The Scales Of God's Justice
Forgiveness is free, if...
This is the fourth post in a series from Chapter 3 of Friends With God: “The Joy That Was Set Before Him”.
In the Second Post we examined what Christ said we must actually do in order to be granted the gift of eternal life.
The Third Post explained that Jesus willingly gave up his life in order to demonstrate how we must also be willing to follow his example, and even die, if necessary, to follow God’s way of life:
For Christ also suffered on our behalf,
leaving us an example, that we should follow in His steps, (1Peter 2:20-21)
How to Gain Eternal Life
As we have seen in the previous three posts from this chapter of Friends With God, in order to gain eternal life, we are told that we must:
… love one another, as I have loved you, (John 15:12-17)
… He who hears My Word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24)
… with patience in good work are seeking for glory, and honour, and incorruptibility, (will be granted the gift of) everlasting life. (Rom 2:7)
“love the Lord your God with all your heart, … and your neighbour as yourself”. (Luke 10:25-37)
… you who believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have everlasting life, (1John 5:13)
… that whosoever believes in Him should not perish (die eternally) but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
… follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. (in order for you to be able to) Lay hold on eternal life, … (1Tim 6:11-12)
…If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you… (John 15:4-7)
From these, and many other scriptures, we see that Jesus voluntarily gave his life so that we may live eternally. And if we follow his example, such that we also give our life for others as he did, then God will grant us the gift to live eternally and be One with Him and with Christ. (John 17:11-22) That is the simple gospel, as revealed in scripture.
The Penalty For Sin Doctrine
If you ask a preacher “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?”, he will generally say that he needed “to pay the death penalty for sin in your stead”.
Yet, in all the scriptures quoted in the previous three posts, which are all about gaining eternal life and the death of Christ, not once is the necessity for Jesus to “pay a penalty for sin” actually mentioned.
Yet, what preachers tell us is something like:
“Christ came to pay a death penalty on our behalf because his death is worth more than all people who have ever lived on Earth, and therefore God the Father is happy to accept his death in substitution payment for the death penalty for all people”.
Is God weighing up the value of the life of Christ, and the value of the sins of everyone else? How can one life be worth more than all other lives?
Where in scripture can we find anything to support this spiritual mathematics explanation? The answer is “nowhere in scripture is anything like this doctrine mentioned”.
While that may be surprising to the lay person, Biblical scholars are well aware that the concept of a “penalty for sin, which Christ had to pay for us”, was not developed until the 11th Century, by Anselm of Canterbury.
You can verify this fact, by looking up any Christian encyclopaedia. Here is an excerpt from Theopedia on line:
The Satisfaction (or Commercial) theory of the atonement was formulated by the medieval theologian Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) in his book, Cur Deus Homo (lit. ‘Why the God-Man’). In his view, God’s offended honour and dignity could only be satisfied by the sacrifice of the God-man, Jesus Christ.
From: www.theopedia.com/satisfaction-theory-of-the-atonement
In the centuries after Anselm, various theologians amended his ideas, such that the basic concept now taught is: Christ’s death is worth more than all people who have ever lived on Earth, and thus is sufficient to pay the penalty for sin for everyone.
Yet, despite the fact that most churches teach this idea as the foundational dogma of the Gospel of Christ, such spiritual mathematics are simply not found in scripture.
Even though the term “penalty for sin” is not found in scripture, God certainly imposes death penalties for some sins. (Exo 21:12-32, Lev 18:1-30, Lev 20:1-21) Yet, when you read these scriptures, you will see that the penalties had nothing to do with forgiveness of sin, or appeasing God’s wrath due to his offended honour and dignity.
Death was only one penalty for sin, but not every sin is unto death: All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. (1John 5:17) Yet, those who teach the doctrine of a penalty for sin, claim that all sin leads to death, and that Christ’s death was the only way to pay for these sins.
However, the scriptures are very clear that we must demonstrate love, mercy and righteousness in our lives if we are to obtain, and retain, forgiveness of sin from God. (Matt 18:23-35)
And the fact that nobody else can take on your sin is also abundantly clear, as is shown in Ezekiel 18:1-32- which we shall take some time to look at in the next chapter.
The Immortal Soul Theory Linked To The Penalty For Sin.
The concept that “death is the penalty that God has imposed upon us due to our sin”, has at its base the assumption that humans have an “immortal soul” which supposedly continues to live on forever after our death. Yet, as we have seen in Chapter 1, the scriptures are unequivocal; only God is immortal. (1Tim 6:16)
The idea of “the immortality of the soul”, is not found in any Christian scriptures, but is purely a pagan Greek philosophy, of which Plato (427BC to 347B.C.) was seen as its “most sublime teacher”.
Look up “immortal soul” in any encyclopaedia and you will find something similar to the following excerpt from the online Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy:
… Plato (first in the Phaedo, then in the Republic), Aristotle (in the De Anima or On the Soul), Epicurus, and the Stoics … are by far the most carefully worked out theories of soul in ancient philosophy. Later theoretical developments — for instance, in the writings of Plotinus and other Platonists, as well as the Church Fathers — are best studied against the background of the classical theories, from which, in large part, they derive. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/)
These “Church Fathers”, (such as Jerome, Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury) are not those who wrote the scriptures in the first century, but came much later on the scene, and were strongly influenced by pagan philosophy. Yet, we today can read the scriptures and see that they say that nothing about us is immortal- certainly not our bodies, but also not our soul.
No Logic In The Penalty For Sin Doctrine
As we don’t have an immortal soul, then “Christ paying the death penalty for sin for us” simply doesn’t make sense, as we are already going to die, because we are mortal.
What therefore is the point of a death penalty for sin being required by God, in addition to our natural mortal state, which automatically results in death anyway?
Is it to make sure we stay dead?!
When Jesus abolished death, he made it possible for us to cast off our mortal bodies, and to be given immortality. (2Tim 1:10)
Because Jesus has given us the privilege of gaining immortality, then we obviously didn’t have it before he gave it to us.
Yet, does not Jesus tell us that our soul lives on after death when he says: And do not fear those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. (Matt 10:28)
But this statement is not actually the proof that the soul is immortal, because it’s only half of the verse!
Read the rest of the verse, which says: But rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matt 10:28)
As the soul can be destroyed, it’s therefore not immortal!
The Soul And Body Distinction
We need to be careful when reading about the distinction between body and soul, as it can get a bit confusing in scripture. The term soul is often interchangeable with the term body, but obviously not in Matthew 10:28.
A better term for soul would be the “human spirit that is in us”, for we do have a human spirit: The Spirit (of God) Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. (Rom 8:16)
While the soul, or human spirit, is not destroyed by death, it is actually in a form of sleep, while the body goes back to dust. (Ecc 12:7, James 2:26, Job 34:14-15, Luke 23:46, Acts 7:59) It seems that God will use our soul to remake us, when He resurrects us. (Job 14:14-15, Rev 6:9-11)
That does not mean our soul is immortal, it is spirit- but what being spirit actually means is, at this time, way beyond our comprehension! (1Cor 13:9-13, 15:35-49, John 3:5-8) But, as Jesus said, the human soul/spirit can be destroyed, by God who made it.
Our soul is able to be destroyed, even though it’s also able to be kept by God, in some way, apart from our physical bodies.
Yet we are not told in scripture how, or where the soul exists beyond the grave. We most probably wouldn’t understand it anyway even if we were told. In the same way we can’t really comprehend what Jesus meant when he said:
‘You must be born anew.’ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but (you) don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5-8)
Do you want to be like the wind, whatever that means?!?
Being in a “spirit composed body” is just a bit beyond our mental capacity to comprehend. And so is trying to understand what the ‘spirit in man’ and ‘our soul’ actually is.
But the one thing we can be sure of is, that we don’t have an immortal soul- that is a purely pagan, unbiblical idea.
The term “immortal soul”, like the phrase “Christ paying the penalty for sin”, is not found anywhere in scripture. These two unbiblical concepts are enmeshed in each other- such that Christ needing to pay the death penalty for sin for us, is only relevant if you believe that you have an immortal soul.
In the next article in this series, we will review why Christ died if it was not to “pay a penalty for sin”.
Very interesting proposition. This I am looking into already. Some of it flies in the face of other Scriptures, but I would like to explore further before setting forth with the Word.