Sunday School | Moral Exemplar, Part 2

Alright, Lord, thank you so much for this day that you have made and we pray that we would fall more in love with you because we learn more about you. The more we learn about you, we pray, Lord, that you would just soften our hearts and change us in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

So Tim has been talking about—we've been talking about the last few weeks what we've called the Atonement Theories. Can anybody tell me what's the main Atonement theory that Tim has been talking about? PSA. PSA stands for Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

Now my history of evangelism and discipleship has been with high school kids for the last thirty years, and it's usually kids that have no cursory knowledge at all about Christian things, spiritual things. We try to speak in a language that they can understand and appreciate, and this is a great example. I would never stand in front of kids, lost kids and say "Penal Substitutionary Atonement" because as soon as you do that they start giggling, you've lost them and then they're like "Ah, it's the worst." So we don't say "Penal Substitutionary Atonement" when we're talking to kids. We talk about Jesus and we talk about what he did on the cross and we talk about those things.

But we talk about Atonement Theories, and when Tim was talking—is this okay that I'm walking in front of this? Great. When Tim's talking about these Atonement Theories, they're not—PSA is not a theory, it's actually what happens. It's throughout scripture and we've seen some of that, and we're going to look at a New Testament example of PSA, and that's what we'll call it from this point on: PSA. If there's a penalty, that's the penal; there's a substitution, that's Jesus. And Jesus paid our penalty on the cross for us.

So what we're going to do is I'm going to do a little recap of some of those things in a more simplified language, and we're going to talk a little bit about what he tried to talk about last week but couldn't because we got off track in a good way. We got off track and didn't talk about ransom theory or moral exemplar. We'll talk about that as well.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

PSA: there's a problem that we find ourselves in. Our sin and our sin nature are so offensive to a holy and perfect God. It's pretty simple. We all know this. There's a penalty that needs to be paid—a wage. But if we are ever to be forgiven, we must repay what we owe, but we are incapable of doing that. Our present obedience and our good works cannot make satisfaction for our sins.

So let me ask you a question: why do you think when you read the passion account of Jesus dying on a cross, why do you think it was so gruesome, so horrifyingly gruesome?

Because it was. Good answer. But Jesus could have died in another way. Or could he have? Why was the cross so horrifically gruesome? What do you think?

I do have a gift—if you say something that's wrong, I'll make it actually sound like you said something right, so don't. Yes, it is a public perspective. There's a lot of shame involved in this, right? You've taken our shame. That's part of the substitution. He takes our shame. Great. What else? Why was the cross so gruesome? Yes. There had to be blood. Yes, we know from the Old Testament, through the New Testament, from Peter, even Jesus saying this, that there has to be blood. Blood has to be spilled in order for this. Yes, great. Yes. Yep. The gruesome things—not only physical. That's right. The gruesome—hey, how are you doing? Good to see you. Welcome. Did you get my tech stock? Okay, great.

Any other ideas of why the cross was so gruesome? Yes. Sin is so obscene to God. It is so offensive to God. And that's why the cross was so gruesome itself because our sin is so horrific to the Lord.

But why can God not just forget our sin? He is a God who loves us, after all. Why can he just not wipe the slate clean? We say we're sorry, everything's cool, we go about it. Why can he not do that? What's the short answer? He's a holy God.

We're trying to think of the attributes of God as we've talked about this in this class: his holiness, his justice, his love. We have a hard time thinking that he is all of these things all the time. He's not just play acting, where he's loving sometimes and just sometimes. He is loving all the time. He is just all the time. And he is a just God.

In short, penal substitutionary atonement is Jesus switching places with us. Jesus died the death we deserve. This is PSA.

Where in scripture do we see examples of God switching places with the shamed, the condemned? We talked about this a little bit. Leviticus 16—Yom Kippur, the scapegoat, right? There was a scapegoat concept where one was sacrificed and the sin was put on them and sent into the wilderness.

Where else do we see in scripture examples of God switching places with the condemned, the shamed, the guilty? We see it in the story of Abraham and Isaac, where a substitute takes Isaac's place. A ram is there, caught in the thickets.

In the New Testament, do we see it? We obviously see it at the cross, but do we see it in other places in the New Testament where God switches with the condemned? It's a little tougher. And I'm specifically speaking of the gospels—do we see any place in the gospels where Jesus switches place? Barabbas. We're going to look at Barabbas. That's perfect. Yes, Barabbas is going to be the place that we're going to look at. We're going to spend some time there.

But before we get to Barabbas, I wanted to remind you of another time. Last summer I was teaching the class and I was going through some of the literary effects of some of the stories that we have. We talked about Luke 19—the story of Zacchaeus. Does anyone remember the story of Zacchaeus?

Well, let me give you a recap. It happens in Luke 19, very close to the Passion Week, right before the cross happens. He's going through Jericho, and there's a man there named Zacchaeus. We know that he is a short man, he's very wealthy. The crowd hates Zacchaeus. They wouldn't let him see Jesus. He's a short man, so he runs ahead and climbs a sycamore fig tree so that he can see Jesus.

Jesus is passing by, and he gets to right where Zacchaeus is, and he looks up and he says, "Zacchaeus." Now, at this point in the story, if you don't know what happens, we could probably write the end of it based on our own morality. We'd say, "Zacchaeus, clean up your act. Do all this stuff. Go to the temple. Make sacrifices for your sin. You're a horrible man. Stop stealing from your own people." But that's not what Jesus does. He turns it on a dime and he says, "Zacchaeus, come down from that tree. I must stay at your house tonight."

And then it says the crowd grumbled—not against Zacchaeus, but against Jesus. He's gone to be the guest of the sinner.

There's this switching that takes place subtly: the crowd that hated Zacchaeus now hates Jesus. And then in a more profound way, Jesus, when he says, "Come down from that tree," he's saying, "Come down. There's scripture that talks about a person in a tree, anybody that's hung in a tree ashamed. Jesus is saying, 'Come down from that tree. That's my place. I'm going to go up into that tree in a week and a half. I'm going to stay in that tree. I'm going to take the shame of the world, the guilt of the world. I will switch places with you, Zacchaeus.'" So that is another subtle place that penal substitutionary atonement takes place.

But what I want to look at is the story of Barabbas. If you have your Bible—and you do, because in the front of the pew there's a Bible—turn to Matthew 27. We're going to start in verse 11.

At this point in this narrative, Jesus has been arrested. He's gone to trial. Jesus has been deserted by his friends. Peter has already denied him. Judas has already killed himself in shame. A lot of stuff has gone on with this. And we enter in verse 11.

Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus said, "You have said so." But he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?" But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge, to the great amazement of the governor.

Why is this amazing to the governor? He has the power to condemn him. But in a human sense, everybody has a defense. Even the guilty have a defense. But there's no defense here. What does this remind you of? What Old Testament passage does this remind you of?

Isaiah 53. It is a beautiful Old Testament passage talking about this very thing. We see the lamb being led to the slaughter doesn't have a defense. It just goes silently. But it's a silent sacrifice that's happening, and no defense is given, even though every defense in the world he could have given.

Do you know what Barabbas means? It means "son of a father." It is the most generic name that you can have. It's like John Smith. It's every man. Barabbas is every man. I don't think it's a coincidence that his name is Barabbas, that he is son of a father. It's like when in Young Life sometimes we'll be talking about kids, and we don't say their name, but we'll be like, "Johnny Sixpack," you know, to represent like a kid that's kind of crazy on the weekends. But this is like Barabbas—it's like every man, every woman. This is everybody. And he's representing everybody in this, even though he's one man.

We know from Luke and John that Barabbas was actually a murderer and an insurrectionist. And at just the right time, while Jesus has no defense, he keeps quiet. We see this in Isaiah 53—the Lamb of God in our place.

Now as the governor's custom was at the feast, to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd, at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you? Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?" For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.

While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have anything to do with him." This is only in Matthew's account (verse 20). But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and have Jesus executed.

"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor.

"Barabbas," they answered.

"What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked.

"Crucify him!" they all answered.

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

There's so much imagery going on here. When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd.

"I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility."

And in verse 25, all the people answered:

"Let his blood be on us and on our children."

You know what the irony is? They needed his blood to be on them and on their children, but not by their hands.

Then he released Barabbas to them, but he had Jesus flogged and handed him over to be crucified.

If there's any decency at all, which one would you release? Obviously, you would release Jesus. He's done nothing wrong, and this other guy is guilty as sin. But there are two problems with that.

First, this was the plan all along by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—that Jesus would be the one they would want to crucify, and that they would successfully crucify him.

And second, we have no decency. We would say, "Of course we would call for Jesus not to be crucified." But if we were in the crowd that day, I doubt it. I really doubt it. In fact, that's what Pilate's problem was: he wanted to satisfy the crowd. And isn't so much of what we do trying to satisfy the crowd instead of the Lord?

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

This is a perfect example of penal substitutionary atonement. When we talk about this with high school kids and we share this story when we're talking about the cross, this is one of the stories that inevitably comes up.

It's interesting when you start to look at the pattern of what's being said, and I don't think it's a coincidence. There's a crowd there, and Barabbas is not there—he's in a cell somewhere. We don't know if he's in earshot. I think Sloop might have even mentioned this not too long ago in a sermon. Pilate says to the crowd, and Barabbas can't hear Pilate speaking (he's one man), and he says:

"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?"

The crowd shouts, "Barabbas! Barabbas!" So Barabbas hears his name. And then he doesn't hear:

"What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ?" They all answered, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

If you're Barabbas, you know the end is here. It is here. And you know you deserve it. That's the other thing too—you're like, "Ah, the worst." They hear his name, and then: crucify. Pilate asks:

"Why? What crime has he committed?"

But they shout all the louder: "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!" And when they go into Barabbas' cell, he knows that this is it. He's going to be crucified. And then they let him go, and they're like, "You're free to go!" and he's like, "What?"

Just for a moment, could you imagine being in those shoes? Could you imagine being Barabbas that day, where you're like, "This is it, this is it. I've heard it. I deserve it. This is my day." And then you're released at just the right time. At just the right time, you're released.

Do you think Barabbas knew that someone took his place? Do we know that someone took our place? We think, "Oh, Barabbas should be really grateful. So should we." Because what was physically happening with Barabbas happens with us as well—every single one of us.

There is a direct correlation: the Son of Man, generically all of us, because the Son of God took his place, took your place, took my place. That is PSA.

When I say "atonement theories," what I mean is this is not a theory. PSA is not a theory. It's all throughout Scripture, and it is the foundation of all the gifts that we get from the cross. We get a lot of things from the cross. We get a lot of gifts from the cross. But they all have to flow from the fact that there was a substitutionary atonement for us.

So what did we get from the cross? Are you going to answer some of these questions? What are some of the gifts that we get from the cross?

We get somebody who died in our place. But what are some of the things that we get from that? We get forgiveness. We can't be forgiven unless there's a substitutionary atonement. We cannot be forgiven because we cannot pay that debt. What else? We get life everlasting.

And we hear that if you've been in the sermon, unless Jesus dies, we don't get him. If you haven't heard the sermon yet, you're in for a treat. We have it so good here. Yes, we get life everlasting. What else? Yes, we get adoption. I'm going to go through this succinctly.

We can't even conceptualize some of the things we get. We're trying to put words to this, and sometimes these words are so religious that our eyes glass over. But we're trying to put words to what's actually happening on the cross. We get the Holy Spirit. We get relationship. We get a direct line with the Lord. But it also enhances our relationships with each other and our relationship with ourselves. We know ourselves better because of the cross.

We dodged a bullet. We dodged the cross, right? The wages of sin is death. On a practical level, we get a wonderful celebration. We can't even imagine what that celebration is going to be like. It's going to be awesome. We get a moral example because we have to think of our cross and public. We get a moral example of how we should live our lives. I'll talk a little bit about some of the pitfalls of these ideas that come from this. Moral exemplar is one of them. Ransom theory is another one. There are certain pitfalls to those things, but they're wonderful things. We see moral exemplar at the cross. We see ransom happening at the cross, but in a different way than they originally believed the ransom actually took place.

Propitiation and Redemption

Do you know what propitiation is? It's a weird word. Most people don't use it every day. Propitiation is an appeasement of wrath. There is a propitiation that takes place on the cross. It's an appeasement of God's wrath. There is a wrath that God has for this sinfulness, this sin nature, this horrible thing that God hates, and he has an anger for it. His wrath is appeased on the cross. The irony is that his wrath is appeased by his love. It's so crazy.

Propitiation takes place in the temple. In a temple area, there's a sacrifice that takes place. The lamb is slain in the temple. The animals are slain in the temple, there's a propitiation. There is a wrath that is appeased because of God's love for us.

Let me ask you a question. Did Christ die so that God would love us or did God love us so Christ died? It matters which one is what. God loved us so Christ died. Jesus' death on a cross was not so that God would love us. Jesus' death on a cross was because God loved us. His love was the acting agent of his appeasement of his wrath.

The next thing that takes place is a redemption. We are redeemed. When you think of redemption, you think of a coupon, right? Or you think of a payment. Where would that happen? A marketplace or a store. So we have the temple propitiation. We have redemption taking place in the marketplace.

When Jesus died on a cross, he said:

"It is finished." — John 19:30

What was finished? Not Jesus, it. The mission, it was finished. Back in Jesus' time, if you owed a debt to somebody, they would put how much you owed in the market square. When you paid that off, they would write, "It is finished. The debt has been paid." There is a marketplace concept of redemption. There is also a ransom concept that comes from that as well.

Historically, the ransom theory was held by Origen in the third century. Our old church fathers had this concept early on, but they kind of missed it just a tad. They believed that Adam and Eve sold their humanity to the devil in the garden, and that the devil had a right to their humanity.

And in order to get that back, God, who for some reason was indebted to the devil, had to deceive the devil into thinking that he would actually pay this ransom to the devil in the form of Jesus, and he tricked the devil into thinking that Jesus would die, but the devil didn't know that the grave couldn't contain Jesus, so he tricked him. And that's how the ransom was paid.

There is a ransom. Jesus talked about the ransom. In Luke 10:45, he said:

"I have come not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many." — Luke 10:45

So ransom is in Scripture, but who is the ransom being paid to is the question.

The problem with the ransom theory is that we're given the devil too much power. For some reason, the Father is a debtor to the devil, which doesn't make any sense, and he had to deceive, which he does not do. But there is a ransom that is paid, but not paid to the devil. Think of it more as a purchase from the grave, a buying back. Think of the kinsman Redeemer in the Old Testament. Think of the Jubilee—animals, property, people, nations, land—they could be redeemed. If they were alienated, they could be redeemed, and we are redeemed by the cross.

In 2 Samuel 14:14, there's an obscure but beautiful picture of redemption:

"Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up, so we must die. But God does not take away life. Instead, he devises ways in which a banished person, an alienated person, a person that is not where they're supposed to be, can be brought back." — 2 Samuel 14:14

That's what happens with ransom theory. The ransom is not paid to the devil, but think of it more as a purchase of people in bondage to sin, bondage to being slaves to sin, and we are purchased back.

The Work of the Cross in Different Spheres

So we have perpetuation in the temple. We have redemption in the marketplace. The next thing is in the courtroom. We have judges that go to this church. What happens in court? You are deemed either guilty or not guilty, or you're acquitted. If you're acquitted, you are justified. The cross justifies us. We are not just changed—the bad thing is changed at redemption—but we're also given Jesus' good thing. The word is imputed. There's a double imputation that takes place. Jesus takes our bad, takes our place on the cross, takes our sin, and he gives not just that—because that wouldn't be enough, honestly—but he gives us his good. He gives us his righteousness. And it's that righteousness that the Father sees. When he looks at us, he sees his Son. It's a beautiful picture. It's a beautiful concept, and it is true that we are made righteous by Jesus' death on the cross.

Is everybody following so far? Great.

That takes place in the courtroom. So we have temple perpetuation, we have marketplace redemption or ransom, we have courtroom justification. We have one more place. Someone said something that we get from the cross. You said relationships. Where would this take place? In the home. It's called reconciliation. We now have a right relationship with the Lord. We are reconciled.

We have been reconciled to God, that he's reconciling all things to himself, and that he's given us the ministry of reconciliation. — 2 Corinthians 5

These are words that I'm not going to use, but I need to know: really, what's happening on the cross? What is the work of the cross doing in my life? It's not just some abstract thing that's taking place out there. I've accepted the cross in my own life, and Jesus's work on the cross in my own life, and it's good for me to know that I am redeemed, justified, reconciled. All of these things really do mean something, and we put them all in different places because that's how our mind works, but they're all together. It's not like I'm justified one day and redeemed another day. No, I'm all of these things, all the time in Christ.

Let me ask somebody else, "Cane, are you following me? Okay, good. So if you think about who are we to the Lord collectively? We are the bride of Christ, right? Just follow me on this for a second. We're the bride of Christ. But we're not just the bride of Christ. What else are we? We're the body of Christ. So wait, are we the body of Christ or are we the bride of Christ? Yes. And we can't put those things together in our minds because we just can't think like that, but those are both true all the time. We're the body of Christ, we're the bride of Christ.

In the same way, there are certain truths that are true that we have to kind of separate to make sense of them because our minds are finite, but they're all true all the time for us. We're redeemed. We're justified. There's been a propitiation for our sin. And the foundation of all of this is not the theory of PSA, but it is true that we have been substituted in by a perfect and blameless God and man. Jesus is man and he is God. He's not man sometimes and God sometimes. He is man all the time and he is God all the time. We can't fathom that, but we try to come up with words to try to understand it, but he is both of those all the time. That is beyond our comprehension.

Moral Exemplar

Moral exemplar is the concept or an image. It's not an atonement theory. It's an image. It's true because it's at the cross, but it's not—if you hang everything on this moral exemplar without the penal substitutionary atonement, you go in a bad place.

Moral exemplar is used a lot in liberal unorthodox churches. And what it's done is if you're not careful, if you just say that Jesus is a good example, a good moral example, and that's what you're hanging everything on, you're going to miss his divinity. You're going to miss everything. You're going to miss his miracles. You're going to miss all of these things.

He was a great example for us, of course. There are some things that he did that we cannot do and shouldn't do because they're his. But he lived a life that we should live. He served in such a beautiful way. He loved in such a wonderful way. Of course we're going to follow that example. But it can't be the foundation of our atonement. Does that make sense?

Liberal churches have said, "Oh, he didn't really feed 5,000 miraculously. He taught people how to share, right?" If you take it to its end without the penal substitutionary atonement, then you're in a bad place. However, he did say, "Be like me. Follow my example." Paul says this. Hebrews says this. He says it.

In Hebrews, just write this down: Hebrews 13:11. You can read it and have a little quiet time on that.

We talked about ransom theory already. I want to read this one thing. It's a book called The Cross of Christ by John Stott. I wish that I picked this book up earlier than I did in preparation for this. It is a beautiful book—I'll be honest with you, it's heavy. It's rich. You have to read it a bunch of times, but it is so good. I just want to read a couple of things that he talks about and kind of end our time.

Propitiation underscores the wrath of God upon us, redemption our captivity to sin, justification our guilt, and reconciliation our enmity against God and alienation from him. God's saving work was achieved through the bloodshedding, that is, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. So substitution is not a theory of atonement, nor is it even an additional image to take its place as an option alongside the others. It is rather the essence of each image and the heart of the atonement itself. Yet the responsibility of Christian teachers, preachers, and other witnesses is to seek grace to expound on it with clarity and conviction. For the better people understand the glory of the divine substitution, the easier it will be for them to trust in the substitute.

Lord, thank you for being in our place, taking our place, loving us, and restoring us back into a right relationship with you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

All right, guys, if you are staying for the second service, you're in for a treat. We have a really good one. Guys, who's got it better than us? Peace.