Tim Challies shared a passage from R.C. Sproul’s book, The Truth of the Cross. Sproul poignantly points out what Christ’s work on the cross accomplished. Some liberal theologians have determined the penal substitionary view of the Atonement to be a form of “divine child abuse.” I see it as the greatest demonstration of God’s love. For in Romans we read, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, (Romans 5:8, ESV).
Sproul writes:
When Jesus took the curse on Himself and so identified with our sin that He became a curse, God cut Him off, and justly so. At the moment when Christ took on Himself the sin of the world, His figure on the cross was the most grotesque, most obscene mass of concentrated sin in the history of the world. God is too holy to look on iniquity, so when Christ hung on the cross, the Father, as it were, turned His back. He averted His face and He cut off His Son. Jesus, Who, touching His human nature, had been in a perfect, blessed relationship with God throughout His ministry, now bore the sin of God’s people, and so He was forsaken by God….
…If Jesus was not forsaken on the cross, we are still in our sins. We have no redemption, no salvation. The whole point of the cross was for Jesus to bear our sins and bear the sanctions of the covenant. In order to do that, He had to be forsaken. Jesus submitted Himself to His Father’s will and endured the curse, that we, His people, might experience the ultimate blessedness.
Amen and amen. Thank you God that for our sake you made your Son, who knew no sin, to become sin so that we might become the righteousness of God, (2 Corinthians 5:21).
