So much for the fundamental and central importance of His death, or of
_the shedding of His blood_. But what was the purpose of the shedding
of His blood?
1. First of all, the Bible distinctly and repeatedly tells us by direct
statement, and by countless typical reference in the Old Testament,
that _He died as a vicarious offering for sin; that is, that He, an
absolutely perfect, righteous one, who deserved to live, died in the
place of unjust men who deserved to die_. For example, we read in Isa.
53:5, +"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for
our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with
His stripes we are healed."+ And in the eighth verse we read, +"By
oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation,
who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the
living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was
due?"+ And in the 11th and 12th verses we read, +"He shall see
of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge
of Himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and He shall bear
their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great,
and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He poured out
His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet He
bare the sin of many. And made intercession for the transgressors."+
In I Peter, 3:18 we read, +"Christ also suffered for sins once, the
righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being
put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."+ And in
1 Peter 2:24 we read, +"Who His own self bare our sins in His own
body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto
righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed."+ Now the meaning
of these verses and many other verses, is inescapable. They teach in
language the meaning of which no one can misunderstand (unless he is
determined not to see) that the death of Jesus Christ was a vicarious
atonement, that is, a just one, who deserved to live, dying in the
place of unjust ones who deserved to die. It was, to use the language
of the Los Angeles minister who denied his belief in it, "an atonement
of blood and recompense." This is God's doctrine of the Atonement
versus the Unitarian and Christian Science doctrine of the Atonement.
2. But this is not all. We are further taught that _He died as a
ransom, that is, His death was the price paid to redeem others from
death_. He Himself says so. His own words are, +"The Son of man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many."+ If His life was not a ransom, that is to say, if
He did not redeem others from death by dying in their place, then He
was the greatest fool in the whole history of this universe. Was He a
fool or was He a ransom? No one who in any real sense can be said to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ can hesitate as to his answer.
3. But even this is not all. The Bible distinctly tells us that _He
died as a sin offering, i.e., it was on the ground of His death, and
on this ground alone, that forgiveness of sin is made possible for
and offered to sinners_. This we are told in the 53rd chapter of
Isaiah, to which reference has already been made. In the 10th verse it
is written, +"Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; He+ (i.e.,
Jehovah) +hath put him to grief+ (literally, made him sick):
+when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his
seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall
prosper in his hand."+ Now the meaning of "_offering for sin_" is
unquestionable to any one who has studied the Old Testament offerings.
An "offering for sin" or a "guilt offering," which is the exact force
of the Hebrew word translated "an offering for sin," was a death of
a sacrificial victim on the ground of which pardon was offered to
sinners (Lev. 6:6-10, R. V.). The Holy Spirit says expressly in Heb.
9:22, in words the meaning of which is unmistakable, and the force
of which is inescapable, "_Apart from shedding of blood_ there is no
remission," and the whole context in which the passage is found shows
that the blood, to which all the blood of the Old Testament types as
sacrifices pointed forward, was the blood of Jesus Christ. So then
the Word of God declares that apart from the shedding of the blood of
Jesus Christ there is absolutely no pardon for sin. There is absolutely
no forgiveness outside the atoning blood of Christ. Without Christ's
atoning blood every member of the human race must have perished forever.
4. Fourth and further yet, the Bible teaches that _Jesus Christ died
as a propitiation for our sins_. God the Father gave Christ the Son
to be a propitiation by His blood. That is to say that _Jesus Christ,
through the shedding of His blood, is that by which God's holy wrath
at sin is appeased_. We read in 1 John 4:10, +"Herein is love, not
that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins."+ And we read in Rom. 3:25, 26, +"Whom
God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to
show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done
aforetime, in the forbearance of God; (26) for the showing, I say,
of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself
be just, and the justifier of Him that hath faith in Jesus."+ The
meaning of these words also is as plain as day. The two Greek words
in these two passages are not exactly the same words (_hilasmos_ and
_hilasterion_) but are from the same root. The word used in 1 John 4:10
is _hilasmos_ and the word used in Rom. 3:25 is _hilasterion_. The
definition given of the first in Thayer's Dictionary of New Testament
Greek, the standard work, is "a means of appeasing." The definition
given in the same lexicon of the second word is "an expiatory
sacrifice." So the thought that is in both passages is that the death
of Jesus Christ was a "propitiation," "an expiatory sacrifice," the
"means of appeasing" God's holy wrath at sin, or in other words,
that _Jesus, through the shedding of His blood, is that by which the
wrath of God against us as sinners is appeased_. God's holiness and
consequent hatred of sin, like every other attribute of His character,
is real and must manifest itself. His wrath at sin must strike
somewhere, either on the sinner himself or upon a lawful substitute.
It struck upon Jesus Christ, a lawful substitute. As we read in Isa.
53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and Jehovah _hath laid on Him_ the iniquity of us all."
The word translated "hath laid," according to the margin of the Revised
Version, means literally, "hath made to _light_." More literally still
it means, "hath made to _strike_." Reading it this way, what God says
is, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and Jehovah _hath made to strike on him_ (i.e., on the
Lord Jesus) _the iniquity of us all_." And in the eighth verse of the
same chapter we are taught that "the stroke due" to others fell upon
Him, and He was consequently "cut off out of the land of the living."
The death of Jesus Christ has its first cause in the demands of God's
holiness. This is the Bible doctrine versus the Unitarian and Christian
Science doctrine of atonement. The doctrine is often misrepresented
and caricatured as being that "God, a holy first person, took the sins
of man, the guilty second person, and put them on Jesus Christ, an
innocent third person," and it is objected that this would not be just.
No; this would not be just, and it is not for a moment the doctrine of
the Bible, for the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus Christ was not "a
third person," but was Himself God, and that He was Himself man, so He
is not a third person at all, but both the first person and the second
person, and the doctrine is that God Himself, the offended first
person, substitutes His atoning action whereby He expresses His hatred
against sin, for His punitive action whereby He would express the same
thing; that God, instead of visiting the sins of the sinner upon the
sinner, takes the punishment upon Himself. This certainly is something
more than just, it is wondrous love.
5. Further yet, the Bible teaches us that _Jesus Christ died to redeem
us from the curse of the law by bearing that curse Himself_. We read
in Gal. 3:10, +"As many as are of the works of the law are under a
curse, for it is written: Cursed is every one who continueth not in
all things that are written in the Book of the Law, to do them."+
So then, every one of us is under the curse of the broken law, for not
one of us has continued +"in all things that are written in the book
of the law, to do them."+ But we read in the 13th verse, +"Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us+
(literally, _in our behalf_): +for it is written, Cursed is every one
that hangeth on a tree."+ _By His death by crucifixion He redeemed
us from the curse which we deserved by taking that curse upon Himself._
This certainly is "an atonement of blood and recompense."
6. The Bible puts essentially the same truth in still another form,
viz., that _Jesus Christ died as our Passover sacrifice—that is, that
His shed blood might serve as a ground upon which God would pass over
and spare us_. We read in 1 Cor. 5:7, +"For our passover also hath
been sacrificed, even Christ."+ Now what a passover sacrifice was
and signified we learn from Ex. 12:12, 13, where our Lord told the
children of Israel at the inauguration of the passover, +"For I will
go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all
the Gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am Jehovah, and the blood
shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I
see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall be no plague upon
you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."+ And again we
read in the 23rd verse of the same chapter, +"For Jehovah will pass
through to smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the blood upon the
lintel, and on the two side-posts, Jehovah will pass over the door,
and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite
you."+ Paul wrote his words with all this in mind, and in saying
that Christ is our Passover sacrifice beyond a question he meant that
_the shed blood of Jesus Christ serves as a ground, and the only
ground, upon which God passes over and spares us_.