May 14th, 2019 - DIEAD HE FOR ME
DIED HE FOR ME
Introduction
By raising your hand, indicate if you have ever heard of Wally Pipp. Now, again by raising your hand, indicate if you have ever heard of Lou Gehrig. That’s telling.
In football, and I assume in other sports as well, when there is a discussions about substitution—one player coming on to the field of play for another—the name Wally Pipp would often arise.
Wally Pipp was a first baseman for the New York Yankees. In 1916 and 1917 he led the American League in home runs. But in 1925, Pipp showed up at Yankee Stadium with a severe headache, and asked the team's trainer for two aspirin. The Yankees' manager, noticed this, and said "Wally, take the day off. We'll try that kid Gehrig at first today and get you back in there tomorrow." Gehrig played well and became the Yankees' new starting first baseman and set a record for the most consecutive games played at 2130. Wally Pipp never started for the Yankees again. The Wally Pipp story is used to communicate to starters that they better be careful about letting a substitute take their place. In football, a substitute coming in for you can have very negative consequences. I often played injured, well below optimum, because I did not want a replacement of mine to give the coaches and general manager the idea of replacing me permanently. In many ways in the realm of sports, substitution has negative connotations.
But today we consider a different substitution. A substitution of which it is hard to think of anything more positive. We return to the Prince of Preachers for a different perspective on substitution:
C. H. Spurgeon: “See you here the foundational truth of Christianity, the rock on which our hopes are built. It is the only hope of a sinner, and the only true joy of the Christian – the great transaction, the great substitution, the great lifting of sin from the sinner to the sinner's Surety; the punishment of the Surety instead of the sinner, the pouring out of the vials of wrath, which were due to the transgressor, upon the head of his Substitute; the grandest transaction which ever took place on earth; the most wonderful sight that even hell ever beheld, and the most stupendous marvel that heaven itself ever executed – Jesus Christ, made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!”
Or consider the opening verse of one of my favourite hymns for a similar outlook on substitution:
Charles Wesley: And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! The grandest transaction! The most wonderful sight! The most stupendous marvel! Let us dive into the concept of substitution as it pertain to penal substitutionary atonement.
Hebrews 9:27-28 ESV
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Substitution: The Necessity
Substitution is necessary because of who God is.
God is holy
God’s holiness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own honor.
Psalm 99:3, 5, 9 ESV 3 Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he! … 5 Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he! … 9 Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!
God is just
God’s righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right.
Deuteronomy 32:4 ESV 4 “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.
God is merciful
God’s mercy means God’s goodness toward those in misery and distress.
2 Samuel 24:14 ESV Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”
God is love
God’s love means that God eternally gives of himself to others. This definition understands love as self-giving for the benefit of others.
1 John 4:8 ESV Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
How can a holy and just God demonstrate his love and mercy? How can God, who is eternally committed to punishing all sin and all sinners, demonstrate his infinite love and mercy to his people?
Just and holiness = “27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”
Love and mercy = “28 … to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”
How can God be who he is and still save us? Substitution!
“28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many …”
Definition:
• “Penal substitutionary atonement refers to the doctrine that Christ died on the cross as a substitute for sinners. God imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ, and he, in our place, bore the punishment that we deserve. This was a full payment for sins, which satisfied both the wrath and the righteousness of God, so that He could forgive sinners without compromising His own holy standard.”
• From the excellent book on PSA called Pierced for Our Transgressions: “the doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin.”
Paul addresses the apparent problem of God’s character in regards to forgiving sinners in a passage we looked at last week:
Romans 3:23-26 ESV 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Through substitution, through the propitiating sacrifice of Christ on behalf of sinners, God can show himself just and at the same time justify sinners.
Substitution: An Example
The Passover
• God’s people in Egypt: in bondage and suffering; separated from their God
• God sends Moses to deliver them
• Moses and Aaron announce and administer 9 plagues: Blood, Frogs, Gnats, Flies, Livestock, Boils, Hail, Locust, Darkness
• The purpose of plagues was salvation from bondage and worship of their God: “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.”
• Moses and Aaron pronounce and prepare God’s people for the tenth plague: Exodus 11:4-6 ESV 4 So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, 5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.
• The previous 9 plagues posed no danger to the Israelites, but the tenth was different:
Exodus 12:1-13 ESV
1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
The firstborn of the Israelites was saved from the punishing judgement of God if, and only if, a lamb was killed in their place and the blood was applied to the door. If there was no shed blood, judgment would fall!
• We see in this chapter that the Passover lamb functioned as a penal substitute, dying in the place of the firstborn sons of the Israelites, in order that they might escape the wrath of God.
• It is the plague on the firstborn that ultimately breaks the bondage of Pharaoh and thereby delivers Israel from the Egyptian tyranny.
• Exodus 12:50-51 ESV 50 All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. 51 And on that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.
• In this plague, the Israelites were in danger because of God’s wrath and punishment.
• We often interpret this story by seeing God’s judgment and anger being directed only towards the Egyptians but we get a different perspective in the book of Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 20:5-9 ESV
5 and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt; I swore to them, saying, I am the Lord your God. 6 On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands. 7 And I said to them, ‘Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.’ 8 But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me. None of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.
“Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. 9 But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
• Pierced for Our Transgressions: “According to Ezekiel 20:4–10, however, the Israelites participated in the idolatry of their Egyptian masters; they too were guilty, and were no less deserving of God’s judgment. Only by God’s gracious provision of a means of atonement, a substitutionary sacrifice, were they spared.”
So, the Passover lamb functioned in two ways in the Exodus story: first, the salvation that resulted from this last plague was the deliverance of God’s people from bondage; and second, somewhat unexpectedly, the lamb functioned to avert God’s wrathful judgment.
This is an example of salvation through substitution in the Old Testament. But what does this have to do with Easter?
1 Corinthians 5:7 ESV 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Substitution: The Fulfillment
Other than Paul’s explicit statement that Jesus is our Passover lamb, there are four more reasons we can consider as to the NT writers considering Jesus’ work as a fulfillment of the Passover of Exodus.
1) Jesus allowed himself to be killed during Passover.
2) The three synoptic gospels place Jesus’ death after the sharing of the Passover meal and connect the Jewish Passover meal with the sharing of Communion as a remembrance of Jesus’ death.
3) John, in his gospel, goes to great length to ensure that the reader realizes that Jesus hung on the cross at the same time as Passover lambs were being sacrificed.
4) In 1 Peter 1:17-19 Peter alludes to redemption and to a sacrificed lamb. 1 Peter 1:17-19 ESV 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
There were other sacrificial lambs in Jewish religious ceremonies, but when a sacrificed lamb and deliverance were coupled together, the Jewish mind would always think of the Exodus and the Passover.
“The New Testament writers make a connection between Jesus’ death and the Passover sacrifice. The implication is clear. Just as the firstborn sons of Israel were spared from God’s judgment at midnight on account of the blood of a lamb slain in their place, so God’s new covenant people will be spared from his judgment on the final day through the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The character of God—his holiness and justice—required substitution for God’s people to be shown saving love and mercy. The Passover lamb is an example of how substitution works: salvation from the wrath of God and from bondage to enemies occurs when a substitute pays the penalty that sin deserves and sacrifices its life for the sinner.
Substitution isn’t something to be feared like the aging football player trying to fight off his replacements. Substitution is a glorious and beautiful demonstration of love and mercy which does not contradict holiness and justice. Substitution is why and how we are saved. It is truly magnificent.
Application
1 John 3:16 ESV By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
“By this we know love” – Look to God’s Word to inform us about the definition of love.
• How do you define what love is? Hollywood? Social media? Hit Song Chart? Science? Politicians? Locker-room?
• There propensity for getting false info from these sources is high.
• Hollywood equates love with the desire for pleasure. Social media and politicians equate love with feelings of attraction. Hit songs equate love with the physical act of sex. Are those things love? If they are part of love, do they give a robust, thorough, accurate description of love?
• Society will tell you it is not loving to punish sin or it’s not loving to discipline wrong behaviour. Culture will tell you it is not loving to hold people to standards of truth.
• PSA can’t be right because it hurts my feelings and makes me feel guilty. PSA can’t be correct because a loving God would never allow suffering, especially an individual’s suffering for someone else. PSA can’t be right because a loving God wouldn’t be adamant about punishing sin.
• We need to let God define what love is. The Bible is clear that love is self-sacrificial. The Bible is clear that love is obedience, especially when it hurts. The Bible is clear that love is often refraining from desires, not pursuing them without reservation. The Bible is clear that love does not accept evil, but kills it.
• Look to God’s Word to define love.
“that he laid down his life for us” – Look to the cross to be assured of God’s love for us.
• Ephesians 3:14-19 ESV 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
• How do we get to a place where we are this sure of God’s love for us? The cross!
• Romans 8:31-39 ESV 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Gospel
“we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” – Look to Christ’s example in terms of how we love.
• PSA gives us an example of what love looks like
• Our love is a sacrificial love that is extended to others, even when they don’t deserve it.
• It is forgiving those who have wronged us.
• It is helping others in the faith even when we are struggling.
• It is giving of our finances when we would like to spend our money on ourselves.
• It is stepping in to fill a need at the church when we feel like we are the ones who need help.
• It is finding time to pray for your brothers and sisters when you really just a few minutes of “me” time.
• You’ll know godly love because it is not easy; it’ll cost you.
• Where is God calling you to sacrificially love this morning? Who is God calling you to lay down your life for? Be obedient and thereby honour your Father in heaven who demonstrated his love for you by sending his Son to save you.