What Is Sin?
The grand paradox or supreme irony of the Christian faith is that we are saved both by God and from God. The God of perfect holiness, who demands satisfaction for His justice and who will not wink at sin, has from all eternity decreed that He Himself should provide salvation to those very people who, by their sin, are exposed to His wrath and judgment.
The means by which God accomplishes this great salvation may be described as the most crucial aspect of the work of Christ. When we use the word atonement, we’re speaking of the fact that God pays the price that He requires for us to be in a right relationship with Him, and He does that through His Son, Jesus Christ.
There are three dimensions of sin that necessitate atonement: (1) sin is a debt; (2) sin is an act of enmity; and (3) sin is a crime. To understand the debt aspect of sin, we must first understand the role of God as Creator and as Sovereign over the universe.
God’s sovereignty is multifaceted. It concerns His absolute rule over nature, over history, over the affairs of mankind. Indeed, God’s sovereignty focuses on His authority over all creation. Sovereignty involves authority. We see another word contained within the word authority. It is the word author. As the Author of all things, God has authority over all that He creates. As the Author of all things, He is thereby the Owner of all things. What He makes and owns He rules over. God intrinsically and absolutely has the right to impose obligations on His creation.
Sin as Debt
If God imposes obligations upon us that we fail to perform, then we incur debt. At this point, God becomes a creditor. He is the One to whom we owe the debt. Jesus described us as debtors who cannot pay our debts. It is one thing to be in debt and be able to pay it by means of a debt-retirement program, whereby we pay off our debt a little bit at a time. But the indebtedness that we have with respect to obedience to God is impossible for us to pay back by installment plan or any other means. Why? What is the ethical obligation that God imposes upon us, His creatures? How righteous are we required to be? How moral are we called to be by divine mandate? We are required to be sinless—nothing less than moral perfection is required.
In our culture, we try to evade the consequences of our sin by declaring, “Everyone gets a second chance.” We even promote this second chance to the level of merit by saying, “Everyone deserves a second chance.” But who says that anybody deserves a second chance? Does justice require that everyone get a second chance? A second chance is grace. A second chance is mercy. Mercy and grace are things that are never deserved. They cannot be deserved. If they were deserved, they would be justice and not mercy. Deserved grace is simply not grace at all. To say that the creature deserves a second chance from the Creator is pure nonsense. Even if this nonsensical notion were true, what good would it do us? How long ago did we all use up our second chance?
Our problem is not that we are almost impeccable moral creatures with one tiny blemish marring a perfect record. Rather, the Scriptures describe us as woefully inadequate in terms of our obedience to God. It is not that we are merely tainted by an occasional peccadillo. Our sins are many and grave, so grave that payback is impossible.
How does Christ help me with my debt? What is the role that He carries out in His work as our Redeemer? The New Testament has a word for it. Christ is our “guarantor” (see Heb. 7:22). Guarantor is an economic term, just as debt is an economic term. When the Bible speaks this way, it borrows language from the business world. That Christ is our guarantor means that He is the One who cosigns our note. He backs up our indebtedness by taking upon Himself the obligation to pay what must be paid.
Sin as Enmity
We do not disobey God because we love Him deeply. We disobey God because we have an inborn hostility toward Him. The Bible says that we are by nature enemies of God. We have a natural antipathy in our fallenness toward God’s reign over us. So with respect to enmity, God is the injured or offended party. It is not that God has manifested enmity toward us. We are the ones who have violated Him. God has never broken a promise. He has never violated a covenant. He has never sworn a vow to us that He failed to pay. He has never treated a human being unjustly. He has never violated me as a creature. He has never violated you. He has kept His side of the relationship perfectly. But we have violated Him. He is the injured party, not us.
The role that Christ plays in our redemption is that of Mediator. What does a mediator do? Where does the mediator stand? He stands in the middle, which is not a very popular place to be. In cases of estrangement, the mediator usually catches flak from both sides. It is like being an umpire or a referee between two combatants. The mediator often becomes a human lightning rod, attracting heat from both sides.
When we talk about mediation, we are concerned about reconciliation, a theme that is crucial to biblical Christianity. The purpose of mediation in an industrial contract dispute between labor and management is to accomplish reconciliation. The mediator is brought in to bring the two sides together where previous negotiations have failed. If there is no need for reconciliation, there is no need for a mediator. Reconciliation is needed only when estrangement has occurred—only when a relationship has been ruptured.
The Scriptures speak of such a ruptured personal relationship, a relationship that has been broken between two parties—God and man. There exists an estrangement between God and man, and reconciliation is necessary. It is into this situation of estrangement, of brokenness, that Christ comes as Mediator. He is our Supreme Mediator. Paul writes:
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. (1 Tim. 2:5–6a)
The biblical revelation indicates that God is sorely displeased with our offenses, and God the Father, as the injured party, is angry with our sin.
Though many deny the reality of God’s wrath, it is taught so plainly in Scripture that others are loath to deny it. But they often fall off the other side of the horse. They substitute one distortion for the other. This error occurs when God the Father is seen as being so consumed with wrath toward us that it requires the benevolent and kind intervention of the Son to bring the Father around—God the Father is mad as a hornet at man, but God the Son identifies so closely with our fallenness and our need that in His love, patience, and compassion He sides with us and acts as our Mediator to calm down the angry Father. This view posits a tension or split within the Godhead itself, as if the Father had one agenda and the Son persuaded Him to change His mind. The Father is angry and intends to mete out punishment and send everyone to hell, until the Son intervenes to talk Him out of it. This view sees Jesus as saying: “Punish Me instead. Let Me stand in their place. Let Me not only mediate the discussion but absorb the anger. Pile it on Me, not on them. Let Me be the lightning rod, and You can take Your wrath out on Me.”
However, when we think like this, we forget whose idea it was to provide a Mediator in the first place. The Mediator did not come on His own. God so loved the world that He “gave,” that He “sent,” His Son. Those two verbs we find in the Bible again and again and again. The Father sends the Son. The Father gives the Son for our redemption:
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. (Col. 1:19–22)
Sin as Crime
The third dimension of sin is its criminal characteristic. Here God functions as the Governor and the Judge. God is ultimately the Judge in all matters of justice. He is the ultimate standard of righteousness. His own character is the ultimate standard of justice. He functions personally as the Judge of heaven and earth. Christ in the drama of the atonement does not function as the Judge. He is elevated to the role of Judge at His ascension, however, and that is significant. By contrast, in His descent to this world, Christ comes under judgment, and His role here is as priest-victim. He comes to be judged in our behalf.
When I sin against God, Jesus pays the price for my indebtedness. In order for that payment to be accepted, the Judge, who is at the same time the injured party, must decide and decree that He will accept that payment in my behalf. If I owed God the death penalty because I sinned against Him, and Jesus said, “I will die for him,” and laid down His life for me, would God be under any obligation to accept that payment? None whatsoever.
There first must be a decision by the Governor of the universe that He will accept a substitutionary payment in order for my crime to be covered. The decision of God the Father to do so is one of sheer grace.
God demands that justice be done. The price must be paid. The debt will be paid in full, in both a pecuniary sense and a penal sense. He judges our crime. Our crime is punished. The debt is paid. God does not negotiate His justice. Yet at the same time, our debt and the punishment for our crime are paid by a substitute. Thus, the cross shows both perfect justice and perfect mercy. Take away the substitution and you take away the grace of God. Take away the cross and you take away the justice and righteousness of God. In this transaction we see what Paul meant when he said that God is “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).