Monthly Archives: February 2015

To be sin for us

Posted on by
Reply

cross02Nathan Busenitz serves on the pastoral staff of Grace Church and teaches theology at The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles. In an article entitled, “In what way was Jesus ‘made sin’ on the cross?” he writes:

Yesterday, as I was reading through portions of Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians, I came across the following:

“Christ took upon Himself our sins, not by constraint, but of His own good will, in order to bear the punishment and wrath of God: not for the sake of His own person (which was just and invincible, and was not in any way guilty), but for our person. So by means of a joyous substitution, He took upon Himself our sinful person, and gave to us His innocent and victorious person: with which we, being now clothed, are free from the curse of the law. . . . By faith alone therefore we are made righteous, for faith alone lays hold of this victory of Christ.” (Commentary on Gal. 3:13)

Calvin’s comments on 2 Corinthians 5:21 are similar:

“How can we become righteous before God? In the same way as Christ became a sinner. For He took, as it were, our person, that He might be the offender in our name and thus might be reckoned a sinner, not because of His own offences but because of those of others, since He Himself was pure and free from every fault and bore the penalty that was our due and not His own. Now in the same way we are righteous in Him, not because we have satisfied God’s judgment by our own works, but because we are judged in relation to Christ’s righteousness which we have put on by faith, that it may become our own.” (Commentary on 2 Cor. 5:21)

Those quotations, which underscore the doctrines of substitutionary atonement and Christ’s imputed righteousness, reminded me of an earlier study I had done regarding 2 Corinthians 5:21, specifically with regard to this question: In what way was Jesus “made sin” on the cross?

I thought it’d be worth rehearsing some of that material in today’s post. To state the question another way: Did Jesus become the literal embodiment of sin, or take on a sin nature, or become a sinner when He died at Calvary?

The heart of the question centers on Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

In what sense did Jesus become “sin on our behalf”? Does that phrase mean that Jesus literally became a sinner on the cross?

There are some today who teach that Jesus became a sinner (or took on a sin nature) at the cross. Benny Hinn is one such advocate. In a TBN broadcast, Hinn exclaimed:

“He [Jesus] who is righteous by choice said, ‘The only way I can stop sin is by me becoming it. I can’t just stop it by letting it touch me; I and it must become one.’ Hear this! He who is the nature of God became the nature of Satan when he became sin!” (Benny Hinn, Trinity Broadcasting Network, December 1, 1990)

Prosperity-preacher Kenneth Copeland echoes those same teachings. In Copeland’s words:

“The righteousness of God was made to be sin. He accepted the sin nature of Satan in His own spirit. And at the moment that He did so, He cried, ‘My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ You don’t know what happened at the cross. Why do you think Moses, upon instruction of God, raised the serpent upon that pole instead of a lamb? That used to bug me. I said, ‘Why in the world would you want to put a snake up there; the sign of Satan? Why didn’t you put a lamb on that pole?’ And the Lord said, ‘Because it was a sign of Satan that was hanging on the cross.’ He said, ‘I accepted, in my own spirit, spiritual death; and the light was turned off.’” (Kenneth Copeland, “What Happened from the Cross to the Throne,” 1990, audiotape #02-0017, side 2)

On another occasion, Copeland reiterates that same teaching:

“How did Jesus then on the cross say, ‘My God’? Because God was not His Father any more. He took upon Himself the nature of Satan.” (Kenneth Copeland, “Believer’s Voice of Victory,” Trinity Broadcasting Network, April 21, 1991)

But do assertions like these accurately reflect Paul’s teaching that “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf”?

To come back to the original question: “Did Jesus become the literal embodiment of sin, or take on a sin nature, or become a sinner when He died at Calvary?” My answer to that question is a resounding no.

Here are five reasons why:

1. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul declares that Jesus “knew no sin.” Whatever the rest of the verse means, it must be interpreted in light of Paul’s statement that Jesus “knew no sin”—meaning He had no personal experiential knowledge of sin in any way. If Jesus became a sinner or took on a sin nature then Paul would have contradicted himself in that very verse. Continue reading →

Tyndale on Divine Election

Posted on by
Reply

tyndaleSteve Lawson in eternal love, in choosing a people whom He would save. God set His heart upon a people, elected out of the mass of fallen humanity, to be His own possession. This election of man was not based upon any foreseen choice within man. Rather, it was entirely by the free exercise of God’s will:

Predestination … and salvation are clean taken out of our hands, and put in the hands of God only … for we are so weak and so uncertain, that if it stood in us, there would of a truth be no man saved; the devil, no doubt, would deceive us.

Tyndale was clear that God set His affections upon His elect in eternity past. He stated that God sovereignly chose to love them with a saving love. Tyndale also said that God chose to love His elect for His own glory and for their good:

God is ever fatherly minded toward the elect members of His church. He loved them, before the world began, in Christ.

The end of all things shall be unto His glory and the profit of the elect.

Tyndale understood it was God who first chose His elect, not sinners who first chose Him, and that God made this distinguishing choice in eternity past. This is to say, all saving grace is traced back to this sovereign choice of God unto salvation:

God chose them [the elect] first, and they not God.

In Christ God chose us, and elected us before the beginning of the world, created us anew by the word of the gospel, and put His Spirit in us, for because that we should do good works.

Divine election is unto salvation, not to be explained away as merely to service. The divine choice determines those chosen would be no longer in Adam, but in Christ. Tyndale taught that election is unto eternal life:

By grace (that is to say, by favor) we are plucked out of Adam, the ground of all evil, and grafted in Christ, the root of all goodness.

You are chosen for Christ’s sake to the inheritance of eternal life.

Tyndale explained that sovereign election leads to the personal knowledge of Christ in the gospel. The elect are chosen by God to know Christ:

In Christ God loved us, His elect and chosen, before the world began, and reserved us unto the knowledge of his Son and of His holy gospel.

Tyndale believed not all who attend church are numbered among the elect. Only those chosen by God make up the true church. He explained:

There shall be in the church a fleshly seed of Abraham and a spiritual; a Cain and an Abel; an Ishmael and an Isaac; an Esau and a Jacob; as I have said, a worker and a believer; a great multitude of them that be called, and a small flock of them that be elect and chosen.

While many contend that election is a dangerous doctrine to be feared and withheld from people, Tyndale held the complete opposite. He believed this divine truth emboldens the preacher because it ensures the ultimate success of his preaching ministry. No matter how hardened man’s heart may be, Tyndale insisted, sovereign election guarantees the reception of the gospel:

When Christ is … preached … the hearts of them which are elect and chosen, begin to wax soft and melt at the bounteous mercy of God.

In summary, Tyndale believed that sovereign election exalts God as worthy of all honor. This truth sets God apart from man and above him. God is not subject to man’s wisdom or will. This truth of unconditional election exalts God as the supreme ruler over man:

Why does God open one man’s eyes and not another’s? Paul (Rom. 9) forbids to ask why; for it is too deep for man’s capacity. God we see is honoured thereby, and His mercy set out and the more seen in the vessels of mercy. But the popish can suffer God to have no secret, hid to Himself. They have searched to come to the bottom of His bottomless wisdom: and because they cannot attain to that secret, and be too proud to let it alone, and to grant themselves ignorant, with the apostle, that knew no other than God’s glory in the elect; they go and set up free-will with the heathen philosophers, and say that a man’s free-will is the cause why God chooses one and not another, contrary unto all the Scripture.

Tyndale affirmed that sovereign election glorifies God, humbles man, initiates salvation, and honors Scripture. This doctrine gave Tyndale great confidence in all his endeavors as he was reliant upon God for all things.

*****

William Tyndale: The Father of Modern English

With his New Testament, William Tyndale became the father of the Modern English language. He shaped the syntax, grammar, and vocabulary of the English language more than any man who ever lived more than the author Geoffrey Chaucer, the playwright William Shakespeare, or the poets Percy Shelley and John Keats.

The English language at the dawn of the sixteenth century was crude and unrefined. It lacked precision and standardization, a strange mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Norman features with ancient Latin vocabulary, contained in disorganized syntax. Tyndale proved to be its change agent. As he translated the Bible, giving careful thought to words, phrases, and clauses, Tyndale shaped the language at its transition point from Middle English to Early Modern English. The speech of a nation was constructed in his mind and flowed from his pen. In providing the English Bible, Tyndale became the father of Modern English.

Moreover, Tyndale is recognized as the father of the English Bible. His influence upon how the English Bible would be written, read, studied, and preached reaches to this present hour. His translation became so foundational that until the twentieth century, every succeeding English translation was heavily dependent upon his labors. Eighty-four percent of the King James New Testament is a word-for-word copy of Tyndale’s work. Of the Old Testament books that Tyndale translated, seventy-six percent of the King James is found in Tyndale. Daniell notes that Tyndale wrote in “short Saxon sentences with largely Saxon vocabulary, a manner like proverbs.” In so doing, Tyndale translated the Bible into the vernacular of the people, which accounts for its widest possible audience and prolific influence throughout the English-speaking world.

Further, Tyndale is widely regarded as the father of the English Reformation. What most Reformers accomplished through preaching, Tyndale did by his Bible translation. Though he did preach during his younger years in England, in later years his full attention was set upon translating the Bible into the English language. Instead of proclaiming the Scripture, he gave the actual words of the Bible to Englishmen in their native tongue. If the people could read and understand the Word, he believed, God would kindle in their hearts a zeal for the truth. It was to this daring mission that Tyndale set himself, directing all his energies to this God-appointed task for the remainder of his life.