ISBN 978-1-898444-13-7

9 781898 444138

BookSalvation by Grace(11mm).indd 1 05/01/2009 12:19

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Salvation by Grace
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The Sword of the Spirit series:

1 Effective Prayer
2 Knowing the Spirit
3 The Rule of God
4 Living Faith
5 Glory in the Church
6 Ministry in the Spirit
7 Knowing the Father
8 Reaching the Lost
9 Listening to God
10 Knowing the Son
11 Salvation by Grace
12 Worship in Spirit and Truth

www.swordofthespirit.co.uk

Copyright © 2008, 1998 by Colin Dye

Second edition
Kensington Temple
KT Summit House
100 Hanger Lane
London, W5 1EZ
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written
consent of the author.
Scriptural quotations, unless otherwise stated, are from the New King
James Version. Thomas Nelson Inc. 1991.
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Sword of the Spirit

Salvation by Grace

Colin Dye
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Contents
Introduction 7
1 Holiness, sin and forgiveness 11
2 Self-consistency 25
3 Substitution and sacrifice 37
4 Covenants of grace 57
5 Salvation and atonement 71
6 Salvation and revelation 85
7 Salvation and victory 99
8 Salvation and new life 117
9 By grace through faith 131

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Introduction
The little word ‘save’ is one of the most common verbs in the
English language. Every day, we all use it dozens of times in
association with words like time, money, goals, fuel, animals,
stamps, paper, inner cities, computer work, derelict buildings,
drowning people, and so on.
But even though we use ‘save’ in an amazingly wide variety
of contexts, its general meaning is clear. To save something
means to preserve it, to rescue it, to reclaim it, to deliver it
from danger or to prevent it from falling into misuse.
When it comes to Christianity, however, the meaning of ‘save’
can seem less clear. Although most believers understand that
‘being saved’ means being preserved, rescued, reclaimed,
delivered and brought to life, many are not sure how this happens,
why it happens, and what its consequences are in human life.
The basic idea of salvation is easy to grasp: God finds the
lost, gives new life to the dead, cleanses the dirty, forgives the
guilty, turns the defeated into victors, releases the imprisoned,
and so on. But the why, how and so what of salvation involve
some very hard thinking.
New believers instinctively know what the simple word ‘to
save’ means, but they soon realise that a host of technical words
are associated with ‘being saved’. Many are bewildered until
somebody explains the differences between, for example,
atonement, covenant, election, glorification, judgement,
justification, predestination, propitiation, redemption,
regeneration, sanctification, and so on.
Although these technical words can confuse believers, the
important ideas behind them shape the way that we think
about salvation, the way that we experience salvation, and the

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way that we reach out to others with the good news of

salvation. After all, these were not technical words in their
original context, but everyday words in the language and
culture of the New Testament.
If we do not work hard to grasp the full biblical why, how and
so what of salvation, we are bound to move away from the
totally God-focused view of biblical salvation and to start to
think and speak about it in an unhelpful human-centred way.
This is a book for believers who are eager to study God’s
Word to learn about salvation, and are keen to discover God’s
revelation about the purpose and nature of Christ’s death, the
means by which it is made effective, and the results of his death
in human life.
There is additional material available to facilitate your learning,
which can be found in the respective Sword of the Spirit Student’s
Handbook and on the website www.swordofthespirit.co.uk. In the
handbook there is a complementary study guide for each
chapter, along with Discussion questions and Quick quizzes. After
signing up for this module on the website, you will be able to
access more quizzes and exams. There is also a Webtool (the
book text with embedded links to bible references), and
comprehensive audio and video teaching. Using these additional
materials will help you test, retain and apply the knowledge you
have learnt in this book.
You will also be able to use the Student’s Handbook with small
groups. You may wish to prayerfully select those parts that you
think are most relevant for your group. This would mean that at
some meetings you might use all the material whilst at others
you might use only a small part. Please use your common sense
and spiritual insight. Please feel free to photocopy these pages
and distribute them to any group you are leading.
By the time you finish this book, it is my prayer that you
will have a far better understanding of fallen human nature, of
the wonderful person and work of Christ, and of the way that

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Introduction

the cross dominates and unites the whole Bible from Genesis
to Revelation.
Even more than this, I pray that you will be overwhelmed
by the infinite grace of God, which has worked in salvation at
so much cost; and that you will respond to this grace by living
out your salvation in such a way that you draw others to his
grace for themselves.
Colin Dye

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Part One
Holiness, sin and forgiveness
Jesus’ famous story about a lost son, in Luke 15:11–32,
illustrates God’s story of salvation: the heavenly Father’s
unconditional grace in saving undeserving sinners.
The father was looking and waiting long before his son
returned home; and, as soon as he saw his son, he rushed out
to welcome him with passionate, generous joy – without a
question about his motives or misdeeds. The son found
repentance in the father’s arms of acceptance. The father’s
unconditional forgiveness melted the boy’s heart and resulted
in a total change in his behaviour. This shows that changed
behaviour is a consequence, not a cause, of forgiveness.
The parable is a gripping celebration of divine grace at work
in human salvation. It points to the generosity of our heavenly
Father who forgives us, in exactly the same way, when we
return as lost sons to him. The parable reveals the
unconditional love and undeserved favour God shows us when
he saves us, but it does not elaborate on the sacrificial cost of
such forgiveness. The father in the story apparently forgives his
son without the payment of a price, either by the son or a third
party substitute. Some people, therefore, find it difficult to
understand why divine forgiveness depends on Christ’s death,
and wonder why God does not forgive us – like the father in
the parable appears to do so – without a costly sacrifice.
We must remember that Jesus, who told this parable, was
on his way to die on the cross, and to become the substitute
sacrifice for the sins of the world, thus making it possible for the
Father to forgive, fully and freely, all those who return to him.
People who question the need for the cross have not grasped
either the seriousness of human sin or the holiness of God.

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They have not appreciated the scale of the confrontation

between human rebellion and divine perfection. In fact, the
Bible implies that human sin is an immovable object which is
faced with the irresistible force of God’s holy wrath.
This means that there is a harder question to ask about
salvation than ‘Why does God need the cross to forgive us?’ The
most difficult issue to resolve can be considered from two sides:
How can God show his love in forgiving sinners
without destroying his holiness?
And, how can God show his holiness in punishing
sin without abandoning his love?

Human sin
The New Testament uses four main Greek words for sin.
Although these are largely synonymous, they carry slightly different
shades of meaning which help us to understand the subtle and
complex nature of sin. All the words convey the idea of failing to
match God’s perfect standard, and they describe deeds and
attitudes which separate us from each other and from God.
Hamartia
Hamartia is the most common word for sin. It is sometimes
used for outer sinful acts, but more commonly describes the
inner state of sinfulness. It is the irresistible inner moral power
which controls us.
Hamartia depicts sin as missing a target and failing to attain a
goal. It points to both inner disobedience which cannot say ‘yes’
to God and outer nonconformity to his standards. These
deeply affect our relationship with the holy God; until all our
hamartia is removed, we are eternally alienated from him.
Hamartia is used, for example, in Matthew 12:31; John 8:21,
24, 34, 46; 9:41; 15:22, 24; 19:11; Acts 7:60; Romans 3:9;
5:12–13, 20–21; 6:1, 2, 6, 12–13, 14, 16–18, 20, 22–23; 7:5,
7–9, 11, 13–14, 17, 20, 23, 25; 8:2–3; 1 Corinthians 15:56;
Hebrews 3:13; 9:26; 10:6, 8; 11:25; 12:4; 13:11; James 1:15;
2:9; 4:17; 5:15, 20; 1 John 1:7–9; 3:4–5, 8–9 & 5:16–17.

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Paraptoma
Most Bible versions translate paraptoma as ‘trespass’ or
‘offence’. This means a ‘false step’ or ‘blunder’, a falling away
from what is true and right. Paraptoma emphasises the
thoughtless, careless nature of sin.
Paraptoma is used in Matthew 6:14–15; 18:35; Mark
11:25–26; Romans 4:25; 5:15–18, 20; 11:11–12;
2 Corinthians 5:19; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 1:7; 2:1, 5;
Colossians 2:13 & James 5:16.
Parabasis
Parabasis stresses the wilful, deliberate side of sin. It means
‘overstepping’ rather than ‘stumbling’, and is a deliberate
deviation from the true path, a pre-meditated breaking of
the law. It is translated as ‘transgression’ in most versions of
the Bible.
Parabasis is used in Romans 2:23; 4:15; 5:14; Galatians
3:19; 1 Timothy 2:14, Hebrews 2:2 & 9:15.
Anomia
Anomia means ‘lawlessness’, ‘wickedness’ or ‘iniquity’, and
refers to the opposite of whatever is right and good. It is used
in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 to show that lawless iniquity is the
opposite of God.
Anomia is used in Matthew 7:23; 13:41; 23:28; 24:12;
Romans 4:7; 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:14; 2 Thessalonians 2:7;
Titus 2:14; Hebrews 1:9; 10:17 & 1 John 3:4.
Other words
The New Testament occasionally uses some other Greek
words to describe particular facets of sin. For example:
adikia; unrighteousness, or not being or doing right
– Luke 13:27; 16:8; 18:6; Acts 1:18; 8:23;
2 Timothy 2:19 & James 3:6
adikema; an iniquity, misdeed or wrong-doing –
Acts 18:14; 24:20 & Revelation 18:5

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poneria; a terrible wickedness – Matthew 22:18;

Mark 7:22; Luke 11:39; Romans 1:29 &
1 Corinthians 5:8
paranomia; law-breaking – 2 Peter 2:16
opheilema; indebtedness – Matthew 6:12 &
Romans 4:4
aition or aitia; fault or crime – Luke 23:4, 14, 22;
John 18:38; 19:4 & 6.
Sin
All these Greek words imply an ideal – either an objective
standard that we fail to match or a boundary which we cross
deliberately or casually.
The Bible assumes that God established this ideal, and that
his holy nature is itself the ideal – not some list of rules which
are exterior to his being. As God made humanity in his image,
his personal standard must also be our human standard. We
see this in Romans 2:15.
The Bible teaches much about sin, and always stresses its
extreme seriousness. It shows that sin is a failure to love God
with all our being, and a refusal to acknowledge and obey him
as Creator and Lord.
As created beings, men and women are essentially
dependent on God. Sin, therefore, is an action and an attitude
of independence or self-dependence. It is implicitly hostile to
God as Creator and Lord, and is always essentially an active
rebellion against him.
Many sinful actions may appear to hurt only those people
who are affected by the deeds. For example, it might seem that
David’s sin with Bathsheba, in 2 Samuel 11, was directed
against Uriah and Michal. But sin primarily expresses our
personal rebellion against God – this is the deep truth which
David’s confession recognises in Psalm 51:4.
The Bible develops this understanding of sin as essentially
affecting God by showing that it is:

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Universal to all humanity – Romans 1–3

Both internal attitudes & external actions – Mark
7:21–23; Romans 1:29–31; 7:7; 13:13;
1 Corinthians 5:10–13; 6:9–10; 2 Corinthians
12:20–21; Galatians 5:19–21; Ephesians 4:31;
5:3–5; Colossians 3:5–8; 1 Timothy 1:9–10;
2 Timothy 3:2–3 & Titus 3:3
Enslavement to Satan, God’s enemy – 1 John
3:8–10
A slave-master – Romans 6:16–17
Rebellion against God – Luke 15:11–32
Alienation from God – John 7:7; Romans 5:10;
James 4:4 & 1 John 2:16
Unbelief in God – John 5:24 & 16:9
Blindness & darkness towards God – John 1:4–9;
8:12 & 1 John 2:8–9
Lawlessness – Romans 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:14 &
1 John 3:4
Indebtedness to God – Matthew 6:12 & Colossians
2:14
Falsehood about God – Romans 1:18, 25;
Ephesians 4:25; 2 Thessalonians 2:11–12 &
1 Timothy 6:5
Deviation from God – Romans 2:23
Disobedience to God – John 3:36; Romans 11:30
& Ephesians 2:2
Merits condemnation by God – Matthew 12:36;
Luke 12:47–48 & Matthew 11:20–24
Leads to death and eternal separation from God –
Romans 6:21–23; 7:13 & 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
The Bible makes it clear that no man and no woman – with
the single exception of Jesus – is as they were made to be;
nobody matches God’s ideal standard. Different parts of the

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Scriptures describe this in slightly different ways, but the overall

picture is clear. Humans are born into a state of alienation from
God – the human free will is biased towards evil from birth.
Humanity has rebelled against God; it has disobeyed God’s
laws; it has allowed itself to come into a bondage to sin from
which it cannot escape by its own efforts. As a result, humanity
is blind to its potential and ignorant of God. This is most clearly
expressed by the human refusal to believe in Christ – who
alone can rescue us from sin, reconcile us with God and
restore us to our rightful state.
Responsibility
Genesis 3:1–13 tells the story of the first human sin, and relates
how Adam and Eve tried to evade their personal responsibility
for their sin: Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent.
Since Eden, people have always tried to blame someone or
something for their sin – genes, hormones, upbringing, society,
circumstances, and so on. Despite this, every legal system has
always been based on the assumption that we are free to
choose and are responsible for our choices.
Some people argue that we are merely animals at the
mercy of our instincts, while others maintain that we are
genetically programmed to perform and respond in particular
ways, or that we are helpless prisoners of our social and
psychological conditioning.
Nevertheless, every facet of human society has always
functioned around the general recognition that men and
women are free agents with choice and personal responsibility.
All human persuasion (politics, advertising, education,
evangelism, and so on), all human praise, and all human blame
assume the concept of personal choice and responsibility.
The Bible recognises that there is a tension between the
pressures which influence us and our responsibility for our
actions and attitudes. It teaches that we have inherited a fallen
nature from Adam, and that we are slaves to this sinful nature,

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the world and its ideas, and demonic forces. But it also
maintains that we are responsible and accountable to God for
our choices and actions.
The Scriptures show that God knows what we are like and
that he understands the pressures upon us. As a result, he is
patient and gentle with us, he does not treat us as our sins
deserve, and he distinguishes between the sins that we commit
in ignorance and those that we commit deliberately. We see
this in Psalm 103:10–14; Isaiah 42:1–3; Matthew 12:15–21;
Luke 23:34; Acts 3:17 & 1 Timothy 1:13.
Even though the Bible recognises that in and of ourselves
we cannot resist sin, God’s Word makes it plain that we remain
morally responsible beings. It stresses that we have free moral
choice, it urges us to obey God, and it corrects us when we
disobey him. Passages like Deuteronomy 30:15–20 & Joshua
24:15 illustrate our personal responsibility for our choices.
The Bible holds together in creative tension the two parallel
truths of God’s sovereignty and our human responsibility: Jesus
declares them both equally – for example, in John 5:40 & 6:44
– and so must we. Whenever we wonder why somebody
ignores God’s precious message of salvation, we must
remember the Scriptures teach that they ‘will not’ come to
Christ and that they ‘cannot’ come to him. It is both, not either
or. We consider this important paradox in Part Eight.
Personal responsibility is a precious gift of God’s sovereign
grace. It is the gift which makes us uniquely human. In fact,
responsibility is the essence of humanity, and is the essential
explanation and rationale for the Day of Judgement. Ultimately,
if we were not personally responsible for our actions and
attitudes, there could be no meaningful judgement.
This shows that, despite our inherited fallen nature, despite
the power of Satan, despite the pressure of upbringing, social
environment and genetics, we are personally responsible for
our sinful thoughts and deeds, for our disobedience and
presumption, and for all our choices and decisions.

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Divine holiness
In Knowing the Father and Knowing the Spirit, we consider the
biblical teaching that the triune God is essentially holy. We see
this in:
The Father – Luke 1:49; John 17:11; 1 Peter
1:15–16; Revelation 4:8 & 6:10
The Son – Luke 1:35; Acts 3:14; 4:27–30 & 1 John
2:20
The Spirit – 2 Timothy 1:14; Titus 3:5; 2 Peter 1:21
& Jude 20.
The word ‘holy’ has exclusively moral associations for many
people: they think that holiness just means being well-behaved.
But the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘holy’, qadosh and hagios,
are functional words which mean ‘totally separated to a single
purpose’ and ‘devoted or consecrated to a particular cause’.
The triune God is ‘holy’ in the sense that he is totally
separated from all creation by his exalted, eternal, infinite,
sinless, morally perfect and spiritual nature: he is ‘wholly other’,
‘wholly beyond’.
This means that the ‘holiness’ of God is the consequence of
the sum of his attributes rather than a particular attribute, and it
is this which sets him apart from all creation. We see this, for
example, in Exodus 3:5; Leviticus 19:2; Isaiah 6:2–3; 57:15 &
1 John 1:5.
The members of the Trinity, however, are also ‘holy’ in the
sense that they are totally devoted to each other. For example,
we can say that Jesus reveals his holiness in his consecration to
the Father; and that the Spirit reveals his holiness in the way he
exists to bring glory only to Jesus. Their absolute commitment
to each other is their holiness.
Sin is incompatible with God’s full nature, with his holiness,
and this effectively separates us from God. The Bible makes it
clear that nobody can set eyes upon God’s face and survive –

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even those who glimpse his glory are unable to endure the
sight. We see this, for example, in Exodus 3:6; Isaiah 6:1–5; Job
42:5–6; Ezekiel 1:28; Daniel 10:9; Luke 5:8 & Revelation 1:17.
God’s holy response to sin is called his ‘wrath’. God’s wrath is
nothing like human anger; instead it is his holy inability to co-exist
with sin and his continuous condemnation of sin. By its nature,
God’s holiness always exposes sin and his wrath always opposes
it. Sin cannot approach God, and God cannot tolerate sin.
The Bible uses four metaphors to underline this truth. For
example:
God is often identified as ‘high’ or ‘the Most High’.
This name expresses his transcendence and stresses
that he is wholly beyond us. We see this in Genesis
14:18–22; Psalm 7:17; 9:2; 21:7; 46:4; 47:2; 57:2;
83:18; 92:8; 93:4; 113:4; Daniel 3:26; 4:2–34;
5:18–21; 7:18–27; Hosea 7:16; 11:7 & Micah 6:6.
God often warns people not to come too close to
him. The arrangements for the Tabernacle and
Temple showed that God was among his people, but
that they dare not come too close. Sinners cannot
approach the holy God with impunity. We see this in
Exodus 3:5; 19:3–25; 20:24; 29:45–46; Leviticus
16; Numbers 1:51–53; Joshua 3:4; 1 Samuel 6:19;
2 Samuel 6:6–7; Matthew 7:23 & 25:41.
God is sometimes described in terms of
unapproachable light and all-consuming fire – for
example, Deuteronomy 4:24; 1 Timothy 6:16;
Hebrews 10:27–31; 12:29 & 1 John 1:5.
God’s rejection of evil is occasionally likened to the
human body’s rejection of poison by vomiting. God
cannot tolerate sin and hypocrisy; they are so
utterly repulsive to him that he must expel them
from his presence. We see this in Leviticus
18:25–28; 20:22–23 & Revelation 3:16.

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These metaphors illustrate the complete incompatibility of

holiness and sin. As a result of the totality of God’s nature, his
holiness, God cannot be in the presence of sin. If sin
approaches God too closely, it is either consumed or repulsed.
Our understanding of God must include the revelation that
he hates evil, is disgusted and angered by it, and cannot accept
it. And our understanding of salvation must incorporate both
the gravity of sin and the brightness of God’s glorious holiness.
We will not appreciate our need of the cross if we minimise
sin and think of it in terms of rare lapses rather than constant
rebellion. And we will be puzzled by the cross if we think that
God is an indulgent Father rather than an indignant Creator.

Forgiveness
When we finally grasp the seriousness of our sin, and the
extent of our personal responsibility, we can begin to
appreciate the wonderful grace of forgiveness. But when we
understand the awesome magnificence of God’s holiness, and
the full extent of his wrath against sin, we are bound to start to
wonder whether forgiveness of sin can really be possible.
At a superficial level, it may seem natural to enquire why
God does not act like the father in the parable of the prodigal
son appeared to do. But when we think more deeply, we soon
realise that forgiveness is by far the hardest act that a holy God
could ever perform – much harder than uncomplicated actions
like creation and resurrection.
Human sin and divine wrath both stand in the way of our
salvation. God must respect us as the responsible beings that he
has made in his image; and he must also act consistently with his
own nature as a perfectly holy God. Parts Three to Eight
describe how God has dealt with this holy dilemma and has
accomplished our salvation – in Christ, on the cross, by his grace.
Amazingly, the Bible promises that God forgives every
aspect of human sin – hamartia, Colossians 1:14; paraptoma,
Colossians 2:13; parabasis, Hebrews 9:15; anomia, Titus 2:14;

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and so on. Furthermore, the Scriptures show that God’s

forgiveness has four distinct aspects:
He remits the punishment due to the presence of
sin and removes the barrier which exists between
himself and each member of humanity. This is
freedom from the penalty of sin.
He removes the offence and erases its memory. He
covers the deeds done so that they cannot be seen
or remembered by him again. This is freedom from
the guilt of sin.
He destroys the life of the sin force in a spiritual
operation which overcomes the moral compulsion
to do wrong. This is freedom from the power of sin.
He eradicates sin, removing it from the root and
destroys its every effect on us morally, spiritually,
emotionally, socially and physically. This is freedom
from the presence of sin which will be experienced
in the future life.
Human forgiveness
In everyday life, human forgiveness is an active process which
goes on inside the mind of someone who has been hurt or
wronged. When we forgive someone, we knock down the
barrier between us and the culprit so that we are free to relate
amicably again.
True human forgiveness is much more than not taking
revenge against someone who has hurt us, more than merely
ignoring a hurt, and more than just not punishing a person for
their wrong.
Real forgiveness involves a change which starts in our
thoughts, then expresses itself in our actions, and finally
reshapes our feelings. We sweep the fault away from our
thoughts, and end its negative influence on our actions and
emotions. We may still be aware of the fault, but it not longer
counts as something which matters to us.

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Before forgiveness, the fault provoked a barrier of

resentment, anger, mistrust, dislike, and so on. After
forgiveness has been given and received, those who were
estranged can move on to live in peace.
Divine forgiveness
Human forgiveness is not a miniature replica of God’s
forgiveness. The Bible shows God forgiving men and women
with such a depth, and to such an extent, that even the best
example of human forgiveness is only a faint echo or feeble
imitation of God’s forgiveness.
The Bible complements this, however, by also describing
the way that God moves against sin with all the passion of his
wrath. Therefore divine forgiveness also involves God’s just
removal of the offense itself.
Somehow, we must resist the temptation to focus on only
one of these truths – forgiveness and justice exist together, and
both lose their meaning when separated. Most human parents
soon learn that love and fairness must exist alongside each
other if they are to care for their children properly!
Whenever the holy God encounters evil, he must respond
against it: for love must confront evil with purity if it is to remain
love. God would not be more loving if he did not punish sin in
the act of forgiving it – he would be neither loving nor just to
do so, and would be denying his own nature as God.
Yet, despite the sin against which God’s indignation blazes,
the Father takes the amazing step of grace and receives sinful
people as his intimate friends. This can seem too easy, too
good to be true – especially when we realise how strongly the
holy God condemns our sinful lusts and selfish thoughts. But
this mixture of forgiveness and condemnation is the heart of
salvation – and is always seen in Jesus. It is in him that divine
forgiveness personally appears and approaches.
Divine forgiveness is an inexplicable gift of pure love to
unworthy sinners which contains the solution to humanity’s
deepest problems. As we see in Knowing the Father, God takes
the initiative. ‘Our Father, Our Redeemer’ makes the first

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move. The Judge of all humanity brings guilty sinners into the
enjoyment of the Father’s love – provided that they choose to
be brought in and respond willingly to his love. But even this
willingness is a provision of his grace.
The Father’s grace
Many believers hear more about the price of forgiveness and
the cost of salvation than about the free-and-overflowing grace
of the Father who, in his passionate desire for the homecoming
of sinners, gave up his only Son.
We do not need to understand everything about salvation
to receive it. We are not required to appreciate the full cost
of forgiveness before we can benefit from it – we can learn
about this later.
In fact, the only condition of forgiveness is that we
respond to the Father’s grace with humble, outstretched
arms and a thankful, joyful heart. We simply come to the
Father, like the lost son in the parable, and take God at his
word. This is another vital key to understanding God’s
salvation by grace.
If we do not look to the Father and his grace, if he is not the
focus of our faith and salvation, we may present a message
which suggests that the best people can hope for is that God
can be persuaded into some sort of uncomfortable tolerance
of sinners by Jesus.
We may think that returning sons and daughters still need to
keep their distance from the Father, and that our gratitude
should be showered upon Jesus for somehow twisting the
Father’s arm to allow us into a back-room of the family home
as the lowest form of servant.
This sort of unbiblical thinking leads to passivity, fear, self-
condemnation, low expectations, a lack of boldness, and
legalism. This may have been how the prodigal son felt while
he was trudging home. His prepared speech suggests that he
was not truly repentant on his way home – he still did not
believe in the goodness of his father and was therefore still lost,
alienated from his father.

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But of course, this does not represent the father in Jesus’

parable, and it is a twisted caricature of the heavenly Father
who sent his Son into a far country to make a way home, and
who is now waiting with longing to usher us into his presence
as sons and daughters with unconditional grace and uninhibited
celebration.
To be a believer is to know that the Father has defined our
identity through the cross and that he now calls us his sons and
daughters. He beckons us to come forward and receive the
inheritance of our salvation – the robe of sonship, the ring of
authority, the sandals of freedom, and so on.
It is this free grace of the Father which initiates the sending
of the Son and sets up salvation – so that the Father may open
his arms and welcome the multitudes of children who are
brought to glory by the Son through the Spirit.

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Part Two
Self-consistency
When people ask why Jesus’ death on the cross was really
necessary for salvation, Christians have traditionally used the
language of ‘satisfaction’ in their answers.
Although the words ‘satisfy’ and ‘satisfaction’ do not appear
in the Bible in relation to the cross, church leaders in every
century and tradition have always maintained that some sort of
‘satisfaction’ was necessary before the holy God could forgive
sin. But they have always disagreed about what or who was
satisfied – and why.
Satan satisfied
Right from the time of the Greek Church in the second
century, some leaders have insisted that the death of Christ on
the cross was the price which Satan demanded for the release
of his captives, and that Christ endured the cross to satisfy the
devil’s rights.
However, just as some believers ignore Satan or under-
estimate his power, so this idea over-estimates his power and
authority. Although the devil did hold humanity captive from
Eden to the cross, and he was lord of sin and death, and Jesus
did come to liberate us from him, Satan has always been only
a rebel and a usurper. He may have gained some ‘rights’ over
humanity through sin, but he has never acquired any rights
which God has ‘needed’ to ‘satisfy’.
In Part Seven, we consider the full extent of the devil’s
defeat at Calvary. While we must remember that Jesus has
triumphed decisively, and has delivered us from Satan’s
bondage, we should not think that Satan had a right which God
was obliged to satisfy.

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The Law satisfied

Since Ambrose (a fourth century Latin ‘Father’), there have
always been Christians who explain the cross by insisting that
the Law needed to be satisfied. They argue that sin disregards
and disobeys God’s Law, and that sinners incur an automatic
penalty by breaking the Law.
They insist that the Law had to be upheld and its penalties
paid – sinners could not simply be ‘let off’. The cross, therefore,
was necessary to satisfy the requirements of the Law.
These believers often use Daniel 6 to support their
argument. Although King Darius respected Daniel and wanted
to save him, the Persian law had to take its course – the penalty
had to be paid. In the same way, they argue, God loves sinners
and longs to save us, but he cannot violate the Law which has
condemned us – hence the cross.
But God is not caught like Darius in some technical muddle,
whereby he is almost tricked into the cross; and the Law is not
an inflexible legal code with automatic penalties which
determine God’s actions. The Law is not some absolute code,
external to God which he is bound to satisfy. It is God’s nature,
not his Law that, in the final analysis, must be satisfied.
There is some truth in this emphasis on the Law, for
Galatians 3:10–13 plainly teaches that Christ redeemed us
from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us. The
penalty of the Law had to be met, but this is not the same as
teaching that the Law itself needed to be satisfied.
Just as our deliverance from Satan does not mean that he
had rights which God had to satisfy, so our release from the
Law does not mean that it had demands which God had to
satisfy. Redemption and victory are consequences of the cross,
not its essential causes.
In Knowing the Son, we see that submission was at the heart
of Jesus’ sonship. At one level, we can say that Jesus’
submission to the Law was indispensable to our rescue from its
condemnation – for he both fulfilled the demands of the Law

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Self-consistency

and endured its condemnation. The deeper truth, however, is

that Jesus submitted to the person of the Father rather than to
the principles of the Law; and that his submission to the Law in
fulfilment and endurance was merely a consequence of his
personal submission to the Father.
Just as God owed Satan no duty, so he was not held
prisoner by the Law. The truth is that God was the Creator of
the Law, and the Law condemns sin only because it has its
source in the holy God.
In Living Faith and Listening to God, we see that every Word
from God is a self-revelation of God. This means that the holy
Law reveals the holy God: the demands of the Law – including
its condemnation and curse of sin – cannot be separated from
the nature of God himself.
This suggests that it is probably far more accurate to think in
terms of the holy God needing personally to be satisfied, than
it is to stress that an independent, impersonal set of rules
somehow had to be satisfied.
God’s honour and justice satisfied
Today, most evangelicals believe that God owed nothing to the
devil except punishment for his rebellion, but that humanity
owed something to God. They identify this as the debt which
needed to be paid, to be satisfied, on the cross. We consider
this in Part Five.
Some leaders portray God as the Victim of sin and explain the
cross in terms of satisfying God’s ‘honour’ – an idea which began
with Anselm, an eleventh Century Archbishop of Canterbury.
Others present God as the Judge of sin and explain the
cross in terms of satisfying his ‘justice’. This idea began in the
thirteenth century with Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, was
developed after the Reformation by Calvin and Cranmer, and
was incorporated into the Westminster Confession in 1647.
Leaders who stress God’s ‘honour’ argue that, by our sin
(by not acknowledging God as Lord, and not submitting fully to
him) we have stolen the honour due to God. And, because of

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his holiness, God cannot ignore this theft. They reason that, if
we are to be forgiven, we must repay the stolen honour. But
we cannot. Our present obedience cannot make up for our
past sins, because this is required of us anyway, and no other
sinner can make satisfaction for us.
They say that, in his grace, God sent Jesus as a ‘fully-God,
fully-human’ being to offer his sinless life to satisfy the offended
honour of God, and they conclude that Jesus’ gracious offering
of his absolute perfection repaid the honour which humanity
had stolen.
Those who focus on God as Judge, and stress the
satisfaction of his justice, maintain that there is a fundamental
and irreconcilable disagreement between God’s righteousness
and our unrighteousness.
They insist that God’s constant holy wrath against the sin of
the whole world needs to be placated, exhausted, satisfied;
and that the Father sent the ‘fully-God, fully-human’ sinless Son
to satisfy the demands of God’s justice against sin and make
forgiveness possible.
Of course, most Christians do not stick rigidly to one idea
about satisfaction. For example, many teach that the demands of
God’s Law were satisfied by Christ’s perfect obedience in his life
and death, and that God’s justice was also satisfied by his perfect
sacrifice for sin which bore the Law’s penalty in his death.

God himself
The truth, however, is that – on their own – each one of these
ideas is an inadequate explanation of satisfaction. It is surely not
the Law, or divine honour or holy justice which needs to be
satisfied, but God himself. He is not just the dishonoured Victim
of sin, or only the disregarded Law-Maker, or simply the dutiful
Judge condemning sin – he is all of them, and more.
The problem with speaking about satisfying Law, honour,
justice, and so on, is that we can suggest that God is controlled
by something which is exterior to him. It is God himself, in the

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Self-consistency

total fullness (the absolute holiness) of his personal being, who

needs to be satisfied – not a particular aspect of God or a code
or quality which is outside of him. Sin is both primarily and
ultimately offense against God, and it is this offence that must
be dealt with – satisfied. The Bible often describes salvation in
forensic or legal terms, because you cannot satisfy God without
satisfying his justice. But we must constantly bear in mind that
the cross took place to satisfy God’s nature and character in
every respect.
Self-consistency
Some people react against the idea of divine self-satisfaction
because of its unpleasant human counterpart. They think that
those who try to satisfy themselves lack self-control, and that
those who express self-satisfaction lack humility.
God, however, is perfect: he has absolute self-control and
infinite humility. This means that divine self-satisfaction is
entirely different from human self-satisfaction.
When we say that God must satisfy himself we mean that
he must be himself, that he must be true to his nature, that he
must act consistently with the perfection of his nature.
The Scriptures stress that God cannot disown himself,
cannot contradict himself, cannot lie. He is never arbitrary,
unpredictable or capricious. He is always true to himself,
always consistent with his nature, always ‘all-himself’. We see
this, for example, in Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 89:33;
2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2 & Hebrews 6:18.
The Bible underlines God’s self-satisfaction, his self-
consistency, in four main ways. These show that God judges
sinners simply because he must – he must remain true to
himself and be perfectly ‘self-consistent’.
1. The provocation of God
In the Old Testament, God describes himself as being
‘provoked’ to anger and jealousy by Israel’s idolatry, and the
prophets frequently repeat this idea. ‘Provoke’ means to ‘call

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forth a response’. Sin calls forth a response from God: his holy
wrath. This means that anger does not reside in God’s nature.
Rather, it is a reaction of God’s nature – it is his righteous
reaction against sin. Wrath must be provoked in God – called
forth – by sin. The Hebrew word is kaac and implies that
human beings can affect the very heart of God so as to cause
him heat, pain, or grief to various degrees of intensity. We see
this, for example, in Deuteronomy 32:16–21; Judges 2:12;
1 Kings 15:30; 21:22; 2 Kings 17:17; 22:17; Psalm 78:58;
Jeremiah 32:30–32; Ezekiel 8:17 & Hosea 12:14.
This does not mean that God was irritated by Israel’s
behaviour. The biblical language of provocation merely
expresses God’s inevitable response to evil. Within God, there
is a holy intolerance of sin – especially idolatry. Whenever and
wherever sin occurs, it always ‘provokes’ God’s wrath.
God is never provoked without a good reason. Only sin
provokes him – and it must provoke him if God is to be and
behave like God. Quite simply, if God was not provoked by the
opposite of his nature, he would not be God.
2. God’s burning wrath
The Scriptures often describe God’s anger in terms of ‘burning’,
‘kindling’, ‘consuming’, ‘raging’, and so on. Passages like Joshua
7:1; 23:16; Judges 3:8; 2 Samuel 24:1; 2 Kings 13:3; 22:13 &
Hosea 8:5 describe how God burns with anger when he sees
his people disobeying his Law and breaking his covenant.
The Old Testament shows that God ‘burns’ with anger
when he is ‘provoked’ or ‘aroused’ by sin. We see this, for
example, in Deuteronomy 29:27–28; 2 Kings 22:17; Psalm
79:5; Jeremiah 4:4; 21:12; Ezekiel 36:5–6; 38:19; Zephaniah
1:18 & 3:8.
The fire of anger is God’s inevitable response to evil – yet it
never rages out of control. Exodus 32:10; Jeremiah 44:22 &
Ezekiel 24:13–14 show that God cannot endure rebellion; and
Psalm 78:38; Isaiah 48:9; Lamentations 3:22; Romans 2:4 &
2 Peter 3:9 describe how he mercifully restrains his anger.

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Self-consistency

However, once the fire of God’s anger is ‘kindled’ it is

extremely hard to put out. We see this, for example, in 2 Kings
23:26; 22:17; 2 Chronicles 34:25 & Jeremiah 21:12. When
God’s anger burns against people, it consumes them – as in
Numbers 11:1; Deuteronomy 4:24; 6:15; Psalm 59:13; Isaiah
10:17; 30:27; Lamentations 2:3; Ezekiel 22:31 & Zephaniah
1:18. And his anger subsides only when judgement is complete
or a radical change has occurred. We see this in Joshua 7:26;
Jeremiah 4:4; 21:12; Ezekiel 5:13; 16:42 & 21:17.
This establishes that there is something in God’s holiness
which is provoked, aroused and ignited by evil – we call this ‘his
wrath’: this then burns until the evil is consumed and the wrath
is ‘satisfied’.
3. God’s complete satisfaction
The Hebrew word kalah is often used in the Old Testament in
association with God’s anger. Kalah means the end of something
and is variously translated as ‘to complete’, ‘to end’, ‘to finish’, ‘to
consume’, ‘to accomplish’, ‘to exhaust’ and ‘to satisfy’.
Kalah is often used in the Old Testament to show that time,
work and life all come to an end, that tears are completed by
weeping, that grass withers in drought, that human strength is
exhausted by exercise, and so on.
Kalah is used by the prophets, however, to show that God
will ‘exhaust’, ‘satisfy’, ‘complete’ his anger upon his people.
We see this, for example, in Ezekiel 5:13; 6:12; 7:8; 13:15;
20:8, 21 & Lamentations 4:11.
Kalah suggests that God’s anger ceases only when it has
been fully satisfied. This is not because God is a tyrant; it is
because whatever exists within him must be expressed, and
what is expressed must be completed or finished.
When we take these three pictures together, we see that
God is ‘provoked’ to jealous anger by sin; that, once his wrath is
kindled, it ‘burns’ until it is ‘satisfied’ or ‘completed’ and the sin is
fully ‘consumed’; and that this wrath flows inevitably from God’s
character and is a manifestation or revelation of his holiness.

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4. God’s Name
The fourth way the Bible emphasises God’s self-consistency is
by using God’s name. We consider the Name of God in
Knowing the Father, and see that ‘the Name’ stands for God
himself, and refers to the total revelation of all that is known
about him. For example:
‘The name of the Lord’ was proclaimed to Moses
when God passed before him and announced his
nature – Exodus 34:5–6
To ‘call upon the name of the Lord’ was to worship
him as God – Genesis 21:33 & 26:25
To ‘forget his name’ was to depart from God –
Jeremiah 23:27
To ‘take the name of the Lord in vain’ was to affront
his divine majesty – Exodus 20:7.
We can say that the biblical phrase ‘the Name of God’
encapsulates the full glorious nature and character of God. It
points to the total manifestation of God to his people.
In the Old Testament, God’s Name was the pledge of all
that he had promised to be to Israel and to do for them. We
see this, for example, in 1 Samuel 12:22 & Psalm 25:11.
For Israel, the phrase, ‘the Name of the Lord’, enshrined
the most important facts of their revelation and experience of
God. The all-powerful Maker of heaven and earth was their
God. He had called them into a covenant relationship of grace.
The conviction that God will never deny his covenant, or go
back on his promises, or be anything other than fully ‘self-
consistent’, lies behind almost every use of the phrase, ‘the
Name of the Lord’.
The Old Testament makes it clear that God always acts
according to his Name, in a manner which is consistent with
the totality of his nature – with his holiness. We see this, for
example, in Jeremiah 14:1–21; Ezekiel 20:44 & 36:1–23.
When God acts for the sake of his Name he is not
protecting himself from misrepresentation, he is merely being

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self-consistent. God is not so-much concerned for his

reputation, but he is compelled by his character to be
continually consistent – to satisfy himself.
This means that God is God. He cannot deny any part of
his nature – he cannot be inconsistent or contradict himself –
because he is always true to all of himself. He never deviates
from being fully who he is. As we see in Knowing the Father,
this is expressed by God’s personal name, Yahweh, which
God revealed to Moses when he came to deliver his people
from Egypt and fulfil his covenant. Yahweh means ‘I am who I
am’. God is who he is; he is his holy self; he cannot be
anything else.

God’s just love

God’s self-consistency means he must forgive sinners and
reconcile them to himself in a way which is fully consistent with
his character.
For salvation to be effective, God must conquer the devil to
capture his captives; he must satisfy his justice, his honour and
his wrath. But even more importantly, he must satisfy himself –
God must satisfy every aspect of his infinite being, including his
justice and love.
Hosea 11:1–11 hints at the redemptive tension which God
experiences when his justice and love appear to conflict. Israel,
God’s child, deserved to be punished for its spiritual adultery
and wilful refusal to repent, but how could God destroy his
own child?
This is the creative tension between what God should do
because of his justice and what he does not want to do
because of his love, the eternal tension within God between
his compassion and his wrath.
Parallel and inter-related attributes
Throughout the Scriptures, in both Testaments, in the words of
Jesus and of Paul, God’s love and God’s wrath are held
together in perfect tension to show that we must not think

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about one aspect of his nature without remembering its

counterpart. For example:
He is merciful and gracious, but he does not leave
the guilty unpunished – Exodus 34:6–7
Mercy and truth meet together in him, and
righteousness and peace kiss each other – Psalm 85:10
He is a just God and a Saviour – Isaiah 45:21
There is mercy in his wrath – Micah 7:18 &
Habakkuk 3:2
He is full of grace and truth – John 1:14
He is just and the justifier – Romans 3:26
He is good and severe – Romans 11:22
He is full of wrath and rich in mercy – Ephesians
2:3–4
He is faithful and just – 1 John 1:9.
It is sloppy to think that, for example, God is simply love.
This is true, but it is not the full truth, for no one human word
can fully describe God’s infinite nature. God’s love is so true, so
infinite and so pure, that it always a just love.
We have noted that the Bible uses the phrase ‘the Name’
to point to the totality of God’s nature, and that God’s
‘holiness’ or ‘total separation’ is the consequence of the sum of
his attributes. There is danger in concentrating on one aspect
of God’s character because he is filled with attributes which
seem to be opposites but which are – in reality – perfectly
balanced and closely inter-related.
The Bible handles this by presenting, for example, God’s
love and wrath, his goodness and righteousness, his mercy and
justice, his transcendence and immanence, and so on, as
parallel, inter-related truths which can be seen on earth in
opposition but which unite in the glorious infinity of God himself.
We must not try to mix these paradoxical attributes
together into one theological concoction, because this destroys
the biblical revelation of the mystery of God – which always

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stresses the continuous, simultaneous revelation of all the

parallel aspects of God’s nature.
In Part Six, we consider God’s work of revelation on the
cross, and see how God manifests his wrath and his love in one
event. The cross is the supreme revelation of God’s infinite
love and his all-consuming anger, his inflexible righteousness
and his gracious mercy, and so on.
The cross shows that these attributes are not irreconcilable,
and are not in turmoil. In fact they magnify each other, for we
grasp the greatness of God’s love in the cross only when we
appreciate the full extent of his anger on the cross.
God is not at odds with himself. There is no contradiction within
him, for there can be no conflict within God. He is never uncertain
about his actions or confused in his plans. He exists in eternal
equilibrium. He is the God of perfect peace, but it is a peace which
holds his related attributes in a perfect creative tension.
If we are to understand salvation at all accurately, we must
have a biblical picture of God – which is why Knowing the
Father comes before this book in the Sword of the Spirit series.
God is not an indulgent ‘daddy’ who compromises his
holiness to spare and spoil us; and he is not a vindictive ‘tyrant’
who suppresses his love to crush and destroy us. Instead, the
Creator of heaven and earth is both fatherly and sovereign.
The king of the universe never acts tyrannically because he is a
Father; and the righteous judge always acts mercifully because
he is shaped by his loving fatherhood.
The whole of our Christian faith hangs on our knowledge of
God; and the whole purpose of salvation is that we might know
the Father – accurately, intimately, personally and eternally.
So how can God ‘satisfy’ his justice and wrath without
consuming us? How can he ‘satisfy’ his love without condoning
our sins? How can he simultaneously save us and satisfy himself?
How can he be fully ‘self-consistent’? These are the hard questions
which are at the heart of the cross – the place where God
substituted and sacrificed himself for the salvation of all humanity.

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Part Three
Substitution and sacrifice
God’s self-satisfaction, his self-consistency, means that he is
always true to the whole of himself. He does not act in one set
of circumstances according to one attribute, and then – in a
different set of circumstances – act according to another. God
never manifests one attribute at the expense of another – for
they are all connected and all inter-related. He always
expresses the fullness of his character.
We have seen that the hardest question associated with
forgiveness is, ‘How can God can be true to all of himself?’
How can he simultaneously express both his holy wrath in
condemnation and judgement and also his merciful love in
compassion and pardon?
From the earliest days of the Church, the Christian answer
has always been that God satisfied himself (that he acted self-
consistently, that his justice and holy wrath was satisfied) by
providing a ‘substitute’ for the sinner. In this way, the substitute
endures the condemnation and judgement while the sinner
enjoys the compassion and pardon.
In his infinite mercy, God willed to forgive us, and, in his
eternal righteousness, he willed to forgive us righteously –
without ignoring and condoning our sin. This is called
‘satisfaction by penal substitution’. God acted self-consistently
by focusing the fullness of his just wrath on the substitute whom
he graciously provided (himself in the person of his very own
Son) and by pouring the fullness of his merciful love onto us –
undeserving sinners.
We have seen that, throughout the ages, different church
traditions have wrestled with the Bible to understand who and
what was satisfied on the cross. They have also wrestled with

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God’s ‘self-substitution’ and the nature of the substitute – for

the Bible does not reveal these simply and clearly. These
ideas are clearly taught in Scripture, but they are not
presented in systematic form. It is left to the interpreter to put
the picture together.
If we are to understand substitution at all, therefore, we must
carefully examine the biblical teaching. First of all, we need to
consider the Old Testament sacrifices – which prepare the way
for the substitutionary sacrifice of God-in-Christ on the cross.

Old Testament sacrifices

It is impossible to read the New Testament without realising
that the writers recognised Christ’s death as a sacrifice. We see
this, for example, in Matthew 20:28; John 3:16; 10:17–18;
Romans 3:25; 4:25; 8:3, 32; 1 Corinthians 5:7–8;
2 Corinthians 5:18–21; Galatians 1:4; 2:20; Ephesians 5:2, 25;
1 Timothy 2:6; Titus 2:14; Hebrews 9:14, 26; 1 Peter 3:18 &
1 John 4:9–10.
The Old Testament sacrificial system is behind the New
Testament thinking about Christ’s death. This is seen most
clearly in Hebrews, which stresses that the sacrifice of Jesus is
the ultimate reality towards which all the ‘foreshadows’ of the
Old Testament system point.
The first sacrifice
The Bible teaches that sacrifice began with God. He made
the first sacrifice. He spilt the first blood. He endured the first
grief of loss. His example in Genesis 3:21 established the
pattern and principles for all future sacrifices, and paved the
way for the cross.
God graciously offered the condemned humans skin tunics
to cover their sin and clothe them for their new task outside
Eden. It is implicit that some animals must have died to provide
those tunics of grace. And it must have been God himself who
slew, then skinned, the precious, perfect animals that he had
only just made and blessed.

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This incident sets the tone for the rest of the Old Testament
teaching about sacrifices, and clearly points to God’s final-and-
ultimate sacrifice. We see, for example, that:
Those who benefited were completely undeserving
Those who suffered were totally blameless
The sacrifice was permanent
Blood was shed
The sacrifice was in a perfect condition – only the
best would do
The cost was considerable for both the ‘sacrificer’
and the sacrifice, the giver and the gift
Grace, love and mercy were the motivating
emotions
The beneficiaries were free to accept or reject the
proffered gift
The sacrifice must have been puzzling, for there
were many more fig-leaves in the vicinity – even if
they were useless on frosty days!
The first sacrifices by humans
Genesis 4:3–5 describes the first sacrifices offered by humans
to God. Cain and Abel presented gifts to God; and Luke
11:50–51 & Hebrews 11:4 seem to explain why God looked
favourably on Abel’s sacrifice. Abel was a prophet, and he
sacrificed the first-born of his flock as an act of faith in and
obedience to God’s pattern of blood sacrifice.
Nothing in the context suggests that this first blood sacrifice
was made only to earn God’s favour or to placate him; there
seems to be a real element of faith and thanksgiving.
Noah made the next sacrifice. Genesis 8:20 shows that,
after the Flood had subsided, Noah built an altar and offered
God a burnt-offering of birds and beasts in thanks for his
family’s deliverance. This was the fourth example of Noah’s

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obedience – Genesis 6:22; 7:5; 8:15–18 & 20 – and God was

so pleased with Noah’s obedient sacrifice that he rewarded
him, in 8:21–9:17, with the promise of glorious blessing.
Abraham must have been in the habit of offering God
sacrifices from his flocks or Isaac would not have asked about
the lamb in Genesis 22:7. In this chapter, God asked for the first
time for a sacrifice – and he wanted the best.
Abraham was ordered to offer Isaac as a burnt-offering on
Mount Moriah – the place where the Jerusalem Temple would
eventually be sited. Isaac, who by then seems to have been
aged about thirty (he was thirty seven when Sarah died in
chapter 23) was prepared to be the willing victim; and his
elderly father was ready to sacrifice his one-and-only son. But
how puzzling the death must have seemed to them both,
especially after all God’s promises through the years.
As we have seen, faith and sacrifice were first linked with
reference to Abel; and, by faith, Abraham seized the knife and
prepared to plunge it into his son. Human reasoning always
seems to conclude that sacrifice is unnecessary – but Abraham
believed that God knew best.
Abraham did not understand why God wanted him to
sacrifice his son. Even though he uttered a remarkable
prophecy in 22:14, he did not know that, nearly 2,000 years
later, God would go through similar but stronger agonies on
the same mountain. Abraham simply acted with faith and was
prepared to obey God.
Genesis 22:15–18 describes how God responded to
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son with a sworn promise
of great blessing. Abraham and Isaac had been ready for death
without a reward – loving obedience was their only motivation.
But God’s grace intervened, provided a substitute victim, then
rewarded the sacrifice with blessing. This link between sacrifice
and blessing is repeated in Genesis 46:1–4.

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The Passover
The Egyptians endured ten plagues because Pharaoh would
not allow the Israelites to visit the wilderness to worship God
with sacrifices. Exodus 10:24–26 reveals two principles of Old
Testament sacrifice.
First, people had to allow God to direct their sacrifices; and,
second, they could offer only clean animals and birds which actually
belonged to them – there had to be genuine costly self-denial.
The tenth plague was a supreme act of holy judgement on
Egypt and a merciful act of deliverance for Israel. The Passover,
in Exodus 11–13, was the simultaneous evidence of both
God’s love and his justice, his grace and his holiness.
As with Adam and Eve in Eden, each family had personally
to appropriate God’s provision: the sacrifice of their best
animal, and the sprinkling of its blood on their door-posts, was
their faith-filled response to God’s grace. And, once again, God
rewarded his people’s obedient sacrifices with blessing – this
time a personal deliverance from death and a national
deliverance from slavery.
Exodus 12:2 shows that the original Passover sacrifice was
the beginning of Israel’s corporate, national life; so the New
Testament identifies Christ’s death as taking place at the
Passover, as the fulfilment of the Passover, and as the beginning
of the new redeemed community. We see this, for example, in
John 1:29, 36; 13:1; 18:28; 19:14; 1 Corinthians 5:7–8 &
Revelation 5:6, 9, 12 & 12:11.
Through the Passover, God simultaneously revealed himself as:
Judge – God’s holy wrath ‘passed through’ Egypt
and condemned every firstborn male. There was
no discrimination between creatures or classes of
people. There was only one way of escape, and
that was by God’s gracious provision.
Redeemer – God’s merciful love ‘passed over’ every
blood-marked home to shield them from his wrath.

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Covenant maker-and-keeper – God redeemed the

Israelites to make them his people. They belonged
to God because they had been purchased by the
blood and so were consecrated to his service. We
consider this more fully in Parts Four and Eight.
It should be obvious that these ‘foreshadowing’ truths were
fully revealed at Calvary. It is important we recognise that the
Judge and the Redeemer are the same divine person. The God
who passed through Egypt was the same God who passed over
the blood-sprinkled homes.
We stress in Knowing the Father that we should not
characterise the Father as the Judge and the Son as the
Redeemer. It is the one God who, through Christ, condemns
sin and saves humanity.
The Passover also teaches that:
Salvation is by substitution – the only first-born
males who were spared were those in homes
where a first-born lamb had died instead of them
Salvation is through a faith-filled appropriation – after
it had been shed, the blood had to be appropriated
by being sprinkled over the door-posts
Ritual sacrifices
After the Passover, while Israel was wandering in the
wilderness, God gave Moses clear instructions about sacrifice.
We can read brief outlines in Exodus 20:24–26; 22:29–30;
23:14–19; 29; Leviticus 17; 23; Numbers 15; Deuteronomy
12 & 16. The fullest description is found in Leviticus 1–7, and
this sets out the five principal rituals:
The holocaust, or burnt offering
The oblation, or grain offering
The communion, or peace offering
The sin offering
The guilt, reparation or trespass offering.

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We can say that:

The oblation and communion sacrifices helped the
people to express their feelings of being creatures
who belonged to God
The holocaust sacrifice represented the people’s
dedication – and God’s acceptance – of everything
that they had and were
The eating together by priest and people in the
communion sacrifice reminded them of their vital
relationship with God
The sin and guilt sacrifices enabled the people both
to display their human sense of separation from a
holy God caused by their sin and guilt, and to cry to
God for him to cover it.
Despite these distinctions, all the sacrifices stressed God’s
gracious initiative and the people’s absolute dependence on
him and his grace.
In all the sacrifices, only the best would do. We have seen
that the worshippers had to sacrifice in a way which depleted
their personal resources, but Deuteronomy 23:18 suggests
that even this would be unacceptable if the property had been
unlawfully acquired.
Male animals were preferred to females, and the mature
first-born was considered the best-of-all. They had to be
perfect specimens: the creature chosen for sacrifice was always
the one which would have most improved its owner’s flocks.
God’s justice meant that the poor were not penalised by
these demands. Leviticus 5:7–13 shows that those who were
unable to afford a sheep or a goat could offer two doves
instead. And, if they could not manage even this, an offering of
grain would suffice.
The ritual sacrifices were meant to be offered personally
and nationally, privately and publicly, regularly and as special
needs arose. Numbers 28–29 list the daily, weekly, monthly

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and annual public sacrifices; and Exodus 12 shows how the

Passover was to be celebrated within the family.
Whenever the Israelites turned to God, they were
supposed to worship him by offering him sacrifices. The Bible
shows that the ritual sacrifices were offered:
To fulfil a vow – 2 Samuel 15:7–9
To release a person from a vow – Numbers 6
As a spontaneous act of worship – Judges 13:17–23
To purify a leper after healing and a woman after
childbirth – Leviticus 12 & 14
At the ordination of a priest and the offering of a
Levite to God – Leviticus 8 & Numbers 8
At times of national repentance – 1 Samuel 7
When battle was near – 1 Samuel 13:8–12
At royal coronations – 1 Kings 1:9
At the dedication of sanctuaries – 1 Kings 8:1–13.
The Old Testament ritual sacrifices had six stages, and each
one was as significant as the other five.
The worshippers selected or purchased their
sacrifices and brought them to the designated place.
If the offering was an animal, they placed their hands
on it to show that it was their representative or
substitute. If they were making a sin or guilt offering,
they confessed their sins symbolically to transfer the
legal consequences to the animal.
The worshipper personally killed the animal.
The priests collected the blood in a basin and
poured it against two opposite corners of the altar
so that all four sides were sprinkled with the blood.
The fat was burnt. If it was a holocaust offering,
everything was burnt except the skin.
What remained of the sacrifice was eaten by the
priests. If it was a communion sacrifice, the remainder
was eaten by priests and worshippers together.

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The holocaust and communion sacrifices were used for

celebration and thanksgiving, the consecration of persons and
objects for holy service, and for the removal of ceremonial
uncleanness.
The other sacrifices, however, had a far deeper purpose.
Leviticus repeatedly states that a person’s sin and reparation
offerings ‘would be accepted as effectual for their atonement’.
The Hebrew word kaphar is usually translated as ‘to atone’, but
it really means ‘to cover’. This means that the sin and
reparation sacrifices covered the worshippers’ sins and made
restitution for their guilt.
Just as the first sacrifice was offered by God’s blood-stained
hands as cover for Adam’s sin and clothing for his new task, so
– through the ritual sacrifices – God provided his people with
a series of sacrifices which could go on covering their sin and
enabling them to serve him.
The Servant songs
As time went by, the ritualistic system of sacrifice was abused,
and the realisation grew that the system was not final. God’s
prophets began to plead for an extra type of sacrifice, for
practical actions as well as, not instead of, symbolic gestures, for
personal morality to be wedded to legal ritual.
This critical development in the prophetic awareness of
God’s desires is seen in, for example, Psalm 50:8–23;
51:16–19; Proverbs 15:8; 21:27; Isaiah 1:11–20; 58:1–14;
66:1–4, 18–21; Jeremiah 6:20; 7:21–28; Hosea 8:11–13;
Amos 5:21–24 & Micah 6:6–8.
This understanding of sacrifice as both a ceremony for
personal ‘atonement’ and also a continuous holy way of life
reached its Old Testament climax in the four songs of the
servant of the Lord recorded in Isaiah 42:1–9; 49:1–6;
50:4–11 & 52:13–53:12. These songs present a person
whose death makes sacrificial, substitutionary atonement for
others and whose life is characterised by love, justice, humility,
suffering and self-sacrifice.

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The first three songs reveal that this mysterious servant is an

individual formed by God and called by him while still in his
mother’s womb. He is a disciple who is filled with God’s Spirit.
He establishes justice on earth so that he may instruct humanity
and judge us by his Word. He works gently, quietly and
discreetly. He appears to fail, accepts outrage and contempt,
but does not give up because Yahweh himself sustains him.
The fourth song describes the appalling sufferings of the
servant who, though innocent, is treated as a sinner punished
by God and condemned to die a shameful death. It shows that
all this is the servant’s voluntary offering for sinners whose sin
and guilt he takes onto himself and for whom he intercedes.
And the song reveals that, by a previously unimaginable act of
power, God accepts the atoning sacrifice of his servant and
brings about the salvation of all humanity.
These extraordinary prophetic songs point to Jesus. In fact,
all the Old Testament sacrifices point in some way to him, for
they express a need which only he fully satisfies, and embody
a faith which he alone can justify. But, more than that, they
demand a lifestyle which only he makes possible. The victim
slain may have been a substitute, but the worshippers always
had to deny themselves in some way for God.
These two principles are central to salvation by grace. Christ
may have died in our place permanently to cover our sin, unite
us with each other and bring us to God; but self-denial is still
the ritual demanded of the lives that he rules.
Sin-bearing
New Testament passages like 1 Peter 2:24 & Hebrews 9:28
teach that Jesus ‘bore our sins’ on the cross. Through the
centuries, in every tradition of the church, Christians have
traditionally understood this to mean that Jesus was the
innocent God-provided substitute who took the place of guilty
humanity and endured the penalty due to its sin.
During the twentieth century, however, many teachers have
challenged this traditional understanding of ‘penal substitution’.
Some have suggested that Jesus bore the pain or weight of our

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sin rather than the penalty due to our sin; while others have
maintained that Jesus took our place simply by offering a perfect
confession of our sins. Others have even argued that penal
substitution presents God as a ‘cosmic child abuser’- a vengeful
Father punishing his Son for an offence he has not committed,
and so cannot possibly be true.
We must keep on affirming the Church’s traditional
understanding of ‘penal substitution’, because Jesus did endure and
exhaust the destructive divine judgement (which was ours by right)
to win our eternal salvation. We should, however, also recognise
that ‘pain-bearing substitution’ and ‘penitent substitution’ do have a
place in the biblical picture of salvation – and we can see this most
clearly in the ritual associated with the Jewish Day of Atonement.
It is true that, on the cross, as the substitute, Jesus bore
what humanity could not bear – the righteous punishment of
sin – and this is fundamental to salvation. But it is also true
(though not fundamental) that he offered what humanity would
not offer – a complete confession of its sin; and that he
endured what we could not endure – the full pain and hurt of
every evil thought and action since the Garden of Eden.
The Day of Atonement
The concept of ‘sin-bearing’ is found in the many Old
Testament passages which describe innocent animals or people
suffering the consequences of someone else’s guilt: for
example, Leviticus 17:11 & Exodus 12:23.
But the same language of sin-bearing is also used when God
himself provides the substitute – as in Leviticus 10:17 & Ezekiel
4:4–5. This important idea is particularly clear in the ritual
associated with the annual Day of Atonement – which is
described in Leviticus 16.
The Day of Atonement was a once-a-year corporate or
national sacrifice for sin – in contrast to the regular personal
sacrifices for sin. It was the most important day in the Jewish
year, and the only occasion when ‘the holy of holies’ was
entered, and then only by the high priest.

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The high priest took two male goats to atone for – to cover
– all the sins of the whole people of Israel. He slaughtered one
goat, and sprinkled its blood on the altar in the usual fashion.
He then placed both his hands on the other goat’s head,
confessed all the wickedness and rebellion of God’s people,
and drove the goat away into the desert so that it would
symbolically ‘bear’ their sins away.
Leviticus 16:5 shows that the two goats were a single
sacrifice: each embodied different aspects of the same sacrifice.
The great and abiding revelation of the Day of Atonement was
that reconciliation was possible only through a single
substitutionary sacrifice which involved sin-bearing.
We also need to recognise that the atoning process
involved:
A substitutionary confession by the high priest
A substitutionary pain-bearing or load-bearing by
the scape-goat
A substitutionary penalty-bearing by the sacrificed
goat.
The book of Hebrews identifies Jesus as the high priest and
as both goats – we see this in Hebrews 2:17; 9:7, 12 & 28.
This underlines the slightly wider understanding of substitution
that we have suggested.
Isaiah 53
Although the two goats had a sin-bearing role, it must have
been clear to many Jews that an animal was an inadequate
substitute for a human. As we have seen, Isaiah’s four ‘servant
songs’ soon introduced the gentle servant of God who would
suffer, bear sin and die for people.
The servant’s suffering and death are described in Isaiah 53:
no other Old Testament passage is as important to the New
Testament as this.
Verses 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 11 are directly referred to in John
12:38; Matthew 8:17; 1 Peter 2:22–25 & Acts 8:30–35. And
every verse except verse 2 is alluded to somewhere in the

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New Testament: for example, v.3 – Mark 9:12; v.7 – Mark

14:61; 15:5; Luke 23:9 & John 19:9; v.8 – Mark 2:20; v.9 –
Mark 14:8; v.10 – John 10:11, 15 & 17; v.11 – Matthew 3:15;
v.12 – Luke 11:22; 22:37 & 23:34.
It is beyond dispute that Isaiah 53 is basic both to the New
Testament understanding of Jesus and to Jesus’ understanding
of himself. Jesus’ words in Mark 10:45 & 14:24 directly refer to
Isaiah 53:12 and demonstrate that he understood his death as
a sin-bearing death.
The whole thrust of Isaiah 53 is substitutionary and sacrificial.
It reveals that the Suffering Servant:
Bore our griefs – v.4
Carried our sorrows – v.4
Was wounded for our transgressions – v.5
Was bruised for our iniquities – v.5
Was chastised for our peace – v.5
Was whipped for our healing – v.5
Carried our iniquities – v.6
Was stricken for our transgressions – v.8
Bore our iniquities – v.11
Bore our sin – v.12.
Isaiah 53:4–6 is convincing proof that God’s Servant is a
substitute whose sacrifice involves bearing both the ‘penalty’ of
sin and the ‘pain’ of sin. We see that once the root of sin is dealt
with, then pain and all the other fruits or consequences of sin
are also dealt with: poverty, sickness and even death itself. This
link between the atonement and healing is also explored in the
Sword of the Spirit volume, Ministry in the Spirit.
Jesus died for us
The wide sweep of Old Testament teaching about sacrifices
and substitutes prepares the way for, and helps us to
understand correctly, the New Testament teaching that Jesus
died for human beings. We see this, for example, in Matthew
20:28; Mark 10:45; Romans 5:6–8; 14:15; 1 Corinthians 8:11;

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15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:14–15; 1 Thessalonians 5:10 &

1 Timothy 2:6.
There are over 40 different Greek prepositions which can
be translated as the single English word ‘for’, and some scholars
make much of a subtle difference between two of them. Hyper
means ‘for’ in the broad sense of ‘on behalf of’, while anti
means ‘for’ in the narrow sense of ‘instead of’.
Most of the passages which describe Christ dying ‘for’ people
use hyper (only Matthew 20:28 & Mark 10:45 use anti) and
some teachers use this to support their belief that Christ’s death
was merely representative rather than fully substitutionary.
This idea, however, ignores the wider biblical teaching
about substitutional sacrifices and overlooks the fact that the
broad sense of hyper includes the narrow sense of anti. In fact,
the New Testament writers often use hyper in a context which
clearly means ‘instead of’ – for example, 2 Corinthians 5:20 &
Philemon 1:13.
Hyper is used in the three strongest New Testament
statements about Christ’s death – 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians
3:13 & 1 Timothy 2:6. In these verses, Paul explains that
Christ’s death was intended to benefit us – in this sense it was
‘on our behalf’. But 2 Corinthians 5:21 must also mean that
Jesus bore the penalty of our sin ‘instead of us’, and Galatians
3:13 must mean that the curse of the Law lying on us was
transferred to him so that he bore it ‘instead of us’.
These verses show that a mysterious exchange takes place
when we are united to Christ. He takes our curse so that we
might receive his blessing; he becomes sin with our sin so that
we may become righteous with his righteousness.
The apostle Paul calls this exchange ‘imputation’ in, for
example, Romans 4:6; 1 Corinthians 1:30 & Philippians 3:9. It
is important we recognise that this imputation involves the
acceptance of legal consequences rather than the transference
of moral qualities (though these qualities do grow within us
through the work of the Holy Spirit).

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Our state of inner sinfulness was not transferred to Jesus to

make him personally sinful, and his moral perfection was not
transferred to us to make us personally perfect. Instead, on the
cross, as the substitute, Jesus voluntarily accepted the liability or
consequence of our sins – this is what the Bible means by the
phrases ‘made sin’ and ‘made a curse’.
Similarly, ‘the righteousness of God’ which is imputed to us
when we are ‘in Christ’ is not an instant righteousness of
character and conduct, it is an instant righteous standing before
God. This is not righteousness imparted, but righteousness
imputed. It is an ‘alien righteousness’, to use the phrase of
Martin Luther, which comes from outside ourselves. We
receive Christ’s righteousness so that we can stand with
impunity and joy before God. The importance of this forensic
or legal view cannot be over-emphasised.
The substitute
In Knowing the Father and Knowing the Spirit, we see how
important it is to understand correctly the nature of the triune
God; and in Knowing the Son we consider in some detail the
full nature of Jesus. Quite simply, we will never understand the
cross correctly until we grasp the natures of the Father, the Son
and the Spirit.
Most of the secular objections to the cross are based on
wrong ideas about God and Christ; and nearly all the Christian
misunderstandings about salvation come from inaccurate
pictures of the relationship between the Father and the Son.
The idea of substitution rests on the identity of the substitute.
Everyone knows that Christ was the substitute, but we need to
grasp precisely who the Christ is who died on the cross.
An independent Jesus
Unbelievers think that the person who died on the cross was
simply a human being. Although most Christians reject this idea
for the reasons we set out in Knowing the Son, many believers
think that the Son was an individual being who was quite separate
from God – an independent third party in the act of salvation.

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This means that they present the cross either as Jesus trying to
pacify an angry God and grasp a begrudging salvation, or as an
unjust God who kills an innocent Jesus in place of the real culprits.
We establish in Knowing the Father that this is a grievous
misrepresentation of the Father. He is not reluctant to suffer
himself or to forgive humanity, and he is not a cold tyrant
whose anger has to be appeased and whose antipathy to
humanity has to be overcome by someone outside himself, by
some third party.
This ‘third party’ approach sets the Son against the Father,
yet there has never been any discord or conflict between
them. Whatever happened on the cross was willed and
accepted by both equally.
The second clause of Isaiah 53:10 is notoriously difficult to
translate. It is unclear in Hebrew who makes the offering: the
clause could mean either ‘though God offers his servant as an
offering’ or ‘though the servant offers himself as an offering’.
At first sight, the New Testament appears to be equally
ambiguous. Passages like Mark 14:27; John 3:16; Romans 3:25;
4:25; 8:3, 32 & 2 Corinthians 5:21 stress that the Father
sacrificed the Son. Whereas Matthew 20:28; Galatians 2:20;
Ephesians 5:2, 25; 1 Timothy 2:6; Titus 2:14; Hebrews 9:14 &
26 emphasise that the Son sacrificed himself.
Once again, the truth is parallel and inter-related. The Father
gave the Son and the Son freely gave himself. The Father
sacrificed his Son, and the Son voluntarily sacrificed himself.
The Father did not make the Son endure an ordeal he was
unwilling to bear, and the Son did not surprise the Father by his
selfless action. Galatians 1:4 & John 10:17–18 express this
paradox very plainly.
In one sense, the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mount
Moriah is an obvious foreshadowing, for there we see the
father ready to sacrifice his unique son of promise, and the son
prepared to be the willing victim. At another level, however, it
is a thoroughly inadequate picture because Abraham and Isaac
are separate, independent beings.

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We have seen throughout this Sword of the Spirit series that

God is not divided into three. He is one, but more than one.
The Father, the Son and the Spirit are not three distinct
individuals; they are three self-distinctions within one being
who reveal their essential oneness in a three-fold diversity of
‘uni-persons’, characteristics and functions.
If we misunderstand this absolute divine unity we are likely
to fall into error whenever we think about the cross. If we think
of the Father and the Son as separate individuals we inevitably
caricature Calvary as either God punishing an innocent Jesus
(cosmic child abuse) or as Jesus placating an angry God (as in
paganism).
But 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 makes it clear that the sacrifice
was not made by Christ alone, or by God alone, but by God
acting in-and-through Christ with his full agreement. They
worked together in harmony. Their functions may have been
different but their wills were one. They were co-dependent
not independent.
God himself
The essential unity of God has led some people (they are
usually called ‘Unitarians’) to believe that God alone was the
substitute, that he took our place and died for us.
They argue: 1 Corinthians 2:8 shows that it was the Lord of
Glory who was crucified; Revelation reveals that the Lamb who
died is at the centre of God’s throne; Hebrews 9:17 teaches
that we can benefit from the promises in a will only after the
testator has died; and Acts 20:28 announces that God
purchased the church with his own blood.
Their argument fails, however on the fact that no verse
specifically declares that God himself died on the cross, and on
the realisation that the immortality of God means he could not
have died.
Common sense should be enough to convince us that God
simply had to become human (without ceasing to be God or
becoming independent of God) if he was to die as our

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substitute and simultaneously be both Judge and innocent

Victim. Hebrews 2:14–18 & Philippians 2:6–8 state this
particularly clearly.
We note in Knowing the Father that the New Testament
usually means ‘the first uni-person of God, the Father’ when it
mentions God. This is another reason why it can be misleading
to suggest that ‘God’ died on the cross – for it was the fully-
human, fully-divine Son who died, not the fully-divine Father.
If we over-emphasise ‘God’s’ sufferings on the cross we are
in danger of confusing the ‘uni-persons’ of the Trinity, of
denying the eternal distinctiveness of the Son, and of denying
Jesus’ full humanity.
Passages like Romans 5:12–19; Galatians 4:4; Philippians
2:7–8 & Hebrews 5:8 underline the ‘unity and functional
distinctiveness’ within God by stressing the Son’s willing
submission to the Father. As we see in Knowing the Son, this is
the essence of Jesus’ sonship.
God-in-Christ
The substitute who took our place, offered our full confession,
bore the pain of all our sin, and endured the penalty incurred
by all our rebellious disobedience was not Christ alone (as this
would make him an outside third party) or God alone (because
this would negate the incarnation).
Instead, the Substitute on the cross was God-in-Christ, fully-
human and fully-divine, uniquely qualified to represent both
God and humanity, and to mediate between them.
Whenever we think about the cross in terms of Christ
suffering and dying, we overlook the Father’s gracious initiative.
But when we think about it in terms of God suffering and dying,
we overlook the Son’s gracious mediation.
In contrast to these partial approaches, the New Testament
consistently stresses that the Father acted in salvation ‘in-and-
through Christ with his whole-hearted agreement’. We see
this, for example, in Matthew 1:1–23; Mark 14:36; Luke 2:11;

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John 4:34; 6:38–39; 8:29; 10:18, 30; 14:11; 15:10; 17:4,

21–23; 19:30; 2 Corinthians 5:17–19; Colossians 1:19–20;
2:9 & Hebrews 10:7.
It should be obvious that only a human should make
atonement for the sins of humanity (because it is men and
women who have sinned) and that only God could make the
necessary atonement (since it is he who had justly demanded
it and humans could not provide their own).
Jesus Christ, therefore is the only possible substitute
because he is the only person in whom the should and could
are united by virtue of his fully-human, fully-divine nature.
The cross
These ideas of ‘divine oneness’ and ‘God-in-Christ’ mean, first,
that there are only two participants in the drama of the cross, not
three: humanity and God; and, second, that it is all down to grace.
In giving his Son, God graciously gave himself for us. In
sending the Son, he graciously came himself for us. By grace,
the Judge intervened and himself endured the penalty that he
had imposed on us. In order to save sinful humanity in a way
which was fully consistent with his holy nature, God-in Christ
graciously substituted himself for us.
All that we have examined in Parts Two and Three should
convince us that ‘divine self-consistency through divine
substitution’ is the only possible explanation of the cross.
Before we move on to consider what happened on the cross,
and its consequences and implications for us, we need to be
absolutely clear what the cross is and is not.
For example, the cross was not:
A bargain with the devil
A requirement of some code of law or honour
A punishment of an innocent Jesus by a harsh Father
A means of extracting salvation from a mean Father
An action of the Father which by-passed Christ’s
mediation.

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Instead, the just-and-loving God humbled himself to

become – in-and-through his only Son – human flesh, and to
endure and accept the terrible consequences of human sin. He
graciously did this so that he could save us without
compromising his holy divine character.
In many ways, substitution is at the heart of both sin and
salvation. We can say that the essence of sin is humanity
substituting itself for God, while the essence of salvation is God
substituting himself for humanity.
Through our rebellious sin, we put ourselves where only
God should be; and by his amazing grace, God puts himself
where only we deserve to be. Truly our salvation is by grace.

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Part Four
Covenants of grace
During the ‘Last Supper’, when Jesus and his apostles had
gathered together to eat the Passover meal, Jesus took a loaf of
bread, gave thanks for it, broke it into pieces, and handed it
round with the words recorded in Matthew 26:26–28; Mark
14:22–24; Luke 22:17–19 & 1 Corinthians 11:23–25.
In the same way, after the meal, Jesus took a cup of wine, gave
thanks for it, passed it to them, and said, ‘This cup is the new
covenant in my blood’, and, ‘This is my blood of the new
covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’.
We consider the communion meal which Jesus instituted in
Glory in the Church, and examine its roots in the family Passover
celebration. Here, however, we need to grasp Jesus’ important
assertion that, through the shedding of his blood in death, God
was taking the initiative to establish a ‘new covenant’ or a ‘fresh
binding agreement’ with his people which promised forgiveness.
The word ‘covenant’ is also important for us to consider. It
refers to an agreement or a contract between two parties. The
Hebrew word is berit; this probably originated from the Akkadian
word biritu meaning ‘to clasp or bond’, which adds the nuance
of a ‘binding agreement’ between two parties. Scholars usually
distinguish between two types of covenants: unconditional and
conditional (or unilateral and bi-lateral). A unilateral covenant is a
one-sided covenant in which God obligates himself and not the
other party. It differs from a two-sided or bi-lateral covenant,
which would be null and void if one of the contracting parties
failed to live up to the specified conditions.
The concept of covenant is of fundamental importance to
both the New and the Old Testaments. We have already noted
that God established a ‘new covenant’ through Jesus on the
cross. If we are to understand this new covenant accurately,

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however, we need to consider the ‘old covenants’ which

preceded and foreshadowed Jesus’ death on the cross.

Old covenants
Genesis 6:18 records the first explicit mention of a covenant,
and lays down many of the most important biblical principles of
covenant. God took the initiative and made a binding
agreement with Noah which promised salvation by grace. It
was not a contract between God and Noah which benefited
both parties, it was all grace, all God, all for Noah’s family’s
benefit and salvation in a time of judgement.
God simply announced to Noah that he would establish his
covenant with him. It was God’s covenant, he established it
unilaterally and unconditionally; it was a sovereign dispensation
of saving grace from-and-by God to Noah and his family.
Even though the covenant was all-grace, Noah’s family had
to respond by entering the ark to experience the benefits of
covenant salvation. We can say that the covenant was all-grace,
but that Noah’s family had to appropriate the promise by faith-
filled obedience. Still, it was salvation by faith, not works. The
action was simply believing God and trusting themselves to the
ark, which is a picture of Christ.
The covenant with Noah
After the Flood had subsided, God repeated his covenant
promise to Noah and his family. Genesis 9:9–17 describes
what happened, and reveals even more clearly the essential
nature of God’s covenants.
Once again, there was no ‘bi-lateral agreement’; it was
plainly all grace, all God’s initiative and action, all for Noah’s
family’s benefit. We can say that this old covenant was:
Willed, initiated and established entirely by God himself
Universal in scope – it embraced not only Noah but
also his descendants and everything living on the earth
– this proves that the giving of grace is not dependent
on a favourable response by the beneficiaries

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Unconditional – there were no pre-conditions or

requirements – in fact there were even no on-going
obligations, which shows that it was impossible for
the covenant to be broken
Accompanied by a confirming sign – the rainbow
could not be controlled or manipulated by
humanity, and was God’s guarantee of his
faithfulness
Everlasting – there is never any uncertainty about an
unconditional promise.
The covenant with Abraham
God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3, and Abraham
responded in faith by leaving Haran for Canaan.
Many years later, God confirmed his word to Abraham in
Genesis 15:1. But this time, in 15:2–3, Abraham questioned
God about the way the promise would be fulfilled. God replied
to Abraham in verses 4–5, and – through seeing the stars in the
sky – Abraham ‘saw’ God’s promise to him and believed. This
is the prototype for all ‘justification by faith alone’.
Verse 6 reports that Abraham put his faith in God and that
this was credited to him as righteousness. Even so, Abraham
wanted to be 100% sure that God’s promise would be fulfilled,
and – in verse 8 – he asked God for a guarantee of assurance,
for a sign which would confirm God’s word to him. In reality,
he was asking God to enter into a binding agreement with him.
God responded by establishing the covenant which is
described in verses 9–21. This resembles the ancient
covenantal rituals described in Jeremiah 34:18: in these, both
contracting parties passed between the parts of the slaughtered
animals and called down on themselves the fate of the sacrificial
victim should they break the agreement.
In this case, however, God alone passed between the animal
parts to show that his covenants are always unilateral pacts: they
are exclusively and entirely all-grace initiatives. The flame in the
story is Yahweh himself, as in Exodus 3:2; 13:21 & 19:18. The

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darkness and length of time foreshadow Calvary when God

would make a similar, but infinitely greater, covenant through
the shed blood and broken body of Jesus.
In this blood covenant with Abraham, God was saying, ‘Let
me be as these broken pieces of animals if I fail to fulfil my word
to you’. The covenant anticipated – it prepared the way for –
the oath that God made in Genesis 22:16–17 at the
completion of Abraham’s faith.
This old covenant helps us to understand that Christ’s blood
on the cross is God’s solemn pledge that he will keep his new
covenant promise of forgiveness to us.
The blood is a God-given assurance of faith, the assurance
that we need because of our inability to keep the covenant and
our total dependence on God’s forgiveness. We should also be
able to see how the blood anticipates God’s oath to us, his
‘rainbow’ in our lives – which, in the new covenant, is the
promise of his Spirit.
The covenant with Israel
Some church traditions maintain that this covenant is very
different from the other covenants, and that it is a covenant of
‘works’ rather than ‘grace’. But passages like Exodus 2:24;
3:16; 6:4–8; Psalm 105:8–12, 42–45 & 106:45 show that all
God’s dealings with Israel were based on the promise of his
binding agreement with Abraham.
Just as God’s covenants with Noah and Abraham were
declared in several stages, so he also made one covenant with
his people through Moses in several stages. The details of the
stages may differ, but the principles of grace and promise run
through them all.
We should appreciate that:
God’s covenant in Exodus 19:5; 24:1–18; 34:1–35
& Deuteronomy 29:1–29 was made with a people
which had already been chosen, redeemed, created
and adopted by the sovereign grace of God.

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We see this in Exodus 2:25; 4:22–23; 6:6–8;

15:13; 20:2; Deuteronomy 4:37; 7:6–8; 8:5,
17–18; 9:4–6, 26; 13:5; 14:1–2; 21:8; 32:6;
1 Chronicles 29:10; Isaiah 63:16; 64:8; Jeremiah
3:19; 31:9; Hosea 9:1; 13:5; Amos 3:2; Malachi
1:6 & 2:10.
The same spiritual relationship which was at the
heart of the covenants with Noah and Abraham
was also at the centre of the covenant with Israel –
Exodus 6:7 & Deuteronomy 29:10–13.
God’s gracious sovereign initiative was at the
forefront of the covenant – Exodus 19:5–8; 24: 3–4
& Deuteronomy 4:13–14.
God’s agreement with Israel is often called a covenant of
‘law’ or ‘works’ because there is so much scriptural emphasis
on Israel’s obedience to the law – which was an addition to
God’s basic promise to Abraham. God’s people would now be
blessed whenever they obeyed the law and cursed whenever
they disobeyed.
This obligation of obedience, however, was – in principle –
similar to the obligations that God gave in Genesis 6:18–22;
17:9–14 & 18:18–19. And none of the obligations were pre-
conditions of their respective covenants, there were simply the
means of appropriating and enjoying the blessings of the covenant.
By grace, God’s successive covenants created the possibility
of his people living in a covenant relationship with him. Since
God is holy, those who enter into a relationship with him are
called to live in-and-with his holiness. We see this in
Deuteronomy 6:4–15; Leviticus 11:44–45; 19:2; 20:7, 26;
21:8 – and in 1 Peter 1:15 & Hebrews 12:14.
Some believers interpret Exodus 19:5–6 & 24:7–8 to mean
that the covenant with Israel did not begin until the people had
promised to obey the Law. But the covenant had begun back
with Abraham, and the Law was simply an addition to this pre-
existing covenant. And yet, the ‘promise’ is contrasted with ‘the
law’ in Romans 4.

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The people knew that God was a covenant-keeping God

because he had delivered them from Egypt. They knew that
the covenant was already in operation; that the grace had been
given and received; that the agreement between God and the
children of Abraham already existed. Now, however, the Law
was being added to the covenant.
This means that the Jew’s promise of obedience in Exodus
24:7 was not their way into the covenant, it was their
commitment to living in the covenant by the Law. It was their
response to the grace of God.
Throughout this Sword of the Spirit series, we stress that, as
believers in the new covenant, we are called to ‘gospel
obedience’ – a ‘particular, enabled obedience to the personal
rule of God’. Although the type of obedience in the new
covenant is wonderfully different to the ‘legal obedience’ of the
old covenant, we must realise that the obligation of obedience
in the new covenant is, in principle, the same obligation which
has featured in all God’s covenants.
As we see in Parts Five to Eight, although every aspect of the
new covenant is an accomplished fact, we do not enjoy the full
blessings of the covenant on earth without perseverance and
loving obedience.
The messianic covenant
Although the word ‘covenant’ is not used in 2 Samuel 7:12–17,
it is obvious from passages like Psalm 89:3–4, 26–37 &
132:11–18 that this is God’s binding agreement with David.
Once again, it is plain that this is entirely a work of grace
which binds God to his unilateral promise and guarantees the
promise to the beneficiaries. We see this in, for example, Psalm
89:3 & 2 Samuel 23:5.
This ‘final’ manifestation of an old covenant is the clearest
foreshadowing of the new covenant in-and-through Jesus, for
it plainly points to the Messiah. We see this in Isaiah 42:1–6;
49:8; 55:3–4; Malachi 3:1; Luke 1:32–33 & Acts 2:30–36.

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The Isaiah passages reveal that ‘the Servant’ (whom we

considered in Part Three) is himself ‘the covenant’ because the
blessings and provisions of God’s covenant with his people are so
bound up in the Messiah that he is actually the embodiment of the
blessings and the presence of God which the covenant ensures.
This biblical overview of the old covenants should be
enough to convince us that God deals with his people through
covenants, and of:
The richness of his covenantal grace
The certainty of his covenantal provision
The assurance of his covenantal promises.

The new covenant

When we read Jesus’ announcement that his blood is the
blood of the covenant shed for the forgiveness of sins, and that
the cup of the Last Supper is the new covenant in his blood,
we can understand his words correctly only within the context
of biblical covenants.
Without reading a page of the New Testament, we can
guess that a new covenant will be an act of all-grace, that it will
provide significant blessings, guarantee important promises,
establish a holy relationship between God and his people, and
demand some form of obedience. This is already anticipated in
the Old Testament in Jeremiah 31, for example.
The New Testament teaches that the new covenant fulfilled
the old covenants and brought them to fruition. The grace
which was partially revealed in the old covenants was fully
revealed and given. The relationship which was partially
enjoyed in the old covenants was brought to the greatest
possible degree of intimacy. The blessings of the old covenants
were developed, increased, intensified, supplemented,
perfected, and so on.
We can see this in Galatians 3:15–22, where the apostle
Paul stresses that the covenant with Israel did not cancel the
covenant with Abraham. He explains that the later covenant

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was an addition, not a suspension, which served the basic

covenant promise of relationship; and he shows that the two
covenants were based on the same basic principles of grace
promise and human faith.
As later covenants supplement earlier covenants, Galatians
3:15–16 presents Christ as the fulfilment of the covenant
promise made to Abraham. Luke 1:72 also reports Zacharias’
prophecy that the redemptive work of Jesus will fulfil God’s
covenant with Abraham.
Although we know that the new covenant refers essentially
to the new relationship established through Jesus’ broken body
on the cross, we can be sure that the new covenant also
encapsulates all the saving grace, blessing, truth and promises
of all the old covenants.
There is indeed both discontinuity and continuity between
the old and the new covenants. The old covenants had an
external emphasis and only relatively few knew God personally
and intimately by the Holy Spirit. The emphasis of the new
covenant, however, is internal and now the possibility is there
for all to know God – Jeremiah 31:34 & Hebrews 8:11. So the
new supersedes the old – it brings a totally new dynamic to our
relationship with God. But the new also fulfils the old as well.
2 Corinthians 3:6–18 describes some of the new benefits of
the new covenant: it ministers righteousness, liberty, and the
Spirit of life; and it begins the process by which (by gospel
obedience) we are transformed into the holy image of God by
the Holy Spirit of the Lord.
We have seen that God’s covenants with his people are
always unilateral, binding agreements of grace and promise,
and that they are always set in-and-around the context of
salvation and redemption.
From the time of Noah until today, God’s saving grace and
certain blessings have always been given in the form of
covenants. Each successive covenant has unfolded more of
God’s redemptive will and purpose, yet none has deviated
from the central and governing features of all the covenants.

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Each successive covenant has always been an additional

enrichment of what has always been present.
We know that Calvary is the climax of grace, promise,
redemption, revelation and relationship; but we must not forget
that the eternal covenant promise, ‘I will be your God and you
will be my people’, is at the centre of the cross. The new
covenant through the blood of Christ brings this relationship to
the highest possible level. Quite simply, there can never be a
greater promise or a more intimate relationship than that which
has been graciously provided by the new covenant.
Blood covenants
We have seen that the New Testament, especially Galatians 3,
looks back to God’s blood covenant with Abraham as the
foundation of Christian faith, and that it establishes the new
covenant of the blood on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant
of grace, promise and faith.
God’s Genesis 15:17–18 blood covenant with Abraham
developed the grace already revealed in the covenant with
Noah. God made no demands, and Abraham offered no
promises. These come later, in 17:1 & 22:12, as God called
Abraham into a closer relationship and holier lifestyle, but the
blood covenant itself was an occasion of pure grace.
Abraham’s lapses were not mentioned, and did not hinder
the covenant. The covenant was made after Abraham had
shown faith and before Abraham’s obedience was requested,
tested and confirmed. Exactly the same all-grace principle was
followed in the blood covenant at Calvary.
When 1 Corinthians 11:25 & Hebrews 8:6–10 describe the
cross in terms of a new covenant, they mean that ‘the blood’
is God’s pledge to humanity. God had never broken his
Genesis 15 promise, yet he let what happened to the animals
then happen to himself at Calvary.
At the cross, there was no demand for obedience, only an
offer of forgiveness. Our lapses and doubt did not hinder the
covenant, for it was another occasion of pure all-grace.

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Since the new blood covenant on the cross, there is nothing

more that God can do. He has made his unconditional,
everlasting promise, and the blood witnesses to God’s total
sincerity and faithfulness. The blood now binds God to keep his
word for all eternity.
The blood of Christ
Some sections of the church focus on Christ’s blood, and
make much use of terms like, ‘washed in the blood’, ‘covered
by the blood’, ‘promised through the blood’ and ‘guaranteed
by the blood’.
Most believers use ‘the blood’ as short-hand for the
complete sacrificial death of Jesus, but it literally refers to the
blood which poured from Jesus at the cross. We must never
move away from this literal view of the blood, but we can also
say that ‘the blood’ represents the totality of Christ’s death, and
is God’s pledge of the new covenant.
Paul’s letter to the Romans contains the Bible’s clearest and
most detailed explanation of salvation. Paul uses many
contemporary word-pictures like ‘justification’, ‘redemption’
and ‘propitiation’ to describe the results of Christ’s death – and
we consider these in Part Five.
Paul begins with his great theme of justification by faith,
explains that Christ died in our place, and then shows that the
great purpose of this was that we might be reconciled with God.
As we see in Reaching the Lost, reconciliation is not one
aspect of salvation, it is the great over-riding purpose of
salvation. We are redeemed, justified and forgiven so that we
can be reconciled with God. And it is the blood of Jesus, shed
in his faith-filled substitutionary death, which both accomplishes
and evidences our reconciliation.
The New Testament teaches that the blood of Jesus
performed what the ritual sacrifices of the Old Testament could
only symbolise and the old covenants could only foreshadow –
eternal forgiveness from sin.

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Sacrificial blood
We have seen that, at Passover, the blood of a sacrificial animal
– it could be a male lamb or goat – was sprinkled in faith on the
door-posts of Jewish homes as a sign that they were God’s
covenant people.
When God saw the blood, he passed over the house and
did not destroy the first-born when his wrath visited Egypt. This
is why Jesus is called the ‘Passover lamb’, for it is through our
faith in his covenant blood that God passes over us and does
not punish us for our sin.
We have also seen that, on the Day of the Atonement, a
bull was sacrificed for the sin of the High Priest and his family,
and two goats were sacrificed for the guilt and sin of the
people. The blood of the bull and the sacrificial goat was then
sprinkled by the High Priest on-and-before the mercy-seat and
altar as an act of atonement for the uncleanness and rebellion
of the Israelites. Hebrews 9:12 describes the moment when
Jesus Christ, our great High Priest entered heaven with his
blood having secured eternal salvation for us.
Jesus’ death is recognised throughout the New Testament as
essentially a sacrifice for human sin. We see this, for example, in
1 Corinthians 5:7; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians
5:2; Hebrews 5–10; 1 Peter 3:18 & 1 John 2:2.
This means that the blood is the evidence and assurance of
the death of a sacrifice, and the pledge of God’s covenant. The
New Testament identifies ten ways that ‘the blood’ assures us
of God’s new covenant with us. We can confidently say that the
blood guarantees our:
Forgiveness – Ephesians 1:7
Cleansing – 1 John 1:7
Righteousness – Romans 5:9
Redemption – Ephesians 1:7
Sanctification – Hebrews 10:10 & 13:12
Purchase – 1 Corinthians 6:19–20

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Deliverance from the curse of the Law – Galatians

3:13
Promised inheritance – Hebrews 9:15–18
Freedom from inherited bondages – 1 Peter
1:18–19
Victory over Satan – Colossians 2:15; Hebrews
2:14 & John 12:31–33.
All these covenant promises are summarised, and
implicitly referred to, in the phrase, ‘the blood of Christ’. His
blood is the visible guarantee of all these achievements. This
means that we must believe in a God of blood sacrifice and
blood covenants; and that we must consider ‘the blood’ as
not only central to Scripture but as also at the heart of God’s
covenant nature.
We see this in Romans 3:24–26 & 5:8, and can say that ‘the
blood’ is the ultimate assurance of God’s all-grace nature and
of faith in the God who revealed himself through his blood as
infinitely gracious.
A sign of love
The New Testament always defines love in terms of God’s
sacrifice on the cross, for example, Romans 5:8; 1 John
3:15–20 & 4:7–21.
At the cross, God gave everything because of his love for
those who deserve nothing but his righteous condemnation.
The Father gave the Son for those who prefer to worship
other gods; the Son gave himself for those who steadfastly
ignore him; and they both surrendered their relationship
with each other because of their unimaginable love for us all.
Since the Calvary blood sacrifice, nobody can look at a cross
and question God’s love – because nothing reveals God’s love
more clearly than ‘the blood’. Quite simply, the blood proves
for all eternity that God loves us, and has embraced us as his
covenant people.

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This means we can say that Christ’s blood is the assurance of:
Who God is
What God has done for us in salvation
All the covenant blessings.
A token of assurance
We see in Living Faith that we have been given a double
guarantee of our faith: God’s word and the blood of the new
covenant. And we have noted here that all the covenant
promises are pledged by the new covenant blood.
This means that God’s promises to us are now enshrined in
a covenant which was both made in Jesus’ blood and put into
effect by his blood. We see this in Hebrews 9:20 & Romans
8:32. (The context of these two passages helps us to
appreciate that the blood also deals with the consequences of
our failure and places us in a victorious position over our
enemy. We consider this in Part Seven.)
Hebrews 9:27–28 makes it plain that Christ’s blood
completely deals with everything – all our sin, guilt, doubts,
weaknesses and failings. The first coming of Christ had a direct
relationship to sin, as we see in Romans 8:3 & 2 Corinthians 5:21,
but his second coming will have no connection with sin because
redemption, by the blood, has been completed. As Jesus said on
the cross, it really is ‘finished’. This is our security in Christ.
Romans 8:34–39, perhaps the high-point of the whole
New Testament, shows that the blood, the death of Christ,
guarantees that we are in a triumphant position over death and
demons, over the present and the future, over all heavenly
powers. This means that the covenant blood of Christ
guarantees our covenant relationship: nothing can ever
separate us from the love of God, which we know in Christ
Jesus. This is the unsurpassable new covenant relationship
which is ours by grace.
The covenant blood of Christ is the final assurance of faith.
It is the ultimate guarantee that Yahweh is who he is, that he has

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become on the cross what we need in order to satisfy his self-

consistency and reconcile us with him for all eternity.
Once we know that our sin has been dealt with by the
blood, that our conscience has been cleansed by the blood,
and that our guilt has been removed by the blood, we are
eternally secure – for his covenant can never be broken. The
only ‘condition’ is that we simply believe – that we put our trust
in that blood.

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Part Five
Salvation and atonement
We have seen that the Old and New Testaments are united in
their common record of God’s all-grace initiative in saving a
people for himself according to his unbreakable covenants. The
three great scriptural themes of ‘the people of God’, ‘the
salvation of God’ and ‘the victory of God’ are woven from
Genesis to Revelation.
In both Testaments, salvation:
Is initiated and accomplished by God’s grace alone
Is received by faith
Operates objectively within history and human lives
Is costly to God
Involves a rescue from enemies
Brings wholeness to body and spirit
Produces spiritual triumph
Reveals God’s love
Vindicates human faith.
But both Testaments are not the same, for the Old is always
looking forward, always preparing the way for the New. It
looks to God to re-enact in the future his great acts of
judgement and grace from the past.
For example, the Old looks forward to a more glorious
David, Moses, Elijah and Melchizedek, to an exodus whose
deliverance would be even greater, to an even more awesome
Passover, to a better temple, to a new creation, to an ultimate
covenant, and so on. And what the Old hoped for, the New
declares has been fulfilled in Christ.

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New Testament salvation

Most of the New Testament teaching on salvation matches with
the Old Testament understanding; differences arise only where
the ideas are deepened, internalised, spiritualised and
personalised in Jesus’ sacrificial death. In fact, we can say that
the New Testament enlarges the Old Testament experience of
salvation without contradicting it.
One difference between the Testaments is the New’s teaching
that the enemy from which we are saved is spiritual rather than
physical. No longer are we saved from pagan nations, now we
are saved from the old age (sin, law, sickness, wrath and death),
the old condition (conformity to a godless world), the old fears
(despair, depression and dread), the old habits (agreement with
the pattern of sinful worldliness), and the old foe (Satan himself).
But the most important difference is that the New
Testament gathers every aspect of salvation in a single world-
changing event – the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on
the cross of Calvary.
Although, in many ways, the cross is merely the natural
consequence and consummation of all God’s dealings in grace
and judgement since Eden, it is almost impossible to exaggerate
the greatness of the changes that it accomplished – both on
God’s behalf and ours, and especially in our relationship with
him. In fact, we can say that a completely new age dawned
when Christ died and was raised from death.
2 Corinthians 6:2 describes this new age as ‘the day of
salvation’, and the magnificent covenant blessings of this great
salvation are so diverse that they cannot be defined neatly.
In Glory in the Church we see that the New Testament uses
a whole host of pictures to describe the mystery of the Church.
These are ‘parallel’ or ‘complementary’ images: although it is
hard to see how the Church can simultaneously be both the
body of Christ and the bride of Christ, we know that the
pictures come together in the truth that God is calling out and
gathering together a people for himself.

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It is much the same with salvation. The New Testament

uses many different ideas about, and images of, salvation to
help us understand the fullness of the cross and the magnitude
of its accomplishments, and it is important that we try to grasp
them all and hold them together.
Underlying all the ideas and images, however, is the single
truth that, in his grace, God has sent his Son as the substitute
to bear our sin and die our death, to satisfy God’s self-
consistency, to deliver us from sin and death, and to reconcile
us with himself for all eternity.

Jesus’ unique mission

In Knowing the Son we consider Jesus’ unique mission and learn
why the Father sent Jesus into the world.
We see that he was sent to break the power of evil and
death, for Satan had taken authority on earth and the world
was under his sway. So Jesus willingly came into the world to
establish the kingdom of God, disarm the evil powers of
darkness, and triumph over them.
But Jesus was also sent to reach the lost; he was sent to save
hurting people who were powerless to save themselves. So, at
great personal sacrifice, he came to make atonement – to be
the substitute for every member of humanity, to bear the wrath
of God against sin, to reconcile man and women to each other
and God.
As well as this, the Father sent the Son to demonstrate a life
of perfect submission and consecration, to be the pattern and
example for people of all ages and races. So, in his daily death
to self and the desires of the flesh, Jesus came to show us how
we should live and die.
And Jesus was also sent to show the world what God is like,
to reveal and reproduce the glorious Father’s nature. So he
came as God’s living Word, as a unique and complete
revelation of the invisible God, to reproduce the divine nature
in humanity.

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Each aspect of Jesus’ ministry reached its fulfilment at

Calvary. Although the cross was a simple event which
accomplished the single objective of our salvation, it was also a
complex event, when eternity broke through into time, when
humanity’s need, Christ’s mission, and all the parallel, inter-
related aspects of God’s nature came together.
When we preach the gospel, we usually try to explain why
Jesus died and what happened on the cross. It is easy, however,
to focus on just one aspect or accomplishment of his death,
and to present an incomplete or unbalanced picture of
salvation. We must work hard to understand and proclaim the
full picture of salvation in all its glory.
When we take an overview of the New Testament, we see
that Jesus died for several parallel reasons which fulfilled the
complementary purposes of his incarnation and messianic
mission. Our understanding of ‘salvation’ needs to incorporate
all these simultaneously.
Victory
Jesus died to rescue humanity from the grip of death and Satan.
Through his death, he destroyed the one who had the power
of death, and released those held captive by their fear of death.
He returned to earth in resurrection triumph, and ascended to
heaven with ‘the keys of hell and death’. We see this in
Hebrews 2:14–15 & Revelation 1:18.
Jesus died and rose as ‘the Victor’ who destroys Satan’s last
weapon, establishes the kingdom of God, sets people free, and
fulfils every aspect of the Old Testament reparation sacrifice.
This is salvation from Satan so that we can live in Christ’s
victory and freedom.
Atonement
Jesus also died to make atonement for humanity’s sin. On the
cross, he appeased God’s wrath and delivered us from sin. He
did this by accepting the blame, enduring the agony of
separation from the Father, taking the faults of many on himself,
and winning eternal reconciliation.

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By his death, Jesus paid the price for God’s forgiveness, and
fulfilled every aspect of the Old Testament sin sacrifice – and all
the prophecies which point to substitutionary death by God’s
Servant as the only acceptable ground by which God can satisfy
himself and cleanse and justify a sinner. This is salvation from sin
and God’s wrath so that we can have Christ’s righteousness
and stand before God.
Revelation
In-and-through his sacrificial death, Jesus supremely revealed
the full glory of God’s holy nature – his goodness, mercy, grace,
truth, patience, forgiveness, righteousness, peace, self-control,
gentleness, self-effacement, trustfulness, faith, justice and love.
On the cross, God revealed his perfect justice by
condemning all sins and bearing his just punishment for evil,
and he demonstrated his immeasurable, inexhaustible,
unknowable, self-giving love.
At the same time, Jesus also revealed ideal human behaviour
in comforting a criminal, asking God to forgive those who
tortured him, committing himself into God’s hands, and
providing for all time an example of perfect submissive
obedience. In this way, he fulfilled all the details of the Old
Testament wholly-burnt sacrifice. This is salvation from alienation
and isolation so that we can live in fellowship with God.
New life
And Jesus also died in excruciating pain to struggle and strain for
the birth of a new creation. After six hellish hours of spiritual
childbirth he was, like the panting deer of Psalm 42:1–2, deeply
spiritually thirsty. As he died ‘in labour’ he could cry, ‘It’s
finished; it’s completed; I’ve done it’ because, like the Servant
in Isaiah 53:10, he had seen his offspring.
So Jesus went to the cross to travail and give birth to a new
creation which would reproduce the divine nature, and to fulfil
every aspect of the Old Testament communion sacrifice. This
is salvation from eternal death so that we can live eternally with
God’s new life.

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Full salvation
It is tragic that the whole Church has seldom embraced and
proclaimed every aspects of salvation, for all are biblical and all
are grace.
For example, many congregations concentrate on Jesus’
triumph on the cross, and stress his authority over Satan. Others
focus on Jesus’ atonement, and emphasise his forgiveness of sin.
Some concentrate on Jesus’ revelation of ideal humanity; and a
few stress his manifestation of God’s glory.
We do need to appreciate the distinctive emphases of other
Christian traditions, and to stand with them in their worship
and proclamation. But it is surely better for every congregation
to grasp the fullness of salvation, so that we all understand,
appropriate, experience and proclaim the full world-changing
glory of the cross.
For the rest of this book, we focus in turn on the different
aspects of salvation. The rest of this chapter considers salvation
in terms of atonement; in Part Six, we think about it in terms of
revelation; in Part Seven, in terms of victory; and, in Part Eight,
in terms of new life.
Atonement
Most technical theological terms are derived from Latin and
Greek roots. ‘Atonement’ and ‘Gospel’ are the only important
words which come from the Old English, from ‘Anglo Saxon’.
As we see in Reaching the Lost, the word ‘gospel’ originally
meant ‘Good Speak’, but it has come to be used in many
different ways. It is the same with ‘atonement’. Many leaders
use the word almost as a synonym for forgiveness, but this is
incorrect. ‘Atonement’ is based in the Old English word ‘one’,
and this was extended to ‘onement’ to mean what we would
call today ‘unity’. This means that ‘unification’ is the closest
modern word to the original meaning of ‘atonement’.
Some people have suggested that atonement should be
pronounced ‘at-one-ment’ so that the true meaning is made
clear. This would be helpful, but the prefix ‘at’ is not really a

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preposition; it is merely due to a medieval mix-up of the Old

English word onement and the Latin word adunamentum
(which means ‘towards oneness’).
Quite simply, atonement means ‘to make at one’ and it refers
to the complete process of bringing those who are estranged into
oneness, into unity. Within the whole subject of salvation, the
process of atonement includes forgiveness, propitiation,
redemption, justification mediation, adoption and reconciliation.
These technical terms develop or illustrate aspects of the
atonement process, but they are neither synonyms for
atonement nor separate processes.
We have seen that some translations of the Bible render the
Hebrew word kaphar as ‘atone’, and that ‘cover’ is more
accurate. The Day of Atonement, however, makes the
meaning of atonement quite plain, for it involves the whole
process of salvation – a full confession of sin; a substitutionary
sacrifice which includes a death for sin and a driving away of sin,
(the power of sin and the memory of sin); the ministry of a
mediator between God and his people; and reconciliation
between God and his people evidenced by the high priest’s
safe entry into the Holy of holies. We see this full process in
Leviticus 16:11–15.
Jesus the atonement
Hebrews 9:1–10:39 reveals that the ritual of the Day of
Atonement clearly foreshadowed the atoning work of Christ.
For example,
Jesus is our great high priest, and his sacrificial blood
fulfilled the blood of the bulls and goats. Unlike the
Old Testament high priests, however, the sinless
Christ did not have to make sacrifice for any sins of
his own.
As the high priest entered the Holy of holies with
the blood of his sacrificial victim, so Jesus entered
heaven with his own sacrificial blood to appear
before the Father on behalf of his people.

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The high priest had to offer sin sacrifices every year,

and this annual repetition reminded the people that
perfect atonement had not yet been provided.
Jesus, however, through his own blood, eternally
reconciled us to the Father.
The sin offerings could cleanse the sinner only
ceremonially and outwardly, they could not cleanse
internally. Through his better sacrifice, however, Jesus
purged our conscience from these dead works.
The tabernacle was designed to teach Israel that sin
hindered access to God’s presence. Only the high
priest, and he only once a year clutching sacrificial
blood, could enter the Holy of holies. Jesus,
however, through a ‘new and living way’ has
entered heaven. We no longer need stand away
from God; instead, through Christ, we can
approach God face-to-face.
On the Day of Atonement, the flesh of sin was
burned outside the camp of Israel. Jesus also
suffered outside the gates of Jerusalem to deal with
his people’s sin and unite them with God.
Word pictures
The New Testament uses some special words to describe four
aspects of the atonement process. Many believers think that
these are technical words which refer to distinct doctrines; they
are, however, just inspired metaphors which the writers use to
illustrate parts of the process. They are taken from the
everyday world of the New Testament.
We must understand this, for we can stray into confusion
or error if we press a metaphor too far or imagine that it is
directly analogous.
1. Propitiation
Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:-2 & 4:10 use the Greek word
hilasterion/hilasmos as a metaphor for Christ’s work, and this is
usually translated as ‘propitiation’. This word-picture was taken

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from Greek religious life, and it describes the process by which

their pagan gods were appeased or placated, and good will
was earned.
Propitiation is clearly not an analogy because neither
Testament presents God as an angry deity whose affections need
to be bought or who can be bribed into changing his mind.
Instead, propitiation is a metaphor which points to God’s just
wrath against sin and to God’s provision of the substitute who
willingly ‘completed’ or ‘exhausted’ or ‘satisfied’ God’s wrath.
In Greek life, the people had to appease their angry gods
with gifts for which the gods did nothing to provide. In his
grace, however, the living God willed, initiated, provided and
accomplished everything for us so that he could act self-
consistently and be both loving and just at the same time.
Leviticus 17:11; Romans 3:25 & 1 John 4:10 underline the
grace of God in the propitiatory aspect of the atoning
process. As a result, we can say that God in his holy wrath
needed to be propitiated, that God in his holy love initiated
the necessary propitiating, and that God-in-Christ died as the
propitiation for our sins.
It is important to note that there is debate as to whether
hilasterion/hilasmos should be translated as ‘propitiation’ or
‘expiation’, and therefore, whether the atoning death of Jesus
should be regarded a ‘propitiation’ or ‘expiation’. Expiation
refers to what the blood of Jesus does for us: it washes away
our sins, it expiates our wrong doing. Propitiation refers to
what the blood of Jesus does for God: it satisfies his justice and
sets aside his holy wrath. Clearly, both concepts are necessary.
The death of Christ produced both expiation – that is, our sin
was paid for – and propitiation – that is, the wrath of God
against us was averted.
2. Redemption
The word-picture apolutrosis was taken from Greek business life,
where it described the process by which objects or property
were purchased for a fixed price. It was also commonly used to

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describe the purchase and/or release of slaves and the ‘ransom’

of prisoners-of-war.
The idea of redemption is used extensively in the Old
Testament to describe the purchase of property, animals,
persons and the Jewish nation. We see this, for example, in
Exodus 13:13; 30:12–16; 34:20; Leviticus 25:25–28; 27;
Numbers 3:40–51; 18:14–17; Ruth 3–4; 2 Samuel 7:23; Isaiah
43:1–4 & Jeremiah 32:6–8.
In the Old Testament, the payment of a price is always the
essence of redemption by humans. Where God, however, is
described as the redeemer, the price always refers to the costly
effort he makes: we see this in Exodus 6:6; Deuteronomy
9:26; Nehemiah 1:10 & Psalm 77:15.
In the New Testament, ‘redemption’ is a metaphor which points
to the plight from which we are redeemed; the price with which
we are redeemed; and the proprietary rights of the redeemer.
Passages like Galatians 3:13; 4:5; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians
1:13–14; Titus 2:14; Hebrews 9:15 & 1 Peter 1:18 describe the
plight from which humanity has been redeemed. Christ gave
himself to redeem us from all the consequences of the Fall. We
have been able to experience his redemption since Calvary, but
we are still waiting for the ultimate ‘day of redemption’ when we
will be made perfect and all creation will be liberated from its
bondage to decay. Until then, the Holy Spirit is the guarantee
and first-fruit of our final redemption. We see this in Luke 21:28;
Ephesians 1:14; 4:30 & Romans 8:18–23.
The New Testament makes it plain that Christ himself, and
particularly his blood, was the price paid (but the Bible never
presses the metaphor too far and enquires to whom the price
was paid). We see the price in Mark 10:45; Romans 3:24–25;
Galatians 3:13; 4:4–5; Ephesians 1:7; 1 Timothy 2:5–6; Titus
2:14 & 1 Peter 1:18–19.
The Scriptures also use the redemption image to stress that
the redeemer has proprietary rights over his purchase. Jesus’
lordship over both the Church and individual Christians is
attributed to his having bought us with his own blood. We see

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this, for example, in Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 6:18–20; 7:23;

2 Peter 2:1; Revelation 1:5–6; 5:9 & 14:3–4.
3. Justification
The third illustration was drawn from Greek law courts, where
dikaiosune, justification, was the precise opposite of
condemnation. Greek and Roman judges pronounced the
accused either ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’, they were either ‘justified’
or ‘condemned’, and Paul uses this as a metaphor in Romans
5:18 & 8:34.
The term ‘justification’ illustrates God’s action in declaring
sinners free of blame on the basis of the substitution of his Son
who exhausts the sinners’ judgement and ‘imputes’ his
righteousness to them so that they can stand before God with
Christ’s righteousness.
‘Justification’ is simply a first-century illustration of God’s
official declaration of righteousness on the basis of his objective
legal pardon. It is a word-picture about a change in legal status
– it sheds no light on, and makes no reference to, a change of
nature. God does, of course, change human nature through
regeneration and sanctification, but the image of justification
does not point to these aspects of salvation.
Paul develops this metaphor and shows that we are justified:
By God’s grace alone – it is entirely his initiative and
his accomplishment – Romans 3:10, 20, 24 & 8:33.
By Christ’s blood alone – it is a precise act of justice
– Romans 5:9.
When God justifies sinners, he is not declaring
bad people good, or saying that they are not
sinners; instead, he is pronouncing them legally
righteous, officially not guilty, because he-in-Christ
has borne the penalty of their law-breaking.
Through faith alone – we must receive what his
grace offers and depend entirely on what God has
done for us in Christ – Romans 3:28; 5:1; Galatians
2:16 & Philippians 3:9.

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The old Reformation formula helpfully

summarises the biblical teaching on justification as ‘by
grace alone, through Christ alone, by faith alone’.
Together in Christ – it is also corporate, without any
ethnic, national or gender barriers – Galatians 2:17;
3:26–29; Romans 8:1; 2 Corinthians 5:21 &
Ephesians 1:6.
4. Reconciliation
The fourth metaphor, reconciliation, katallasso, is taken from
everyday Greek life, where it was used to describe the healing
of an estrangement between two parties. It referred to old
friends or relatives making up after an argument or quarrel.
This picture points to the great purpose of the atonement, to
the divine yearning behind the whole of salvation. We are
forgiven, God is propitiated, we are redeemed and justified, we
are delivered from Satan, God reveals himself and reproduces
his nature so that God can reconcile us with him and we can live
with him in the eternal relationship of perfect fellowship that he
intended in Eden.
It is important we recognise, however, that this picture is
always used of us being reconciled to God, and never of God
being reconciled to us. God needs to be propitiated, not
reconciled; and we need to be reconciled, not propitiated!
This relationship is so important, so fundamental, that one
metaphor will not do. The Bible also uses the metaphors of
‘adoption’ into God’s family, ‘peace’ with God and ‘access’ to God
as it struggles to describe this indescribable cross-made relationship.
We see these metaphors in, for example, John 1:12–13; 1 John
3:1–10; Romans 5:1–2; 8:14–17; Galatians 3:26–29; 4:1–7;
Ephesians 2:17–18; 3:12; Hebrews 10:19–22 & 1 Peter 3:18.
Reconciliation is a word-picture for the relationship with God
which is both the purpose and the fruit of salvation. But it is only
when we have been forgiven, redeemed and justified that we
have the peaceable access to God as his adopted children which
is reconciliation.

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But biblical reconciliation is not only about a renewed

relationship with God, it is also about a new relationship with
other people in-and-through Christ – Ephesians 2:11–22
concentrates on this aspect of reconciliation. And it is also
about the cosmic reconciliation referred to in Colossians
1:15–20 – this is the ‘world’ dynamic of salvation which we
stress in Knowing the Father and Reaching the Lost.
2 Corinthians 5:18–21 reveals much about reconciliation. It
underlines that:
God is the great all-grace author or initiator of
reconciliation – he willed it, he began it
Christ is the agent of reconciliation – God has done
it all in-and-through his Son
We are the ambassadors of reconciliation – we
must appropriate it, live it, preach it and practise it.
Atonement
These four word-pictures from first-century life are simply
‘colloquial’ illustrations of overlapping aspects of the
atonement. They cannot be fitted together into a neat theory
of atonement; they merely provide us with insights into a
mystery, not a complete doctrine.
Nevertheless, each metaphor emphasises three basic
principles of the atonement, of God’s process of unification:
Humanity has a very great need – propitiation
points to God’s wrath against our sin, redemption
to our slavery to sin, justification to our guilt
before God, and reconciliation to our alienation
from God
God is all-grace – it is he who in his love has taken
the initiative and propitiated his own wrath, paid the
price to redeem us from slavery, endured his own
punishment to declare us righteous, and reconciled
us to himself

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It has been accomplished only through the

substitutionary sacrifice of Christ’s blood – we see
this in Romans 3:25; 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; 2:23 &
Colossians 1:20.
The death of Jesus on the cross as the substitute was the
once-and-for-all single sacrifice of atonement because of which
God averted his wrath from us, and it was the ransom price by
which we have been redeemed, and it was the condemnation
of the innocent by which the guilty might be justified – so that
we can be one with God, one with each other, and one with
creation for all eternity.
This is the sheer greatness of just a single aspect of our
salvation – there are three more complementary aspects still to
consider.

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Part Six
Salvation and revelation
Throughout this Sword of the Spirit series, we emphasise that
God’s words and God’s works are all essentially self-revelatory.
Because God is, by definition, utterly self-consistent, all his
deeds, words, thoughts and attitudes must conform both to
each other and to the totality of his holy character.
This means that God’s supreme act of salvation for the
world on the cross must also be God’s supreme act of self-
revelation to the world through the death of his beloved Son.

The glory of God

In Glory in the Church, we see that kabod is the Hebrew word for
glory. The Old Testament occasionally uses kabod to describe a
particular person’s material prosperity, physical splendour or
good reputation, but it is generally reserved for God himself.
The Old Testament uses the expression ‘the glory of God’ in
two different ways: first, as a parallel term to ‘the Name of God’
which refers to the self-revealed character of God; and, second,
as a visible revelation of God’s localised presence. Put simply,
God’s kabod shows people where he is and what he is like: it is a
localised, visible manifestation of his absolute holiness.
In the Old Testament, God’s glory was revealed:
In the created world – Psalm 19:1; 29:9 & Isaiah
6:3 report that heaven and earth were filled with
God’s glory
To the redeemed people of God – Numbers
14:22; Psalm 97:2–6; Isaiah 35:2; 40:5 & Exodus
33:18–34:7 describe how God showed his glory in
delivering Israel from Egypt and Babylon

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At the hour of sacrifice – Exodus 24; Leviticus

9:6–24 & 1 Kings 8:1–11 describe how God
showed his glory in response to his people’s grateful
sacrifices.
The Greek word for glory is doxa, and this is normally used
in the New Testament to describe Jesus’ revelation, by grace
and powerful deeds, of God’s presence and nature. The glory
of God seen in Jesus demonstrates that God is present in
person, and it reveals the full extent of his regal authority and
humble, self-sacrificing nature.
Hebrews 1:3 shows that Jesus was always the outshining of
God’s glory; but his death on the cross was the supreme
moment (this side of the Second Coming) of the revelation of
God’s glory. We see this, for example, in John 7:39; 12:23–28;
13:31; 17:5 & Hebrews 2:9.
Luke 9:32; John 2:1–11 & 11:1–44 show that God’s glory
(his local presence and nature) were displayed at the Cana
wedding, the Bethany cemetery and the Transfiguration; but
his glory (his local presence and nature) was most apparent at
Calvary – for there was seen the complete self-revelation of
God’s nature, the greatest possible demonstration of his
grace and love, the supreme manifestation of his absolute
holiness, and a perfect display of his presence, power and
self-sacrificing nature.
Quite simply, the cross was the most visible revelation, so
far, of God’s localised presence in the world and of God’s holy
nature to the world: it was the quintessence of glory.
The idea of ‘God’s glory seen in Christ Jesus’ (his localised
presence and personal nature revealed through Jesus) is
particularly strong in John’s gospel. It shows that God’s presence
and nature are manifested in Jesus’ miracles, which it calls ‘signs’;
but it also stresses that God’s glory is seen in Jesus’ willing
weakness, in the voluntary self-sacrifice of his incarnation – we
see this, for example, in John 1:14.

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Tabernacle glory
John 1:14 contains an important allusion to the Old Testament.
The Greek word eskenosen is translated in some versions
simply as ‘dwelt’, but it literally means ‘pitched a tent’ and is a
direct reference to the Old Testament Tabernacle.
John 1:14 shows that, even though the Word has become
human flesh, he has not ceased to be holy God. Instead, God
has ‘tented’ or ‘tabernacled’ in human flesh so that he can live
for a while among his people. We must remember that this
does not mean that Jesus did not become completely or
permanently human.
The use of eskenosen in John 1:14 suggests that the
incarnation is the fulfilment of the Exodus 25:8–9 foreshadowing
– when Israel was told to make a tent or sanctuary (the
Tabernacle) so that God could dwell among his people. The
Tabernacle, and later the Temple, was the site of God’s localised
presence on earth, and Ezekiel 43:7; Joel 3:17 & Zechariah
2:10 looked forward to the day when God would again ‘pitch
his tent’ in Zion. John 1:14 implicitly claims that the incarnate
Jesus is the fulfilment of this prophetic promise.
God’s glory was associated with the Tabernacle and Temple
– we see this in Exodus 24:9–25:9; 40:34; 1 Kings 8:10–11;
Ezekiel 11:23 & 44:4. It is a natural progression, therefore, for
John 1:14 to present Jesus as the new tabernacle who is
constantly (rather than occasionally) filled with the glory of
God, with God’s personal presence and nature.
(It is interesting to note Mark 9:2–8 which records the
disciples’ assumption that they should construct a tent or
tabernacle because they had seen God’s glory.)
We know that glory reveals God’s presence and his nature.
So, just as Exodus 34:5–8 reports that God showed his visible
presence and revealed himself as merciful, gracious and
abounding in truth, John 1:14 comments that the glory of God
seen in Jesus is full of grace and truth.

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Tabernacle glory was closely linked to sacrifice. In the Old

Testament, God’s glory was often revealed at times of sacrifice –
for example, Exodus 24; 40:9–35; Leviticus 9:6–24 & 1 Kings
8:1–11. So, in the New Testament, his glory is associated with
the Son’s self-sacrificial, ‘tabernacle’ incarnation which culminated
in his death as the once-and-for-all substitute sacrifice.
All the Gospels anticipate a revelation of glory through the
cross, but they look forward to it in slightly different ways. In Luke
24:26, for example, the suffering of the cross is the pathway to
future glory, while John 12:20–28; 13:30–32 & 17:1 show that
the cross is the actual time and place of glorification.
It is important to recognise that John 12:20–28; 13:30–32
& 17:1 describe the glorification of the cross in terms of the
Father and the Son together. The presence and nature of God
the Father and God the Son are both revealed by the cross;
perfect divinity and perfect humanity are both displayed in the
drama of Calvary.
On a simple wooden cross, the holy goodness of God and
the best possible example of human goodness were set before
the whole world – and we must gaze on them together as they
reveal God’s holy nature and remind us of what we should be.

Divine justice and love

Romans 3:25–26 & 5:8 declare that Christ’s death was a public
demonstration of both God’s justice and his love. We have
already noted that God’s self-consistency was one of the
driving factors behind the cross, now we see that God not only
‘satisfied’ his justice and love on the cross, he also revealed
them to the whole world.
God’s justice
Until the cross, God’s justice had not been startlingly obvious
on earth. Many sinners had prospered, much evil had gone
unpunished, and God had often appeared to be impotent,
unjust and morally indifferent.

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In passages like Genesis 18:25, and throughout Job,

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the Bible records how the characters
and authors of the Scriptures struggled with this dilemma. They
wanted to know why the wicked flourished and the innocent
suffered, why sinners went unpunished while the righteous
were struck by disasters, why God did not always protect his
people, answer their prayers, and reward their righteousness.
The Old Testament handles this by looking forward to the
final judgement, by proclaiming that though sinners may
prosper for a while they will face the righteous judgement of
God. We see this, for example, in a passage like Psalm 73.
The New Testament repeats this promise of a future, final
judgement in, for example, Acts 17:30–31; Romans 2:3 & 2
Peter 3:3–9; but it also looks backwards to the judgement of
the cross. The cross points to and underlines the fact of the
future judgement – those who reject the cross have nothing
left but God’s future judgement.
Romans 3:21–26; Hebrews 9:15 & 10:4 declare that the
decisive judgement of God has already taken place, and they
stress that God’s Old Testament inaction had been merely a
gracious postponement of judgement rather than an unjust
cancellation.
At the cross, by his sacrifice, God finally and fully revealed his
perfect justice by condemning all sins in Christ; and, on the cross,
he gave a visible proof of his innate justice by himself bearing, in
Christ, his just punishment for all the evil in the world.
Since his sacrifice on the cross, God can no longer be
accused of condoning evil or of being unjust, because his justice
in judging and punishing sin has, once-and-for-all, been clearly
and convincingly revealed to all creation.
God’s love
It is much the same with God’s love; until the cross, it had also
not been especially apparent to humanity. Disease, disasters,
decay, even death, all argued against God being characterised

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by love. Tragedy, torture, tyranny and tribulation all seemed

irreconcilable with a God of love. But, at the cross, God finally
revealed to humanity the extent of his immeasurable,
inexhaustible, unknowable, self-giving love.
The New Testament always defines love in terms of God’s
sacrifice on the cross – we see this particularly clearly in
Romans 5:8; 1 John 3:16 & 4:7–21.
All humanity experiences something of love in this life, but
the Bible claims that only one act of pure, selfless love,
untainted by any ulterior motive, has ever been performed –
the self-giving of God in Christ on the cross for undeserving
sinners. It is the ultimate act of love.
Romans 5:8 suggests that God’s revelation of his love on the
cross had three distinct aspects:
He gave his Son – John 3:16 & Romans 8:32
He gave his Son to die – Philippians 2:7–8
He gave his Son to die for us – for his sinful,
ungodly, powerless enemies – Romans 3:18, 23;
5:6, 10 & 8:7.
At the cross, stretched by soldiers between two thieves, the
Son died – and the Father left him alone. Why? Because of their
love for the thieves, the torturers, and all those who pleaded
for the Son’s death.
At the cross, God gave everything because of his love for
those who deserve nothing. The Father gave the Son for those
who prefer to worship other gods, and the Son gave himself
for those who steadfastly ignore him. They both surrendered
their relationship with each other because of their unimaginable
love for the whole world and every member of humanity.
Since the dreadful agony and divine separation of the
sacrifice at Calvary, nobody can look at a cross and question
God’s love, because nothing could demonstrate God’s love
more clearly than this totally selfless self-sacrifice.
The sacrificial death of Jesus took place because of God’s
justice and God’s love: there was no other motivation. As we

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have seen, Jesus’ death had many consequences, but among

them was this revelation of God’s perfect love and justice and
also of the perfect human example for all people to imitate.
It follows, therefore, that those who walk in Jesus’ footsteps
should ensure that all their sacrifices are similarly motivated by
God’s absolute justice and his unlimited selfless love – without
holding anything back, without any subtle attempts at
manipulation, and without any sense of self-sufficient detachment.
When this is so, we can be confident of two things: first, that
our sacrifices will reveal something of God’s glory, of his
character and local presence, to the people around us in a way
that nothing else can; and, second, that the God of self-sacrifice
will share deeply in our willing agony, isolation and deprivation.
Divine wisdom and power
The first eleven chapters of Romans are Paul’s classic exposition
of the gospel. In them, he describes how God presented
Christ as a substitute sacrifice, justifies us through faith in Christ,
starts to transform us by the work of the Spirit, and is shaping
us into a new community into which all people are admitted on
the same terms as Jews.
Before Paul moves on to apply the gospel in Romans 12–16,
he pauses for a moment’s reflection. In Romans 11:33–36, he
praises the ingenious wisdom which devised salvation in such a
way that it simultaneously meets all the needs of both humanity
and God’s self-consistent nature. We have seen that the early
chapters of Romans stress the revelation on the cross of God’s
perfect justice and love – 11:33–36 now shows that the cross
also reveals God’s perfect wisdom.
The opposite of human wisdom
Paul repeats this idea in 1 Corinthians 1:17–2:5. He stresses
here both that the cross reveals God’s wisdom and power, and
that this is the opposite of the world’s wisdom and power.
In 1 Corinthians 1:22, Paul shows that the Jews and the
Greeks were laying down different conditions for accepting the
gospel: the Jews were demanding powerful signs and the

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Greeks were looking for great wisdom. The two groups of

people wanted the gospel message to prove its authenticity to
them by inherent power and wisdom.
1 Corinthians 1:23 shows, however, that Paul’s message
neither impressed them nor met their demands. The cross
offended them both equally; to them, it was ‘foolishness’ and a
‘stumbling block’. But, for Paul, the cross was the exact
opposite. In 1:24 he reveals that the crucified-in-weakness
Christ is actually God’s power, and that the apparently-foolish
Christ is himself the wisdom of God. Then, in 1:25, Paul makes
it plain that God’s foolishness is greater than human wisdom,
and that his weakness is stronger than human strength.
This means that though the cross appears to most people
to be the height of impotence and folly, it is actually the
supreme manifestation of God’s personal wisdom and power.
Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31 in terms of the
Corinthians’ experience. Most of Paul’s readers were not wise
or influential people; in fact, God had deliberately selected the
foolish and feeble to shame the wise and strong, and to
exclude any possibility of human boasting. This would have
been entirely inappropriate because it was entirely God himself
who had united them to Christ, and it was Christ who had
become their wisdom and power.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30–31, Paul underlines the multi-faceted
nature of salvation by summarising the message of the cross as
a grace-gift of four great blessings in Christ: God’s personal
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
God’s personal wisdom
Paul’s suggestion that Jesus is God’s wisdom present in person
resonates with Old Testament significance. The books of Job,
Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon are ‘the
Wisdom literature’, and Proverbs 1–9 contains the clearest and
most detailed biblical description of God’s wisdom.
These important chapters personify ‘Wisdom’, contrast her
with folly (the refusal to know or acknowledge God), and

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contain a remarkable series of claims and promises which are all

fulfilled and repeated by Jesus (the ‘Word’) in John’s Gospel – for
example, Proverbs 7:2; 8:6–8, 17, 18–21, 32–35 & 9:5–6.
Then, in 1 Corinthians 2:1–5, Paul illustrates God’s wisdom
and power from his personal experience. He reports that he
had not visited Corinth in his own strength or with a message
of human wisdom. Instead, he had brought the apparently
foolish message of the cross, and he had gone in weakness,
fear and trembling – relying on the Holy Spirit to confirm his
words and convince people of their truth.
Paul’s purpose in going to the Corinthians in folly and
feebleness was to ensure that people’s faith rested firmly on
God’s personal power and wisdom rather than human ideas
and abilities. This shows the utter necessity of the new birth
and the fallacy of dependency on intellectual, moral or
emotional persuasion. This is a key principle of evangelism
which we need continually to absorb and to apply.
The message of the cross will never be humanly popular
because God has chosen to reveal his wisdom and power
through human foolishness and weakness. But 1 Corinthians
1:24 shows that the crucified Christ is God’s wisdom and 1:30
declares that he is ours too.
The cross reveals God’s great wisdom in managing to save
sinners and satisfy his love and justice; and Romans 1:16
declares that the cross is also the revelation of God’s power for
the salvation of all who believe.
This means that we can see God’s justice, love, wisdom and
power when we look carefully at the cross. It is easy to
emphasise one aspect of God’s character more than another.
We can be so taken by God’s justice in dealing with our sin that
we neglect the love which bore the judgement in our place.
And we can be so thrilled by the power which saves us that we
overlook the wisdom which devised our salvation.
But it is all God in person, and not a collection of
depersonalised attributes. Rather than trying to compare the

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different aspects of God’s divine nature, we should rejoice that

– through the saving cross – he has revealed the full extent of
his holy nature so clearly and completely.

Perfect human goodness

The cross was not only the supreme revelation of God’s glory,
it was also the perfect example of human goodness. The Father
sent the Son as the ‘fully-God, fully-human being’ not only to
reveal his divine self, but also to show humanity the ideal way
to live and die.
Before the creation of time, space and matter, Jesus was with
God and he was God. He was all-powerful, all-seeing, all-
knowing, all-loving and all-present. He dwelt in perpetual glory
and was all-glorious, and this visible glory was Jesus’ first sacrifice.
Philippians 2:5–8 shows that the Father did not make the
Son surrender his visible glory; he relinquished it willingly. Jesus’
state was divine, yet he did not ‘cling to’ (or ‘grasp after’ – the
Greek is ambiguous) his equality with God. Instead, he
emptied himself by shedding every attribute which visibly
expressed God’s nature.
Jesus laid aside his visible majesty and ‘tabernacled’ himself
in human flesh. He put down his omnipotence, omnipresence
and omniscience, and ‘pitched his tent’ in all the human
weaknesses except sin.
He stepped out of the visible glory to which he was entitled
and stopped looking like God. Of course, Jesus did not cease
to be God because he did not give up his divine nature;
instead, he sacrificed the public treatment and honour due to
him as God, and then he assumed the condition of a human
slave and made himself as nothing in human eyes.
Willing self denial
This self-denial was seen in Jesus’ willing acceptance of life as a
vulnerable foetus in a female womb, as a helpless babe in
Bethlehem, as a powerless refugee in Egypt, as an illegitimate
child in Nazareth, as a humble carpenter in Galilee, as a

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homeless wanderer throughout Israel, as a convicted criminal

at Calvary, and so on.
This was the self-denying, self-effacing way of living that
Jesus freely chose, for he deliberately sacrificed his visible glory
to embrace the supposedly lowest levels of humanity. And he
calls us to follow him.
Because Jesus was fully God, he could have arranged things
differently. He could have ‘pitched his tent’ in an emperor’s
palace and he could have continued to radiate the visible glory
of God. He could even have elevated his earthly family to a
wealthy position. But, by a deliberate act of self-denial, Jesus
chose to personify perfect human contentment with obscurity,
powerlessness and apparent insignificance.
When John the Baptist called people to repent and to
evidence this by being baptised, Jesus joined the queue of
sinners. He did not ask John to stand aside and let him take
over; instead, he stood where sinners stood. Matthew 3:15
records that, when John protested, Jesus insisted that this was
the right way to act.
Willing self-denial dominated Jesus’ human life and ministry.
He spent six weeks in the wilderness without food and resisted
unparalleled temptations. He ministered without expecting any
gratitude or earthly reward. He entrusted his money to a man
who misappropriated it. He embraced lepers and befriended
social outcasts. He washed feet and was repeatedly
misunderstood and misrepresented.
As we have seen, Jesus was undoubtedly Isaiah’s Suffering
Servant – but few people recognised this. Pilate realised that
Jesus was the real king of the Jews; a few disciples guessed
that he was the Son of the living God; and most people
probably thought that he was a very good man. But Jesus was
not the kind of human king or perfect person that people
expected or wanted.
They longed for the Ideal Man promised in Daniel
7:13–14, who would be served by people of all nations. Jesus

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was that ‘Son of Man’, but he had come to serve and not to
be served, to ask us to serve others with him rather than just
to serve him with others.
The perfect example of humanity demonstrated by Jesus
(God’s ideal way for all people to live) is characterised by selfless,
self-giving, self-sacrificing, self-denial. This reaches its fulfilment,
and is revealed most clearly and completely, on the cross. It
should be obvious that Jesus’ willing acceptance of the cross is
the natural conclusion of the way that he lived as a human.
Willing self-sacrifice
As soon as the disciples realised that Jesus was the Christos, the
‘Anointed Man’ or Messiah, he explained what this meant – in
Matthew 16:21; Mark 8:31–32 & Luke 9:22.
This was anathema to the disciples, so Peter took Jesus
aside to remonstrate. He neither understood nor believed that
God’s ideal way could involve suffering, rejection and death.
But Jesus rebuked him, and then told the disciples, in Matthew
16:24; Mark 8:34 & Luke 9:23, that the divine demand for self-
sacrifice applied to them too.
As the time of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice drew near, Jesus taught
his disciples more clearly about human self-sacrifice. For example:
He taught them the secret of human greatness –
Matthew 20:25–27; Mark 10:41–45 & Luke
22:24–27
He demonstrated the unpretentious peaceful
nature of his rule – Matthew 21:1–11; Mark
11:1–11; Luke 19:28–38 & John 12:12–16
He commended the widow’s discreet sacrifice –
Mark 12:41–44
He applauded Mary’s extravagant giving – Matthew
26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9 & John 12:1–16
He revealed the perfection of his love and instructed
his disciples to follow his example – John 13:1–16.

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Most important of all, Jesus taught his disciples the vital spiritual
principle that willing self-sacrifice is the secret of fruitfulness. This is
written deep across God’s creation: before any seed can multiply
it must die and cease to be. If the seed seeks to preserve its own
independent existence, it remains a single grain; but it yields a rich
harvest when it dies and disappears.
Jesus took this principle and applied it to himself in John
12:23–33. But he was not thinking only of himself for, in verses
25–26, he expressly applied the same principle to all who
would follow him.
The man on the cross
Jesus’ death on the cross not only revealed the full nature of
God, it also provided a perfect example of God’s ideal pattern
for humanity.
While he suffered, Jesus made time to demonstrate perfect
human behaviour by asking God to forgive those who had
tortured him, and by comforting a criminal with the promise
that he would be with him in paradise. And, when he died,
Jesus left everything behind, provided for his mother, and
committed his spirit into God’s hands.
Luke always draws his readers’ attention to the fully-human
side of Jesus. His account of the cross is shorter than the
others, yet somehow conveys a remarkable intensity of
anguish. Luke 22:42–44 shows Jesus enduring unparalleled
spiritual agony as he wrestles with God’s will: it is the most
telling New Testament insight into the humanity of the perfect
Son of Man.
In the different reports of the crucifixion, it is only Luke who
notes that Jesus died committing his spirit into the hands of the
Father, and that Jesus continued his ministry of forgiveness right
to the very end.
Luke leaves it to the other Gospel writers to reveal that
Jesus’ death is ‘a ransom for many’ and a victory over Satan. He
concentrates on revealing that Jesus’ death on the cross is the
ultimate example of perfect human goodness.

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For Luke, the cross is where the Messiah, the ‘anointed

man’, fulfils his Isaiah 53 destiny by accepting and enduring
rejection, suffering and death. This is the Christ who calls his
disciples to follow him, to follow his example, to take up their
crosses (every day, according to Luke) and to share his ideal
way of living and dying.

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Part Seven
Salvation and victory
The New Testament echoes with the early church’s cries of
victory. Passages like Romans 8:37; 1 Corinthians 15:57;
2 Corinthians 2:14 & Revelation 2–3 illustrate the early
believer’s conviction that they were victorious conquerors,
triumphant winners, and glorious overcomers.
They knew, however, that they owed their victory
completely to the victorious Jesus. Colossians 2:15; Revelation
3:21; 5:5 & 12:11 show that it is Christ who overcame and
triumphed – and that he did so on the cross.
We can be so familiar with the idea of ‘victory on-and-
through the cross’ that we forget how absurd it appears to most
who are not yet within the Christian faith. How can a crucified
Christ be a conqueror? How can a victim be a victor? How can
an executed criminal, who was rejected, betrayed, denied and
deserted by his own disciples, be deemed triumphant?
Most people think that it makes more sense to describe the
cross as a place of death and defeat; yet Christians claim that the
ultimate truth is the opposite of the human appearance. It may
seem that evil triumphed over goodness at the cross, but the
Bible declares that it was the place where goodness conquered
evil. It may seem that Christ was crushed by earthly powers on
the cross, but the Scriptures insist that it was the place where
the Seed of the woman finally crushed the serpent’s head.
As we have seen, the enigma of Christ’s victory is not the
full truth of salvation – but it is an important element. The cross
is the place of revelation, reproduction and victory; and our
understanding of salvation is imperfect if we neglect any of
these aspects of Christ’s achievement. In a very real sense all of
these things flow out of atonement, which is the central truth
of the cross.

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More importantly, our personal experience of salvation is

greatly impoverished when we overlook any feature of
Calvary. We must not only understand and celebrate the
different aspects of salvation, we must also appropriate them all
by faith and enter into them fully.

The progressive victory

Although the Bible declares that Jesus triumphed decisively
over the devil, and disarmed him completely at the cross, it
also presents a progressive picture of victory which leads
towards the decisive moment on the cross and also leads on to
its final completion.
Predictions of victory
Genesis 3:15 is usually considered to be the first glimpse of the
gospel, the first foreshadowing of the cross, and it points
specifically to this ‘victory’ aspect of salvation.
This first prediction of triumph identified the woman’s seed,
or offspring, as the one who would be completely victorious. It
was later revealed to the prophets that this ‘seed’ would be the
Messiah, the Christos or ‘Anointed Man’, who would establish
God’s righteous rule and eradicate evil.
When we take an overview of the Old Testament, and
interpret each passage in the light of the cross, we can see that
verses like 1 Chronicles 29:11 (which declare God’s then present
righteous rule in Israel) and Isaiah 9:6–7 (which announce his
future rule through the Messiah) are further implicit predictions of
the Seed’s ultimate triumph over the serpent.
Foretastes of victory
We have seen in The Rule of God that the righteous kingdom
arrived in-and-with Jesus. If Christ’s decisive victory over Satan
was achieved in his death on the cross, the early rounds were
won in his perfect submission to God throughout his earthly life
and in the mighty works which demonstrated his unique
anointing and authority.

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As soon as Jesus was born, Satan recognised him as his

future conqueror and started to attempt to defeat him. For
example, he attacked Jesus through:
Herod’s slaughter of the Bethlehem children –
Matthew 2:1–18
The wilderness temptations to avoid the cross –
Matthew 4:1–11
The Nazareth congregation’s attempts on his life –
Luke 4:28–29
The crowd’s desire to make him a political ruler –
John 6:15
Peter’s opposition to the way of the cross –
Matthew 16:21–23
Judas’ betrayal – Luke 22:1–6 & John 13:27.
But Jesus was determined to fulfil what had been foretold.
He announced that God’s kingdom had come to that
generation through him, and that his mighty works were the
visible proof of its coming.
Through the Gospels, we see God’s kingdom advancing
and Satan’s retreating as demons were cast out, diseases were
healed and nature was calmed – for example, Mark 1:24;
Matthew 4:23 & Mark 4:39.
Luke 9:1–6 & 10:1–24 describe how Jesus sent twelve
apostles and seventy disciples to announce the kingdom’s
arrival by preaching and healing as his representatives. When
they returned, Jesus told them that he had seen Satan fall from
heaven as a result of their activities.
Mark 3:27 & Luke 11:21–22 seem to summarise Jesus’
understanding of his pre-Calvary struggles with Satan. The devil
may have been a very strong man, but a stronger man had
come – and he would bind and overpower the strong man and
plunder his house.
This binding and overpowering did not fully take place,
however, until the cross. In John 12:31; 14:30 & 16:11, Jesus

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anticipated the devil’s last offensive on the cross, and promised

that he would be driven out and condemned. And Hebrews
2:14–15 states that it was by his death that Jesus destroyed the
devil and liberated his captives.
The moment of victory
Colossians 2:13–15 is the clearest New Testament statement
about the victory of Christ on the cross. In this important passage,
the apostle Paul draws together two aspects of salvation.
First, he illustrates God’s gracious act of forgiveness on the
cross by comparing it to the way that debts were cancelled. Paul
shows that God has released us from our moral and spiritual
bankruptcy by paying our debts on the cross; and, moreover,
that God has also destroyed all the records of our indebtedness.
Paul then describes God’s powerful act of conquest on the
cross, and shows that he had stripped his opponents of their
weapons and exhibited them as impotent, defeated enemies.
This describes an apekdusis, or ‘divestment’ of the enemy in
ancient military life. The commander of the conquering army
would publicly strip the defeated commanding officer of every
weapon and remove his insignia of rank to demonstrate total
victory over and unconditional surrender of the enemy.
We must recognise that Paul uses some vivid physical
images to describe an invisible spiritual reality. Just as God did
not literally nail a list of our debts on the cross, so Jesus did not
literally exhibit defeated demons in Jerusalem. But these
spiritual events were nevertheless real and actually took place
in the invisible realm
The deep truth beneath Paul’s imagery is that forgiveness
and victory both occurred simultaneously and are always
inescapably linked. In fact, we can almost say that Christ
triumphed over evil by repaying our debts, that by delivering us
from our sins he delivered us from sin.
We see in Knowing the Son that perfect submission is the
essence of Jesus’ sonship. Just as Jesus overcame the devil
during his ministry by resisting all his temptations, and by his

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perfect submission and obedience to the Father, so he

triumphed over the devil on the cross by the perfect obedience
described in Romans 5:19 & Philippians 2:8.
The Son’s perfect submission was indispensable to salvation.
If Jesus had disobeyed for a moment, had deviated one inch
from God’s path, the devil would have gained a fingerhold and
frustrated salvation. But Jesus obeyed the Father completely –
and so the devil was routed.
On the cross, the devil provoked Jesus through torture,
injustice, lies and insults, but Jesus refused to retaliate. He
could have summoned an angelic army to help him, he could
have stepped down from the cross; but, instead of
overcoming evil with power, he conquered it with good – as
Romans 12:21 explains.
The devil used every weapon in his arsenal to tempt Jesus
to disobey God, to hate his enemies, to imitate the world’s use
of power; but, by his obedience, self-denial, love and humility,
Jesus won the decisive moral victory over evil. In the height of
the conflict, he remained uncontaminated and uncompromised
by evil.
Despite everything that the devil did at the cross, he could
gain no hold on Jesus; and, when Jesus died without sin, the
devil had to concede defeat. The devil was truly trying to defeat
Jesus through the cross, but he failed, and in turn, Jesus
defeated him. This means that the long-predicted victory of the
Seed, which began during Christ’s earthly life and ministry, was
decisively accomplished by his death at the cross.
The confirmation of victory
Some believers seem to think that the cross was a temporary
defeat and that the resurrection was the real moment of
victory. But the cross was the victory and the resurrection was
merely the visible proof and public vindication of the victory on
the cross. We see this, for example, in Acts 2:24; Ephesians
1:20–23 & 1 Peter 3:22.

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Of course, the New Testament always links the cross and the
empty tomb together – as in, Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; Luke
24:30–35; John 10:17–18; Acts 2:23–24; Romans 6:1–4;
1 Corinthians 15:1–8; 2 Corinthians 5:15; 1 Thessalonians 4:14
& Revelation 1:18. This means that we should not proclaim the
cross without the resurrection or the resurrection without the
cross, for Jesus is both the living Lord and the atoning Saviour.
Despite this unbreakable link, we will understand salvation
correctly only when we appreciate the true relation between
Christ’s triumphant death and his confirming resurrection.
Throughout this book, we have seen that we were saved
by the blood, by the death on the cross. It was the blood on
the cross which achieved our salvation, revealed God’s nature
and won the decisive victory over evil. It was the blood which
accomplished our redemption, and reconciliation. It was the
blood which satisfied the twin demands of human need and
God’s nature. And so on.
The New Testament always states that ‘Christ died for our
sins’ and never that ‘he rose for our sins’: Hebrews 2:14 makes
this plain. The resurrection did not earn our salvation; instead, it
is the ultimate proof of our salvation. Just as the incarnation was
the indispensable requirement for salvation, so the resurrection
was the indispensable confirmation of salvation. The resurrection
vindicated Jesus, declared that he was the Son of God, and
revealed that his substitutionary death had won salvation. It was
God’s way of publicly endorsing Jesus’ victory on the cross.
We must never forget, however, that it was really the cross,
and not the resurrection, which actually achieved our salvation.
This is why the cross, and not the empty tomb or the
descending dove, has always been the universal symbol of our
Christian faith.
The application of victory
In The Rule of God, we see that God’s kingdom is both ‘now’
and ‘not yet’. Although the devil was decisively defeated at the
cross, he has not yet conceded total defeat; although he was

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overthrown, he has not been eliminated. He still opposes,

tempts, deceives and attacks all Christ’s disciples.
The ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ paradox of the kingdom means the
New Testament promises that we are seated and reigning with
Christ, with all the forces of evil under both our feet, and it warns
that we cannot stand against the opposing spiritual forces without
the Lord’s strength and armour. It promises that Christ keeps us
safe and the evil one cannot touch us, and it warns us to watch
out for the same evil one who is prowling around seeking to
devour us. We see this paradox in Ephesians 1:20–23; 6:10–17;
1 John 5:18 & 1 Peter 5:8.
The ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ paradox means that the kingdom has
come, but has not been completed; that the decisive battle has
been won, but the enemy has not surrendered; that the strong
man has been bound, but his house has not been fully plundered
and all his captives liberated; that Goliath has been slain and David
has returned to Jerusalem in triumph, but the Israelite foot-
soldiers still have to mop up the demoralised Philistine troops.
Some Christians focus too much on the ‘now’ dynamics of
faith, while others are preoccupied with the ‘not yet’ aspects.
We, however, are called to celebrate the decisive
breakthrough – and to live in the good of it, and to apply it –
whilst always recognising that the kingdom victory will not be
complete until the last day.
Christ’s atoning death unconditionally guarantees every
aspect of salvation for all eternity, but we do not experience
every benefit of salvation fully and completely now. Romans 8
makes it clear that we are saved in hope, but that hope which is
seen is not hope. This means that there simply must be an
unseen, unexperienced element to our salvation and Christian
experience – that there will always be something for God to
complete on the last day. In Romans 8, Paul urges us to hope for
what we do not see and to wait for it eagerly with perseverance.
The ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ paradox has obvious implications
for every aspect of salvation, but we must be careful that we

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do not make arbitrary distinctions between ‘now’ and ‘not

yet’. We enjoy every benefit of salvation ‘now’, but it is all
only a foretaste of what we will enjoy completely and fully at
the last day.
For example, because of Christ’s victory, our present
experience of healing is considerable. Nevertheless, it is
essentially incomplete – for not everyone is healed of
everything and everyone who is healed eventually dies. Every
single healing, however, is both an accurate foretaste and a
prophetic foreshadowing of the perfect and total healing of the
resurrection.
It is much the same with sanctification and victory. Our
present experience is considerable; but no matter how close
we live to God we will not reach absolute perfection or
ceaseless victory in this life – for, although the devil has been
disarmed and defeated, he has not been eliminated. Instead,
our ever-increasing sanctification is a wonderful foretaste of our
certain eternal perfection, and our every experience of victory
is a prophetic pointer to the absolute victory of the last day.
Of course, as well as applying Christ’s victory in our own
lives by overcoming the devil’s attacks, we are also meant to
apply his victory by releasing the devils’ captives. As we see in
Reaching the Lost, the church has been commissioned to
extend the triumphant rule of God, in the power of the Spirit,
by heraldically proclaiming, demonstrating and incarnating the
good news of Jesus Christ.
As we proclaim and live and demonstrate the gospel, we call
people to turn from Satan to God, from darkness to light, from
idols to the true and living God – we see this, for example, in
Acts 26:18; 1 Thessalonians 1:9 & Colossians 1:13.
This shows that every conversion involves a power
encounter when the devil is forced to relax his hold on a
person’ life and so acknowledge the superior power and
victory of Christ.

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The completion of victory

As we live in, and grapple with, the ‘now’ and ‘not yet’
kingdom paradox, we should always be looking forward to the
completion and consummation of Christ’s victory at his return.
Psalm 110 is the Old Testament prophecy to which the
New Testament most frequently records Jesus referring. The
Lord God has told Jesus to sit at his right hand, and he has been
seated there, reigning on the throne of heaven, since his
Ascension. But Jesus is still waiting for God to make the enemy
forces his footstool.
We are the Psalm 110:3 volunteer people who, in the day
of the Lord’s power, are spreading the rod of his strength in the
nations in the midst of his enemies. But we are still waiting for
the Psalm 110:5–7 day of wrath and judgement.
On that great and terrible day, every knee will bow to Jesus,
every tongue will confess him as Lord, and something awful will
happen to the devil and his forces which the Bible describes as
being thrown into the lake of fire.
On that day of consummate victory, all evil will be destroyed,
all death will be ended, and the Son will hand the kingdom back
to the Father. The ‘not yet’ will finally be ‘now’ – for all eternity.
This final step will be the greatest moment in the life and
ministry of Jesus. We read about this in 1 Corinthians 15:24–28;
Philippians 2:9–11; Revelation 20:10 & 14.

Living in victory
The Greek verb katargeo is often translated as ‘to destroy’ or ‘to
abolish’, and is used in Hebrews 2:14; Romans 6:6 & 2 Timothy
1:10 with reference to the devil, the flesh and death itself.
In Reaching the Lost, we see that the verb apollumi, ‘to lose’
or ‘to perish’ refers to ‘a loss of well being’ rather than ‘a loss
of being’ – to ruin rather than extinction: it is exactly the same
with katargeo.
Katargeo means ‘to make ineffective’ or ‘barren’ or ‘render
inoperative’ and was the verb used in the first century Greek

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world to describe barren land and unproductive fruit trees.

They still existed, they had not been destroyed, but they had
been cut down and were quite barren.
When, therefore, the New Testament applies katargeo to
the devil, the flesh and death, it is not suggesting that they were
completely ‘destroyed’ at the cross. The devil is still active; the
flesh continues to assert itself in our lives; death keeps on
operating: they still exist, but they were cut down and broken
on the cross.
This means that the decisive victory of Christ did not abolish
the devil, the flesh and death, it simply rendered them
ineffective – it stripped them of their power.
Living in victory, therefore, means living in the knowledge
that Satan still exists, but that his power has been fundamentally
broken; that the flesh still makes all manner of suggestions to
us, but that these are essentially empty threats; that death still
rears its ugly head, but that there is nothing to fear any more.
1 John 3:8 shows that the Son was sent by the Father to
confront and defeat Satan, and to undo the damage which he
had directly inflicted or indirectly caused. The New Testament
refers to many different aspects of Christ’s saving victory, but it
particularly emphasises our triumphant freedom from the law,
the flesh, the world and death itself.
Freedom from the law
In Romans 6:14; 10:4; Galatians 3:13, 23 & 5:18, the apostle
Paul teaches that we have been released from the bondage of
the Law by Christ’s victory on the cross.
The Law condemned our disobedience, and so brought us
under its ‘curse’ or judgement. But Christ’s death released us
from the Law’s curse because he became a curse for us. As we
see in The Rule of God, this means that Christ was the fulfilment
or completion of the Law, and it no longer enslaves us by its
condemnation.
Romans 8:1–4 explains that we are not condemned when
we are in Christ, for God has condemned our sins in Christ.

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This passage shows that God did this so that the righteous
requirements of the Law could be fully met in us; and it
demonstrates that the cross released us from the Law’s
condemnation so that we would be released into a life of
walking in obedience to the Holy Spirit.
This means that Christ’s victory over the Law, and our
resultant freedom from the Law, is demonstrated or evidenced
by our walk in-and-with the Spirit. Quite simply, our life in the
Spirit is our ongoing experience of Christ’s victory.
Freedom from the flesh
We have seen in Reaching the Lost that ‘the flesh’, sarx,
represents people in their earthly origin, natural weakness and
alienation from God, and that it is often the cause of sinful
activity – Galatians 5:16–19, for example.
The basic characteristic of human ‘flesh’ is self-centredness,
and Galatians 5:16–21 lists some of the consequences of the
flesh’s natural appetites. Jesus spoke about the freedom he brings
in John 8:34–36, and Romans 6:6 show that our freedom from
the fallen, selfish nature of the flesh comes from the cross.
It is important to note that Galatians 5:16–25 describes
freedom from the flesh in terms of walking in the Spirit. Once
again, our ongoing experience of Christ’s victory is
demonstrated by our walk in-and-with the Spirit. Our
partnership with the Spirit is our experience of victory.
Freedom from the world
We can say that the ‘flesh’ is the devil’s basic hold inside us, and
that the ‘world’ is his basic means of pressuring us from outside.
In this context, ‘the world’ means the godless society which is
hostile to the Church and which continually attempts to
compromise its holy values.
1 John 2:15–16; John 16:33 & 1 John 5:4–5 illustrate the
incompatibility of loving the world and loving the Father. They
show that the world is characterised by selfish desires, superficial
judgements and sinful materialism, that Jesus overcame the
world, and that – through him – we can be overcomers too.

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When Jesus claimed that he had triumphed over the world,

he meant that he had rejected its distorted values and maintained
his godly perspective on people and material objects. When we
believe in Jesus, we share his victory over the world by sharing
his eternal values. And Romans 12:1–2 & Galatians 6:14 show
that living in Christ’s victory over the world means not being
conformed to its values and being progressively transformed by
our renewed mind’s grasp of God’s will.
Nothing reveals God’s nature more clearly than the cross.
It is through the cross that the world has been crucified to us,
and we to the world, so that we are released from its bondage
to live in the freedom of God’s will and values.
Freedom from death
Hebrews 2:14–15 teaches that Jesus has released us from the
fear of death because, by his death, he has ‘destroyed’ (or, better,
‘made ineffective’) the one who holds the power of death.
Because sin is the ‘sting’ of death, the primary reason why
death is painful and unpleasant, Jesus dealt with death by
dealing with sin. It was sin which caused death in the first place,
and which continues to cause humanity to face divine
judgement after death – and this sinful root is the essential
reason for the universal human fear of death.
Christ, however, has died for our sins and has taken them
away. His victory over sin means that we are released from the
fear of sin and judgement, and, therefore, from the fear of death.
In 1 Corinthians 15:54–57, the apostle Paul likens death
both to a scorpion whose sting has been drawn and to a
military conqueror whose power has been broken. Now that
we have been forgiven through the death on the cross, death
cannot harm us: through our Lord Jesus Christ, God has given
us victory over the fear of death.
Of course, like the devil, death still remains: it has been
neutralised, not eliminated. It still exists, but has lost its power
to harm and terrify. John 11:25–26 records Jesus’ great

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promise to his disciples about death: this does not mean that
we will escape physical death, but that it will simply be a
transition from life on earth to fullness of life.

The victorious Christ

The book of Revelation announces Christ’s victory more loudly
and clearly than any other part of Scripture. The New Testament
uses the Greek word group for victory (nike, nikos and nikao,
‘victory’ and ‘to conquer’ or ‘to overcome’) 29 times, and 13 of
these occur in Revelation. We see this, for example, in Matthew
12:20; John 16:33; Romans 12:21; 1 Corinthians 15:54–57;
1 John 2:13–14; 4:4; 5:4–5; Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12,
21; 6:2; 11:7; 12:11; 15:2; 17:14 & 21:7.
It seems Revelation was written sometime in the last two
decades of the first century, during the reign of Domitian, when
the early church was being systematically opposed and
persecuted by the Roman authorities – mainly because it
refused to worship the emperor.
In the book of Revelation, the Spirit, through the apostle John,
parts the curtain which hides the unseen world of spiritual reality
and enables us to see what is going on beyond the earthly scene.
Using highly pictorial and often symbolic language,
Revelation reveals that the conflict between the Church and
the world is simply the visible expression of the invisible
struggle between the Christ and the Satan, the Lamb and the
dragon, the Seed of the woman and the serpent, and so on.
Revelation portrays this conflict in a series of dramatic visions
which Christians variously interpret as depicting:
Only John’s immediate era
All of Church history
Just the years which immediately precede Christ’s
return.
Furthermore, some people interpret Revelation’s series of
dramatic visions sequentially, while others consider them to be

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complementary revelations which present the same events

from different viewpoints.
But no matter how we interpret Revelation, we should be
able to recognise it teaches that:
Invisible spiritual conflict is always reflected in the
visible physical world
Christ is victorious in every aspect of the battle
Therefore, we too should be victorious.
Almost every reference to Christ in the book of Revelation
portrays him as victorious. For example:
The book begins with references to his triumph in
1:5 & 1:17–18
The seven letters to Christ’s churches on earth, in
2:1–3:22, all end with a specific promise to those
who overcome
4:1–7:17 focuses on Christ on the throne in
heaven: he is the Lion and the Lamb who rules and
triumphs through self-sacrifice – this is especially
clear in 5:5 & 5:9
The climactic events portrayed in 8:1–11:19 (war,
famine, plague, martyrdom, earthquakes, and
environmental disaster) are all seen to be under
the full control of the Lamb, who is already reigning
and whose perfect kingdom will soon be
completed.
Chapter 12 seems to be the pivot of Revelation, and
seems to review the conflict between the Seed and the
serpent. The victory described in verse 9 must be the cross,
because the people in verse 11 overcome the dragon by the
blood of the Lamb.
At this point in the vision, the devil has been defeated and
dethroned (made ineffective but not destroyed). This,
however, does not end his activities; rather, his rage at his
impending doom causes him to double his efforts.

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This underlines what we have seen throughout the New

Testament: the decisive victory has been won on the cross, but
conflict still continues.
The three monsters
Revelation then describes three symbolic allies who assist the
stricken dragon.
In 13:1–10, the dragon delegates his power, throne and
sovereignty to a first monster, which then blasphemes against
God, violently opposes the saints, temporarily conquers them,
and is worshipped by all but the Lamb’s followers.
This first monster seems to symbolise authorities who
persecute the Church. We can say that this sort of ‘monster’
was seen in John’s day in the Roman empire, that ‘it’ has re-
appeared throughout history in regimes of every political hue
which have opposed the Church and demanded the undivided
devotion of their people; that ‘it’ can be seen in some parts of
the world today; and that ‘it’ will undoubtedly be even more
active in the Last Days before Christ’s return.
The second monster described in 13:11–18 seems to be an
accomplice of the first monster. It promotes the worship of false
gods, performs false signs and sets out to deceive. It forces people
to worship the image of the first monster and to wear its mark.
In John’s day, this monster would have symbolised those who
promoted the worship of the Emperor Domitian. Again, we can
say that ‘it’ has reappeared throughout history in every false
religion and ungodly ideology which deceives people into
worshipping anything other than the true and living God. We can
be sure that ‘it’ will manifest itself even more clearly in the future.
The third monster appears in 17:3 – after the Lamb’s final
victory has been confidently forecast and celebrated again in
14:1–5; 15:1–4 & 16:4–7. This monster’s weapon seems to
be seduction rather than persecution or deception, and it aims to
entrap people through immorality and materialism.
This monster’s seductive activities are described throughout
chapters 17 & 18, and it makes war against the Lamb by
embroiling his followers in immorality and materialism, two of the

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great seductive forces of the devil (the third being power). 17:14
makes it clear that the Lamb will fully overcome this monster.
In John’s day, this monster would have been seen in the
Roman empire’s moral corruption, and in the moral decay
which led to its collapse. Since then, ‘it’ has gone on trying to
paralyse the Church through immoral attitudes and rampant
materialism. Once again, we can be sure that it will redouble its
efforts as the day of its ultimate demise draws near.
Chapters 18 & 19 describe the fall of the third monster –
and reveal that this is only right and just. Jesus the Victor
appears in 19:11–16 to judge and make war, and the last three
chapters of Revelation describe the final destruction of Satan
and death, and the creation of the new heaven and new earth
where God establishes his perfect rule.
Being a victor
The central message of Revelation is clear: Jesus has defeated
Satan on the cross, and will one day eliminate him altogether.
It is only against the backdrop of these two absolute certainties
that Revelation can encourage believers to confront Satan’s
continuing activities of persecution, deception and seduction.
The Holy Spirit, through the Revelation of John, urges us to
be overcomers, to enter into Christ’s victory on the cross and
triumph over the devil’s power. And the New Testament
suggests that there are two simple ways of becoming a victor
and living in victory.
First, 1 Peter 5:8–9 & James 4:7 urge us to resist the devil,
to stand firm against him in faith. We have nothing to fear
because he has been defeated at the cross. When we are
equipped with the Ephesians 6:10–17 armour of God, we can
stand against him and prevail.
We are not to flee from the devils’ monsters of persecution,
deception and seduction; we are to resist them in the name of Jesus
the Victor so that the devil flees from us as he flees from Jesus.
In fact, we are not just conquerors, for Romans 8:37
describes us as hupernikao – ‘hyper-conquerors’ or ‘super-

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heroes’. Even in times of tribulation, distress, persecution,

famine, war, poverty and peril, Paul proclaims that we should
be ‘more than conquerors’ – through him who loved us.
Then, second, Revelation 12:11 shows that we overcome
the devil through the blood of the Lamb and the word of our
testimony. As we see in Reaching the Lost, we are called to
proclaim, to demonstrate and to incarnate the good news
about Jesus Christ. And Acts 26:18 reveals that it is as we
witness and minister to Jesus that people turn from Satan to
God, that Satan’s kingdom retreats and God’s advances.
We must remember that it is only by the cross of Christ that
we can triumph over Satan – both in our personal lives and in
the Church’s mission.
We know that we are called to repentant holiness and radical
evangelism, to selfless self-sacrifice and patient endurance; but
these only have meaning and purpose because the ultimate
completion of the Seed’s crushing victory over the serpent –
which he won when he died on the cross – is now in sight.

The cosmic nature of salvation

Thus far, we have been focusing purposely on personal
salvation. However, it would be remiss to fail to draw attention
to the cosmic dimension of salvation in Christ, for the victory of
Calvary is clearly also a victory for creation as well. On the
cross, Jesus not only redeemed individual human beings from
the curse of sin, he also redeemed creation too.
The Bible teaches that deterioration and corruption entered
nature through the fall – Genesis 3:17–18. This is why the
‘very good’ world that God created is currently subject to
natural and devastating phenomena such as tornadoes,
earthquakes, floods and tsunamis.
But nature longs for redemption to come, for the world to
be set right – as it was when God first created it. This is what
Paul is referring to in Romans 8:22 when he says, ‘For we
know that the whole creation groans and labours with birth

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pangs together until now’. For Paul, the risen Jesus is the first-
fruits and guarantee of the new creation – 1 Corinthians 15:20
– and Jesus’ resurrection has already set into motion the
beginning of nature’s redemption. However, there is a clear
‘not yet’ aspect to this as well, and this is what 2 Peter 3:13 &
Revelation 21:1 are referring to when they speak of a future
‘new heavens’ and a ‘new earth’ – referring to the time when
Jesus will come again to fully consummate his victory at Calvary.
All this means that we miss the full biblical scope about
salvation if we simply focus on the victory for individual men and
women. There must indeed be a whole world dimension to
our theology of salvation. And as we discuss in Reaching the Lost,
this means that we must have a genuine ‘world dimension’ to
our evangelism, and realise that the message of the cross is also
relevant to key environmental issues such as global warming,
energy conservation and food production. This cosmic scope to
biblical salvation is the reason why Christians must engage with
the world on all fronts – political, social, economical,
environmental and so on, and not just the spiritual.

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Part Eight
Salvation and new life
In Reaching the Lost, we note that the Bible often considers
unsaved humanity to be apololos, ‘lost’, and this is the word
which Luke 19:10 uses to summarise Jesus’ mission: he came
to save apololos, ‘the lost’.
Apololos is derived from the Greek verb apollumi which
means ‘to ruin fully’, or ‘to spoil totally’, or ‘to lose completely’.
Although some versions of the Bible translate apollumi as ‘kill’,
it really means ‘a loss of well-being’, not ‘a loss of being’: it
signifies devastation and ruin rather than extinction and death.
Humanity’s fundamental ‘lostness’ is one of the key reasons
for God’s saving ministry of reconciliation. Men and women
who are totally lost urgently need to be found, and then to be
brought back to God (where they rightfully belong) and fully
reconciled with him.
Although ‘lostness’ is the principal biblical picture of fallen
humanity, it is not the only image. The Scriptures use a
kaleidoscopic array of words, metaphors, similes and images in
their inspired attempt to reveal the fullness of God’s gracious
salvation. And the ideas of fallen humanity’s essential ‘deadness’
and ‘blindness’ are secondary threads which run through the
Bible. The dead and the blind do not only need to be found
and reconciled; they also need to be given new life and new
light by the source of all life and all light. They need the saving
life and light of God as well as forgiveness, reconciliation, victory
and so on.
We have already seen the saving grace of God at work in
Christ’s acts of atonement, revelation and victory, but – if it is
possible – divine grace is even clearer in Christ’s act of giving
new life.

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Although we may know that God takes the initiative in

reaching the lost, the suspicion seems to lurk within some
found-and-reconciled men and women that they participated
in the process of reconciliation – even if only by calling for help
and stretching out a hand.
But people who are dead can do nothing to help
themselves. They cannot cry for help; they cannot resuscitate
themselves; they cannot even stretch a limp hand towards
God. Instead, they need God to do everything for them. This
is why salvation has to be by God’s grace.
They need the Jesus who came as a divine parent to strain
for the heavenly birth of a new creation to give them the new
life he brought into being through the cross.
They need that aspect of his saving work on the cross which
has made eternal life freely available for all; and they need God
in his grace to give it to them, to breath his divine Spirit into their
dead spirit, to place his divine seed into their innermost being.
This ‘reproductory’ aspect of salvation should be the final,
convincing proof that salvation is all-God and that it is only-
God. Quite simply, as far as the Bible is concerned, we have
either been saved by grace, or we have not been saved at all.

New birth
Most believers are familiar with the expressions ‘new birth’ and
‘born again’, but few think deeply about these ideas or try to
understand them in their biblical contexts.
Every aspect of salvation is foreshadowed in Isaiah’s four
servant songs; and Isaiah 53:10–11 promises that, on the day
of his death, when the servant is stricken for the transgressions
of God’s people, he will see ‘his seed’ and ‘the travail of his
soul’. Some translations accurately render this as ‘his offspring’.
Because the Bible shows that Jesus was this ‘suffering servant’,
we can expect the Gospels to describe him seeing his offspring,
the travail of his soul, on the day of death. And they do record
that, after six hours on the cross of what we can consider

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‘spiritual childbirth’, Jesus was in a similar condition to a woman

in labour – he was panting like the deer in Psalm 42:1–2.
John 19:28–30 reports Jesus’ cry of thirst, which fulfilled
Psalm 22:15 & 42:1 (when the soldiers responded, they
fulfilled Psalm 69:21) and his cry of triumphant delight. As Jesus
died ‘in labour’, he cried ‘I’ve done it!’ because, like the Isaiah
53:10 servant, he had prophetically glimpsed his seed, his
offspring, the fruit of his sacrifice – a new creation, redeemed
humanity, born again in the nature of God.
In John 12:23–33, Jesus predicted several aspects of his
saving death on the cross. He explained that his death would
reveal God’s glory, that it would cause the evil ruler of the
world to be cast out, and that it would marvellously reproduce his
own life and nature.
In this important prophetic passage, Jesus implicitly
promised that his death on the cross would bring about the
birth of a great host of people who reproduced his nature – in
exactly the same way that a grain of wheat falls to the ground
and dies to reproduce itself and its nature.
Old Testament background
Every aspect of the cross that we have considered has been
foreshadowed in the Old Testament, and it is no different with
the idea of new birth.
Passages like Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 32:6 & Hosea
11:1 show that the whole people of Israel was together
considered to be God’s first-born child. And passages like
2 Samuel 7:14; Psalm 2:7 & 89:27 reveal that the people
understood their king to be a special son of God.
Some leaders argue that these groups of passages refer more
to ‘covenant choice’ than ‘spiritual reproduction’, but these ideas
cannot be separated. As we have seen, every aspect of salvation
is linked with God’s covenant, and the promise of new life and
reproduction is at the heart of all biblical covenants. God’s
covenant with Abraham guaranteed a host of descendants; his
covenant with Moses guaranteed a people, his covenant with

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David guaranteed a family line; and his new covenant with

humanity guaranteed himself a host of descendants, a holy
people, a divine family. This suggests that God provides new life
and new birth whenever he acts in covenant.
Psalm 2 is especially significant: it points to God’s messianic
covenant in verses 2 & 6–9, and links the idea of God
‘anointing’ with God ‘begetting’. (The Old English word ‘beget’
means ‘procreate’ and refers to the specifically male part of
reproduction – the giving of a seed – rather than to the entire
reproductory process.) God anointed Jesus as his beloved Son
– he is the eternal Son of the eternal Father. In Knowing the Son
we see that the ‘begetting’ of the Son refers to God publicly
declaring Jesus’ sonship by anointing him, by raising him from
the dead and by enthroning him at his right hand. The Son did
not become the Son through these acts, for he always was the
Son. These acts of God demonstrated who he was.
However, the link in Psalm 2 between ‘anointing’ and
‘begetting’, the giving of God’s Spirit and the giving of God’s
Seed, suggests that the One whom God ‘begets’ is the One
whom God ‘anoints’ with his Spirit. The association with the
messianic covenant promises suggests that this ‘begetting and
anointing’ is part of God’s covenant activity.
At one level, Psalm 2 is a trinitarian insight which is fulfilled in
Jesus: he is the Son of David, God’s unique and only begotten
Son, the Seed of Genesis 3, the Christos – the One who is
anointed with the Spirit.
At a deeper level, however, Psalm 2 foreshadows the link
between the gift of the Spirit and the gift of new life which Jesus
reveals in John 3, releases at the cross, and which is re-affirmed
in 1 John 2:20–29.

Jesus and Nicodemus

Although the idea of ‘new life’ or ‘new birth’ is referred to in New
Testament passages like Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 1:22–2:3 & 1 John 3:9,
it is most clearly described by Jesus in the famous nocturnal
conversation with Nicodemus, which is recorded in John 3:1–21.

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Nicodemus seems to be one of the people mentioned in

John 2:23–25 who believed in Jesus because of the signs that
they had seen: the ‘we’ in 3:2 suggests that Nicodemus may
have been their spokesperson.
Jesus had responded unfavourably to their faith in 2:24–25,
and this is his initial response to Nicodemus: the ruler’s
approach in 3:3, though well-intentioned, reveals a
fundamental misunderstanding about Jesus.
Jesus’ response in 3:3 seems to treat Nicodemus’ greeting as
an implicit question about entering the kingdom of God. Jesus
explains to Nicodemus that he has not come from God in the way
Nicodemus thinks, but in the unique sense of having descended
from God’s presence specifically to raise people to God.
Jesus’ basic teaching in John 3 is simple. People take human
flesh and enter the kingdom of the world when their father
begets them and their mother gives birth to them. In the same
way, people enter the kingdom of God only when they are
begotten and born by God.
Earthly life comes from-and-through our earthly parents;
eternal life comes from the heavenly Father, and is birthed through
the Son whom the Father has empowered to give new life.
Nicodemus still misunderstood Jesus’ teaching, and thought
he meant that people needed to experience a second physical
birth. Jesus, however, was referring to the time foreshadowed
in the Old Testament when men and women would be reborn
as God’s children.
As Nicodemus could not grasp the idea of spiritual
reproduction, of God begetting and giving birth, Jesus went on
to explain the matter more fully.
Born of the Spirit
One of the simplest tests of life is to see whether a person is
breathing; and, in Jesus’ day, the breath/spirit (it is the same
word in Hebrew) was thought to be the basic principle of life.
God gave physical life to humanity when he breathed ‘the
breath/spirit of life’ into the man’s nostrils in Genesis 2:7. In the

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same way, physical death occurs when God takes back his
breath/spirit – we see this in Genesis 6:3; Job 34:14 &
Ecclesiastes 12:7.
Jesus explained to Nicodemus that, just as physical life began
when God put his breath/spirit into humanity, so new life begins
when God gives his breath/spirit to humanity. Jesus insisted, in
3:5–8, that nobody could enter God’s kingdom unless they are
‘born of the Spirit’ – unless they receive God’s breath of life.
As a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus should have
recognised much of this, for the giving of the Spirit had been
foretold in, for example, Isaiah 32:15; 44:3; Ezekiel 36:25–26
& Joel 2:28–29.
(Jesus’ words in John 3 should help us to grasp that ‘being
born again’, ‘receiving new life’, ‘new birth’ and ‘being born of
the Spirit’ are different expressions for the same achievement
of the cross.)
In John 3:6, Jesus contrasted the flesh and the Spirit in the
same way that he had just contrasted earthly and heavenly
birth. This contrast is nothing to do with supposed divisions
within human beings, nor is it a contrast between material and
spiritual, for ‘flesh’ here refers to humanity as it is born into the
world – and, as such, it possesses something of both the
material and the spiritual. Instead, Jesus’ contrast is between
people ‘as they are’ and people ‘as they can be’ – when they
receive new life and are born of the Spirit.
In 3:7–8, Jesus made it plain to Nicodemus that there is
something very mysterious about being born of the Spirit. He
drew on Ecclesiastes 11:5 and used the simile of the wind to
show that the mystery does not detract from the reality of the
Spirit’s action.
Although we can see the effects of the wind, we cannot see
the wind which causes the effects. In the same way, we can see
those who have been born again, without seeing when or how
the Spirit worked in them, and without knowing why one
person is born again and another is not.

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The lifting up of the Son

In John 3:1–8, Jesus explained that entrance to God’s kingdom
requires God to give his breath/spirit of life, and that this is
something which nobody can accomplish except God.
Nicodemus still did not understand, and, in 3:9, he asked Jesus
how this could possibly happen.
Jesus assured Nicodemus that he really did know what he
was talking about because he had come from above – and
insisted that he was the only one qualified to answer the
question because nobody else had ever been in heaven.
Although verses 3 & 16 tend to be the best known verses
of John 3, verses 14–15 are the key to the chapter, the heart
of John’s Gospel, and the essence of ‘salvation and new life’. In
3:14–15, Jesus explained that new life can come about only
through his lifting up on the cross. This means that ‘new life’,
‘new birth’, ‘being born again’, ‘being born of the Spirit’, and so
on, is only possible through the death of the Son.
Verse 14 is the first of three statements in John’s Gospel
which refer to Jesus being ‘lifted up’ or ‘exalted’: the others are
recorded in 8:28 & 12:32–34. (We should note that, once
again, this particular aspect of salvation is foretold in Isaiah’s
servant songs – in 52:13.)
The Greek verb hupsoo, ‘to be lifted up’ or ‘exalted’, is also
used in Acts 2:33 & 5:31 to refer to Jesus’ ascension; and the
parallel Hebrew word, nasah, can mean both death and
glorification – as in Genesis 40:13 & 19. This suggests that
Jesus’ ‘lifting up’ begins in his death, is publicly vindicated in his
resurrection, and is completed in his ascension.
In 3:15, Jesus told Nicodemus that his lifting up on the cross
like Moses’ serpent in the wilderness would lead directly to the
gift of eternal life to all who believe in him.
In this pivotal passage, Jesus promised Nicodemus that he
will give new life, eternal life, everlasting life when he is lifted up
and glorified, Clearly, this new life will be the life of the children
of God, the life born from above, the life born of the Spirit, the
very breath of God himself.

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Belief in the Son

Belief is one of the great themes of John’s Gospel, and 20:31
states that the Gospel was written with the express purpose of
leading people to believe in Jesus so that they can have life in
his name. This is the reason for ‘doubting’ Thomas’ high profile
in John, and for the climax of Thomas’ dramatic statement of
belief in 20:27–28.
In John 3:15, Jesus told Nicodemus that eternal life comes
through belief in him – but we must be clear that this is belief
in the One who is lifted up. Too many people quote John 3:16
without recognising that it must be understood in the context
of verses 14 & 15.
The eternal life which Jesus promises to those who believe,
is life only for those who believe in the one who was lifted up
like Moses’ pole in the wilderness. This means that our belief
will not lead to new life unless it is based firmly on the cross.
Numbers 21:4–9 recounts how sinful, snake-bitten
Israelites, who were sure to die, could be saved from certain
death only by looking to the bronze serpent which Moses had
made and erected on a pole as God’s gracious provision of life
in a time of judgement. If people believed in God’s provision,
and demonstrated this by looking at the pole, they lived; if they
did not look, they died from snake-poison.
In the same way, Jesus came from heaven as God’s gracious
provision in the day of judgement for all those who are dying
as a result of the ancient Snake’s activity. He too was lifted up
on a pole as God’s means of life: if people demonstrate their
belief in God’s gracious provision by looking to the One on the
cross, they will receive eternal life; but, if they do not look to
the cross, they perish.
From John 3:1 to 3:15, Jesus focuses on Nicodemus and on
the gift of new life to individual men and women. In 3:16–17,
however, Jesus shows that God’s gift of new life is for the
whole world. He makes it clear that God does not intend to
reproduce just a few children in his nature; rather, the saving,
reproducing Father wills to give new life to the whole world.

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New life in Christ

The theme of new life dominates the writings of the apostles
John and Paul.
John presents the union between the Father and the Son as
the pattern for the believer’s life in God, and describes the
believer’s new life in terms of ‘abiding in’ or ‘being in’ Jesus. We
see this, for example, in John 6:56; 14:10–24 & 15:1–10.
Jesus’ picture of the vine, in John 15, vividly expresses the
centrality of God’s life flowing through the lives of his people.
15:7 make sense only if the life, nature and mind of God are
infused into believers.
John makes it plain that the gift of God’s life is meant to
produce the character and quality of God’s own life. Those
who abide in Christ are obliged to walk as Christ walked and
to live as Christ lived: we see this in 1 John 2:5–6, 24, 27–28;
3:6, 24; 4:12–13, 15–16 & 5:20.
The ‘eternal life’ which John describes in 3:15–16; 6:40, 47;
20:31; 1 John 1:2; 2:5 & 5:20 does point to a spiritual
existence in God’s presence after physical death, which is
received in advance by faith in the One on the cross – but it
does not refer only to this.
Eternal life for John is also a present reality (or else his
teaching about abiding in Christ makes no sense at all). It is a
new manner of present existence which means that those who
believe in the One who is lifted up can share a quality of life on
earth which possesses all the characteristics of God’s own
heavenly life.
We see this same truth, but with a slightly different
emphasis, in Paul’s writings. He refers to ‘eternal life’ as being
primarily future – as in Romans 2:7; 5:21; 6:22 & Galatians 6:8.
However, this does not mean that Paul rejects the idea of
eternal life being personally experienced in the present. It is just
that he uses a host of different expressions to describe the
believer’s new life on earth.

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For example, Paul refers to our new life as:

Union with Christ
In Christ
In the Spirit
Christ in us
The Spirit in us
Into Christ
Putting on Christ.
Paul seems to use these expressions at times interchangeably,
but they all always suggest both a definite historic act and a
continuous process.
No matter which phrase Paul uses to describe ‘new life’, it
always points to a life which was brought into being by God at
the cross: it refers to a reproduction of God’s nature through
the Spirit and through the Son’s death. Despite this, all Paul’s
phrases also always refer to a continuing process of living the
new life of God in the world.
We see this throughout salvation: the gifts of forgiveness and
reconciliation on the cross are meant to result in lives which are
continuously characterised by forgiveness and reconciliation;
the complete revelation of God on the cross is meant to lead
to lives which keep on revealing God’s sacrificial nature;
Christ’s victory on the cross is meant to result in a life of
ongoing victory; so too, God’s gift of new life through the cross
is meant to lead to lives which are continuously (and ever-
increasingly) characterised by God’s life.
The gift of new life is not merely a guaranteed ‘entrance to
heaven’ (though it is that), it is also the gift of God’s breath
which is meant to transform us into God’s likeness so that we
exhibit God’s nature.
Union with Christ’s death and life
Most of Paul’s images of new life involve an identification with
Christ’s death as well as an incorporation into his life.

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This is particularly clear in Romans 6, where he presents

baptism as a symbol and seal of our union with Christ in his
death and resurrection. In this chapter, Paul argues that, just as
Jesus’ death was an historical event, so the incorporation of
believers in his death is equally historical.
According to Paul, when Christ died on the cross, all those
who were to be united in him also died. This means that we
are immediately united with a death which has happened when
we put our faith in Christ on the cross. It should be clear that
this self-death is necessary before we can participate in the
risen life of Christ.
We have seen that Christ’s victory on the cross has enabled
us to share in his victory. This is only possible, however,
because God unites us with Christ in a new kind of life in which
sinful flesh no longer has the authority it once had – for it has
been crucified to death. This is why Paul urges us in Romans
6:11 to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God – it’s
the real truth, not a legal fiction.
Although Paul’s use of baptism symbolism in Romans 6
points to our union in Christ’s death, it focuses more on our
union with his risen life.
Jesus’ saving death was gloriously vindicated in the historic
reality of his resurrection. This revealed that a cosmic
transformation occurred on the cross, and that this was now
demonstrated by a new risen way of life. Our union with Christ
– through the gift of new life – means that we embrace Christ’s
resurrection way of life, and live it on earth.
In God
When, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul describes the believer’s new
life ‘in Christ’ as a ‘new creation’, he is referring to the radical
change which takes place when someone receives God’s new
life and believes in the One who is lifted up on the cross.
Paul uses ‘in Christ’ to express the idea that what happened
to Christ affects every believer in him. The ‘new creation’

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happens to a believer because it happened to Christ as a result

of the cross: it happens to us because we are united with him
by a miracle of grace.
In his letters, Paul uses ‘in Christ’ extensively to show both
that our new life is completely dependent on Christ, and that it
is dependent on our union or incorporation with him.
Paul describes every aspect of the Christian life – both
individual and corporate – as ‘in Christ’: our past redemption,
our present activities, and our future inheritance. We see this,
for example, in Romans 3:23; 8:1, 39; 16:3–12; 1 Corinthians
1:5; 4:10, 15, 17; 15:22; 2 Corinthians 2:17; 5:17; 13:4;
Philippians 1:1, 13; 2:1; 4:13; Colossians 2:15; 1 Thessalonians
1:1 & 2:14.
Throughout this Sword of the Spirit series, we note that the
Bible regards the Christian life as dominated by the Spirit. In
Romans 8:9, Paul argues that Christian believers are not in the
flesh but in the Spirit, and he identifies the Spirit both as the
Spirit of God and as the Spirit of Christ. This demonstrates that,
for Paul, ‘in the Spirit’ and ‘in Christ’ express the same idea of
the believer’s new life in God.
As we have seen, the radical change of new life which has
been effected in Christ has come about only through the Spirit.
The indwelling God
Paul’s understanding of the new life which God reproduces in us is
so rich that he complements his major ‘in Christ’ concept with a
second ‘Christ in us’ concept. In the same way, his very common
‘in the Spirit’ idea is sometimes complemented by ‘the Spirit in us’.
Grace is very clear in these ideas: the initiative is obviously
outside our control, and another presence takes over. This is
Paul’s most dynamic image of new life. We see this, for
example, in Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Galatians 2:20;
Ephesians 3:17 & Colossians 1:27.
Romans 8 is Paul’s classic passage about the indwelling God:
8:9 stresses that new life is the opposite of the old life in the
flesh, and that it is the result of the indwelling of the Spirit.

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The indwelling Spirit implies a completely new way of living.

It suggests that, in some sense, the Spirit actually takes
possession of a believer, who then becomes a new temple of
the Spirit. According to Paul, it is this indwelling presence which
guarantees our spiritual position, our new life and our eternal
sonship: we see this, for example, in Romans 8:16;
1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19; 2 Corinthians 1:22 & 5:5.
Quite simply, if God does not place his life within us, if he
does not put his Spirit within us, we do not have new life – we
stay in the flesh, we remain dead and unsaved.
Putting off and putting on
In the New Testament, the discarding of the old life and the
embracing of the new is presented as an historical moment
which occurred at Calvary, and which we are joined to by
grace through faith in the One on the cross: we see this in
Colossians 3:9–10. ‘Discard and embrace’, however, is also
presented as a continuing process which is itself a characteristic
of the new life, and we see this in Colossians 3:12–14.
This is rather like Christ’s selfless sacrifice: it may have
occurred once-and-for-all on the cross for atonement, but it
will always be the essence of the risen life which we share.
Paul writes about putting on Christ in Romans 13:14 &
Galatians 3:27. In Romans 13:14, putting on Christ is
presented as the opposite of being dominated by the flesh and
its desires. It is a new way of life and means living in a way
which conforms to Christ’s way of living.
In Galatians 3:27, however, Paul again uses the symbolism
of baptism to describe new life. It is as though those who are
baptised wrap themselves in the new clothes of Christ to enter
a new sphere of living.
Paul also uses his ‘putting on’ metaphor in Romans 13:12 &
Ephesians 6:10 to suggest new ways of living. But Ephesians
4:24 is by far his most significant use of the metaphor.
In this passage, Paul is not suggesting that the new man is
super-imposed on the old, he is demanding a developing

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transformation which increasingly reproduces the likeness of

God in holiness. In the same way, the ‘putting on’ process in
Colossians 3:12–15 involves developing compassion, kindness,
meekness, patience and love.
Paul also stresses the importance of putting off the old way
of living in Romans 13:12; Ephesians 4:22–31 & Colossians
3:8. Putting off is not a pre-condition for putting on, for that
would eliminate grace. Instead, we can only put off the old
once we have embraced the new. It is the gift of God’s life
which enables us to start putting off the old ways of living and
to begin living God’s resurrection way of life.
In the midst of all this, in Ephesians 4:30, Paul warns against
grieving the Spirit. We must remember that the new life of God
is only possible through the indwelling Spirit. And those of us
who possess God’s new life must be sensitive to the demands
of the Spirit in the way that we approach the old ways of living.
God’s act of salvation, through the death of his Son on the
cross, has produced new life, has reproduced God’s life in a
new creation. But the new life is not an automatic existence, it
is a living relationship, a breathing partnership, and we need the
continuing help of the Word and the Spirit to enjoy the benefits
of God’s new life and to develop towards the maturity which
God desires. We must continually appropriate these benefits
and yield to their influences in our lives.

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Part Nine
By grace through faith
Throughout this book, we have taken pains to stress the
fundamental biblical teaching that salvation is by grace alone, by
God alone, by faith alone. We must, however, always
remember that the Bible is much more than an academic
treatise on grace and faith.
We need to remember that biblical salvation is always set in
the context of the different relationships that God has
established with men and women. Salvation by grace through
faith is always relational, and never merely theoretical!
We have also tried to stress that the message of salvation is not
restricted to the New Testament. It should be clear by now that
the New Testament assumes and deepens the Old Testament
understanding of salvation, and that it makes some parts of it far
more explicit (as well as adding much that is better and new!).
For example, the Old Testament conviction that it is God
alone who saves – and not humanity – is repeated by Jesus in
the link that he makes between salvation and the kingdom. In
the Old Testament, God’s salvation is received simply by trust;
and Jesus teaches that God’s saving kingdom is also entered
simply by trust. In both cases, it is God who saves – not
theoretically, in the abstract; but practically, in the concrete
historical process.
The Old Testament records many such relational saving acts
(like the Exodus), and they always involve a rescue from enemies,
a great effort by God, a sense of triumph and wholeness in the
people saved, and a vindication of their trust in God.
It is similar in the saving ministry of Jesus – except now the
enemies and results are spiritual, and the great divine saving
effort is the sacrificial death of God’s Son.

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An integrated understanding
The New Testament integrates the saving ministry of Jesus with
God’s past saving acts.
It teaches that the coming of Jesus has brought all the Old
Testament hopes, longings, expectations, promises and
prophecies of salvation into the present experience. It
announces that the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One has
come to fulfil God’s purposes. It reveals that God has saved
and redeemed his people. It declares that the Son of David has
defeated his enemies and now rules on high.
This approach developed the Old Testament’s integrated
understanding of salvation, which involved:
Looking back at what God had done for his people
in the past through the Passover in delivering them
from slavery and bearing them into a new life in the
Promised Land
Looking around at what God was doing in that day
and yearning for a greater experience of his salvation
in the present. Salvation, for Israel, always included a
daily grappling with enemies and hardships in the
Promised Land as well as a deepening understanding
of the community and nationhood of Israel
Looking forward in hope to the day when the Messiah
would come and save them fully, finally and
completely, and would make everything right and new.
This ‘past, present and future’ approach to relational
salvation is developed throughout the New Testament, and is
an approach that we need to grasp more deeply today.
Salvation in the past
Believers rightly look back to salvation as a fully accomplished,
once-and-for-all, historic past event. We know that it is God
alone who has delivered us from the grip of death and from the
hold of Satan through the sacrificial substitutionary blood of his
Son – for we could neither free ourselves from our captors nor
pay the price of our guilt.

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We know that it is God alone who has overcome and

healed our estrangement. We were alienated from him by our
sin; he was alienated from us by his wrath; and there was
nothing that we could do to bridge the gap.
In the atoning death of Christ, however, our sin has been
removed and God’s wrath has been satisfied. He can look at us
with pleasure and we can look at him without fear. Our sin has
been forgiven and God has been propitiated!
We know that it is God alone who has justified us and declared
us not guilty. We were responsible for our sin. We were to blame
for our rebellion. We were guilty and condemned before God.
But, through the substitutionary, confessional, sin-bearing,
mediating death of Jesus – which absorbed and exhausted
God’s judgement – and through his imputation to us of his own
righteousness, God has declared us eternally free from all
blame and able to live in his presence.
And we know that it is God alone who has given us the gift
of new life. We were spiritually blind. We were spiritually
lifeless. There was nothing that we could do to open our eyes
or to resuscitate ourselves. Our situation was hopeless.
But the Son has been lifted on high. He has travailed to give
birth to a new creation. He has died like a grain of wheat to
reproduce his life. God has breathed his breath/spirit into us.
We have been born again. We have been born of the Spirit.
These are all objective past, completed, accomplishments of
God alone. They are practical, concrete historic events – as real
as the Ark and the Exodus and the other great acts of relational
salvation which transformed the lives of God’s people in the past.
God has acted victoriously in his grace against sin,
judgement, death and the devil. He has been propitiated. We
have been forgiven. We have been justified. We have been
redeemed. We have been reconciled. We have been born
again into new life. We have been saved. As Christ declared
triumphantly on the cross, ‘It is finished!’

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Salvation in the present

But our understanding and experience of biblical, integrated,
relational salvation must not stay in the past. God has not only
saved us fully and completely in the past, he is also saving us
fully and completely in the present.
The New Testament calls this present experience of
salvation ‘sanctification’, which means ‘being separated’. Once
again, this is deeply rooted in the Old Testament.
God separated the Sabbath, the temple, the ceremonial
artefacts, the priests, the Levites, even the nation. Nobody
could be separated by human consecration. The right to
separate belonged to God alone; and whatever he separated
was called ‘holy’ – not because it was good or special in itself,
but because he had set it apart for his special purposes.
In the same way, the New Testament considers believers as
‘separated’, as ‘holy’, as ‘sanctified’ – not as a reward for being
good in themselves, but because God has separated them to
serve him alone and his purposes alone. Believers are called to be
temples and priests; their lives are to be like useful artefacts and a
holy Sabbath; and they are to be members of a new nation.
If, however, we have been sanctified to God, we must go
on being sanctified by God. We have put on a new man, we
have put on Christ, but we must go on putting him on. We
have crucified the old nature, but we must go on crucifying it
continually – every day.
This present experiential aspect of sanctification has
traditionally been thought about in three different ways within
evangelical Christianity.
‘Wesleyan’ or ‘holiness’ thought usually explains
sanctification as ‘divine love expelling sin’, as God’s
pure love so dominating a believer’s heart and life that
it expels every wrong attitude and deed, and controls
all thoughts, words and actions.
Wesleyans argue that, after regeneration, believers
must, by faith, have a second experience of ‘entire

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sanctification’ or ‘Christian perfection’. They base

this in passages like 1 John 1:7–9; 3:6–9 & 5:18
which, they argue, hold out the hope that we can
be saved in the present from all sin.
Reformed believers usually explain sanctification in
terms of Paul’s idea of the strife within self that he
sets out in Romans 7:7–25 & Galatians 5:16–26.
They suggest that the believer’s struggle between
the flesh and the Spirit is contrary to God’s law, but
that it continues until death because of the ‘now and
not yet’ dynamic of the kingdom. They teach,
however, that there is a progressive displacement of
the old nature by the new nature through
repentance, faith and obedience.
Pentecostals teach that all Christians should seek
and receive a spiritual baptism (promised in Acts
1:5–8) which is subsequent to regeneration.
They maintain that this ‘anointing’ with the Holy Spirit
is given to provide God’s own power to proclaim the
gospel and to live God’s new life with God’s holiness.
Unlike many Wesleyans (and those early Pentecostals
who were influenced by the holiness movement)
they do not believe that this anointing creates
‘automatic sinless perfection’, but that it does provide
the divine power which makes a deeper experience
of God’s holiness possible.
And, unlike some other believers, Pentecostals do not
believe that God expects them to struggle on against
the flesh in their own strength. Instead, they insist that
God, by the Spirit, enables them, by faith and the
Spirit’s anointing, to overcome the attacks of the flesh
and the devil, and to live with God’s holiness. (This
should not be taken to mean that Pentecostals regard
baptism in the Spirit and sanctification as the same
thing – as they clearly are not).

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We consider the present experience of salvation throughout

this Sword of the Spirit series, especially in The Rule of God, Glory
in the Church, Living Faith and Knowing the Spirit.
Salvation in the Future
We often stress in this series that the kingdom is ‘now, but not
yet’. Time and again, we have underlined that Christ is present
in the world now by the Spirit, but that he is also yet to come;
that death and the devil have been defeated, but that they have
not yet been destroyed; that full salvation has been received,
but that salvation has not yet been received in full – and so on.
As believers, we should not only look back to the cross in
praise and thanksgiving for what God has done; we should not
only look to him in the present for what the Spirit is doing in our
lives to make us more like Jesus and to share with him in his
ministry; we should also look forward to the final day of salvation
when Jesus will return, death and the devil will be finally
destroyed, every knee shall bow to the Lord of lords and King
of kings, and God will establish a new heaven and a new earth.
Not surprisingly, this aspect of relational salvation is also
firmly based in the Old Testament. The prophets looked
forward to the day when the God who had repeatedly visited
his people would finally visit them to judge the wicked, redeem
the righteous and purge the earth of evil. They called this ‘the
Day of the Lord’ or ‘that Day’.
The New Testament considers that Christ’s first coming is
the fulfilment of this Old Testament hope, and that his second
coming will be the consummation of this hope. For what the
Old Testament anticipates will take place in one day, the New
Testament reveals will be accomplished in two days.
The New Testament still looks forward to a great and final
day of salvation, and calls it:
The day of the Lord – Acts 2:20; 1 Thessalonians
5:2 & 2 Peter 3:10
The day of the Lord Jesus – 1 Corinthians 5:5 &
2 Corinthians 1:14

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The day of our Lord Jesus Christ – 1 Corinthians 1:8

The day of Jesus Christ – Philippians 1:6
The day of Christ – Philippians 1:10 & 2:16
The day of God – 2 Peter 3:12
That day – Matthew 7:22; 24:36; 26:29; Luke
10:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:10 & 2 Timothy 1:18
The last day – John 6:39–44; 11:24 & 12:48
The second coming – Hebrews 9:28.
The New Testament uses several important Greek words
to describe and represent this future day of salvation. Parousia,
‘presence’ or ‘arrival’, is used in 1 Corinthians 16:17 &
2 Corinthians 7:7 to designate the visit of a ruler. The same
Jesus who ascended to heaven, will again visit the earth in his
personal presence at the end of the age, in power and glory, to
destroy the antichrist and evil, to raise the righteous dead, and
to gather the redeemed. We see this, for example, in Acts
1:11; Matthew 24:3, 27; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; 1 Corinthians
15:23; Matthew 24:31 & 2 Thessalonians 2:1.
His return will be an apokalupsis an ‘unveiling’ or
‘disclosure’, when the power and glory which are already his
by virtue of his exaltation, will be fully revealed to the world.
We see this in Philippians 2:9; Ephesians 1:20–23; Hebrews
1:3; 2:9 & 1 Peter 4:13.
And his return will also be an epiphaneia, an ‘appearing’. It will
be clearly visible to all and hidden from none – 2 Thessalonians
2:8; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 4:1, 8 & Titus 2:13.
This final day of salvation will be marked by the resurrection
of the dead in Christ, the transformation of those alive on earth
in Christ, the consummation of the kingdom of God, the final
judgement, and the final punishment of the antichrist, the devil
and the unsaved – who will be banished forever from the
presence and blessings of God.
A new heaven and new earth will emerge from this
judgement, and the people of God will dwell on this new earth

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in redeemed bodies in perfect fellowship with God. At this

point, God’s work of salvation will finally have been completed;
his past, present and future acts of salvation will all have come
together in eternity.
We can say that salvation in the future has to do with being
with Christ, with sharing his presence, with being ushered into
his resurrection life, with receiving our reward and inheritance,
with abandoning the final vestiges of sin, with receiving a new
resurrection body, and with perfect, eternal, everlasting, face-
to-face fellowship with God.

Faith alone
Whenever we consider the sheer magnitude of salvation, we
should have to catch our breath with a sense of holy awe and
our human unworthiness. How can this ever be possible for a
sinner, for us?
In this book, we have focused on the biblical declaration that
salvation is by grace alone, by God alone. It is his idea, his
initiative, his good will and purpose, his accomplishment. Quite
simply, salvation is completely by the grace of God.
But this has never been the full picture of salvation. We
have seen that God did not force Adam and Eve to remove
their fig leaves and put on the tunics of grace. In his grace,
God made the necessary sacrifice, God provided the blood-
stained clothes, God held out his hands and offered them to
the pair of undeserving sinners – but he did not make them
receive them.
Instead, Adam & Eve had to believe with their minds that
God’s provision was better than their own, and then they had to
act on their belief practically by removing their leaves and allowing
God to clothe them with his tunics. They were saved by grace
alone, but they received their salvation through faith alone.
It was the same with Noah. God did not impose the saving
ark upon him; he simply showed Noah the way of salvation,
asked him to believe in his provision, and then expected him to

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act on his belief. Noah was saved by grace, but he was also
saved through his faith.
The divine principle runs throughout the Old Testament.
God always acted in grace, but he never imposed his salvation
upon his people – for he was calling them into a free, mutually
respectful, relationship of trusting love.
In grace, God provided the Passover promise, the path
through the Red Sea, the ‘lifted up’ serpent in the wilderness,
and so on. But the people always had to believe God and act
on their belief: they had to sprinkle the blood on their door-
posts to live, to walk between the walls of water to live, to look
at the serpent to live, and so on.
This means we can say that Israel was delivered entirely by
grace, but that they received their deliverance by ‘acted-on-
belief’, by faith. This relationship between grace and faith was
the essence of Israel’s covenant relationship with God.
This does not mean that our salvation is by ‘faith-acted-on-
in-obedience’, as opposed to ‘faith alone’. The people in the
biblical examples above did have to act on their faith to be
delivered or to receive the blessings God had promised them –
but even this was an immediate expression of their active faith
already present. At a moment in time, they believed and so
‘crossed over a line’ – they transferred trust from self to God.
In the New Testament, Jesus called people to believe in him
(we see in Living Faith that ‘to believe’ is simply the verbal form
of the noun ‘faith’). Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, was the
incarnation of grace; he was God’s grace, God’s salvation,
present in person.
He came in grace to serve and save, but he did not impose
his salvation on anyone. He called people to believe in God’s
saving provision and to act on their belief. We are still saved
entirely by grace alone, and we still receive our salvation
entirely by faith alone. We are saved ‘by his grace through our
faith’ – and this is the essence of our cross-made, blood
covenant relationship with God.

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Works and faith

There have always been those who have stressed the ‘acted
on’ element of faith, and have suggested that this is the most
important part of salvation.
They have looked at Noah, for example, and have
acknowledged his belief in God, but have insisted that he
would not have been saved if he had not chopped down the
trees, designed and built the ark, assembled the animals, and so
on. They suggest that he was saved by grace and activity, by
grace and works.
They have looked at the people of Israel, and have
acknowledged their belief in God, but have insisted that they
would not have been saved if they had not sacrificed the lambs
and sprinkled their doors: they argue, again, that Israel was
saved by grace and activity.
In the same way, they have insisted (through the ages and in
every tradition of the Church) that we are saved by God’s
grace through our works. They maintain that, if we are to
receive God’s gift of salvation, we must do the works of faith –
we must perform religious devotions, avoid sin, care for the
needy, give generously, and so on. They say that for saving faith
to be genuine, it must be be accompanied by works. Salvation
is not by faith alone, therefore, because works are regarded as
a condition of salvation.
This argument is flawed, however, because it ignores the
essential element in all these Old Testament examples of God’s
saving acts. For example, Noah was saved from the flood by
entering the ark. We are saved from eternal judgement through
‘entering into’ Christ by faith. The fact that Noah had to construct
the ark of his own salvation has nothing to do with the New
Testament teaching on salvation. We do not construct our own
means of salvation. We simply believe in Christ, God’s completely
constructed provision of our salvation. In the same way, Israel was
saved from the plague of death by acting in faith and obedience to
God’s word about the Passover Lamb. But the essential act of

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faith was applying the blood to the door posts and lintels of their
homes. Our salvation comes by applying the blood of Christ, by
faith to our lives, and trusting Christ alone to save us.
In both the Old and New Testaments, the essential element
is always faith. Obedience follows faith but it is faith that saves.
As we have seen, the model of this saving faith is Abraham.
Faith and Abraham
All men and women of faith look to Abraham as the supreme
example of faith. The Old Testament people of God knew that
they were the children of Abraham; and the New Testament
people of God were also revealed to be the sons and daughters
of Abraham. Why is this? It is simply because of faith – the
believer’s most important spiritual characteristic and basic
distinguishing mark. Paul makes this completely clear in Romans 4
& Galatians 3.
Genesis 15:6 is one of the most revealing and important
verses in the Bible, for it shows when Abraham was declared
righteous by God and why he was declared righteous by God.
It was when Abraham believed in the Lord and it was because
he believed in the Lord.
This means that Abraham was saved (was declared
righteous before God) when he believed, and that he was
saved because he believed. This righteousness was entirely a
free gift of God’s grace, for Abraham could not earn it – and did
not deserve it – because of his sin in Egypt. Abraham simply
received God’s gift of ‘accounted righteousness’ through his
belief in the Lord.
This gift was not ‘perfection’ or the ‘infusion’ of God’s
righteousness, because Abraham went on to sin with Hagar
and to repeat his Egyptian sin in Gerar. And it was not
conditional because these later sins did not affect his righteous
standing before God.
According to the Bible’s integrated understanding of
salvation, Genesis 15:6 was the moment when Abraham ‘was
saved’; but he still had to go on living in his new saved

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relationship with God, ‘being saved’, struggling with the flesh

and with hardship; and he still had to look forward to the
fulfilment of his salvation promises, to the day when he ‘would
be saved’ – which he saw in part on earth in Isaac, but is still
waiting for ‘the last day’ when he will see the full array of his
descendants in faith.
It is plain from this that ‘works’ are part of living the covenant
life, part of ‘salvation in the present’, but that they are not part of
‘salvation in the past’, and they are not a condition of ‘salvation in
the future’ (though they will be rewarded at the final day). This
means we can say that we are saved by faith and by faith alone.
We move away from the truth of salvation by grace whenever
we seek to add works to faith as a condition of salvation. We do
not do good works in order to be saved, to be assured that we
have been saved, to guarantee that we will be saved or to keep
us saved – we do good works because we have been saved. Our
good works are the result of ‘faith working by love’. In other
words, they are the actions of a life filled with gratitude for what
God has done in saving us by grace. This is the fundamental basis
of every New Testament command to live a holy life as a believer
in Jesus, for example in Luke 7:47; Galatians 5:6; Romans 6:1–2;
7:4; 12:1; Ephesians 4:1; 5:1–2; Titus 2:11–14; James 1:25;
1 Peter 1:13–16; 1 John 2:5; 3:22.
Through his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus bids us
‘believe’ so that we may be saved from perishing and receive
eternal life. And John’s Gospel was written so that we may
‘believe’ and have life in Jesus’ name. But, having received saving
life by grace alone through faith alone, we are called to keep
abiding in that new saved life through faith-filled obedience – not
as a condition of receiving salvation in the past, but as a means
of enjoying the blessings of salvation both in the present and in
the future. We consider this more fully in Living Faith.
Faith and works
Having seen that we are saved by faith and by faith alone, it is
helpful to look more closely at the relationship between faith
and works. By now we have understood that works are not

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necessary for salvation and that we are saved independently

from everything we have ever done or ever could do. Our
good works, then, flow from our faith as the natural expression
of our gratitude to God for our salvation. They are done in
faith, that is, out of a desire and motive to please God, and they
are done in loving response to the grace we have received.
They are works inspired in us by the Holy Spirit and not
worked in us by the requirements of the Law from which we
have been delivered.
Confusion has arisen from a misinterpretation of James’
teaching where he states in James 2:17 & 2:21 that ‘faith
without works is dead’. Some take this to mean that faith
without works is not true, saving faith, and conclude that true
faith – the faith that saves – must inevitably be accompanied by
works. This would mean that works done in faith are necessary
for salvation. But James is not contradicting Paul. He is simply
pointing out that faith without works is useless and cannot help
others. Faith must always become faith-in-action if it is to be
useful in serving God and loving people.
The ‘justification’ by works done in faith that James speaks of
in James 2:21–26 is justification or vindication before men and
not justification from sin before God. Both Abraham and
Rahab, the two examples James uses, were ‘justified’ or
‘shown to be worthy’ before men by their works done in faith.
Only faith with works can achieve that. The teaching of Paul
remains: God justifies the ungodly who believe, without works
(Romans 4:5).

Eternal security and rewards

If we are not saved by works, if we are saved by grace alone
through faith alone, then this means that the Christian believer
is eternally secure, and that those who truly believe the gospel
can never be lost, no matter what they do – John 10:28. Our
salvation depends entirely upon what God has done for us
through Christ and not on anything we have ever done in the
past or will ever do in the future.

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This has presented an uncomfortable idea for some, and

they have opposed this idea of the eternal security of the
believer on the grounds that it leaves the way open for God’s
grace to be abused. But for grace to function as grace it must
be vulnerable to the idea of abuse. This is what Paul
understood in Romans 6:1–2, and we must answer with the
same ‘certainly not’ that he did to his Romans 6:1 question:
‘shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?’
To suggest that the doctrine of the eternal security of the
believer gives free license to sin is actually to misunderstand the
biblical teaching. The doctrine of the eternal security of the
believer must always be set in the context of God’s chastening
and the judgement seat of Christ.
The New Testament shows that there is a difference
between being saved from hell for heaven, and receiving a
reward at the judgement seat of Christ in heaven. Christians
and non-Christians will both appear before the great White
Throne judgement recorded in Revelation 20:11–15. The
unbelievers will receive the judgment of condemnation but the
believers, who already have already been delivered from
condemnation (Romans 5:1 & 8:1), will also appear at the
judgement seat of Christ – 2 Corinthians 5:10. This means that
all who are saved will go to heaven, but not all who go to
heaven will receive a reward – John 5:24 & 1 Corinthians
3:12–15. As we see in 1 Corinthians 3:15, it is possible to lose
the reward and still be saved. And this was Paul’s deep concern
in 1 Corinthians 9:27 – that he would not be rejected for the
prize and enter into eternity rewardless.
All this means that sin does have serious and eternal
consequences in the life of a believer. It means the sure chastening
of God in this life and the forfeiting of heavenly rewards in the life
to come. It means that all works will be burned up and no reward
will be given. But it does not mean loss of salvation.
But others still argue that salvation can be lost by pointing to
scriptures such as Hebrews 6:4–6 & 10:26–29. There are
indeed a limited number of scriptures which initially appear to

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support this suggestion, but upon closer inspection it is evident

that these are not actually opposing the idea of eternal security
as they are not actually referring to being saved in the first
place, but rather losing or gaining rewards in heaven.
In actual fact, there is not a single verse in the Bible that
suggests we can lose our salvation – only our inheritance or
reward. We have been permanently adopted into God’s family
and accepted as his children. He will never ‘unadopt’ us.
However, there is a distinction between sonship and inheritance
– and when we abuse our rights as sons, we may be disinherited.
Ultimately, the Bible teaches that eternal security is not
conditional upon one’s behaviour – for then we would be back
into the territory of justification by works. We stand before
God in the sure confidence that Jesus Christ has already done
all that is required of us. But we will stand before Christ one
day to give an account of our works, and in this particular
sense, works play an important role in the Christian life.
Salvation is unconditional and eternal security is the
consequence of God’s grace. God is not some capricious deity
with a celestial rubber who erases the names of believers out of
the Book of Life the moment they sin, and then writes their
names back in (with pencil!) upon repentance. The assurance of
our salvation rests entirely on the substitutionary death of Christ
and the gift of his righteousness by faith. What a wonderful thing
to know that we can never be lost. We must rejoice as Paul did
in Romans 8:38–39 that nothing can separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus – and be inspired from this to
shun sin in every aspect of our lives. As Paul says in Galatians
5:13, and implies in Galatians 6:8, we must not use this
wonderful liberty as ‘an opportunity for the flesh’.

Saving faith
The Bible makes it clear that faith, that belief, is the only
instrument by which we are saved. ‘Faith alone’ (not ‘faith plus
this or that’) is the only instrument by which we can be linked
to Christ and so receive the divine grace of salvation.

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At the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, God

used men like Martin Luther and John Calvin to restore the
truth of salvation by faith alone to the Church. At that time,
there was much thought and discussion about ‘saving faith’, and
a consensus eventually emerged that it contained three
essential elements:
Knowledge
Assent
Trust.
Knowledge
Saving faith is not mindless; it never occurs in an intellectual
vacuum; and it is not ignorance, superstition or credulity.
Instead, saving faith has a minimum content of knowledge
which must be received, understood and embraced.
We cannot have faith in nothing – there must be an object
and content to faith which must be true. Belief on its own is
quite meaningless; and even the most strongly held ‘sincere’
belief is useless unless it is true.
It should be plain that, before we can have a personal
relationship with God, we must be aware of him as a person.
We must have some intelligible understanding of what or
whom we are believing. Before we can believe in God, we
must believe that God is who he says he is.
This means that we must believe certain basic, right
information about God to be saved. It may not be much, but it
must be something. For example, if we are to be saved by faith,
we must believe that there is a God who wants, and wills, and
is able, to save us by faith.
Even though we do not need a full knowledge of God and
salvation to be saved, we must have some factual knowledge
which is correct. If, for example, we say that we believe in
Jesus, but we believe that Jesus was simply a good human
teacher who died and remained dead, our belief in this Jesus
will not save us because the object of our belief is untrue and
lacks the power to save.

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The devil tries to ensure that our proclamation of the gospel

is either so dry and academic that it lacks the passion to move
people, or that it is so based in experience that it leaves the
way open for superstition and falsehood. As the Church, we
are called to struggle against spiritual error, imbalance and
heresy as much as we are called to struggle against spiritual
deadness and dryness. Truth matters, and nobody can be saved
without a factual core to their faith which is true.
Assent
Intellectual assent is the second essential element of saving
faith. This involves the firm assurance or deep conviction that a
particular proposition is true. We develop this in Living Faith,
where we show that to be ‘firmly persuaded’ is the heart of all
biblical faith and part of the meaning of the very word ‘faith’.
Some people think that there is an intrinsic spiritual value in
trying to believe something, but assent must always be assent to
truth. It is pointless telling a lame man to believe that he can walk
when he cannot walk – that has nothing to do with biblical faith.
Believers, however, do sometimes urge people to believe
something which is true – for example, we may press people
to believe that Jesus died for their sins. But without their ‘firm
persuasion’ or ‘deep assent’ there will not be saving faith – no
matter how hard they try to believe.
They may want to believe that Jesus died for their sins, they
may even try to believe this, but saving faith cannot exist unless
they are firmly persuaded that Jesus did die for their sins.
But even full knowledge and firm persuasion are not enough
on their own to form saving faith. After all, the devil knows that
Jesus is the Son of God; he even assents that Jesus is the Son
of God; but he lacks saving faith because he refuses to trust
Jesus as Son of God.
Trust
Saving faith begins only when we add our ‘will’ to our
knowledge and our assent, when we stop saying ‘No’ to God
and start saying ‘Yes’ to him, when we begin to act in some way

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on our firm persuasion, when we take a first step of trust in

God on the basis of our knowledge and assent.
Fallen humanity rejects God; it prefers darkness to light and
selfishness to sacrifice; it chooses what it values and rejects
what God esteems. Trust, then, involves a change in our
values, attitudes and perceptions. Where before we were
indifferent to Jesus, now we choose to receive him. Whereas
before we were opposed to God, now we turn towards him
with open hearts. Whereas before we were unaware of our
condition before God, now we long for him to transform us.
This is essential to our understanding of regeneration, or
being born again, as taught by Jesus in John 3:3–15. The work
of the Spirit, in bringing a person to faith in Christ, is deep and
mysterious. If, as Jesus says, ‘the wind blows where it wishes’,
how much more should we expect the sovereign Spirit of God
to act freely and mysteriously in the depths of the human heart.
Quite simply, without the Spirit’s intervention in our lives, we
could never have been saved, as John 3:19–21 makes clear.
We loved darkness rather than light and we had no desire or
capacity to come to God of ourselves. We could never have
turned to God, believed in his Son or responded to his will,
unless he had first given us new life. That is why regeneration
is best understood as an unconscious work of the Spirit, which
precedes faith. It is to this deep unconscious work of the Spirit
that we owe every conscious response of our hearts to God –
from conviction of sin to confession of faith.
Predestined to salvation
This discussion brings to the fore the issue of predestination.
Predestination, or election, is God’s choice of persons for
eternal life – the doctrine that God from all eternity has chosen
specific people to bring into eternal relationship with himself.
Sometimes people speak of ‘double predestination’ as opposed
to ‘single predestination’ – double predestination is the notion
that God actively selects some for eternal life (this is often
referred to as ‘election’) and others for eternal death (this is
sometimes called ‘reprobation’).

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Though the apostle Paul affirms predestination in Romans

8:29–9:33 & Ephesians 1:4–5 – and it is also there in other
scriptures such as Exodus 33:19; John 6:44; 15:16 & Acts
13:48 – predestination is perhaps one of the most enigmatic
and puzzling of all Christian doctrines – and certainly beyond
human capacity to fully understand. However, it is absolutely
crucial to grapple with it if we are to correctly understand
salvation by grace.
The precise technical understanding of predestination is not
straightforward. Some have equated it with God’s
foreknowledge about how each individual will respond to the
gospel – God’s predestining, therefore, is simply his granting of
eternal life to those whom he has foreseen will respond in faith.
Yet this view fails to take seriously the total depravity of man,
who is so fallen that he is utterly unable to seek salvation for
himself, or even reach out to God for help in the first place –
Ephesians 2:1–3. This means that the initiative for salvation
must clearly come from God – an act of pure grace which
seeks the sinner out in his sin, and then which saves and
preserves that same sinner.
This view of predestination certainly pays attention to the
seriousness of sin and magnifies the grace of God in salvation.
However, some have been repulsed by it because they claim it
teaches a doctrine of reprobation – a negative side to
predestination which holds that God leaves people in their sins
when he could simply save them, and then unfairly condemns
them for it.
But this is not so, and we need not go down the route of
reprobation or double predestination. God simply selects some
from the mass of fallen humanity for salvation. This is not unfair,
for justice would result in God condemning all. It is simply that
the condemned receive what they deserve, but the elect
receive more than they deserve. This means that those who go
to heaven do not do so because of better works or moral
superiority – God, in his grace, and according to his sovereign

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purpose, has selected these for eternal life. But all who go to
hell do so because of their works, because of their sin.
Humans are simply not in a position to judge God for what
he does. God is the creator of all things, and free to do
whatever he wills. But ultimately, predestination flows out of
our theology of divine sovereignty, human depravity and
especially, our theology of grace. For grace to be grace, God
must be free to offer it or not to offer it. If it is offered on any
other basis, it is no longer a gift but a reward for a meritorious
action or attitude which God is then obliged to bestow. But if
grace is a gift – if salvation and faith are both the gift of God –
then the doctrine of predestination is the natural corollary. For
it is clearly apparent that the gift is not given to all. Rather, the
choice of some to eternal life is an act of God’s sovereign will.
The believer’s election to salvation does not nullify the need
for evangelism, for we simply do not know who the elect and
non-elect are. And our evangelistic efforts are the very means
by which God brings the elect to salvation – Romans 10:14.
But it does mean that we should not criticise ourselves if some
reject Christ – if we have done our very best, we can leave the
rest up to God – John 6:37 & 44.
This balance has been best described by the preacher’s
illustration of the door of heaven: as we enter through the
door of heaven we read the sign above it, ‘whosoever will may
come’, but once we go through that door we read the sign
above the other side of the door, ‘chosen from the foundation
of the world’. The doctrine of election is given as a comfort and
assurance to believers and is not meant to lead to human
philosophical speculation. It is given to remind us that our
salvation is all of God and nothing of us. We are saved by grace
from start to finish and, humbled by this grace, all we can do is
to receive this grace by simple faith and live in grateful
obedience to his loving will for our lives.
Therefore, the proper response to this doctrine is not, in the
first place, to engage in philosophy, or even theology (though

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these things are important), but it is to open your heart to

doxology. The fullest and best response to this teaching of the
Bible is a heart surrendered and a life lived to the glory of God.
That’s why Jesus, facing this issue in his own ministry on the
earth as set out in Matthew 11:25–27, joyfully accepts God’s
purposes in salvation by praising the Father for his perfect plan
in revealing himself to some and not to others. In Romans
11:33 & 36, Paul ends his profound chapter on calling and
election, with a powerful and unforgettable doxology, where he
exclaims, ‘Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and
his ways past finding out… For of him, and through and to him
are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen’. That says it all!

Justified by faith
We began this book on salvation by considering the matter
from God’s point of view. We wondered how he could show
his love in forgiving sinners without destroying his holiness, and
how he could show his holiness in punishing sin without
abandoning his love. We then saw how God resolved the
matter by satisfying himself – his love and his justice – on the
cross through the blood of his Son.
Now, at the end of the book, we will close by thinking
about the matter from our point of view.
On ‘the last day’ of time, we will all be summoned to
appear before the Judge of the whole earth, before the One
who is perfectly holy, perfectly just, and who knows everything
about us. How will we be able to stand before him? How will
anyone be able to stand before him?
God has commanded us to be holy, yet even one sin leaves
us short of his standard. Once we have sinned once, we can
never meet God’s requirements – no matter what happens.
In his grace, God may have forgiven the consequences of
our sin – covered and removed it – but this does not change
the fact that we once sinned. Our sin may have been cast

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away; we may have been cleansed and purified; but nothing

can change the fact that we have fallen short of God’s standard.
God may have given us new life; he may have sanctified us;
he may go on changing and renewing us; he may even make
us perfect some time in the future. But nothing can change
what has been, and we must stand before God with the fact of
our sin in the past consigning us to judgement.
The single most important question about salvation, then
from our point of view, must be ‘How can God declare a
sinner just?’ – for, in his justice, God can declare just only those
whom he regards as just.
It should be obvious that we can hope to be declared just
only if we possess perfect righteousness. Yet, as all our
goodness has been fatally flawed by even one sin, we can only
possess perfect righteousness if we receive it from someone
who has lived a perfect life, from someone who has faced our
temptations but been completely obedient and fully sinless in
thought and word and deed, from the man Jesus Christ.
Our only hope of standing before God on the last day is if
we can somehow grasp hold of the perfect, sinless
righteousness of Christ’s life and can be clothed in that
righteousness. Ultimately, for us, this is the only thing that
matters, the single most important issue to resolve.
The great truth of the gospel, perhaps the greatest truth in
the Bible, is the fact that God justifies sinners by faith, that he
declares sinners righteous on the basis of Christ’s
righteousness, that he receives guilty sinners into his presence
as if they were perfect and righteous.
Because, in his grace and mercy, God imputes Christ’s
righteousness to us, (and we are trusting only in this for
salvation) we are counted righteous. Like Abraham, we are just
by imputation – even though we have sinned in Egypt and are
likely to repeat our sin elsewhere.
We know and trust that Christ has paid the penalty due to
our sin, that he has borne the consequence of our faults and

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By grace through faith

failings, endured the punishment due to our guilt, taken away

our sin, and satisfied God’s wrath.
But we do not only need a substitute who, through his
death, will deal with our sin and shortcomings; we also need a
substitute who, through his life, will provide us with his
sinlessness and perfection.
The story of Jesus’ life is not mere preparation for the cross;
he did not spend thirty-three pointless years just marking time
until the work of salvation on the cross. His whole life was for our
salvation. His perfect obedience in life was as vital for our salvation
as his perfect obedience in death, for it was this which accrued the
righteousness which he now gives to those who believe.
So how will we stand before God on the last day? It is
entirely by our faith in the righteousness of Christ – which he
holds out to us much as he once held out those blood-stained
tunics to Adam.
The question for every member of humanity remains what
it has always been since that first moment of grace in the
Garden of Eden. Will we trust God’s gift of new clothes (which
will cover our sin, remove our fear, and equip us for a new
task)? Will we stand naked before God and allow him to clothe
us with the righteousness of Christ? Will we depend only on
him? Or, will we cling to our fig leaves – to our own religious
ideas and self effort – turn our backs on God’s grace, and stay
gripped by our fear, guilt and shame?
The wonderful gospel that we are called to proclaim is
‘salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith in Christ alone’. No
other message is God’s good news; no other message is the way
to new life; and no other message has any eternal effect.
Through the sacrificial life and death of his Son, God has
done everything that he can to save the world he loves. He has
now entrusted us with the news of this great salvation, and we
must do all that we can to pass on the pure biblical message of
saving grace and faith to the lost and dying people around us.

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