Skeptics of Christianity sometimes call the “legal substitution” Jesus made unnecessary, brutal, deranged, and some form of divine child abuse. The more specific critique is that God resorts to a judicial perversion by foisting punishment on the guiltless and letting criminals go free. This inhibits God’s freedom to deal with sin in different ways and defies his love by resorting to the abuse of his own Son. Let’s start by answering the question, “Was it necessary for God to deal with sin in such a barbaric way?” Scripture seems to think so.

Was it Necessary?

One generation after sin entered the picture, self-interest spiraled into jealous anger when Cain murdered his brother Abel. Maybe you say to yourself, “Well, I never killed anyone. Why would someone need to die to pay for my sins?” Perhaps you haven’t killed someone else, but in your sin, you have effectively destroyed yourself. Your life needs to be purchased from its bondage to separation from God (Genesis 2:16–17). The issue isn’t only the severity of sin, but the terminal condition sin produces. But we do, also, underestimate how deviant from God’s original design our human experience has veered.

When sin and injustice devastate a family or a community, how do you compensate for someone’s loss? There is no way to tally up the expense when a person shatters your trust, acts maliciously, slanders, sexually violates a friend, betrays a financial commitment, or a life is taken. Sin is costly, more costly than we believe. God gave humanity a temporary system of substitution to pay for human sin. As brutal as it is, animal blood was the substitute for human blood (Leviticus 17:11). It reminds us just how expensive our rebellion is. Hebrews 9:22 echoes that there is no forgiveness without this atoning sacrifice. It was within this system of animal sacrifice that Jesus claimed to make the ultimate payment to cleanse us from sin’s defilement, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

Jesus is God

If Jesus Christ is God and the Judge, then it is not abusive of God to offer himself to pay humanity’s sin-debt. Jesus is God himself, one essence with the Father. [1] God-the-Judge willingly volunteered himself to pay the price for his sinful creatures. Galatians 1:4 states that Jesus willingly “gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” Theologian Carl Barth articulates it this way: God goes down into the dock so that Christ becomes “the Judge judged in our place.” The Father didn’t force the Son to do something. Father and Son were collaborators in their Divine Conspiracy.

God’s Plan

This “plan of redemption” was something God had architected in his mind before ever creating the world. Revelation 13:8 presents Jesus as “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world,” indicating God’s foresight. Galatians 4:4 also says, “when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem (make the legal payment) those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” Over and over again, we see intentionality in God’s plan. God the Father did the appointing and the sending. God the Son did the going and the cleansing. Philippians 2 depicts Jesus as the Deity who willingly disrobed his rank and power to take on the nature of a servant and die a criminal’s death. In the gospel of Mark, we see that Jesus was fully aware of his mission and willing to accomplish it: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Jesus Christ is Also Exalted

Not only does Christ suffer willingly, but he is also rewarded appropriately. It is not abuse if he himself chose it and his free choice gained the effect he desired. His willing substitution resulted in the legal disarming of hostile powers and the conquering of sin and death (Colossians 2:14-15). After his death, Christ was raised from the dead (Acts 4:10) and regaled as a conquering King triumphing over the grave and leading the train of human captives into freedom (2 Corinthians 2:14). Philippians 2:9 tells us, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.” And Hebrews 1:3 says, “After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Perhaps most astonishingly, Paul added, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). We, his coheirs and adopted children, are the reward of his sufferings.

Final Comments

Objections to the ethics of “The Gospel” usually stem from a misunderstanding of who Jesus is or what exactly he did. Within the Scriptures, these do not present contradictions, only mysteries. Sin continues to be terrible. Salvation continues to be a gift of God’s mercy. The believer is still expected to put their trust in God and renounce their rebellion. And God’s extreme justice and abundant mercy are preserved in Jesus Christ by paying, out of his own pocket, the debt that human rebellion could not afford. It’s a marvelous mystery if you ask me.

[1] John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.” John 1:1

Tags: sin, justice, grace, atonement, forgiveness, rebellion, justification, debt, judge, propitiation, cleansing, payment