The Bible is a record of God’s history of redemption for our salvation past, present, and future.  One will find King Jesus’:

Prophecy in The Old Testament.

Presentation in The Gospels.

Proclamation in Acts.

Preeminence in The Epistles.

Pageantry in The Revelation.

In the Old Testament we find a record of the history of God’s people understanding the coming of their Messiah, Jesus Christ, who was prophesied by the prophets from Genesis 3 on.   This coming involved a sacrificial Day of Atonement and an ominous Day of the Lord.   

In The Gospels of Jesus Christ, we find the record of the history of His First Coming and the prophecy of His Second Coming.  Jesus is presented to Israel, as their long-expected Messiah. Jesus presents Himself, as the Redeemer of Israel and mankind, in His death and resurrection.

In The Acts of the Apostles we find a record of the history of the infant Jewish church, as The Gospel is proclaimed to their fellow Jews and to Gentiles alike.  The key is that The Gospel is (as it always was in the Old Testament) trans-ethnic and trans-cultural and trans-geographic.

In The Epistles of the Apostles, we find a record of the teaching of how Jesus Christ is to be preeminent in all our life and being.  The history of fallen man is his enthroning himself, as lord, where The Gospel is enthroning Jesus Christ, as Lord.

In The Revelation of Jesus Christ, we find a record of the prophecy of the pageantry of His Second Coming, as The Day of the Lord, depicting the Church’s ministry and then believing Israel’s ministry of a world heading toward Armageddon, that is saved and regenerated into Messianic Kingdom in the age to come.  This will be the historical and earthly fulfillment of the Messiah’s Gospel of salvation (for us who now believe) in the age to come, “for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).

The Gospel begins with that fact and promise that you can know that you are saved and have eternal life.  John’s letter of 1 John gives an interesting picture of the Gospel, as you begin in chapter 5 and work back to chapter 1.  To begin with, John wrote his first letter that you can know that you are actually saved and possess eternal life.  He explained specifically in 1 John 5:13, “These things I have written to you, that you might know that you have eternal life, to you, the ones believing in the name of the Son of God.”  The Greek for “know” here literally means “to have seen with the mind’s eye,” as a clear and purely mental perception, in contrast both to conjecture and to knowledge derived from others or personal experience. In other words, you, as a believer, know that you have eternal life, because the Bible says say so – that is, by reading and understanding what the Bible says and simply taking it seriously. Yes! You can know, if you are saved and have eternal life, because of the “these things” written in 1 John and in the rest of the New Testament and then in the rest of the Bible.  From Genesis to Revelation is the whole story of salvation for you to know and to take to heart.

The central focus of this Gospel is on the person of Jesus Christ.  John explained in 1 John 4:9, “In this the love of God was manifested among us, that God sent His one-of-a-kind Son into the world, in order that we might live through Him.”  Jesus was God the Father’s “one-of-a-kind” Son.  This is the same Greek word[1] used about Isaac regarding Abraham in Hebrews 11:17, “By faith Abraham, while being tested, offered forth Isaac, even the one receiving the promises was offering forth his one-of-a-kind son.” Even though Abraham did actually have seven sons[2] by Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah, Isaac, as a son of promise, was a picture of the coming Jesus Christ.  Both fathers deeply loved their sons and were willing to lose them in death.  God spared Abraham in Genesis 22, but He did not spare His Son.  With His great, eternal love He sent His Son to earth…to a cross…that we might be saved and live eternally through Him.

God’s plan is for each of begins with our obedience in believing in the name of Jesus Christ, as Lord, for our salvation.  John explained this in 1 John 3:23, “And this is His commandment: that we might believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and might love one another, just as He gave us such a command.”[3]  The Greek for “believing” in Jesus Christ means four things: (1) trusting in Jesus Christ, as Savior; (2) entrusting[4] Him, as Lord, with our life and eternity; (3) being faithful;[5] and (4) beliefs[6] about Jesus Christ.  His command that we have an “agape-love” for one another…all others…even enemies[7] is a part of Jesus being our Lord.  Jesus pointed out the key to our witness to others of our discipleship in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I am giving to you, that you might love one another, just as I love you, that even you yourselves might love one another.  In this all will know that you are disciples for Me, if you might have love among one another.”  This unconditional decision to have an agape-love for all people is both the motivation underlying our Christian faithfulness and the motivation of Christ to go to the cross.

One of the uniqueness that make our Christian faith so different than any other is the fact that, when we sin and harm other people and need to ask them to forgive us and to be forgiven and further to make restitution, at times we cannot.  Those whom we have harmed physically or emotionally may not be still alive or may not be available for us to converse or communicate with.  Even further any restitution would also not be possible. It here one realizes the uniqueness of 1 John 1:9, as to how all forgiveness can and should be begin with God because of Psa. 51:4 and then even further because of Isa. 53:6.  We can and should begin with God and can and should go from there, if possible.

JESUS CHRIST ON THE CROSS TOOK THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR SINS

Mark wrote his Gospel under the apostolic authority of Peter and records the events of Jesus on the cross in Mark 15:25-37 –

25Now it was the third hour [9 am], and they crucified Him.  26And the inscription of His accusation was written above: THE KING OF THE JEWS.  27With Him they also crucified two robbers, one on His right and the other on His left.  28So the Scripture was fulfilled which said, ‘And He was accounted with the lawless.’  29And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30save Yourself, and come down from the cross!’  31Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes, said, ‘He saved others; Himself He cannot save.  32Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe him.’ Even those who were crucified with Him reviled Him.  33Now when the sixth hour [noon] had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour [3 pm].  34And at the ninth hour [3pm] Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lima sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’  35Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, ‘Look, He is calling for Elijah!’  36Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a staff, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, ‘Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.’  37And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed His last.”

Horrific events led up to Jesus’ crucifixion, and the first 3 hours from 9 am to noon were gruesomely painful and ignominious, as noted in verses 25-32. However, during the second 3-hour period everything changed!  He finally screamed those fateful words of the first verse that begin the 22nd Psalm, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lima sabachthani?’ which is Aramaic for ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’  Even though these words appear in Hebrew[8] in Psalm 22:1, the Gospels writers record Jesus quoting this in Aramaic.  Jesus in His ministry was quite trilingual with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  In the synagogue He read from the Old Testament in Hebrew but mainly taught in Koine Greek, the original language in which the New Testament was written and inspired.  But from time to time He would use Aramaic expressions the Gospel writers would record in Greek letters and then follow with a Greek translation. When we read all of this in an English translation, often the translators will give the Aramaic expression in English letters, followed of course by the English translation.  This is what occurred on the cross.  Jesus mainly spoke in Greek, however during the extreme horrors of the second 3-hour period, when everything changed, Jesus resorted to His mother-tongue, His Jewish family’s cultural language of Aramaic. 

Whatever happened during the period from noon to 3 pm is the focus of the atonement.  Paul is quite clear in Romans 6:23, “for the wages of sin is death…”  When Jesus died at 3 pm, as the sinless Son of God, it would have been a contradiction of what God inspired Paul to write how death is the due compensation for sin.  Jesus lived a sinless life and had no sins of which death could be exacted, as a wage. Thus, it begs the question:   The wages or consequences of what sins brought death to Jesus?  It would have to be the sins of others.  But whose sins?  The sins of those around Him who had believed?  The sins of those who would follow in faith?  The sins of those who crucified Him?  The sins of those who would either then or later accept Him, as Savior? The sins of those would reject Him, as Savior?  Whose sins? Where would you draw the line?  Where could you draw the line?  More importantly where did God the Father draw the line?  He did not draw any such line, simply because Jesus was the atoning sacrifice not only for our sins but the sins of the whole world according 1 John 2:2, as He was made sin, “And He himself is the propitiation [preparing the atonement] concerning our sins, and not concerning our sins only but also concerning the sins of the whole world.”    In other words, the sins of the whole world were poured out upon Him and judged with hellish consequences.  Thus, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit “are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness” (Habakkuk 1:13).  So, when the Father and Holy Spirit turned away from Jesus on the cross, for the first and last and only time in all eternity Jesus was absolutely alone and in this horror screamed, “My God [The Father], My God [The Holy Spirit], why have you forsaken me [The Son]?”   God the Father decided that He would equate Infinite God (as Jesus) and His three hours on the cross with finite man and his eternity in hell, specifically The Lake of Fire, and call this grand transaction of Grace complete.  It was His sovereign choice and His sovereign will to do so, and He did just that.  So, the key here is how God the Father on the cross made Jesus “who did not know sin to be sin for us, in order that we ourselves might become God’s righteousness in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).  Our sins and the sins of the world placed upon Jesus were used to make Him to be sin for us.

God created Adam sinlessly perfect in a corruptible body.  He might have lived for millennia and with the Tree of Life forever.  However, before death came into existence for man, Adam knowingly disobeyed God and sinned.  God determined that the consequences of sin would be death, as an immediate spiritual death and an eventually physical death.  Human death would always be the result of sin, and sin would always be a result of our human fallen nature inherited from Adam. Without sin people would never die but could have the possibility of living forever in their sinless perfection. However, this was not the case after Adam and Even sinned, until Jesus was conceived and born sinlessly perfect in a corruptible, mortal human body capable for living for millennia with a transformation of physical perfection that He would continue to live forever. Thus, Jesus Christ could and never would die. 

So, when the reality of His death came about in His sinless perfection, albeit in his corruptible body.  Specifically, His death on the cross was a violent form for murder that was normally quite lengthy and slow over days, if not weeks. However, in His case it was only six hours, and he physically died with a death validated by Roman authority. His last comment of “It is paid in full” inferred “It is paid in full.”  The question is what sin caused the death of Jesus?  “The wages of sin is death.”  He was sinless and had no sin because of which to die.

Either God deceived us about “the wages of sin is death” OR the sins of others were the sin that brought about Jesus’ death on the cross.  Which sins? The sins of all other people with no place to draw the line.  Jesus was the atoning sacrifice for our sins and the sins of all of humanity in all of human history since Adam (1 John 2:2).  Jesus died because of your sins and mine.  Because of His sinless innocence His death was special and different than any other human death; and, as deity, eternally and universally comprehensive unlike any other human death; and with God the Father satisfactory and complete.  It is within this Triune Deity that we can assert “the eternal Sonship” of Christ, that allowed this to happen.

Benjamin Franklin developed an invention of the lightning rod that gives us an interesting picture of how Jesus died for our sins.  Since a lightning strike can be very destructive for a house, a lightning rod can take that same lightning strike and channel it to the ground and spare the roof of the home of any destruction. In an extreme lightning strike, the bolt of lightning may even result in melting and destroying the rod, as it spares the house of damage.  God’s serious understanding of sin is much like that lightning.  But Jesus on the cross become much like the lightning rod.  Our holy God must take our sins seriously, in that this serious attitude toward our sins is call His wrath.  This wrath was turn away from us and channeled upon Jesus Christ.  He thus spared us of the ultimate strike of God’s wrath upon our sins.  Jesus Christ has safely for us taken that wrath upon Himself and died for our sins.  But unlike the once-used and now-melted lightning rod, Jesus was bought back from the dead to live forever with those what choose to live with Him, as Lord.

John wrote of a detail of Jesus’ death that has given some insight, as to the medical condition by which He died.  Jesus with His physique of a young man in His 30’s would have lasted for days on a typical Roman cross.  His death in just six hours was highly unusual.  Only Mark specifically mentioned in Mark 15:44 how Pilate who had seen so many crucifixions was somewhat surprised that Jesus had already died. The Romans who crucified Him were very surprised, as to His dying so early.  One Roman soldier sought to be sure and thrusted a lance in Jesus’ side, specifically His thorax[9] around the area of the ribs to assure His death.  It was at this point that something unusual was observed in John 19:34, “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance, and immediately blood and water[10] came out.”  One could account for the separate and distinct flow of water (as abdominal fluid) before the blood, if the pericardium (the membrane sack around the heart) was totally filled with blood from a ruptured heart and was pierced by the lance, after the abdominal cavity was first pierced.  The abdominal fluid would come out first, and then the blood from the pericardium.

Thus, if the sins of the world were poured out upon Him and judged with hellish consequences, He may have died of “stress-induced” heart attack,[11] that is, a rupture of the heart muscles, in other words a ruptured or broken heart.  The sins of the world may have metaphorically and literally broken Jesus’ human heart, when He died.  In the mystery of this vicarious atonement, God, the Father, amid the physical agony of the cross and all that was associated before it, took the sins of all mankind and “caused them to fall and land on” Jesus Christ according to Isaiah 53:4-7 – 

“4Surely He has taken away our griefs and carried off our pains; yet we accounted Him buffeted, with cutting blows by God and humbled.  5 But He was pierce through for our violations of the law, He was crushed for our immoral crookedness; the punishment that brings our peace was upon Him, and by His cutting-blows we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have wandered; we have turned, each one, to his own way; and the LORD has caused to fall and land on Him the sins of all of us.  7 He was oppressed and He was humiliated, yet He did not complain; He was led, just as a lamb to the slaughter; and, as a sheep before its shearers is silent, He did not open His mouth.” 

Isaiah’s prophecy about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ clearly portrays God’s viewpoint of these horrors of the cross inextricably and eternally connected to our salvation and forgiveness in His atonement.

An interesting picture of what happened on the cross can be illustrated in the following way.  In an earlier day in the frontier plains of America, families in rural farming homesteads were always fearful of prairie fires.  As they would see one coming from upwind, as the smoke showed more details, they would try to form a controlled burn around their humble farmhouse.  A carefully set backfire line or circle of ground could form a firebreak around their home.  With enough time, the fire would form and go out.  Then, as the prairie fire approached their home, “the flames would burn where the fire had been,” and those within the area of the piece of ground encircled by where the fire had been were safe and saved.  The fire would not burn where the earlier fire had been.

This was God’s plan for Christ on the cross.  God took His righteous and eternal “venting” toward our sins, His righteous indignation toward our iniquities, and the wrath of His serious attitude toward sins, “vented” them upon His Eternal Son.  When Jesus victoriously said, as John records His words in John 19:30, “It is finished,” God the Father had nothing more to vent. It was all over.  Then, Jesus died, and by His death He “was delivered because of our trespasses” (Romans 4:25a), but then He “was raised because of our acquittal” (Romans 4:25b).  The expression, “It is finished,” is a translation of the Greek verb, Tetelestai.   Business receipts from among Greek papyrus from the second century AD were often begun with the term usually put in an abbreviated form, “TTL,” meaning “Paid in Full” much as we use this today.  In other words, Jesus sought to declare that it was all over – it has all been completed – it has all been “paid in full” – the debt of sin has been paid in full! 

There was once a rather eccentric evangelist named Alexander Wooten, who was approached by a flippant young man who asked, “What must I do to be saved?” “It’s too late!” Wooten replied, and went about his work. The young man became alarmed.  “Do you mean that it’s too late for me to be saved?” he asked. “Is there nothing I can do?”  “Too late!” said Wooten. “It’s already been done! The only thing you can do is believe.” So that when you stand before God on Judgment Day, where your sins once appeared in God’s book, it will simply say, “Paid in full!” Which means the only thing that could keep you out of heaven is gone.  God made sin a dead issue.

The words of Isaac Watts put it so eloquently –

We owed a debt we could never repay. 

He paid a debt He did not owe! 

But drops of grief can ne’er repay 

The debt of love I owe.

He offers now my sins to forgive

And be reconciled today.

I ask, believe, and for Him do live,

As Lord He leads every way. 

We owed a debt we could never repay. 

He paid a debt He did not owe! 

“But drops of grief can ne’er repay 

The debt of love I owe: 

Here, Lord, I give myself away, 

’Tis all that I can do!”

This is the reason that we Christians can begin in a conversation with an unbeliever that Jesus has paid for his or her sins.  Whatever “wages of sins” were and are, Jesus has paid them completely. So, sins become “a dead issue.” Thus, there is no double jeopardy. Jesus paid this debt of sins once and for all.[12]  One’s sins do not keep one out of heaven, but it is the rejection of Jesus Christ and His forgiveness of sins that do.  One’s sins do not send one to hell, but the rejection of Jesus Christ.  The unbeliever will not die and go to hell “for his sins” but only “in his sins,” as being unforgiven.  As noted above Jesus explained all this in John 8:21-24, how we are to see Him, come out from the world, and believe in him: “I am journeying away, and you will seek me, and in your sin you will die [unforgiven].  You are not able to go, where I am journeying.” So then, Jesus explained to them, “I am heading off to a place where you will try to find Me, but you will die in your sinful ways and never find Me.”  Seek Jesus, and be not, as those who do not find Jesus, as their Lord and Savior, die in their unforgiven sins on their way to Hades. 

Further, in verses 23-24 “And he said to them, “You yourselves are of the things below.  I Myself am of the things above; your yourselves are of this world; I myself am not out of this world.  Therefore, I say to you that you will die in your sin [unforgiven]; for if you might not believe that I AM He, you will die in your sins [unforgiven]. You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.  “Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins [unforgiven].” He was explaining to them, their origin is simply from this earth, but His origin is from the Third Heaven.  Their whole life and being are totally tied to this finite life and existence, but He is eternal and omnipresent.   So then, He sought to tell them that they will die in their propitiated but unforgiven sins.  The issue is not only seeking Jesus but also in repentance we are to come out forth out of the world and be separate, and be not, as those who remain a part of the fallen, sinful world die in their unforgiven sins on their way to Hades.  Then in faith we believe in Jesus, and be not, as those who do not believe in Jesus, as Lord and Savor, die in their unforgiven sins on their way to Hades, “for, if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins [unforgiven].”   For unless you believe that Jesus is Jehovah God, you will die in your propitiated but unforgiven sins.

With this offer of eternal life in heaven, why would anyone say No? Ultimately it is human pride (like Satan’s pride) that keep an unbeliever from say, “I am a sinner. Please, God forgive me of these sins.” Sins can have a fleeting joy about them, but in repentance an unbeliever comes to realize that he or she must with forgiveness turn from his or her sins and to Jesus, as Lord.  Thus, the bottom line is – Jesus will either keep you from sins, or sins will keep you from Jesus. 

Sins will never be an issue about heaven and hell.  The future Great White Throne Judgment by Jesus Christ of all the unbelievers through ages is found in Revelation 20:11-15 we find – 

“11And I saw a great white throne and the One sitting on it, from whom the face the earth and the heaven fled, and a place was not found for them. 12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in front of the throne, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.  And the dead ones were judged out of the things written in the books according to their works.  13And the sea gave up the dead in it, and death and Hades, gave up the dead in them.  And they were judged each one according to their works. 14And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is this second death.  15And if1 anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

John saw the Great Final Judgment of God with Jesus Christ sitting to judge the unbelievers through the age.  The universe was gone, for it had dissolved into a thermonuclear ball fire called The Lake of Fire.  Then, he saw all the resurrected unbelievers through the ages standing before Jesus Christ regardless of their social standing.  Eternal scrolls of records were opened with all the deeds of all their lives.  There was one particular scroll listing those who have eternal life.  Those that died at sea were physically resurrected.   In fact, all the unbelievers in the torments of Hades, as a halfway house to damnation, were resurrected with eternal, asbestos bodies.  Jesus Christ passed this judgment of eternal damnation, called the second death, by what deeds that they had done in their life on earth. Then, everyone whose name was not listed among those having eternal life was consigned to this second stage of damnation called The Lake of Fire which will be a fiery, supernatural end of infinite horrors far beyond the horrors of death and present torments suffered thus far by them in Hades.

This future judgment in the Lake of Fire has no specific mention of their sins but rather of their works.  Their sins had been paid for at the cross, so Jesus would not have required a double payment. The issue here, as it has always been regarding their rejection of God’s eternal salvation, is their seeking to substitute their own works for Jesus’ work on the cross to gain heaven and avoid hell. But the irony is that it is these very works that form their indictment for eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire. Paul explained this for believers in Eph. 2:8-9, “For by grace are you saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, but God’s gift, not of works, in order that no one might boast.”  The understanding of salvation was to be either by grace through faith OR works, not both.  All those who reject Jesus Christ hence are trusting in their works, and it is their works that pave their way to The Lake of Fire, as an indictment toward condemnation.  This Lake of Fire is also called Gehenna, the termed that Jesus used in Matthew 9:43, 45, and 47, “And if your eye might cause you to sin, cut it out; it is better for you to enter into life with one eye than having two eyes to go off into Gehenna, into inextinguishable fire.”   This will be a future place, as Jesus further explained in Matthew 9:44, 46 and 48, “where their worm[13] does not come to an end, and the fire is not extinguished.”  Jesus is alluding to and quoting Isaiah 66:24, “And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be shame for all flesh.”  It is interesting in the Bible who this general term for an insect larva or worm became a metaphor to describe the literal body of the lost immortal soul and indestructible (asbestos-like, if your will) body of the unbeliever, i.e., the lost from throughout all the millennia of human history.

Presently believers and unbelievers on earth have terrestrial bodies.  But before Christ comes for His church believers who die will receive celestial bodies and eventually resurrection bodies in the first resurrection. However, the unbeliever resurrected at the Great White Throne Judgment with an indestructible body will be cast into the Lake of Fire, also called Gehenna.  There is both a comparison and a contrast here:  The worms of the Gehenna (which was old Jerusalem’s location for refuse of the day) would go “siss…siss…siss” during the fire through the day.  But by night the fire would die out.  After which these worms would reappear in the debris crawling and growing in number to be burned the next day with the trash of the day.  However, in contrast, in eschatological Gehenna (The Lake of Fire) the worms will not be going “siss…siss…siss…”  but will continue forever and ever. This will be a second stage of damnation of horrors.The universe will come to a fiery, supernatural, thermonuclear end (or rather, a new beginning) of infinite horrors far beyond the form of death and torments suffered thus far by them in Hades.  This Gehenna-damnation awaiting unbelievers will be a future double horror of horrors.

Eternal life for a believer comes, as a free gift through repentance and faith and not by works.  If you are saved by works, you can never know when enough is enough and if you really have it and if you really can keep it.  Repentance comes through your admission that you are a sinner, that as you ask God to forgive you of your confessed sins, He will forgive. This forgiveness with reconciliation then involves turning away from these sins, in which Jesus become Lord of all your life.  This is done by faith alone in which works are not a matter of means but good works are a matter of being the results of repentance and faith.[14]  Salvation by grace through faith has biblical assurance that you can know that you are saved and eternal security that you can never lose what God has chosen.  To put it another way: when it comes to being saved, if you are saved and do not know it, then you can lose it and not miss it. The first step in this repentance and faith toward salvation in “the sinner’s prayer” is confessing of one’s sins in accordance with 1 John 1:9 by beginning with “Be merciful to me, the sinner,” as Jesus taught in His parable of “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector” in Luke 18:13, “And the tax-collector having stood from afar did not want anything, but lifting up his eyes into heaven beat his chest saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” 

JESUS CHRIST WITH HIS ATONEMENT AWAITS OUR REPENTANCE AND FAITH

The result of Christ going to the cross was atonement.  1 John 2:2 - “And He [Jesus] himself is the propitiation [preparing the atonement] concerning our sins, and not concerning our sins only but also concerning the sins of the whole world.”  The key word here, propitiation, is the Greek word, hilasmos, that means “mercifully covering and paying for sins, as offenses against God, in order to turn away the consequences of how serious He must take our sins and to allow for, but not to include, forgiveness and reconciliation.”  For everyone both lost and saved Jesus paid it all.   Thus, all is done with only these two requirements left at issue to which to respond:  Forgiveness and Reconciliation.  Even though He atoned for everyone’s sins, that is, all of humanity, His forgiveness only comes to us who confess their sins and believe in Jesus Christ.  Just as the Hebrew word for “atonement”[15] in the Hebrew Old Testament was for all the sins of all Israel, as an “unlimited atonement” for the sins of those Jews in the Old Testament days, who were both lost and save, this word, hilosmos, in the New Testament is also an “unlimited atonement” for the sins of those saved and lost (“concerning the sins of the whole world”).  In both cases, atonement specifically excludes forgiveness and reconciliation.  Thus, for unbelievers, if there is no confession of sins, no repentance, and no faith on their part, they cannot be saved and forgiven and reconciled to God without faith.    Their sins have been atoned, as “fully paid for.”  Unlimited atonement is seen in the explanation about “The Book of Life.”  In The Book of Life in the New Testament all the names of humanity are written, if you will, in both “indelible and delible ink.” The “indelible ink” signifies those, as believers, elected and thus appointed for eternal salvation in predestination of the saints’ eternal security (such as in Revelation 3:5; 21:27), while the “delible ink” signifies those, as unbelievers, whose name are blotted out by God, and thus “stand not written in the Book of Life” either upon their death (after a lifetime of rejecting Christ in unbelief) or sooner during life, as noted in Revelation 17:8; 20:15.

Predestination is the biblical basis for understanding this eternal security of a believer’s salvation. This security is to be found in God’s Eternal-Now outside of space-and-time.  In fact, time was created and began at the point of the “in the beginning” of Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. Thus, within this creation of time the regeneration of a believer can occur bringing about our salvation. However, one’s actual salvation cannot be definitively seen by another person 100%, except within God’s omniscience of His Eternal-Now.  But one’s salvation either exists or does not within this Eternal-Now of God’s, although in space and time others can at least see the effects and “fruit” of a believer’s salvation.

But then the issue comes, as to whether they would accept this payment for sins as effective in their lives.  They may then seek and find forgiveness for their sins.  Otherwise, they will “die in their sins,” as Jesus explained in John 8:24, “Therefore, I say to you that you will die in your sin; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins,” as unforgiven, though paid for.  In reality, Jesus paid it all.  Jesus will keep you from sins, or sins will keep you from Jesus.  By faith in Jesus Christ, He can keep you from the power of your sins in this life and from the penalty and presence of your sins beyond this life.   By rejecting Jesus Christ, your sins will hold you and draw you further and further away from any concern, interest, or faith in Him. 

This is why repentance is such a key in regeneration for salvation.  The issue of repentance and faith is how they go together in the atonement.  This can be somewhat illustrated in the picture of how believers are “grafted” into Jesus.  In grafting, one takes and “wounds”, say, a root of a rose plant and a stem of another rose plant.  Then, one joins them togethers at the wound to have them heal and mend and grow together, where the red rose root’s sap nourishes the stem to produce specifically a red rose.  Connecting them without grafting is much like expressing faith without repentance. However, these respective “woundings” of Christ’s atonement on the cross and the believer’s confession with repentance over sins are brought together in regeneration, in which the “nourishing sap” can illustrate the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

On the cross Jesus’ atoning death made sins a dead issue for everyone lost or saved.  However, for the believer salvation comes, when after we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness with repentance.  Then, reconciliation comes with this forgiveness described in 1 John 1:9, as a part of repentance (Acts 3:19).  Reconciliation to God the Father comes with one’s faith in Jesus Christ, as Lord.  This brings about salvation which includes eternal life.

This understanding of salvation is called Unlimited Atonement.  It is also called [16]General Redemption.  One could understand that God would know very well that some people would never be saved, but never would such be on the premise that He did not first allow Christ to pay for their sin toward allowing for them to be saved.

One can illustrate it in this way. A couple of brothers grew up together and enjoyed going to the circus.  The older brother moved on into the big city in business and was quite successful, even owning part of a circus.  The younger brother married and moved to a small community with little economic growth.  The other brother knew that his younger brother did not want any help, but on a visit the older brother asked his circus partners, if on their tour, if they might go through this small community and put on a show one Saturday along the way…for free.  They agree. When the older brother came to visit that weekend, it was quite an exciting weekend for the community. Everyone enjoyed the circus and for free.  The younger brother’s family had a thrill of a lifetime with all the grandeur of the Big Top.  His older brother enjoyed seeing his family’s appreciation, even as the others in the community had fun, too.  Jesus Christ has given everyone to see and understand “paid-for” salvation, but only those who come to a relationship with him by repentance and faith find personal salvation.

Christ’s atonement for our sins brings us salvation, only when we confess our sin, as John described in 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, in order that He might forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” “Confess” here means to admit and agree with God by specifically naming our sins.  This is a continuous lifestyle.  Believers are commanded and urged to do this, not only when we are saved but when we live day by day in this sinful world of temptations and yielding. When you get a speck in your eye, you do not wait until Sunday to get it out?  You get it out immediately.  The “all unrighteousness” means known and unknown sins, remembered and forgotten sins. Thus, for a brief and shining moment we are totally clean and sinless, i.e., sinlessly perfect,…until we are tempted and yield and sin.  The Christian walk in the Holy Spirit helps lengthen such periods of time.  These brief occasions in our Christian life in a way fulfills what Jesus explained in Matthew 5:48, “Therefore, you will be perfect, even as your Father is perfect.”  Ultimately, as we practice moment by moment applying 1 John 1:9 to our daily lives, we will find what Paul meant in 1 Thessalonica 5:23, “…may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely….”

The basis for all this was explain by John a couple of verses earlier in 1 John 1:7 – “But if we might walk in the light, as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.”  This salvation becomes a relationship of fellowship with God and other believers, as we all live in the light of God’s presence and Word.  This reference to “the blood of Jesus Christ” is where Jesus on the cross took the consequences for our sins.  In the Gospel we read of the horrific events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and the first 3-hour period from 9 am to noon. However, during the second 3-hour period everything changed!   In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul explained what God the Father did with God the Son on the cross, “For He made Him who did not know sin to be sin on our behalf, in order that we ourselves might become God’s righteousness in Him.”  An important key for understanding this is how God people and their sins intimately combined and “interlaced”[17]) and with the cross totally separated them, that is, God held all of humanity in one hand and all of their sins in the other hand in a full separation.  This was how He was able to lay “on him [Jesus Christ] the sin of us all” on the cross prophesied in Isaiah 53:6.   This has an interesting and instructive picture, as one thinks about the crown of thorns on Jesus’ head placed in John 19:2, “and the soldiers, after twisting a crown out of thorns, put it upon his head and wrapped a purple robe around him.”[18]   These thorns portray, as a specified example, the consequences of sin brought forth on earth by God’s judgment on sin, noted in Genesis 3:18, “both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field.”

This understanding of God’s total separating of sins and sinners is unique to the Christian faith and theology.  It is the very reason why God can take sin seriously and be in a position at the same time to both “hate the sins and love the sinners.”  This is why Christians can also deal with immorality issues and also hate the sins but nonetheless love the sinners.[19] 

In this vicarious atonement a very proper question can be asked: “How can someone pay or rightly die for the sins of another?”  The consequences of sin are suffering and harm and even death.  The sinner can suffer harm from his or her sins, although God’s sovereignty may delay it, even to the point of after this life, as the sin and it delay in consequence can and may keep the sinner from becoming saved. 

However, the horrible matter about sin is how others innocently suffer harm.  It is one thing for the one sinning to suffer harmful consequences, but it is another thing for others to suffer from the sin in which they have no part.  Such examples would be children suffering from the sins of their parents, a wife suffering from the sins of her husband, employees suffering for the sins of their employers.  Even in the Bible one sees the anguish in the lament by David in 2 Samuel 1 over the deaths of King Saul and Prince Jonathan with 2 Samuel 1:25, “How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan was slain in your high places.” The anguish in his lament was even deeper, when we not how Jonathan suffered the consequences of his father’s sins, although not over the guilt, as noted in Ezekiel 18:20.

One might ask, “Why did God not alter this, so as to only allow the one sinning to be hurt and suffer alone?  However, He did not so such, perhaps for this reason:  This vicarious nature of the hurt and consequences of sin on those not doing the actual sin has allowed for the Sinless Son of God humanly to hurt and suffer the Vicarious hurt and consequences of all the sins committed by all of mankind.  Without people suffering for the sins committed by other there would have been no pathway for “The Vicarious Atonement” suffered by Christ on the cross. Jesus who had no sin died by our sins, so that he might be able to then die for our sins.  This connection is fascinating.  In other words, God could have sovereignly had the sufferings from sins restricted to the sinner.  However, He did not do this, so that He might rightly, not only allow someone, but have someone else suffer harm from the sin of a sinner.  Jesus had this very thing occur to the ultimate extent, to the complete extreme.  But His suffering was different than the suffering of an innocent party, since He was the ultimate of an “innocent party” and thus suffered the entirety of all human sins of all time.

After Jesus became sin, He died.  This death is referred to, as “the blood of Jesus Christ” that “cleanses us from all sin.” How did God connect our sins with Jesus Christ on the cross?  And how does God connect Jesus Christ dying on the cross with our sins?

One pictorial way of seeing this is how the concept of repentance is somewhat like making a “U-turn” in life.  God seeks to make the understanding of the gospel and salvation simple and easy, much like the famous highway “Texas Turnaround” or U-Turn.   The unbeliever is on the Interstate Highway called “Lost” going the wrong way in life and needing a U-turn.  Then, one comes to an exit ramp called “Confession,” as in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, in order that He might forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  With this exit ramp comes a frontage road called “Forgiveness.”  Then one sees in the left lane a “Texas Turnaround” or U-turn called “Repentance.” With this U-turn one arrives on the frontage road called “Grace” and takes the entrance ramp called “Faith in Christ,” as a commitment to Him, as Master.  One is then on the highway of “Salvation” going the opposite direction in life.  This salvation brings reconciliation to God along with fellowship.  Paul described this in Romans 10:9-10, “That, if you would confess with your mouth, ‘Lord Jesus,’ and would believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes for righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses for salvation.”  Now, in this new way of life going in the opposite direction one moves into a “lane” called “Works Befitting Repentance,” as Paul explained in Acts 26:20, “But to those in Damascus first and to those in Jerusalem, both into all the land of Judea and to all the Gentiles, announcing to repent and to turn toward God, practicing works befitting repentance.”

  The message of the gospel has a balance of faith with repentance. Regarding sin against God one needs repentance in seeking forgiveness and be willing to change, and regarding the Lord Jesus Christ one needs faith, as both trusting in Him a Savior and entrusting oneself to Him as the Master of one’s life.  This is Paul’s message of salvation in a nutshell in Acts 20:21, “Solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks the repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus.”

Adrian Rogers once explained, “Salvation is not getting man out of earth into heaven but getting God out of heaven into earth.”  Suppose you were standing before God right now, and He asked you, “Why should I let you into my heaven?”  What would you say?” Most would respond about some matter of going to hell to pay for their sins.  Sins can cloudy the understanding and harden the hearts of people considering Christ as their savior and Lord, but it is this very decision based upon the Gospel that determines their eternity in hell or heaven and not their paying for sins.  In fact, the good news of Christ’s cross is that, when it comes to heaven or hell, Jesus Christ made sins a dead issue – a belief unique to our Christian faith.

The prophecy of Redemption sweeps from Isaiah 53:4-6 to the return of Jesus Christ in the Battle of Armageddon “clothed with a robe dipped in blood,[20] and His name is called The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13). The “Atonement” in the Old Testament is the “Propitiation plus Forgiveness/Reconciliation” in the New Testament, that will eventuate in The Day of the LORD (called The Eschaton), with the ultimate Glorification of the believer through the ages in the bodily resurrection of all believers!

[1] The Greek word, monogenēs, has the “mono-” of “only one” and “-genēs” of “kind” or category, hence “one-of-a-kind.”   This word engulfs the idea of being the unique one and only of its kind or class, standing alone, that is, Jesus Christ is uniquely divine, as God’s transcendent Son.

[2] See Genesis 16:15; 21:1-3; 25:1-4.

[3] Specifically, in John 13:34-35 and15:12, 17.

[4] In John 2:22-23 the New Testament Greek verb, pisteuō, means both “trust” in v. 22 and “entrust/commit” in v. 23.

[5] The New Testament Greek noun, pistis, is translated both “faith” and “faithfulness.”

[6] Jude 3 – “Beloved, while making every effort to write to you concerning the common salvation, I needed to write to you for encouraging you to contend for the faith [i.e., the beliefs] once for all committed to the saints.”

[7] Matthew 5:44 – “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you…”

[8] The Hebrew wording of Psalm 22:1 is “Eli, Eli, lama ‘azabtani.”

[9] John used “the pleura” in 19:34, the thorax, the side of the chest area, well above the abdominal midline.

[10] With this medical accuracy of the flow of both blood and water, there has been an assumption that the blood appeared first, then the water. However, in the ancient Greek, the order of words generally denoted prominence and not necessarily a time sequence.  Therefore, it seems likely that John was emphasizing the prominence of blood rather than its appearance preceding water.

[11] Technically, this is called a “stress-induced myocardial infarction,” as a myocardial rupture.

[12] In Hebrews this is asserted in three separate passages – Hebrew 7:27 and 9:12 and 10:10.

[13] In Isaiah 66:14 tola‘ is used for worm.  In the singular this word is used two ways:  literally, as a small animal in Isaiah 41.14 and Jonah 4.7, and metaphorically for a human being’s body in Ps. 22:6 (for Jesus on the cross) and Isaiah 66.24 (for the unbeliever in eternity).

[14] So then, works in obeying Ten Commandments are to be seen not as a ladder for the lost to be saved but a lifestyle for believers to act saved, however they do show the lost their need for salvation and the saved their need for holiness (by what to confess as sins).

[15] Kippurim – literally, “coverings” – appeasing God regarding sins in an atonement providing for reconciliation through forgiveness.  From the piel-verb form, kipper, meaning “to cover,” as to appease by covering the offence with a gift or presenting a gift covering one’s face, has been the speculation of some.

[16] Among Baptist groups is one called, “General Baptists,” who hold to Unlimited Atonement.

[17] This the Christian understanding of Total Depravity – the depravity of sin colors and affects everything about a human being in this life.

[18] This is also explained in Matthew 27:29; Mark 15:17; and John 19:5.

[19] It is interesting to notice how many people outside of the Christian faith, who are deeply involved in certain of these immoral issues, simply cannot see nor understand this.

[20]This is an allusion to the prophecy of Isaiah 63:1-4 being ultimately fulfilled – “Who is this who comes from Edom, With dyed garments from Bozrah, This One who is glorious in His apparel, Traveling in the greatness of His strength? -- ‘I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.’  2 Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress?  3 ‘I have trodden the winepress alone, And from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained all My robes.  4 For the day of vengeance is in My heart, And the year of My redeemed has come.” This ties in the Yom Kippurrim of Jesus being both The Crucified Servant and The Conquering King – The Kinsman-Redeemer who both pays and acts. This robe of his, having being dipped [“baptized”] in blood, alludes to Jesus’ battle over sin and death on the cross in preparation for the Battle of Armageddon beginning in Revelation 19:15.