OMG - Jesus

Do you know Him?

God came to earth as a man, Jesus!

  • About OMG
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Key Truths …in the Bible
  • Key Verses …in the Bible
You are here: Home / Forgiveness / Christ’s Death

Christ’s Death

November 30, 2016 by William Lane Craig Leave a Comment

The following excerpt is from an article by William Lane Craig, Should We Think of Christ’s Death in Juridical Terms? – on the atonement of Christ’s death on the cross (*Romans 3:25, 4:25, and 5:18).  Read the full article here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/should-we-think-of-christs-death-in-juridical-terms#ixzz4RVGxCPqU.


 

Far from dragging the cross into the courtroom, the use of judicial terminology with respect to man’s relation to God is deeply Jewish. [1] In the Old Testament God is addressed with the legal title “Judge” (Genesis 18.25) and acts rightly in that capacity. Moreover, He is not only the Judge; He is also the lawgiver.

The heart of Old Testament Judaism was the divine Torah (law) that governed all of life and man’s relationship to God. Of the 220 uses of tôrah in the Old Testament only 17 are clearly not about God’s law. Of the 127 occurrences of hōq (statute), 87 are linked with the Lord; another word for statute is huqqah, which is similarly linked in 96 out of 104 cases. Mishpāt, which is linked with the Lord about 180 times, is the usual term for judgment and in its participial form is used to refer to God as Judge. It may also mean law.

According to Morris, the Old Testament writers often prefer legal to any other imagery when they are referring to what God does (e.g., Micah 6.1-2; Is 41.21; Is 3.13). The use of legal categories with respect to God “is frequent, so frequent indeed that it is plain that it corresponds to something deep-seated in Hebrew thinking. Law and the Lord went together.” [2] It would be hard to imagine a religion more wedded to legal categories than Old Testament Judaism!

So the New Testament is filled with judicial language reflective of its Jewish background. [3] For example, Paul blends cultic and judicial terminology in characterizing Christ’s death:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation 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; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3.21-26). [4]

The Greek word translated here “righteousness” (dikaiosynē ) can also be rendered as “justice.” The expression “expiation by his blood” is cultic, bringing to mind the Day of Atonement sacrifices, and has reference to Christ’s death on the cross. Paul’s final sentence corrects the misimpression that God, in leaving the sins of previous generations unpunished, is not just; rather, Paul says, Christ’s atoning death proves that God is just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus. The implication is that Christ has borne the punishment due for those sins.

Keep in mind that the problem which forms the background to the above passage is Paul’s disquisition on the wrath of God, which is the result of people’s disobedience to God’s law. They deserve, Paul says, to die, when judged in accordance with the law. The justification pronounced in Romans 3 requires some resolution of that problem. Moreover, the succeeding chapters in Romans also imply some resolution of the problem. Paul contrasts Adam with Jesus:

Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous (Romans 5:18-19).

Justification and condemnation are contrasting legal terms used with respect to God’s judgement. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Christ’s death fulfilled a judicial function: it won our acquittal and right-standing before God. I’m therefore puzzled when you say that “I have been unable to find any examples from the New Testament that link the judicial language of punishment, penalty, judgment, or condemnation to Christ on the cross.”

I see no reason to think that the language of Romans 4.25 “was delivered up on account of (dia) our trespasses” is cultic, not judicial. Not only is the context judicial, but these words sound to me like the description of a legal sentence (compare Barabbas, who was “thrown into prison for (dia) insurrection and murder” Luke 23.19).

Maybe what bothers you is that you don’t find an explicit statement that God punished Christ. That statement, however, is controversial even among proponents of penal substitution. Some would prefer to say something like “God afflicted Christ with the suffering that was the penalty (or punishment) for our sins.” That is to say, Christ bore the suffering that, had it been inflicted on me, would have been the punishment of my sins. That still counts as penal substitution.

What comes closest to the statement that Christ bore the punishment for our sins are passages like 1 Peter 2.24:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,
that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
By his wounds you have been healed.”

The language of “bearing sins” in the Old Testament means “to bear either the guilt or punishment for sin.” [5]  The passage here is a reflection on the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. There we read:

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:4-6).

The contrast between the Servant and the people referred to by the first-person plural pronouns shows that the Servant suffered in their place for their sins. This looks for all the world like substitutionary punishment. The New Testament authors (not to mention Jesus himself), think of Jesus as the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 (e.g., Acts 8.26-35). Thus, we have pretty strong grounds for thinking of Christ’s death in terms of vicarious punishment.


Notes

[1] See Leon Morris’ The Atonement (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1983). In addition to chapters on sacrifice, Passover, Day of Atonement, and so forth (all cultic categories), he also includes a chapter on justification, which underscores the importance of judicial language and categories with respect to the atonement.

[2] Ibid., p. 181.

[3] By Morris’ count the New Testament has 92 examples of the noun dikaiosynē (justice or righteousness), 39 of the verb dikaioō (to justify or reckon righteous), 10 of the noun dikaiōma (ordinance or sentence of justification), 81 of the adjective dikaios (just or righteous), and five of the adverb dikaiōs (justly or righteously).

[4] On this passage see D. A. Carson, “Atonement in Romans 3:21-26,” in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical, and Practical Perspectives, ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 119-39.

[5] See the detailed discussion by J. Alan Groves, “Atonement in Isaiah 53,” in The Glory of the Atonement, pp. 61-89.


  • From the article by William Lane Craig, Should We Think of Christ’s Death in Juridical Terms?  Read the full article here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/should-we-think-of-christs-death-in-juridical-terms#ixzz4RVGxCPqU

FOR MORE:

Legally Damned – Legally Forgiven

Jesus Paid It All

Getting Born Again

Post Views: 300

Filed Under: Forgiveness, Jesus the Christ Tagged With: atonement, Isaiah 53:4-6, judge, judicial, juridical, justice, Romans 5:18-19, Torah

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About OMG  |  Facebook OMGjesus  |  FAQ
QUICK LINKS:
 Salvation in Christ is beyond huge - He will go before me - God Is Not Distant - My Heinous Heinous Ways - Seeing change in your heart - About Heaven - Lost I Came To Him - This is salvation in Christ - That Moment in Time - Admitting I was wrong - Titus on: What the Word of God Teaches - Making God - I Look Oh My God - One Human Race - Puny Humans - Following - What Jesus stands for - Which Jesus do you serve? - Is Jesus’ worldview your worldview? - Getting Born Again - Saving Knowledge - Losing My Soul - My best day here - Vortex of Good & Evil - Living the good life with courage and confident hope - Fear This - Punishment and Reward - Degrees of Sin - Are you filthy or beautified? - Habits of Love

"Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock." - Isaiah 26:4 (NLT)


About the End Times (a series)
Do not fear, I will help you - Be cautious and active in faith - Maintain yourself faithful – out of loyalty to Christ - When we face difficult times in our life - First Apostasy, then Antichrist, then the Rapture - We are now in “Birth Pangs” times, and then ...the End - “What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” - Oh what a day that will be! - What joy and exhilaration - soon - Divine Mysteries Revealed by the Godman Jesus

About False Teaching
(a series)
Getting down to God’s meaning - Calling out false teaching - Jesus, the second man, is the Lord from Heaven  - 2 Timothy 4:3 - Needing something more than Jesus - Post New Apostolic Reformation Reflections by Rick Becker - Counterfeit spirit of god - They in fact have seen nothing - Two NAR Organizations to Watch from hollypivec.com; Holly Pivec - Our response to “Apostle” Randy Clark’s interview with Remnant Radio - False Prophets: A Study in the Scriptures by Diane S. Dew -
Examples of false doctrines - Search results for: false teachers  - Following the Jesus who was not God

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” - Luke 10:27

Most Recent Posts

  • Living a forever life – now February 2, 2023
  • Ways to lose it with God February 1, 2023
  • The Dangers of Consorting With Error January 27, 2023
  • The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul January 26, 2023
  • Are you “contrary” – not conforming to the Gospel? January 25, 2023
  • The Great Water Down of Jesus’ Message to us all January 25, 2023
  • Until the rapture door is shut January 25, 2023
  • Abortion blessings? January 12, 2023
  • Will you be turned away by Jesus? January 11, 2023
  • Jesus waited 1,952 years for me January 11, 2023
  • Denying Jesus? January 10, 2023
  • Making God Speak January 9, 2023
  • How far will you go to stay faithful to Jesus? January 5, 2023
  • Turn shame into repentance December 21, 2022
  • After that moment of passing December 20, 2022
  • The Redemption of God December 12, 2022
  • Disappointing Mistakes of Don Stewart’s “35 Common Mistakes” December 8, 2022
  • When it comes to God, who wants mere opinions? December 6, 2022
  • Passing on through to the other side December 6, 2022
  • Hell will have degrees of punishment December 5, 2022
  • Wrapped in unselfish love November 29, 2022
  • We know the will of God in this November 24, 2022
  • Significance – what Jesus gives us November 22, 2022
  • Why on earth will God accept you, a sinner? November 20, 2022
  • Believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One November 16, 2022
  • Satan’s progressively degenerate agendas November 14, 2022
  • How a tare thinks November 10, 2022
  • Don’t tell me how to think! November 7, 2022
  • Salvation in Christ is beyond huge November 7, 2022
  • I am almost perfect October 27, 2022

Categories

  • Angels
  • Bible Studies
  • Bible-lite
  • Bible: New Testament
  • Bible: The Bible Says
  • Biblical Inerrancy
  • Christian Life
  • Christianity
  • Counseling and Exhorting
  • Creation
  • Cults
  • Damnation
  • Death
  • Devotionals
  • Divorce
  • DVD-movies
  • Early Church
  • Education
  • Evidence
  • Faith
  • False Teachings
  • Forgiveness
  • God
  • Heaven
  • Hell
  • Hermeneutics
  • Holy Spirit
  • Interpreting
  • Investigate
  • Islam
  • Jesus the Christ
  • Key Truths …in the Bible
  • Key Verses …in the Bible
  • Leadership
  • Marriage
  • Muslim
  • Parenting
  • Poetry, Sayings, and Words
  • Popular Culture
  • Prayer
  • Prophets and Prophecy
  • Repentance
  • Research
  • Salvation
  • Science
  • Series
  • Sin
  • Spiritual Warfare

Random Post:

Search This Site

Utilize the Search capability of this website (upper right corner of this site) to find specific topics…

Bentley – News on Todd Bentley

The charismatic movement has been troubled by unbiblical practices and teachings. I am amazed at how folks are so easily mislead. “Many have exchanged the truth for a lie and chosen experience over content.” Look and examine and see, and compare with what the Bible teaches.

False Prophets

“You may be asking yourselves, “How can we tell if a prophet’s message really comes from the Lord?”” -Deuteronomy 18:21. How can we distinguish the true from the false?

No Faith In Heaven

Faith will not be necessary in heaven. Faith and hope will be ¨done away¨with (1 Corinthians 13:v8). When we finally are brought into His Kingdom, instead of on this earth with His Holy Spirit, then we will have Him, not just merely faith and hope.

Christian Answers Regarding Islam

Christian Answers Regarding Islam 1. The Koran purports it does not contradict the Bible but supports it. The Koran declares that it was written to confirm the previous revelations and not to replace the Bible according to Sura 5:48 which says, “And We have sent down to you the Scripture with truth, authenticating what is […]

Biblical Homosexuality

…a Christian´s Perspective on Homosexuality Quoted from: http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/31489.html Donny | April 18, 2008, 11:33am | # I’m up to the challenge of gay theology questions: In-hospitality towards others and “haughtiness” were the sins of Sodom. But Ezekiel is quite explicit about sexual sins being front and center as well. “Haughtiness” and the word “Gay” as […]

Inexplicable Joy

Heaven is a joyful place. That is hard for me to imagine… Everywhere I look around me, I see so many problems, issues and unresolved conflicts. But in heaven, they won’t exist anymore. There will only be joy because my sins have been paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.  One of the main things that describes being in heaven is JOY. The word “joy” has a much deeper meaning than just happiness. To be happy can change so quickly. It can come and go in a moment. But joy…

Letter to Danny

We are continually bombarded by the fiery darts of the Evil One.  And when these little pricks hit us, we need to put-out the flames, quickly. Doubts, depression, feelings of inadequacy, troubles, unruly kids…, when they come at us, we “have to declare” the truths of God, and  we have to choose Truth over lies. 

Children’s Bible in a Nutshell

A quick overview of the Bible (tongue-in-cheek) -Author Unknown Too good to miss! Subject: Judas Asparagus (also read story here: https://darrellcreswell.wordpress.com)    A child was told to write a book report on the entire Bible.  The Children’s Bible in a Nutshell:  In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, […]

About Biblical Inerrancy

Would God give us erroneous documents and call them “His”? Dumb idea! God brought everything together to form the Bible. Evidence is overpowering as you read what the Bible is, and what it tells us. “It is the history of the Bible that makes it unique among ‘sacred texts.’ See who wrote the Bible, how its reportive style is backed by archeology and historians…” – Quote from “Why You Can Believe the Bible” (www.everystudent.com).

More Random Posts

  • Denying Jesus?
  • Making God Speak
  • How far will you go to stay faithful to Jesus?
  • Turn shame into repentance

Tags

believe Bethel bible born again choice choose Christ condemnation confidence creation death end times eternity evidence FAITH faithful false teachers fear follow following forgiven forgiveness God grace heaven hell Holy Spirit hope Jesus love NAR New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) practice prayer Rapture repent repentance resurrection Salvation Satan saved sin sincerity time truth

Featured Post

Oh what a day that will be!
Wow! To enter into the Kingdom of God - freely as His redeemed child. No cringing in shame, no burden of sinfulness before Almighty Holy God. I can only imagine.

Jesus, the second man, is the Lord from Heaven
"The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.” In 1 Corinthians 15:47 the Apostle Paul explained that Jesus, while on earth, was absolutely God-man.  He was not a mere man, ever.

There Is Only One God
Getting tired of people flippantly saying, ¨Oh my god!¨ Ever wonder who their ¨god¨ is!? Does that ¨god¨ know he is ¨theirs¨? Do you say that? We are quite the god-makers, are we not! What do you mean…“your God”?

God Is Not Distant
God is not some far away, distant-from-you, dis-concerned bubble of energy, inside some aura of mist on a mysterious planet far far away…. “And the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore” –Psalm 121:8

When it comes to God, who wants mere opinions?
When talking “God” and “Truth” – I really do not care what you think. You should not care what I think. What matters is “what God thinks”.
Lost I Came To Him Oh the wonder of that love of our fathomless Creator, to save me in spite of my self-centered soul. Lost and rebellious, He chose me. Pursued and wooed, what mystery – grace. I said yes to Creator God. To know…
Time as it really is Since Heaven is not regulated by time, the passage of time on earth is a separate event. *We will all step out of time together – into God’s presence, with no “time lag”,…The time it takes to go from earth to God's presence - is instant. There is no waiting around in the next dimension for earth time to finish, no midway point of gathering, no Purgatory. It will be an instantaneous experience for all mankind that ever lived. At the moment of death, our soul instantly leaves....

No Tolerance for Error
God is not sloppy nor wishy-washy.... There is no room at all – for error – when it comes to being right with God. You are either all in, or you are all out. Are you sure you’re in?

Simple View of Life  a simple view of everything. God of Everything that is – created everything. We are very fortunate that He is loving and kind, and really, really wants us.
Ashamed of Yourself?
Ever done something you are ashamed of?  Come on now, you’re sitting there by yourself – ‘fess-up.  Nobody listenin’ to your brain confess.  So... Yes?  Scenario: “You have? What!?
Being Christian What's it like these days to be a Christian? Really a Christian. For many, what the Bible teaches is generally okay, but, when it comes to certain specificities, what it says, they reason, needs to be interpreted in the light of today's enlightened realities. But -- will that work in - The End - when we stand before Him, physically? Stop and think about that Day.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow is the fool’s day. Tomorrow may never come. I may not get older. This may be it. 3.18.2017
Vortex of Good & Evil As mere humans, we are engulfed in the vortex of battle between good and evil. We must remember – it is God who created us, not we ourselves.  1.25.2017
What God has going on with us here on this planet.
God downloaded to earth ...inserted Himself into our history.  Jesus came to earth in order to satisfy the Courts of Heaven for our freedom. 3.23.2016

Cognitive Dissonance
...that extreme feeling of discomfort some folks get when their core belief is challenged or contradicted. What they think (“cognitive”) is rattled (dissonance) by what other evidences purport to be true – in direct conflict with what they hold to be “true”.  8.14.2018
Actually Try To Do The Deed 3.23.2016   “It’s not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better."

What God Did for Man
…The Simple Gospel of Jesus Christ. God walked the earth as a man. Have you ever wondered how it all got started – the universe, the earth, nature, animals, you and your “like”, mankind? 2.19.2018
The Bible is “able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation”
Do you honestly want to know how to get right with God?  Jesus promised He would save us for an eternity of only good, nothing bad. 9.31.2020  
 

Most Viewed Posts

  • Vile To Jesus
  • Ashamed of Yourself?
  • The Passion Translation (TPT) and why not to use it
  • Befuddled and Besmirched
  • That Day of Judgement
  • Getting Born Again
  • Jesus Knows Your Thoughts
  • That Moment In Time
  • The Confuscating John Pavlovitz
  • Saving Knowledge
  • Following
  • My Heinous Heinous Ways
  • Inexplicable Joy
  • Examples of false doctrines
  • Signs of an unrepentant heart
  • Me, When I Die, still in sin
  • I would rather stand with God and be judged by the world. Yes!
  • Me, When I Die, forgiven
  • God’s System of Justice
  • Brand New Creature
  • Practicing Sin, Not Following Christ
  • Why Believe Such Stupididiotic Things?!
  • God Damned “Believers”
  • Windows Into Heaven
  • Context, Context, Context!

Most Recent Posts

  • Living a forever life – now
  • Ways to lose it with God
  • The Dangers of Consorting With Error
  • The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul
  • Are you “contrary” – not conforming to the Gospel?
  • The Great Water Down of Jesus’ Message to us all
  • Until the rapture door is shut
  • Abortion blessings?
  • Will you be turned away by Jesus?
  • Jesus waited 1,952 years for me

Categories

Archives

Living a forever life – now

Eternal life blessed by God forever — begins the moment you bow your knee in repentance and give Him all of your heart. You saved?

Ways to lose it with God

Living and leaving God behind? That is easy. Try something a little more challenging: Live to please God Almighty – in everything you do! Now that is a worthy challenge. And the prize at the end is more than adequate for your focus.

The Dangers of Consorting With Error

To be faithful to Christ, we cannot mix Jesus plus something.  It’s like mixing water with oil.  That’s a messy mix. There is contradiction and opposition between the two.The same goes for anything in life: To stay true and faithful to Jesus we absolutely must deny that which denies Christ. 

The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul

Do you know the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul?  Is that what you follow? Study to know the real thing — so you’ll recognize the counterfeit when it’s put in your face.

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in