Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

I.

The Atonement is Stunning (vs.

31)

II.

The Atonement is Substitutionary (vs.

32)

I want to give you a theological phrase that you have heard form this pulpit, but I want to give it and explain it again in the context of this passage and subject.

We believe in what is called “Penal Substitution”.

Let me give to you a quick definition and then go into some greater detail as to what this means.

penal substitution (atonement) — A view of the atonement that understands Christ's death on the cross as paying the death penalty for sin on behalf of sinners.

In other words it was not just a potential atonement, it was an actual atonement.

MacArthur Video

As no one can succeed in his accusation when the judge absolves, so there remains no condemnation, when the laws have been satisfied and the penalty already paid.

Christ is the One who once suffered the punishment due to us, and thereby professed that He took our place in order to deliver us.

Anyone, therefore, who desires to condemn us after this must kill Christ Himself again’ (Calvin’s commentary on Romans 8:34).

When the Apostle Paul tells in Romans that “he delivered in up for us all...” he was saying that in the cross Jesus suffered the penalty for the sins of his people (hence penal) as a substitute for them (hence substitution).

When man sinned against God, his sins erected a legal and relational barrier between him and God and the divine law was broken.

Because of this man incurred guilt and is required to pay the penalty of spiritual death.

The holiness of God was offended and God’s wrath was roused against the sin.

Because of this, the law leaves man alienated from God and broken fellowship and even hostility mark the relationship between God and man.

Now, if there is going to be any reconciliation to God, man’s sins must be atones for.

But because of man’s spiritual death and depravity, he is left unable to pay the penalty for his sins.

Follow these verses:

Notice that Peter said that Christ suffered FOR sin:

Because Christ suffered FOR sins, he is the Propitiation for the sins.

Now, before we take and to mean some kind of universal potential atonement, we have to look at every verse in its context.

Many people will take the word “world” and begin to attach some kind of universal interpretation on it.

If you take 1 by what it says you have to ask yourself the question, “did Jesus take away the sins of every single person?”

If you say “yes” then you have to explain why there is a Hell and that people go there.

If you take and put some kind of universal interpretation on it, you have to ask yourself, “was Jesus the propitiation for every single person?”

If you say “yes”, then again you have to explain why there is a Hell and people go there.

This is why it is vital that we understand that the atonement of Christ was not a potential one but an actual one.

As we have seen in the previous verses, the NT paints the atonement as substitutionary or actual.

Christ laid down His life as the ransom price in the place of the lives of His people so that they might go free.

That is to say, Christ’s body and blood are given as a substitutionary sacrifice on behalf of sinners to avert wrath and punishment.

Titus

As the above passages show, there is not more well-attested doctrine in all the NT than the vicarious suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of his people.

Now, what you have in this substitutionary work (and going back to the golden chain) is that actually on the cross Christ paid the penalty for sin.

And what you have today in Evangelicalism, is many people talking about Substitutionary Atonement, but they are really using a term that contradicts their theology.

Even J. Kenneth Grider, an Arminian theologian states:

A spillover from Calvinism into Arminianism has occurred in recent decades.

Thus many Arminians whose theology is not very precise say that Christ paid the penalty for our sins.

Yet such a view is foreign to Arminianism.…

Arminians teach that what Christ did he did for every person; therefore, what he did could not have been to pay the penalty for sin, since no one would then ever go into eternal perdition.

Arminianism teaches that Christ suffered for everyone so that the Father could forgive the ones who repent and believe; his death is such that all will see that forgiveness is costly and will strive to cease from anarchy in the world God governs

So even Arminian theologians agree that if the atonement were actually substitutionary, then no one would go to Hell.

So to speak of the work of Jesus Christ being made substitutionally for all people without exception and then those persons going to Hell, is a contradiction of the work of substitution.

Every Evangelical that you know will attest the great thought of Redemption.

That is that wonderful transaction by which our Lord Jesus Christ has purchased us to Himself in order to liberate is from the slavery of evil under which we were held in bondage.

Now, if you take redemption seriously we have to ask: “what kind of redemption is this where some of the people who have been redeemed are still in bondage?”

Roger Nicole, in his work “Our Sovereign Savior” gives this illustration:

Suppose that for some reason a friend of mine has fallen afoul of the law and as a result has been taken to jail.

I hear about his plight and immediately make my funds available to bail him out.

In a very real sense I provide the price of redemption for him.

All right.

I get the bail, reach the prison, pay the money, and then go home.

My wife asks, ‘Where is your friend?’

I say, ‘He’s in prison.’

‘In prison?

But didn’t you take the bail money down there?’

‘Yes, I paid the money to redeem him, but he’s still in prison.

It hasn’t worked.’

What kind of redemption would that be?

If redemption is accomplished, then those who are in bondage must be liberated.

They cannot be held in captivity any longer.

Therefore, the work of Christ is described in such terms that not only what he intends but also what he performed is expressed by it.

The Very language of the Bible shows that the work of Christ to be not simply something that was intended and may or may not be effected, but rather the actual achievement of salvation.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is Substitutionary

Again Roger Nicole illustrates:

In dying on the cross of Calvary the Lord Jesus Christ as the substitute and representative for lost sinners bore in their place the full burden of their eternal condemnation for all their sin.’

If we really accept this definition and do not try to fudge on it after we have first made our commitment, then the question must arise: What will there be left to condemn in the last judgment if Christ died in that sense for all members of the human race?

What kind of condemnation will be left?

The answer would have to be, None.

Therefore, all should be saved.

But it is quite plain that all will not be saved.

So obviously Christ died as a substitute to bear the punishment due only unto the sins of those people who will not be punished.

God cannot punish a sin twice.

He cannot punish it once in the person of the Redeemer and then punish it later in the person of the perpetrator.

If it was punished in the person of Christ, then it will not be punished in the person of the sinner.

If it is punished in the person of the sinner, then it was not punished in the person of Christ.

The work of Christ is precisely related to the sum total of all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and nobody else.

Some say, ‘Well, I believe that Jesus dies for the sins of all men”.

OK, let us look at the words of the great Puritan preacher John Owen and see if his words make sense:

‘God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for,

either all the sins of all men,

or all the sins of some men,

or some sins of all men.

But how about option number one, all the sins of all men?

That is what the universal redemptionists say.

‘If the first,’ says Owen, ‘why then are not all free from the punishment of all their sins?’

You will say, ‘Because of their unbelief; they will not believe.’

But this unbelief, is it a sin, or not?

If not, why should they be punished for it?

If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not.

If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death?

If he did not, then did he not die for all their sins?

Let them choose which part they will.’3

When Jesus died, He was actually laying down His life and paying the penalty for sins.

The Atonement is Substitutionary.

27 Grider, “Arminianism,” 80.

Reymond, R. L. (1998).