How Does Jesus' Death Save Us?

(Mmm, soteriology...)

I previously said:

"We are the defendants, and we are guilty.

There must be a price paid (more like our civil court than criminal). That price can only be paid by the blood of Jesus."

God hates sin (and sinners, you cannot easily separate the sin from the sinner). If you doubt this, read Leviticus 10. Sin can take many forms, but fundamentally it is disobeying God's commands.

God is just. Deuteronomy 32:4 is particularly beautiful: "[He is] the Rock, His work [is] perfect: for all His ways [are] judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right [is] he".

God cannot simply forgive people, without punishment. Would a human judge be considered just if he let guilty people go if they said "Sorry"? We call it a "slap on the wrist", and we are outraged (and rightly so).

We cannot pay the punishment ourselves. This is "works righteousness". If we can pay the punishment ourselves, then we can "earn" our salvation. In a sense, God would "owe" us salvation. You don't thank your boss for your paycheck (well, you might say "Thank you" when he hands you the check). It's yours. If he doesn't give it to you, he is a thief. And you don't have gratitude. You worked hard for that check. In some sense, you are equal (in that you deal equitably). He barters for your work, and you barter for pay. That is not how we relate to the creator of the universe.

So God paid the price Himself. He poured out His wrath on His own Son. Jesus' death reveals the magnitude of our crimes against God. It reveals God's love, that He would do that for us. So God is just. And He is love. Merciful. Gracious.

Consider 2 Corinthians 5:20c-21: "be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him {Jesus} [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

This is the great exchange. Our sins were assigned to Jesus, and He paid the price for those sins: beaten, and removed from the sight of God (Matthew 27:46). At the same time, Jesus' righteous life is assigned to us (we'll ignore imputed versus infused righteousness for now).

EO and the FRC

Haven't had an election post in a while (I talked about Hillary's faith back in June, and did an initial review of the Republicans in May).

I used to spend a lot of time over at the Evangelical Outpost (Joe Carter's faith blog). Now, not so much. Joe went in big time to the Fred Thompson campaign when it first started. But Fred seems to be fizzling. He failed to show at the "Values Voter" debate.

I went through several of the transcripts from the Family Research Council's "Washington Briefing".

I found Mike Huckabee's speech most compelling. I still like Ron Paul's angle (his avoidance of mumbling about the gold standard has helped).

Mitt Romney comes off a little phony and "too well prepared". He is still worlds better than Giuliani or McCain. I don't buy that his Mormonism could damage our Gospel message (hypocritical Christian candidates are far worse).


Since the FRC debate, Joe has gotten behind Mike Huckabee. I like Mike. I still haven't been able to decide on him versus Ron Paul.

Who is a Bishop?

(not "The Bishop" from Monty Python)
I had the pleasure of attending the ordaining of a new elder in my local church today. So, "Who is a bishop?"

The Bible uses three words for leaders of the local church. These words are presbyter (elder), episkopos (bishop or overseer), and deacon.

The word for deacon means an attendant or "one who waits upon another". This office can first be seen in Acts 6 (although the word deacon is not used). Deacons serve the needs of the church, with little authority.

Interestingly, the words presbyter and episkopos are used interchangeably. In Titus (a key description of the office), Paul starts by reminding Titus to appoint "elders in every city" (of Crete, Titus 1:5). In verse 6, Paul starts to describe the qualities of a candidate. As he continues into verse 7, he switches to the term "overseer" (bishop, episkopos). The words seem to refer to the different roles played by a person.

An "elder" (literally older) is not necessarily older in age, but "more mature in faith". The elders are often spoken of as a group or council, making decisions together for the local church.

A "bishop" (overseer) is literally "one who oversees". A bishop is a shepherd, looking out over the flock. The bishop is looking for threats (wolves), and also seeing to the needs of the local flock.

Besides Titus, there is another good bishop passage in 1 Timothy 3 ("A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife...").

The Tricks of Satan

My previous post talked some about who Satan is. And I commented some on an excellent "He Lives" post on Satan.

How does Satan do what he does? Fortunately, he has a remarkably small bag of tricks. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be evolving very good defenses against them.

Satan's main attack is to question God's Word (for us, the Bible). This may be an outright contradiction, but is often more subtle.

In Genesis 3, we are given a close up view of one of Satan's most effective tacts (it worked on Eve).

Now in Genesis 2:17, God had said מות ת מות. That is, eat the forbidden fruit and "dying, you will die".

Now in Genesis 3, the serpent is trying to trick Eve. And Eve is not fleeing from sin (James 4:7, 2 Timothy 2:22, 1 Timothy 6:11). Here we see that pride comes before sin. Eve is showing off before the crafty serpent. She expands on God's Word, and says, ת מתון. That is, do not eat of it or touch it "lest you die".

Now we see how crafty Satan is. Look at a package of rat poison. It will say something like tetra-hexa-mega-death-o-caine 1%, inert 99%. That is, about one percent poison, ninety-nine percent food. How much poison does it take to kill you? How many lies make you a liar? How much deviation from God's Word brings death?

Satan gives back an interesting mix of what God actually said, and what Eve said: מותת מתון. That is, "dying, you will not surely die".


And that day, Adam and Eve died. And some 900 years later, their bodies died. And Satan told a half-truth. Neither Enoch nor Elijah died, but were taken directly to Heaven (they "did not surely die").


Beware of half-truths, and just a little Scripture. Look to all of God's Word. Flee from sin.

Who Is a Priest?

Carl Olson's blog had an interesting article by Father Benedict Ashley. The question at hand is "Who is a priest?"

In the kingdom of Israel, priests were the sons of Aaron. They were assisted by the Levites (sons of Levi). The Israelites were blessed to have the physical presence of God in the tabernacle, and later in the temple (the Holy of Holies).

Sinners cannot be in the presence of God. Because of this, the high priest (eldest son of Aaron) was permitted access to the Holy of Holies only once per year (on Yom Kippur). During this time, the high priest would offer a sacrifice of atonement for his own sins, and the sins of the people.

This was a shadow (or type) for the true High Priest, Jesus Christ (see most of Hebrews, but particularly 2:17). Jesus (having no sins of His own) offers Himself, the perfect sacrifice, to God as the atonement for our sins (Hebrews 7:27, 9:7-12).

The other great symbol is the completion of work. The Israelite high priest remained standing, a sign of the need for continuing atonement. Jesus, however, after presenting His sacrifice, takes His seat at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:11-12), signifying that His work is done.

Thus, there is no more need for ceremonial sacrifice. The bread and wine shared by Christians is not a sacrifice. It is a remembrance of what Jesus did for us.

All Christians are priests (Revelation 1:6,20:6; 1 Peter 2:5,9). We are called to follow Jesus, and make ourselves a sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1).

In Olson's article (by Fr. Ashley), Ashley covers similar topics, until the final paragraphs. There he says,

"while the community can testify to the suitability of the candidate for priesthood ..., they cannot make the final decision as to his ordination, ... Only the bishops who have the fullness of the sacrament have the authority from Christ through their predecessors the apostles to confer this sacrament. This conferring of the same apostolic authority that Jesus conferred on the Twelve must be by some public act that makes it clear to the flock who their shepherds are. Otherwise the flock will be scattered by 'savage wolves' (Acts 20:29)."

This logic is flawed. Acts makes it clear that wolves will appear from within the church ("shall grievous wolves enter in among you"), and will have "sheep's clothing" (the outfit of a shepherd or pastor, Matthew 7:15). History has shown that ordination by successors of the apostles is no protection from heresy and apostasy.

The Bible makes it clear how the faithful (sheep) are to discern a wolf from a shepherd. John 10:3 makes it clear that the sheep must know the voice of The Shepherd (Jesus, our pastors are just shadow shepherds).

How do we know God's voice? By studying His Word. By hearing it read and examined, and reading and meditating on it (for those who can read and have Bibles).

Experts in investigating counterfeiting will tell you, "you prepare yourselves to spot a phony by studying the genuine article." So too with the Bible.

Know Your Heretics: Donatus

Donatists (named for Donatus Magnus) believed that the authority of a person was correlated to the works of that person. In this particular case, a wave of persecution in 303 through 305 had led some Christians to deny the faith.

The Donatists were looking to see these people permanently removed from the church, and denied positions where they would be performing the sacraments.

Their theology held that the sacraments were not "effective" when performed by "illegitimate" people.

Although Donatism captured a large population of believers (particularly in Africa, see pg 177-178 in "The Rebirth of Orthodoxy"), it was (rightly) rejected by orthodox believers.


It is important to remember that it is God who is "effective" for everything in our lives. There is nothing special about the leader of your church, you, me, or any other person besides Jesus Christ. It is the Father who chooses us and draws us to Him. It is the Holy Spirit who baptizes us into the body of Christ (see all of 1 Corinthians 12). It is Christ who is the payment for our sin debt.

On Baptism

Having just been baptized, I have been studying baptism as presented in the Bible. The root Greek word is "bapto", and the derived words are "baptizo", "baptisma", "baptismos", "baptistes".

"Bapto" means to wash fully, to immerse (as in water), or overwhelm. It can also imply "throughout" or "thoroughly". There are several baptisms described in the Bible.

John the Baptist preached baptism for the repentance of sins. This is apparently different than baptism in the name of Jesus (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) (see Acts 19:2-5, where people baptized by John needed to be baptized in the name of Jesus to receive the Holy Spirit). It appears to have been transitory, for Old Testament saints at the time of Jesus (the apostles, etc. up to and including Jesus).

There is a mention of "baptism for the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:29). This appears to refer to a pagan ceremony (it seems Paul is saying "they do it", rather than "we do it").

Jesus also refers to a cup and a baptism of suffering that He must endure. This is obviously a reference to the crucifixion.

There is also reference to being baptized into the body of Christ through the Holy Spirit. This is a reference to the moment of salvation. When we are sealed with the Holy Spirit.

So who should be baptized? and why? What does our soteriology say? Is baptism necessary for salvation?

Any soteriology must account for the thief on the cross (next to Jesus). This thief was certainly a criminal, and he may have started off mocking Jesus (Matthew 27:44 KJV uses "thieves", although my Greek skillz are non-existant...). But in the end, Jesus told him "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise". No works, no ceremonies, no Purgatory.

Baptism also does not guarantee salvation. Judas was almost certainly baptized, and he is almost certainly in Hell (Jesus said it would of been better had he not been born, Acts 1:25 says he went to "his own place"). Simon the Sorcerer was baptized, but received some serious rebuking (Acts 8:18-24). And today there are plenty of stories of baptized people becoming atheists.

The pattern in the Bible is (relatively) clear. Repent, believe, and be baptized.

I was baptized as an infant. (My local church is very loving and understanding, they would accept that baptism - if my conscience required it. But they teach that baptism should follow belief. And encourage anyone baptized as an infant to study the issue.)

But a baby cannot repent and believe. It took me some thirty years to reach that point. And so I was recently baptized.