OK, I will go through this with you, but this is a huge misunderstood subject, I could write a book on. I will have to skip some issues to be addressed later.
Since all of this is grace, I will take a moment to deal with the illusiveness in non-Reformed circles of that word grace. It too is often seen as simply mercy. As a word whose meaning does not go beyond its basic horizontal level of "undeserved favor".
OK
When we speak of the grace of God it pertains to his absolute holiness and the condition of mankind as born of natural birth, therefore in Adam, as a sinful creature and a personal sinner. That is a gap that man cannot bridge. He cannot change who he is.
It is good to realize humans of their own personal power cannot change who they are, but where do you find scripture to support: “(Man) is sinful creature and a personal sinner, from birth”? Yes, all mature adults do sin, but that does not mean a baby at birth is a sinner. This is another huge topic off your topic, but I do not see why we must be “born” with a different “nature” than Adam and Eve to sin, since with their nature and being raised (programmed) to adulthood by God and having only one way to sin, sinned, we all, with the knowledge of good and evil thus tons of ways to sin will sin
Only God himself can make a way to reconcile a sinner to himself. Only God can remove the sin. He has no obligation to do that, we don't deserve it, we cannot merit it on any grounds; therefore, if God does so it is pure grace.
Is the problem: God needs help (to change), have the Love to fully forgive humans so they can be reconciled to God, or do humans need to change, so they can be comfortable being by God?
In what way do humans need to chang?
Would God’s “infinite” Love compel Him to forgive us
Is 53:4-6
“Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows…
he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
Is. 53 takes a lot of words but briefly:
Then, 'When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick' (Matt. 8:16). Matthew makes it clear that this was the fulfilment of Isaiah 53:4 'Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
I have to admit all of Isaiah 53 is difficult to explain, but part of that is due to the translation into the English in my study of it, but I do not know Hebrew so I cannot use the original language. Even though I avoid using commentaries for answers (and wish they were all burned, because of how they miss lead people), I do read Barnes’ notes (these were not written to be a commentary and were personal notes of Barnes). Barnes’ notes are free on line and deal a lot with the wording of verses. Some of what I am about to say comes from his notes, but his notes on this one verse is thousands of words.
Is. 53:4 Barnes starts out with: The general sense, as it stands in the Hebrew, is not indeed difficult. It is immediately connected in signification with the previous verse. The meaning is, that those who had despised and rejected the Messiah, had greatly erred in condemning him on account of his sufferings and humiliation. ' We turned away from him in horror and contempt. We supposed that he was suffering on account of some great sin of his own.
This comes from the first word in the verse “surely”.
“borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” does not mean took on Himself our grief and sorrow but carried it away. Grief and sorrow is not “Sin” itself, but somehow Christ is going to remove our sorrow and grief caused by our sins way from us. Again, there is nothing about Christ doing something for God here, but this is all to help solve our problem.
Conclusion for Is. 53:4:
While Christ is physically and mentally lifting and carrying away our sorrow and grief, we (Jews especially at the time) saw Christ as being deserving of this huge torturous death and God doing it to him, which was a huge error on man’s part at the time and we should have been esteeming Him for what he was doing. This passage does not say: “how this all worked”, but what the results were and should have been.
Is. 53:6
“The iniquity of us all”: This cannot mean that he became a sinner, or was guilty in the sight of God, for God always regarded him as an innocent being. It can only mean that he suffered as if he had been a sinner; or, that he suffered that which, if he had been a sinner, would have been a proper expression of the evil of sin.
Here again, the point we need to remember, God is not removing the “sins” like they were some object that could be carried around and off of us but is laying on Christ the inequities/result of sin (the equivalent of the deserved disciplining we need but cannot bear and live). This does not mean we the sinner do not still “deserve” the fair/just discipling for sin and we should even desire that disciplining from our parents to obtain all the benefits from being Lovingly disciplined. God is not seeing to the torture humiliation and murder of His innocent son to let the guilty to go free (that is totally unjust), but would allow and see to the torture humiliation and murder of a willing Christ in order for the deserving sinner to empathetically receive his just/fair disciplining and live (as any good parent would try to do).
Is. 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
“the chastisement of our peace was upon him” may not be the best translation, but we can start with it:
“chastisement” has to do with disciplining, so when you were being “chastised”/disciplined by your parents how did it bring you peace?
“But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.”
Repeatedly this is being done for us: “our griefs”, “carried our sorrows”, “our transgressions”, “bruised for our iniquities”, “chastisement for our peace”, “by His stripes we are healed”, and “laid on Him the iniquity of us all”. Also: “My righteous Servant shall justify many”.
Does this sound like God has the problem or is man having the problem?
I need to explain, as best I can: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him”, before leaving Is. 53. Does this mean God is blood thirsty? Was God “testing” Jesus in some way to see if Jesus could handle it? Is Jesus solving some problem God has with forgiving?
First off: the RSV might give a better translation; Is. 53: 10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him…”
God had a plan from the beginning of time to help humans fulfill their earthly human objective. That plan to be fulfilled correctly required a willing Christ to go to the cross, so Christ going to the cross is part of God’s will which is always in the best interest of man to help humans.
Isaiah 53:10 NASB
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God."
Christ suffered because we sinned, but it is to help us in some way, so how does it help you?
Jesus went to the cross to take upon his own body what we deserve. He became as though he were a sinner himself, though he was perfectly righteous. Most I would say understand this, but it is not as though the Father were simply saying, "Kill him and I will forgive the sins of the sinner."
It sure does come across like: God is simple: "Kill him and I will forgive the sins of the sinner."
Did Jesus become a sinner to make it just?
Sin is legal guilt. God is loving, but he is also just. His justice says in
Ex 34:7 "I will by no means clear the guilty." and in
Romans 6:23 "The wages of sin is death."
Is it not totally unjust and unfair of God to have even a willing innocent person to be tortured, humiliated and murdered to allow the guilty to go free?
The Judge of all the earth, her King and sovereign pronounces sentence upon the high treason committed in the Garden of Ede, and by all of mankind since. For God to simply forgive without judgement would be for him to deny his own righteousness.
The righteous judgement for a sin that has been totally forgiven and that forgiveness completely humbly accepted by the former sinner has no punishment, but like any wonderful parent there can be if possible some Loving discipline and if properly accepted will result in improvement and a restored relationship.
We, as creatures have no way of bearing our own penalty and live. He must punish sin, but he also has a desire, as Scripture shows us, to save some sinners. If there is no substitute, salvation is impossible.
All the popular “theories” of atonement have huge issues and do not provide a logical, just, biblical way of atonement, so we need a better way. Substitution does better than most, but look at the issues.
Atonement, Penal Substation (PS) Issues:
- Unjust and unfair hurting the innocent and allowing the guilty to go unpunished
- Has God seeing to the torture humiliation and murder of Christ (punishes Christ).
- Makes God out to be blood thirsty.
- There is no logical part for man to play.
- It is not participative but passive “Christ was crucified so I do not have to be” v.s. “Christ was crucified so I must be crucified”.
- If Christ is paying it all than there is nothing to forgive.
- Lev. 5 describes what the atonement sacrifice is in relationship to the sinner (a penalty or punishment/discipline) and it is not said to replace him in any way.
- In Lev. 5 you have the exact same sin being atoned for with different atoning sacrifices apparently to level the hardship on the sinner, which if they are to be substitutes for the sinner, should be the exact same.
- All the benefits from being lovingly fairly justly disciplined are not there with PS.
- PS mean’s universal atonement was completed for everyone (all were atoned for, so all should be saved).
- Peter does not mention Penal Substitution in his wonderful Christ Crucified sermon on Pentecost, nor any time before the stoning of Steven.
- The sin sacrifices of the OT can be a bag of flour, so could a bag of flour be a human substitute.
- There are others individuals at the cross which can be seen way better as standing in for us (mockers, soldiers, teachers of the Law , a thief), so how can we so arrogant as to say Jesus is standing in for me.
- The idea is we are crucified “with” Christ and not instead of.
- The Greek words translate “for” do not support the interpretation of “instead of”.
- It does not explain how atonement is a ransom scenario.
- PS emphasis is on a problem God is having and not man’s problem being solved.
- It does not fit lots of scripture especially Ro. 3:25
- PS emphasizes God’s wrath as the problem and not man’s personal need.
