jl@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (John Launchbury) (06/07/90)
Let me add a few thoughts to the "in what way does Christ's death help us" discussion. I think the notion that the death of Christ *payed* for our sin has to be taken very carefully. If Christ actually payed off the debt of our sin, in the sense of clearing the debt, then there is no room for God's forgiveness. God can only forgive if there is still something to forgive. Now, without a doubt, the debt *has* been cleared, but this is by the undeserved grace of God in forgiveness. What then did the death of Christ achieve? In both Romans and 1 Corinthians, Paul draws a contrast between Adam and Christ. These two are the heads of contrasting families: you either belong to the family of Adam, or to the family of Christ. Those who are Adam's set their hearts on following Adam, and those who are Christ's set their heart on following Christ. Adam's family is destined for death, Christ's for life. Jesus' death was not merely Calvary, but was a consistent feature of this life: he gave up his *whole* life to God. Thus Christ's death must be seen in conjunction with his life which was one of giving himself. Calvary was the completion of this, showing that he recognised that even life itself must be subjected to the will of God. Paul makes the point that, spiritually, we must follow Christ (Rom 6 v 2,5,6). Thus Crist did not die *instead* of us -- we must each die with him (though for us it is a spiritual death). The part of us that belongs to Adam must die, it could not live in the coming Kingdom of God. By putting our trust and hope in Christ (these are major components of faith) God freely forgives us and clothes us with righteousness. This is not our own because our feeble efforts produce only dirty rags, but it is the righteousness of Christ himself. Thus the resurection of Jesus is absolutely essential to the process. If Christ died and stayed dead then there is no benefit in our dying with him -- it achieves nothing. However, Christ *has* been raised from the dead as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15 v 20), and God has promised that if we have faith in Christ (that is, an active faith -- see Gal 5 v 6 and Jas 2) then we also will be raised from the dead just as Christ was. As Hebrews 2 makes plain, Jesus went before us as a Captain and in himself destroyed both sin and death. Two final points. Many people have said that once God declared a punishment he could not retract it. This is not strictly true. Consider the parable Jesus taught of the debtor whose debt was forgiven simply because he asked for forgiveness. The same is true for us. By fixing our eyes on Jesus, who both originates and completes our faith, we appeal to God for forgiveness (indeed we enter into a covenant, or agreement, in which our sin is not counted against us) and God forgives (there are other examples of God not bringing judgement - read the book of Jonah for example). Secondly, "Jesus descended into hell" has been stated a couple of times. This is true when "hell" is understood to refer to the grave and nothing more (NIV consistently translates the Hebrew "sheol" as "grave", and as has already been pointed out, the Greek "hades" is simply the place where the dead are). Quite simply, Jesus was dead. [Paul contrasts the results of Adam's sin with the results of Christ's death. It's not clear that this involves separate families. He seems to be implying that salvation from Christ undoes the effects of Adam's sin. In that case, we would be members of both Adam's family and Christ's, but Christ's would supercede Adam's. --clh]