General Ministries: Easter and the Justice of God
April 5th, 2012

Easter and the Justice of God

Author: Justin Loans

At Easter, it is only proper that we as Christians focus our attention on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the joy of salvation that His sacrifice brings. Close in the background to that rejoicing, however, is the specter of sin—the reason that God had to send His Son to die in the first place.

More often than not, we think of sin as the things that we do that go against God’s will (sins) or more generally as our unregenerate state before salvation. Even when we think about sin at a theological level, it is difficult for us to see it fully because everything in this life is so colored by it. We don’t like to dwell on sin, but without fully grasping its magnitude, we cannot fully appreciate the wonder that Easter represents.

Easter, for all its joy, makes three definitive statements about sin that serve not to cloud that joy but to magnify it.

I. Sin Demands Judgment
God doesn’t simply dislike sin or set arbitrary rules that we can’t help but break. God’s holiness demands justice for mankind’s choice to disobey Him and disregard His authority. We all deserve punishment for our sinful condition and sinful choices, and we see throughout Scripture that the punishment is death (Deut. 28, Rom. 6:23, Heb. 9:22, etc.).

The incarnation of Christ—the eternally begotten second person of the Trinity—in historical space and time serves to remind us that the price for sin must be paid. Christ’s coming in human flesh served to make Him capable of experiencing death. He was born in order to die—to take the judgment for sin. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death…” (Heb. 2:9).

II. The Judgment Was Paid by Christ
The beauty of Christ’s death is not merely that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for the penalty of sin but that He was able to do so. No created being could ever serve to pay the price for all men; only Christ, as “God from God, light from light, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father” (in the words of the Nicene Creed) was an acceptable sacrifice. Infinite sin (the rebellion against God of every human, past, present, and future) required an infinite payment.

The conclusion of that verse in Hebrews explains: “so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” Isaiah writes, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed…. But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering…” (Isa. 53:5, 10).

Christ has offered Himself as the guilt offering, and given us the opportunity to exchange our guilt for His—that is, we can accept God’s justice through our own death (by refusing Christ) or by participating in His death. We can die by His hand or die into Him accepting His life in return. Because He has paid the price for us, our debt has been cancelled—the penalty cannot be assessed twice.

III. The Resurrection Enables Life after Sin
Easter is the celebration of the fact that Christ’s death opens the door to life itself. Because our justly deserved death was taken by the eternal, holy, almighty Son of God, our life of obedience is made possible by His resurrection. We are never completely free of sin’s power and consequences in this life, but because of Christ in us, we are enabled to begin to reflect the holiness of God through our thoughts and actions.

Again, the author of Hebrews helps us see clearly how Christ’s work upends the stronghold of sin: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. 2:10-11). Through suffering, God made Christ able to bring us into glory as sons of God.

Through His coming also, however, Christ learned the pain of temptation, and it is by this intimate knowledge of our own condition that He strengthens us to resist sin’s power: “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted” (Heb. 2:17-18).

Christ is both the sacrifice for our sins and the priest who pleads our case. Only through this astonishing transaction can God be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). More than that, Christ is our encourager—as “one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15) He enables us by His Spirit to endure temptation and shine forth His righteousness in our resistance. It is in this that we see most clearly the whole glory of Christ’s work. The eternal life of Christ is the capstone of our redemption and shows God’s overwhelming love.

Application
How do we live out Easter? How do we put the payment for sin and the life of Christ in practice? I’d like to offer three suggestions.

1) Easter applied should make us more grateful for our salvation. Seeing the depth of our sin that necessitated such a sacrifice as Christ’s has to give us pause. There can be no going back to a life unaware of the price paid for us after we have encountered Christ. As Paul puts it, “How shall we who died to sin live in it?” (Rom. 6:2). That joy and gratitude is a far greater motivator for obedience to God’s will than any amount of guilt we can heap on ourselves.

2) Easter applied should make us more concerned for the lost. Once we recognize who we are in Christ (and our plight without Him), we should grow in our prayer for and outreach to those who do not yet know Him. If we don’t love the lost as He does, we should examine our hearts to discover why we are content to let them miss His atonement.

3) Easter applied should make us more forgiving toward fellow believers. Recognizing the depth of our sin and the price of our redemption puts forgiveness in perspective. If the sacrifice of Christ satisfies the wrath of Almighty God toward any sin a believer might commit, what right do we as fellow sinners have to demand anything else in exchange for our forgiveness? Too many divisions within our churches and families come from our efforts to deal with the sins of others on terms more stringent than God applies to us.

First published on Disciple Magazine.  

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General Ministries: Disciple Magazine
February 1st, 2012

Did you know that AMG now offers the Disciple Magazine free?  Disciple Magazine is an e-magazine with the goal of making disciples of Jesus.  Twice a month Disciple Magazine puts out new relevant articles to help anyone deepen their faith in Christ. Here are the most recent articles:

The Gospel in an Abortion Culture by Russell Moore

Engage in Culture if You Dare, Pastor by Joe McKeever

Increasing or Decreasing? By Justin Lonas

Exegetically Speaking Matthew 25:1-7 by Spiros Zodhiates

Living out the Living Word 1 Timothy 2:1-7 by Justin Lonas

Points to Ponder by David Olford

Counselor’s Corner by James Rudy Gray

Church Builders H.G. Underwood: Pioneer Missionary in Korea by Bernard DeRemer

The Story behind the Song: This is the Day By Lindsay Terry

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General Ministries: Disciple Magazine
November 1st, 2011

  Disciple, an online-only, bi-weekly e-magazine, is an outreach of Advancing the Ministries of the Gospel (AMG) International. AMG’s distinctive has always been its reliance on national workers to carry the Gospel in their own cultures, and we sensed a call to help English-speaking Christians see and develop their role as “national workers” in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere.

To that end, Dr. Zodhiates and AMG started Pulpit Helps Magazine in 1975 to reach out to pastors in those areas. Over the years, we’ve expanded our target audience beyond vocational pastors to anyone who is committed to studying and teaching God’s Word. After the 2009 publication year, we stopped printing Pulpit Helps (largely for financial reasons) and have developed Disciple as a new way to clarify and give form to our mission of making disciples of every nation.

As you read this publication, you’ll notice a lot of references to AMG International and its work—this isn’t just because they “pay the bills”, but because we want both to serve you in your personal growth and the awakening of Christ’s kingdom purposes in your heart and draw you intentionally to an organization committed to connecting disciples at home and abroad for the glory of God.

The concept of being and making disciples of Jesus is core to our faith. “Disciple” is translated from the Greek term “mathētēs”, meaning a learner or pupil. In that sense, we are called to be “students” of Christ, the incarnate Word of God. Disciple Magazine exists to assist and equip believers for deeper understanding and application of Scripture and God’s call to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19).

There are a plethora of Christian publications around the world that focus on individual spiritual growth. We have purposed to be distinctive in tying personal growth to obedience to God’s kingdom purposes—growth not for growth’s sake, but for Christ’s mission.

We try to wrap all our content around our focus of discipling disciple-makers, but it comes in a variety of forms. Some of our content is expositional, some is devotional, some covers nuts-and-bolts practicality, some focuses on examples of discipleship around the world, but we strive to make sure that it is all Scripture-saturated. We cover books and culture as they relate to our core focus, and we attempt keep you updated on the movement of the Gospel around the world with news that you won’t find from mainstream sources.

All of our content comes from volunteers: pastors, missionaries, teachers, AMG national workers, and others.

This work is paralleled in many of AMG’s projects around the world, where local versions of Pulpit Helps are still being distributed in print (rebranding isn’t much of a concern to Christians in India, Indonesia, and elsewhere =). Disciple here at home serves to provide some source material for these other national publications and to encourage and equip those national workers who are able to read English.

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