Bizarre as it may seem, indeed God the Son had to die as an ultimate sacrifice for humanity. To show this we need to look at a much larger picture and look at the whole of redemptive history, something that Paul does in the first half of his letter to the Romans.
Who is Paul?
Let’s introduce Paul and review his credentials:
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In Acts 8, he is introduced by his Hebrew name, Saul, approving of the execution of the first Christian martyr (Stephen, v. 1), and in v. 3 we read that he was “ravaging the church, and entering house after house, [dragging] off men and women and [committing] them to prison.”
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We hear about Saul again in Chapter 9 of Acts, “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” and requesting authorization from the Jewish authorities to arrest and bring Christians (“belonging to the Way”) to Jerusalem. Along the way, he is accosted by Jesus “whom you are persecuting” (v. 5) and blinded, and told to continue on to Damascus, where he originally intended to go. When he gets there, he stays for a few days until Ananias, a disciple of Jesus, is instructed to go and lay hands on Saul, something Ananias initially protests because of Saul’s history of persecuting Christians, but does anyway. Upon laying on hands, Saul’s sight returns, and Saul begins preaching in the synagogues the deity of Christ (v. 20), to the point that the Jews plot to kill him (v. 23).
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Saul is first referred to as Paul (his Greek name) in Acts 13:9 and then is called Paul from that point on.
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Toward the end of Acts, Paul gives a defense before Agrippa (Chapter 26) in which he states that was previously a Pharisee (the same group that constantly challenged and ultimately killed Jesus in an effort to silence him). As a Pharisee, Paul would be well-versed in the Mosaic law, likely to the point of having it committed to memory. Thus, when Paul describes redemptive history beginning with Abraham, Paul knows intimately the subject that he is describing. Paul was a “Jew among Jews” who knew what he was talking about.
Paul’s outline of redemptive history in Romans
Paul begins his letter to the Christians in Rome with an exhaustive review of Jewish history and the Jewish law, pointing to its fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul sends this letter at a time when the Jews had been ejected from Rome by the emperor Claudius, then years later allowed to return; and with them came Jews who instigated an internal debate over whether Jews or Christians had the better deal—Jews were the “offspring of Abraham”, and Christians, particularly Gentile ones, were considered by the Jews to be inferior and undeserving of redemption without first becoming Jews.
In his defense, Paul describes two means of being justified before God: “the Law”, which Paul says condemns us by revealing our sinful state (“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God”, 3:19), or apart from the Law through Jesus Christ, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (vv. 21–25a).
Abraham
Paul, a Jew, understood that the sacrificial system of Judaism, the regular animal blood sacrifices in the Temple, could not remove God’s judgment upon humanity (“in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” v. 25). This sacrificial ritual goes all the way back to God’s covenant with Abram/Abraham in Genesis 15, which is established by God instructing Abram to bring animals (a heifer, female goat, a ram, a turtle dove, and a pigeon), cut them in half (except the birds), and place the sides opposite each other, and then God (in the form of a smoking fire pot and flaming torch, Gen 15:17) passed between them, symbolically sealing the covenant, as if to say, “May what happened to these animals happen to whoever breaks this covenant.”
Almost immediately, Abraham breaks the covenant by sleeping with Hagar and producing Ishmael (Gen. 16), but God does not execute his judgment just yet. He has Abraham and all the men with him circumcised as a physical symbol of the covenant.
“Forbearance”
Returning to Romans, Paul addresses this sacrificial system and states that there is no way humanity could be justified by means of works of the law (3:19–20), because the purpose of the law was to point out that we are sinful (“without the law there is no transgression”).
Paul uses the term “forbearance” throughout Romans 2 to describe the effect of the sacrificial system prior to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Forbearance simply means that the obligation to pay a debt is postponed, not taken away. Eventually, the forbearance ends and the debtor (sinful humanity) must pay in blood according to the terms of God’s own covenant with humanity. God’s righteousness and absolute holiness cannot tolerate the presence of sin and therefore sin must result in destruction of the sinner. And, Paul states, being a Jew, of Abraham, is of no advantage.
“Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due” (Romans 4:4)–if our works are by definition corrupt and sinful, the due wage is God’s wrath (Romans 4:15). Abraham was not counted righteous because he obeyed the law, but because of his belief that motivated his obedience to the law (4:9–12). Belief, faith, came first, per Paul.
Jesus as the Ultimate Sacrifice
Once Paul has established that justification from God’s wrath cannot occur through following the law (because we can’t), he turns his attention to Jesus, God’s own son, in Romans chapter 5.
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we saved by his life.” (Romans 6:6–10)
Since the law and its sacrificial system could not provide justification before God, it had to come another way. A perfect way. It couldn’t come through the blood of earthly animals, since they were part of the corruption that came into the world through the sin of the “first man” (Adam, Romans 5:12ff), it had to be through a man who was not corrupted by our own sin.
The only one who meets that qualification is God’s own son. And to establish his humanity, he had to be born of a virgin and live the same life that humanity lived, albeit without sin, obeying the law as God established it perfectly. And, because humanity could not follow the law sufficiently on its own, justification had to be a gift, not something that could be earned, else those who desired it could never have it.
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:12–17, ESV)
Once Jesus had fulfilled the terms of God’s covenant by sacrificing himself and taking upon himself the sin of humanity and incurring his Father’s own wrath for it to the point of experiencing separation and abandonment from his Father (Matthew 27:46, quoting Psalm 22:1), there was no reason for him to remain dead, so his Father resurrected him.
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.” (Romans 6:5–10, ESV)
Paul writes elsewhere that without this death and resurrection, there is no Christianity:
“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:12–22, ESV)
A theology of suffering
Christian doctrine includes a theology of suffering by design (much to the consternation of so-called “word of faith” and “prosperity” preachers). It is evident throughout the New Testament writings. Because Christ suffered, so will we. Because the gospel is “foolishness” to those who are not saved, we will be looked at as fools also. However, what we lose in our suffering will be more than made up for at Christ’s return. Something to look at in another post.
Required Notices
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
