have arrived (i. e., been born) – in the scroll of a book it is written of Me – to do your will, O God’”. Above when He speaks of sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings for sins [as things which] “You did not desire nor take pleasure therein”, [these are the things] which are being offered according to the Law. [But] “Then”, He has added, “Behold, I have arrived to do your will”. [God the Father] is [thereby] taking away the first [covenant] in order to establish the second one, [and it is] by [His] will [in this matter] that you have been sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. Hebrews 10:5-10. This is why scripture emphasizes that Christ “bore our sins in His body”. For it was in His genuine human body that He suffered spiritual death, enduring the entire penalty for all sin: For He bore our sicknesses and He carried our weaknesses. And yet we considered Him as [the One who had been] punished, smitten and afflicted by God. Isaiah 53:4.

He Himself will carry their guilt (lit., “guilts”). Therefore I will allot to Him [the plunder] among [His] many [brothers], and He will apportion plunder to the mighty [among them]. Because He lay bare His life unto death, and was dealt with as transgressors [are], so that He bore the sin of the many, and substituted [Himself] for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:11-12. For He Himself is our peace, for He has made both [Jews and gentiles] one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition, that is, the enmity between us, by discharging the Law of the commandments and its requirements in His [own] flesh, so that He might re-create the two into one new Man by making [this] peace, and might reconcile both in one Body to God through His cross, having by means of it abolished the enmity [between God and mankind]. Ephesians 2:14-16.

You were once alienated from God – your very thoughts were hostile towards Him and your deeds were evil. Yet God has now made peace with you through the death of Christ in His physical body so that you may stand before Him as holy, without blemish and free from accusation. Colossians 1:21-22. And inasmuch as it is ordained for mankind to die once (i. e., the first, "physical" death), and after this [face] judgment (i. e., “the second death”; cf. Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6, Revelation 20:14-15), so Christ having been offered up once to bear the sins of many will appear without [any need to bear] a sin second time unto those who are awaiting salvation. Hebrews 9:27-28. For Christ died once for us on account of our sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in [His] flesh (i. e., His spiritual death to remove the barrier of sin), but having been made alive by the Spirit. 1 Peter 3:18.

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, in order that we might die to sins and live to righteousness. By His wound you are healed. 1 Peter 2:24. As Peter tells us in this last passage above, it by this means that we have died to sin – Jesus bearing our sins and dying spiritually for us in suffering the penalty due us; it is by this means that our wounds have been healed – Jesus being wounded for every sin ever committed by us and by all of human kind, past, present, and future.

Therefore since “these children” (i. e., believers given to Christ by God: Hebrews 2:13) have a common heritage of flesh and blood, [Christ] too partook of these same [common elements] in a very similar fashion (i. e., not identical only in that He was virgin born and so without sin), in order that through His death He might put an end to the one possessing the power of death, that is, the devil, and might reconcile those who were subject to being slaves their whole lives long by their fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15. This is the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on our behalf. This is the “blood of Christ”: our dear Lord Jesus’ bearing the penalty, the punishment, and the pain of all mankind’s sin in His body on the cross that all might be saved. It by this “wounding” of His genuine human body that we have been “healed” (1 Peter 2:24):

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence in this entrance of ours into the [heavenly] holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, an entryway through the [heavenly] veil [of separation] which is new (lit., “newly slain”) and alive and which He has consecrated for us, that is, [through the sacrifice] of His flesh (cf. Hebrews 10:10, Hebrews 10:18), and since we have [this] Great High Priest over the household of God, let us approach [the throne of grace (cf. Hebrews 4:16) to pray] with a truthful heart in complete faith, our hearts sprinkled [clean] of [any] bad conscience and our bodies washed with pure water [of the Word (cf. Ephesians 5:26)]. Hebrews 10:19-22. e. Christ was Forsaken for us in Dying for us: God in His perfect holiness can have no direct contact with sin and sinfulness – without, that is, executing righteous judgment upon it. Creature sin and sinfulness thus explains the voluntary sequestration of the Father in the third heaven following Satan’s revolt (the original paradise being on earth), and the separation from God which everyone experiences at birth as a result of the spiritual death that is our common heritage as human beings born in Adam’s line. It is only because of the promise and the anticipation of the Messiah’s sacrifice on our behalf that punishment for sin before the cross was held in abeyance (Romans 3:25; cf. Acts 14:16-17; Acts 17:30), and only because of Jesus’ historical expiation of sin at Calvary that we are reborn to spiritual life from spiritual death when we accept in faith that gracious sacrifice (Ephesians 2:1-9). Our Lord Jesus, of course, was born without sin and never sinned. Thus He never had any occasion to be separated from the love and fellowship of the Father – until the cross. One very important aspect of Christ’s suffering in the darkness in bearing our sins is the fact that He did so in a state of alienation from God (in His humanity). For “He was made sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), that is, though sinless, He was treated as the one to whom the punishment for sin was due. In such a case, continued fellowship with the Father was impossible, at least as long as Jesus was being judged for all of our sins. My God, My God, why did You forsake Me? Psalms 22:1 (cf. Matthew 27:46-47; Mark 15:34-35)

These words spoken were after the sins of the world had been judged in Jesus’ body in the darkness on the cross. Moreover, as observed earlier, they were spoken for our benefit. For Jesus knew very well why the Father had broken fellowship with Him, and He had known it even before the cross. He was judged in our place, and therefore had to be forsaken for our sake in order to undergo that judgment. This cry of dereliction [i. e., “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”: Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34] reflects the heart of Jesus’ purpose in His first advent and death; to bear the penalty for human sin (Hebrews 9:28). Since sin separates from a holy God, He had to endure that separation in the moment of His death. Otherwise, the penalty could not have been paid.

Hell in its essence is being without God. All inconsolable pain in this life is part and parcel of estrangement from God; all of our true joy is inseparable from our closeness to Him. It is doubtful that, this side of heaven, anyone can come close to appreciating the magnitude of this particular part of Jesus’ sacrifice, either what this separation cost Him or what it cost the Father. What we can say in this regard is, firstly, that the judgment for our sins was over after the darkness lifted, for in Psalms 22:1 quoted directly above our Lord presents the forsaking as now past (i. e., “why did You forsake me?”). Secondly, His forsaking, far from being in vain, accomplished the mission for which He had been sent, the removal of the sins of the world as an impediment to salvation, for He Himself pronounces that mission successfully accomplished (i. e., tetelestai: “it has been accomplished”; John 19:30 compared with John 19:28 and Psalms 22:31). And, thirdly, the death which delivers us from sin was not His physical death (still future at this point), but the death He died to sin in the darkness, namely, His spiritual death, the blood of Christ, the suffering of our dear Lord Jesus in paying the penalty for all human sin. For it was there in the darkness on the cross that He was “cursed”, made sin, a curse for us, forsaken for us, separated from the love of the Father and made to undergo His wrath in our place so that we might be delivered from that wrath through faith in Him (cf. the stricken rock of “forsaken” Mt. Horeb: Exodus 17:5-7).

Christ bought us free (i. e., “redeemed” us) from the Law’s curse, having become a curse on our behalf. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone [who is] hanged upon a tree” (Deuteronomy 21:23). Galatians 3:13.

Thus His hanging on a cross, His being made a curse for us (cf. Romans 9:3; Hebrews 6:8), and His exile into the darkness (Matthew 8:12; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:30, Matthew 25:41) all speak of the separation or forsaking that Jesus had to endure in order to be made sin for us, in order to bear our sins, in order to be judged and punished in our place for our sins. All of these things speak of the alienation from the Father which His spiritual death necessarily entailed, a horrific price whose true cost we can scarcely begin to understand. f. Christ Paid the Penalty for our Sins: Simply put, our Lord’s expiation of all human sin required that He suffer for them physically and literally – not the sufferings leading up to and including His being nailed to the cross (as horrendous as these were), but the sufferings involved in being punished corporally for our sins in the three hours of darkness on the hill Calvary before He gave up His spirit. The gauntlet He ran to get to the cross is itself a tale of woe and endurance beyond our ability to truly appreciate, but its chief function in this respect is to give us some very small idea of what the true judgment for sins in the darkness immediately thereafter was going to entail: if the sufferings that led to the cross were beyond imagination, what then of the task of bearing and suffering for the sins of the world? The most extensive and explicit passage dealing with this issue is Isaiah 53:1-12. It seems appropriate, therefore, to quote the pertinent parts of that passage in full as our departure point for considering what our salvation cost our Lord Jesus and His heavenly Father. For Isaiah’s prophecy, while explicating many aspects of our Lord’s passion, also vividly describes the suffering of the Messiah in bearing our sins. He “bore our sicknesses and He carried our weaknesses” (Isaiah 53:4); He is One we considered “punished, smitten and afflicted by God” (Isaiah 53:4); He was subjected “to torment on account of our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5), and He was “crushed because of our collective guilt (lit. “guilts”)” (Isaiah 53:5); the “punishment [required] for making peace [with God] on our behalf [fell] upon Him” (Isaiah 53:5); and we have been healed “because of His wounding” (Isaiah 53:5); the Father “caused the guilt of us all to strike Him” (Isaiah 53:6); He was “oppressed and afflicted”; He was “cut off from the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8); and He was “punished for the transgression of my people”; He suffered “His deaths (sic – plural)” on our behalf (Isaiah 53:9); for it was the Father’s will “to crush Him” (Isaiah 53:10) and to “subject Him to torment” (Isaiah 53:10); He had “trouble [inflicted] upon His life” (Isaiah 53:11), and He “carried our guilt (lit., “guilts”)” (Isaiah 53:11); He “lay bare His life unto death” (Isaiah 53:12), was “dealt with as transgressors [are]” (Isaiah 53:12); He “bore the sin of the many”; and He “substituted [Himself] for the transgressors”: For He bore our sicknesses and He carried our weaknesses. And yet we considered Him as [the One who had been] punished, smitten and afflicted by God. But [in fact] He was made subject to torment on account of our transgressions, and He was crushed because of our collective guilt (lit., “guilts”). The punishment [required] for making peace [with God] on our behalf [fell] upon Him. Because of His wounding, we have been healed. We have all gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way. And the Lord caused the guilt of us all to strike Him. Though He was oppressed and afflicted, like a lamb led to slaughter He did not open His mouth, and like a ewe before her shearers He did not open His mouth. By repressive judgment He was taken away, and who gave any thought to His posterity? For He was cut off from the land of the living. He was punished for the transgression of my people. And they assigned Him a grave with the wicked (pl.) and with a rich [man] in His deaths (sic). Not for any violence that He had done. Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. For it was the Lord’s good pleasure (i. e., “will”) to crush Him, to subject Him to torment. But though you make His life a guilt offering, He will see His seed, He will lengthen His days, and the good pleasure (i. e., “will”) of the Lord will prosper in His hand. [Released] from the trouble [inflicted] upon His life, He will [again] see [the light of life] and be satisfied (i. e., in resurrection). My righteous Servant will provide righteousness for the great [of heart] (i. e., believers) through the[ir] acknowledgment of Him, and He Himself will carry their guilt (lit., “guilts”). Therefore I will allot to Him [the plunder] among [His] many [brothers], and He will apportion plunder to the mighty [among them]. Because He lay bare His life unto death, and was dealt with as transgressors [are], so that He bore the sin of the many, and substituted [Himself] for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:4-12.

It would be difficult to imagine scripture being any clearer about the physical toll of pain and torment our Lord’s suffering to pay the penalty for our sins entailed. That penalty required His death (Romans 6:23; cf. Genesis 2:16-17; Romans 5:12), not the ending of His physical life (which He voluntarily gave up after redemption was an accomplished fact), but the “death” of being separated from His previously unbroken and perfect fellowship with the Father, wherein He was made a curse to deliver us from the curse of the second death (Galatians 3:13), that is, His spiritual death in the darkness wherein He paid the penalty charged to our account, a death of suffering in alienation from God so intense that Isaiah, writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, because He had nothing else to call it, called it “deaths” instead of death (Isaiah 53:9), pluralizing the experience to express in some small way just what the Messiah would have to suffer for us to be saved. And, indeed, since the penalty for sin is death, the “deaths” our Lord Jesus suffered were in effect the total collective penalty of deaths for every human being who would ever be born. He died for us all. He died for every sin ever committed. And inasmuch as it is ordained for mankind to die once (i. e., the first, "physical" death), and after this [face] judgment (i. e., “the second death”; cf. Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6, Revelation 20:14-15), so Christ, having been offered up once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time – without [any further need to bear] sin – unto those who are awaiting salvation. Hebrews 9:27-28. In the passage above, we see clearly that Christ’s spiritual death in bearing sin on the cross is set in parallel to the second death of unbelievers who refuse to accept His sacrifice for their sins. He was judged in their placed and in ours so that we and they might not have to face the Last Judgment whose end is the lake of fire. We are redeemed and transferred from judgment into life through faith in Jesus Christ (John 5:24; Colossians 1:13; 1 John 3:14), through our acceptance of His work on the cross on our behalf. But the lake of fire is reserved for all unbelievers who could not even be troubled to give the slightest minimal nod of appreciation to Jesus for what He did for them (John 3:36). As sobering as this realization is, for our purposes here the critical thing to observe is that we are delivered from the lake of fire, the second death, the darkness and the fire, because our Lord endured the punishment for our sins in our place, and the final fate of all who willfully fail to avail themselves of the grace provided through the blood of Christ points us in the direction of what has been substituted in our case: we are spared the eternal lake of fire, because what our Lord endured in the darkness for us hanging on Golgotha’s cross is deemed by the Father to be an acceptable equivalent to the eternal torment of all mankind, both for those who refuse release, and especially for those of us who have chosen Jesus and eternal life instead.

Before considering our Lord’s bearing of our sins per se, it will be helpful to examine three important analogies scripture gives us to help to explain Christ’s spiritual death on behalf. While all three are of course primarily concerned with the suffering of the Messiah Himself, each of these three examples helps us to understand the role of the members of the Trinity in this regard.

1) Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac: The Role of the Father: All Old Testament sacrifice looked forward to the cross, with the sacrificial victim representing Jesus Christ, and the blood shed representing His spiritual death on our behalf, “covering” our sins with the suffering He would endure in paying the price for them on the cross. In Genesis chapter twenty-two, Abraham was told to sacrifice the son of promise for whom he had waited all his life. Faithful to God to a complete degree few of us will ever achieve, and completely confident in God’s faithfulness and ability to retrieve this seemingly impossible situation (Hebrews 11:17-19), Abraham proceeded without hesitation to take Isaac to Mount Moriah (the actual location where Jesus would later sacrifice Himself for our sins; cf. 2 Chronicles 3:1 with Genesis 22:2), and would have sacrificed his one and only beloved son had not God intervened at the last possible moment. From this extraordinary test we not only see displayed the legendary faith of our father in faith, Abraham, but we also are given by way of analogy a human parallel to help us understand the Father’s ineffably great sacrifice in putting His Son to death on our behalf. For even through removed from the event by so much time and space, we can all nonetheless feel Abraham’s excruciating emotional pain as he prepares to sacrifice Isaac. In this we are given some very small idea of what our salvation cost the Father, who for our sake considered His One and only beloved Son to be “sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and judged the sins of the world in His flesh. Abraham was spared having to follow through with the ordeal, and, in any case, Isaac’s death would have been physical, not spiritual, and over in an instant (with miraculous resuscitation following immediately: such was Abraham’s divinely acknowledged hope: Hebrews 11:19), but the Father inflicted the penalty for all the world’s sins on His willing, obedient Son – so great is His love for us! For what the Law could not accomplish (i. e., solving the sin problem) because it was weak on account of [its dependence on sinful human] flesh, God [did accomplish]: having sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the purpose of [expiating] sin, [the Father] rendered summary judgment on [all] sin in [Christ’s] flesh. Romans 8:3.

2) The Baptism of Christ: The Role of the Holy Spirit: While water baptism is always symbolic of something, some scriptural baptisms are “dry”, that is, literal (as in the case of the baptism of the Spirit wherein we are endued with the Spirit and placed into union with Christ by the Spirit). One such “real” baptism is the baptism of the cross, or, more specifically, our Lord Jesus Christ’s identification with (or immersion in) the sins of the world.

I came to cast a fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo [first], and how I am pressed until it be completed! Luke 12:49-50 (cf. Mark 10:38) This literal “baptism” wherein Christ was identified with and punished for our sins was foreshadowed and explained by His water baptism which took place at the beginning of His three and a half year ministry. This was a symbolic baptism which was completely unique to Him in its meaning. For John’s water baptism was, for everyone else, “a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3), and it is for this very reason that John was so resistant to the sinless Messiah being baptized with water. But Jesus responded to John that it was necessary “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). In fact, Jesus’ water baptism portrays His death on the cross, His literal baptism, in a very vivid way. The water into which He was immersed had previously been used to “wash away” the sins of all those who were repentant. It was into this water symbolically laced with sin that the Messiah was plunged, not for any need on His part to be cleansed (for He is sinless), but to expiate with His perfect body and through His death to sin all sin which that water symbolically contained. Moreover, when He came up out of the water, a picture of His successful emergence from spiritual death, the Spirit visibly alighted on Him, and herein we are given some indication both of the Spirit’s role and of the relationship of the Trinity in this regard as Jesus’ humanity suffered for the sins of the world. For the Spirit had been given Him “without measure” and “since birth” (Isaiah 11:2; John 3:34 cf. Luke 1:14), but we see in this symbol the Spirit returning “after the suffering of His soul” (Isaiah 53:11). Thus Christ’s humanity was in some sense isolated from the Trinity as His human body bore and was punished for all sin, a necessity as it would seem, since Holy God cannot have direct contact with sin. This is one aspect of the “forsaking” to which Jesus Himself attested after the fact. The question is, how was this even possible? The following verse gives a clue: For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of the heifer sprinkled upon the unclean render a person holy in respect to bodily cleansing, how much more will the blood of Christ, who offered Himself (i. e., His body; cf. 1:Pet. 3:18) without defect to God through the eternal Spirit, cleanse our conscience from dead works so that we may serve the living God? Hebrews 9:14. The Spirit, with Christ before the cross and returning after His spiritual death for sin, would seem to have been the member instrumental in making the sacrifice possible. That is to say, Jesus offered up His human body “through the eternal Spirit”. The Father acted as judge, carrying out the sentence of death on His own beloved Son (as symbolized by Abraham and Isaac), but the Spirit’s mediation was necessary for that judgment to take place – just as the Father is our Lord’s Father, yet the Spirit’s role in Jesus’ conception is key (Matthew 1:18, Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35; cf. John 1:14). And just as it was only through the Spirit that the our Lord Jesus could become a human being as well as God, being made the human Son of the Father, so also at the cross only through the Spirit was it possible for Christ’s human body to be judged by the Father in spite of Jesus’ divinity (the two natures being in hypostatic union through the Spirit; see section I. 5.e above). Thus the Spirit’s pivotal connection with the human body of Christ – at its conception, sacrifice, and also resurrection (Romans 1:4; 1 Peter 3:18) – is clear. Scripture does not come any closer than this to explaining the mechanics of a process that in many respects is beyond our ken. What we can say is that the Spirit made it possible for the Father to judge sin in Jesus’ body, and for Christ’s human body to be judged in spite of His divinity (Hebrews 9:14). This required facilitation and restraint (both key characteristics of the Spirit’s other known ministries), facilitation in making the sacrifice and the judgment possible, and restraint in preventing the complications of Christ’s deity, perfect humanity and union between the two from making the sacrifice and judgment impossible. To use a rather rough analogy, just as steel cannot be forged without an anvil to support it, so the Spirit was the “anvil” on which our Lord’s human body was hammered to purge way the sins of the world. For Jesus to stay physically alive long enough to be punished for every human sin ever committed required supernatural intervention.

. . . . . Christ, who offered Himself . . . . . through the eternal Spirit . . . . .Hebrews 9:14 b

3) The Meaning of the Communion Memorial: The Role of the Son: Communion is the one and only biblically authorized ceremony for the Church, and its essential purpose is very clear: “Be doing this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25). The bread represents Jesus’ body, the wine His blood. We have already seen how that the blood of Christ is a symbol representing His spiritual death rather than any physical bleeding. When we drink of the communion cup we acknowledge His sacrifice in dying for our sins and say by our action that we believe in and accept His death on our behalf. The bread, on the other hand, represents His Person, who He truly is, God become man as well in order to physically bear our sins and save us from eternal condemnation. And it is in this human body represented by the bread that He bore the sins of the world. When we eat the communion bread we acknowledge the wonder of who He is and what He has done for us, the reality of His incarnation and of the giving up of His life unto spiritual death to save us from our sins by taking our punishment in His own human flesh. Thus the blood focuses on the work of redemption; the bread on the One who sacrificed so much to win it. It is important to note that our Lord actually says in this regard that His body was “given” (“broken” is an incorrect translation of 1 Corinthians 11:24; cf. Luke 22:19), “given”, that is, over to judgment to satisfy the penalty of death on “our behalf” (1 Corinthians 11:24). The cup of blessing which we bless – is it not fellowship in the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break – is it not fellowship in the body of Christ? For one bread, one body we many are, since we all partake of that One Bread. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17.

Just as Christ in His divinity did not aid His human nature beyond measure during all the prior events of the first advent (i. e., the doctrine of kenosis; see section I. 5.e above), so we may be sure that the same principle applied as He bore our sins in His human body on the tree. But the verse above demonstrates as of prime importance in the thinking and remembering of the Church that He gave up His human nature unto spiritual death, bearing all sin in His body, so that we might become One Body with Him. It is indeed precisely because the sacrifice He made for us was so great that it is described as giving up us His body for us to eat, and pouring out His blood for us to drink. He used up His humanity as the coin with which to redeem us. This cup is the new covenant [ratified] by My blood which is shed on your behalf. Luke 22:20 b

For [on this matter] I received [directly] from the Lord what I passed on to you, namely that on the night on which He was betrayed He took bread and having blessed it He broke it and said, “This is my body which is [offered up] on your behalf. Keep on doing this in order to remember Me”. And in the same way [after eating] He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant [made] by my blood. Keep on doing this as often as you drink [it] in order to remember Me”. 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. And having taken the bread and blessed it, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is being given on your behalf. Be doing this to remember Me”. Luke 22:19 (cf. Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; John 6:51-59; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25) g. The Nature of the Penalty Christ Paid for our Sins: The rendering of terminal ivine judgment is characterized by three essential elements, all of which involve pain and suffering on the part of those upon whom sentence is carried out:1) alienation and separation from God (the very definition of spiritual death: e. g., Genesis 2:17; cf. Genesis 3:24; 2 Kings 17:18); 2) utter, palpable darkness (e. g., Joel 2:30-32; cf. Genesis 1:2); and 3) fire (e. g., Isaiah 66:15-16; Revelation 20:9-10). We see all three of these, for example, in the case of the final end of those who reject Christ’s sacrifice for their sins and choose to stand on their own works instead. For while the ultimate, final “hell” is the lake of fire (Isaiah 66:15-24; Daniel 7:9-11; Matthew 3:11-12; Matthew 5:22; Matthew 18:8-9; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:43, Mark 9:48; James 3:6; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10-15; Revelation 21:8), we also see it described as “the outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:30), a place separated from God (2 Thessalonians 1:9; cf. Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:15). And I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphs flew over to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal which he had taken with tongs from [the fire of the] altar. He touched [it to] my mouth and said, “Behold, [now that] this has touched your lips, your iniquity has departed from you, and your sins have been atoned for”. Isaiah 6:5-7.

How does a live coal charged with the fire of divine judgment in the brazen altar of judgment not burn a man’s lips? Only when someone else has endured the fiery punishment that is rightfully his. Only when someone else has been made sin for him. Only when someone else has been punished for the curse he has merited by becoming a curse in his stead (Galatians 3:13). And that “curse” in the case of the one who has been spared was the lake of fire, the alienation of darkness and eternal burning (cf. Hebrews 6:8):

Then He will say to those on His left, “Away from Me, you accursed ones, into the eternal fire [already] prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:41. In contrast to John’s baptism, our Lord baptizes “with the Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16), and His right to do so, the victory whereby He won the authority of the Name above every Name, was His own baptism on the cross, His “immersion” into the sins of the world (Luke 12:49-50; cf. Mark 10:38). Thus the baptism of fiery judgment He will bring down upon the world, culminating in its final fiery end (2 Peter 3:7-13; cf. Isaiah 34:4; Revelation 21:1), is based upon the prior endurance of His own fiery judgment, wherein He was put to death for the sins of that world (as symbolized by His appearance to Moses in a Christophany in the bush that though on fire kept burning without being consumed – the fire of judgment on the cross went on for three full hours: Exodus 3:2-3): And walk in love, just as also Christ loved you and gave Himself up as sacrifice and offering for a sweet smell to God. Ephesians 5:2. The “sweet smell” is produced by the immolation of the sacrifice in the fire of the altar. It is through His spiritual death, the blood of Christ, Jesus’ suffering on our behalf in paying the penalty for our sins, that we are saved. For You (Psalms 22:1-2) have set Me ablaze in the dust of death. Psalms 22:15.

[Released] from the trouble (i. e., suffering) [inflicted] upon His life, He will [again] see [the light of life] and be satisfied (i. e., in resurrection). My righteous Servant will provide righteousness for the great [of heart] (i. e., believers) through the[ir] acknowledgment of Him, and He Himself will carry their guilt (lit., “guilts”). Therefore I will allot to Him [the plunder] among [His] many [brothers], and He will apportion plunder to the mighty [among them]. Because He lay bare His life unto death, and was dealt with as transgressors [are], so that He bore the sin of the many, and substituted [Himself] for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:11-12.

Therefore Jesus too, in order that He might sanctify the people through His own blood (i. e., His death on the cross), suffered outside the gate (i. e., separated from fellowship). Hebrews 13:12. For it was fitting for [the Father] to make complete through sufferings Him on whose account all things exist and through whom all things exist, namely, the Captain of their salvation, even Him who has led many sons to glory, [our Lord Jesus Christ]. Hebrews 2:10.

Therefore since Christ died in His flesh, we also should arm ourselves with the same mind-set, [considering] that the One who suffered in His flesh is finished with sin (lit., “has stopped from” it). 1 Peter 4:1. In the above verse, we see the spiritual death of Christ directly equated with His suffering. And that suffering was clearly intense (Hebrews 2:10-18; Hebrews 13:12-13). For the penalty of sin is death, the second death of the lake of fire. How exactly Christ was put to death for every human sin, punished and made to suffer in our places that we might be saved, is as awe-inspiringly unfathomable as the contemplation of God Himself. But just as we know that there is a God from what He has done and does, so we know that Jesus paid the price for all our sins in His own blood, because we owe our salvation to Him and what He did for us during those three hours of darkness on the cross.

He made Him who had no [personal] experience of sinning [to be] sin (i. e., a sin offering) for us, so that we might have (lit., “become”) God’s righteousness in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Thus it is wrong to think of our Lord’s sacrifice merely in terms of the punishment He suffered at human hands, as horrific as that was. It was only after being betrayed, forsaken, denied, abandoned, arrested, falsely accused and condemned, maligned, ridiculed, spit upon, tortured, beaten to the last reserves of His strength, was nailed to a cross, and shown the loss of everything He had, that our Lord entered the darkness to die for our sins. The gauntlet of suffering He went through to reach the time and place of judgment merely gives us some small idea of what our salvation cost Him, for the suffering of the death He endured in darkness exceeded those preliminaries by unknown orders of magnitude. For our Lord, those three hours of darkness must have lasted more than a lifetime. After all, He created the universe in an instant. But in those three hours, the true history of the universe was written. They are the basis of all that ever was or will be good and blessed and glorious for us and for all who have gratefully accepted and delight in the ineffable gift of Jesus Christ.

Although there is much we shall never know about the monumental sacrifice our Lord made, suffering the ultimate punishment for us all in order to deliver us from death, we do know that when it was over He proclaimed “tetelestai”, “It has now been accomplished!” (John 19:30). With those words the entire plan of God was complete: Man who had been created to answer creature rebellion had been saved and made one with God forever (for all who choose Him), and the entire universal rift that had been started eons ago by the evil one had been made whole and right in principal – but at a tremendous cost, the blood of Christ. Now we who have gratefully accepted the grace bought for us by Jesus’ death on our behalf need only wait for God’s good timing when all things will be put under Christ’s feet, and then will come the final end when He hands over the kingdom to the Father so that God will finally be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

He paid the death penalty on the cross for you and every other human being. Every sin ever committed – past, present and future – was judged on the cross. God the Father pronounced the sentence, and Jesus Christ obeyed it. That obedience and death for our sins on the part of our dear Lord Jesus is what has opened the gate of salvation for us all. Moreover, scripture describes the results of the blood of Christ, Jesus’ spiritual death in our behalf, in four separate ways in terms of its efficacy in solving the problem of sin: propitiation (the provision of the fundamental requirement of salvation in the removal based upon the blood of Christ of God’s displeasure towards sin); this foundation has three immediate results for sinful man: redemption (the deliverance of man from sin’s grasp), justification (the judicial pronouncement of forgiveness for all who believe), and reconciliation (the removal of the enmity on account of sin between God and man and the restoration of a relationship of blessing).