In the last post in this series on the atonement, we raised the question — Is it right to say God punished Jesus? We will return to that issue, but today we will look at some of the wrong theories of what essentially happened at the cross.

This series is based on teaching I first gave at Jubilee Church. If you want a sneak preview of what is coming, you can download the audio (you may need to right click and save to your PC) or listen online here:

There are a number of theories about the cross which, whilst having some grain of truth in them, fail to explain the key thing that happened. Some of these are as follows:

WAS THE CROSS MERELY . . .

• a tragic accident?
  
• a martyr’s death?
  
• a satisfaction of the feudal “honour” of God?
  
• a moral influence — where the purpose of the cross is to deal with our attitudes alone rather than God’s ?
  
• a “display” of God’s hatred for sin?
  
• an example to us of self-sacrifice?

WHY THESE THEORIES ARE WRONG

Lloyd-Jones points out the weakness of all of these theories:

“. . . many of those false theories would have us believe that the sole purpose of the death of our Lord upon the cross was to do something to us. But at the very beginning they are wrong. The object of the burnt offerings and sacrifices was — if I may put it reverently — to do something to God, not to influence man; they were designed to propitiate God. This is a most important point.”

Lloyd-Jones, God the Father, God the Son, p. 318.

I firmly believe that a system of theology that makes God a passive observer of the cross fails to take sin seriously and doesn’t answer the key question — What happened to the wrath of God and how was it satisfied?

If the wrath of God wasn't poured out on Jesus, then it still exists towards me, I remain guilty of sin, and I fully deserve whatever punishment He sees fit to send my way.

Continues with "The Atonement - The Terrible Problem of Sin"