Why the Resurrection? Day Four/Reason Four

To Prove God’s Satisfaction in Christ’s Propitiation

Because Christ died, Christians are promised that their sins have all been atoned for. Paul tells us, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us” (Romans 8:33-34).

God has justified us and so since He no longer condemns us, no one can. Why is it that God does not condemn us? Because Jesus Christ died and has risen from the dead; He is our perfect mediator before the Father. The Father has accepted Christ’s atonement upon the cross, and so believers have confidence that He has bore God’s wrath that was due us. Yet, can we be certain that the Father was pleased in the Son’s sacrifice?

First, let me establish a clear Biblical truth: God is holy. He is perfect—without sin—and all that He does it good and right. He is above and beyond all things, and so He is Lord of all, having supreme right over His creation. God cannot compromise His holiness, or any of His other attributes. Thus, God cannot tolerate sin in His presence or in His creation—for He is the ruler and owner of His creation.

However, mankind is sinful. Every human is sinful because we are all the descendents of Adam (cf. Romans 3:23, 5:12-14). You owe your DNA to Adam, and so when he sinned, it affected all of his descendents, including you. This sin is a profound distrust in God which leads to every sort of evil deed.

God, who is holy, and therefore must deal justly with sin, giving to the offenders the punishment deserved, cannot just forgive sinners at a whim. Rather, sin must be paid for. A sufficient atonement must be made for sin—either by the offensive party or by a mediator. Sinners who trust Christ are “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness” (Romans 3:24-25).

Because God has demonstrated His justice in the horrific suffering of Christ and has thus poured out His grace upon all those who belong to Christ, we can be absolutely certain that Christ’s atoning work was the sufficient atonement for our sins. Jesus drank the full cup of God’s wrath on behalf of all who trust in Him. Christ Himself said, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). His work was completed upon the cross in God’s complete forsaking and punishment of Him, because Christ was viewed by the Father as the offender—He was credited with our sin.

Under the Old Covenant, High Priests offered sacrifices yearly as a temporary atonement for sins. “But when Christ [as contrasted with the earthly high priests] appeared as a high priest of the good things to come… through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11, 12). Christ’s sufferings were sufficient to effectually obtain God’s grace for His people. He has redeemed them—purchased them from the power of sin and the wrath of God for their sins, eternally. “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

God demonstrated that Christ’s death was sufficient to satisfy His wrath by raising Christ from the dead. If Christ had remained in the grave, there would be no guarantee that Christ had fully atoned for sins and that Christ had fully drunk every last drop from the cup of God’s wrath. The writer of Hebrews tells us, “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they” (Hebrews 1:3-4). At this time, Christ was shown to be victorious, it was shown that Christ, as both the Son of Man and the Son of God, was worthy of the title of God’s Son and the Lord of lords, and that Christ had indeed purchased for God a people by atoning for their sins (cf. Revelation 5:9-10).