— “That Thou, my God, shoulds't die for me” (C. Wesley)
By Charles P. Schmitt
God's foremost purpose in the Incarnation was clearly because our God—unable to find any other one or any other way to ransom mankind—came Himself to redeem His creation. According to God's righteous government, every transgression of His holy law requires a just punishment. Our human governmental system works on this very same principle of justice. Without sanctions [“something that gives binding force to a law, or secures obedience to it, as the penalty for breaking it…” Webster's] law simply becomes good advice. If there were no penalties for breaking God's holy law, the Ten Commandments would have long become the Ten Suggestions—and so, likewise, in our secular society. Without sanctions, the structures of society would long since have collapsed, as people would be doing what is right in their own eyes, with no regard for their neighbor's rights or welfare. We cannot, therefore, but totally reject the thoughts of Episcopal Bishop John Spong (Newark, NJ): “The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.” The principle behind the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is the very same principle which upholds our own justice system. Violated laws always carry penalties, and the divine dilemma was how our God, in seeking to save us from the hell we deserved, could both “be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). The incarnation provided the key.
Unable to find any other one able to do the redeeming work for Him (for all were sinners and all needed redeeming themselves — Hebrews 9:27), finding no other person or no other way, our God came Himself—in the person of His Son—to redeem us. The KJV of Genesis 22:8 is in a sense proleptic: “God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering…”
The Person and the Work of Jesus Christ, God's Lamb, has, therefore, become the constant ongoing target for the attacks of satan, God's archenemy. Any attempt to diminish or to limit the Person or the Work of our Lord Jesus Christ must, therefore, be considered by Christians as the most grievous of heresies. Unequivocally, Jesus Christ is true God and true man (1 John 4:2–3; 5:20) and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, is “not only for our [sins], but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). The Person of the God-Man is Holy and His Work is All-Inclusive—reaching to all humanity and even extending far beyond all humanity to “all things” (Colossians 1:19; Ephesians 1:10).
Because God is “spirit” (John 4:24), He does not have a body; consequently, He does not have blood. In the Incarnation, our God—in the Person of His Beloved Son, took upon Himself our full humanity, that in that Body He might bear the sins of the world (John 1:29)—both the guilt of those sins and the penalties accrued by that guilt—in order that He, in forgiving mankind, might be both “just and the justifier” of all who place their faith in Jesus' holy sacrifice. Jesus died as our Substitute, and by the sacrifice of Himself has taken away “the sins of the world” (John 1:29). Just hear the grandeur of the redeeming grace of our God as expressed by Paul: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them…God made Him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:19, 21)! And because of that provision we, His people, are to take up this “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18), imploring all men and women, and all boys and girls everywhere to “be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20)!
“THE BLOOD OF GOD”
The NIV, faithful to accepted Greek texts, translates Acts 20:28: “Be shepherds of the Church of God, which He [God] bought with His own blood.” The concept of Jesus' blood being called “the blood of God” is not peculiar to the first century. Ignatius, writing to the Romans around 100 A.D. declared: “I desire the drink of God, name His Blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life” (Chapter III). Seemingly,—if words mean anything—so complete was the union of God and man in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, that Wesley is correct when he sings: “Amazing Love! How can it be, that Thou, my God, shoulds't die for me?” and again: “'Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies! Who can explore His strange design?” The death of our Lord Jesus Christ is lifted infinitely above the death of any other mere man. Calvary is God providing Himself as the Sacrifice!
It should not be surprising to us, therefore, to find the Watch Tower, with its twisted Arian gospel, rising up against these concepts: “It was only a perfect human, Adam, who sinned in Eden, not God. So the ransom had to be strictly an equivalent—a perfect human.” To this we would respond with the warning of Hebrews 10:29: “How much more severely do you thing a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as a common thing [Greek: koinos] the blood of the covenant that sanctified him…” The blood of Jesus is not a “common” thing. The blood of Christ is uniquely God's very own life, poured out for us! And thus, in the cross, we see the grand design of God in the Incarnation! “Amazing Love! How can it be, that Thou, my God, shoulds't die for me?”
