Last night I went to the Good Friday service at my church. I’ve been wrestling with a big question since then so I wrote this to bring clarity to my thoughts and an answer to my question. The question is this (I know it’s long but stick with it): When Jesus hung on the cross there was a moment when he became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). I love the wording of that because for a moment all of the world’s sins- past, present, and future- were on him there’s no point in saying sin resides anywhere else because sin was focused on one person so he ‘became’ sin. This leads me to try and quantify the world’s sin. Naturally, I start with the weight and measure of my own sin and I quickly realize that each of those acts individually was deserving of death and I get a deeper conviction of being a child of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). So if each of my sins deserve death and you add those sins up with my brother’s sins, and my parent’s sins, and my friend’s sins and my co-worker’s sins, and my neighbor’s sins, and every other living person’s sins, and every dead person’s sins, and all the sins of people not yet born that’s a hell of a lot of sins! And don’t you think that should require a lot more death than just one Jesus?
Of course the temptation here is disbelief that Christ’s death was sufficient. I do believe his death was sufficient but it is a hard idea to wrap my mind around because God’s math makes no sense to me (actually there’s a lot of math right here on earth that doesn’t make sense to me). The worth of Good Friday depends on faith. The deeper issue here is how we view sin. Tim Johnson, a pastor from my home church, once preached, “If you view your sins as not that bad you will see God as not that good.” He was saying people who view their sins lightly don’t realize the weight of God’s love in sacrificing Christ. The apparent doubt expressed in this essay’s question may be the converse of that phrase: “If you view your sins as terribly bad then how could God be good enough?” What is God’s response to this? 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” 1 Timothy 2:5-6 “For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all…” Colossians 1:19-20 “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
Another temptation from doubting Christ’s sufficiency is a hidden belief that Jesus wasn’t God. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death…” Notice it doesn’t say for the wages of SINS (plural) is death. Each sin requires the death of the guilty. You can’t commit a certain number of sins and expect one punishment to clear all of them. There’s no 2 for the price of 1 deal in this. If God didn’t delay his judgment on us and immediately killed us the first time we sinned the punishment isn’t just our death it also includes eternity in Hell. Our sins go against the perfection of Almighty God and separate us infinitely. We human beings cannot be saviors- we can certainly receive our punishment, but we can’t wash away our sins. So if Christ really was just a Man there is no way his death would clear all the world’s sin from judgment. No, Jesus is fully God and fully man (John 1:14, Luke 3:22, John 8:58, Colossians 1:15-20 Luke 2:7, John 4:6, John 11:35, Hebrews 4:15, actually just read the whole bible). Because Jesus was God and Man his sacrifice was worth more than if he was just Man. John Piper wrote, “Because He is God, He is the only adequate savior.” So when we put our trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins we are trusting that He is God and He is capable to do it.
Guilty vile and helpless we
Spotless Lamb of God is He
Full atonement, can it be?
Halleluja, what a Savior!
I still don’t get it. I don’t understand because I’m just a human being. But I trust it. And this Easter weekend, I’m celebrating it. Christ is sufficient for me, Christ is sufficient for you, Christ is sufficient for people we’ll never meet- and he’s sufficient for all of us AT THE SAME TIME! Woah. Halleluja what a Savior!
Brice Aarrestad 