Just & Sinner
“Legally, when the criminal has served their sentence, they are no longer ‘liable to punishment’ and hence are no longer guilty. So, Legal guilt is NOT “attached permanently“ to a criminal agent. They still are a felon; they still have a criminal record; but they are no longer ‘guilty’ in the sense we use in “Penal Substitution” discussion. Theologians readily admit that my ‘unworthiness’ continues on after forgiveness, that ‘demerit’ doesn’t transfer per se (only the legal liability to punishment), and that the perp is forever ‘indicted’ (even after justice has been served).” - Christian ThinkTank (Why Penal Substitution)
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“We are (in total) simultaneously just and a sinner” - Martin Luther
Reflection:
Every single human being on earth - after the Fall in the Garden - is “liable to punishment” in the courts of Almighty God for our crime against Him. And what is the particular crime, and the legal guilt attached, which we ALL are born with/into exactly?
“The LORD God commanded the man, saying…., “From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
— Genesis 2:16-17
When God commanded mankind - “in Adam”, the first man - His “top down” command revealed a hierarchy of authority right out of the gate. To use ancient near-eastern concepts, God is “Suzarain”, man is His “vassal”. In modern parlance, we could say things like “God is the CEO, we are His employees.” Or, “God is the *State*, we are citizens”. In the Church we say: “God is the Father, we are his children.” In whatever way we say it, understanding a concrete, fixed, unchanging hierarchy of God and man - i.e. the Creator/creature distinction - is crucial for us to remain “sane” with regard to bedrock reality.
“According to Romans 1, all men are insane, living in fantasy worlds of their own imagining. The Bible is given to bring us back to sanity and reality.” - Biblical Horizons Mission Statement
All lunacy in the world - yea, even in the church - results from a break in the bedrock truth of the Creator/creature distinction. The way the Scripture descriptively sets this out for us is at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or in modern parlance - the Tree of declaring authorized, judicial judgements. One way to imprint “the Fall of man” clear into our minds in our day, in order to get a better handle on it, is to imagine a judge sitting on the bench (made from the wood of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil), in a courtroom, and suddenly, “the courtroom” rises up in outrage and revolution and attempts to pull the judge down from “his bench” in order to “take his place”.
This is essentially what God’s warning against “eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” means. It is a warning against “political revolution” against His Kingdom and rule. In this way, the “fall” was an “upward fall”. Man refused the hierarchy of the Creator/creature distinction, and desired to “sit on the bench” and “be the Creator/ruler” as a creature! It is this “matrix” of insanity which we ALL are born with/into.
“All for freedom and for pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world” - Tears For Fears (Everybody wants to Rule the World)
But, man will NEVER be or “become” God, and yet this is exactly what the false religions on earth (including Atheism) essentially teach. NOTE: there are some false religions that do not teach that man can “become God” (also known as “deification”) such as Islam, but Islam’s refusal to submit to the reality that God did in fact “become a man” in Jesus Christ constitutes the same “uprising” in the Garden. Even though man will never “become God”, that doesn’t mean God cannot become man! And Islam’s “judgement” against that reality - clearly revealed in the Gospel narratives and empirical evidence of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead - shows that Islam is also guilty of attempting to “pull God down from His “bench” in order to have His rule for themselves.
And this brings me to the cross of God.
What exactly do we see when we look at a crucifix? Do we see a “criminal serving a sentence”? Or more accurately and pointedly, do we see ourselves on the cross serving our sentence “in” Jesus Christ? I submit, that if we don’t see the cross in this way, then we don’t rightly understand it. Just because we say we “believe” in the cross, go to church and “do” religious things, (even doing good community “works”), doesn’t mean we have the right belief concerning the cross. If we do not see ourselves serving the punishment for our revolution against God “In” Christ, then sadly, we are still “living in fantasy worlds of our own making”, eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, attempting “daily” to pull God down from His bench, even while “going to church religiously”.
On the cross, we see Jesus’ “hands” bound from action, nailed to the Tree. Hands in the Bible are symbols of authority.
“But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your “power” (hand); do to her what is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence.”
— Genesis 16:6
(Laban said) “It is in my “power” (hand) to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful not to speak either GOOD or EVIL to Jacob.’”
— Genesis 31:29
On the cross, Jesus reveals what Original Sin is. It is mankind attempting to bind the “hands” (authority/power) of God in order to “act” according to our own word/authority/hand. This is EXACTLY what is wrong with the world as told in the Bible. Today, we call it “relativism”, or “post-modernism”, but it is not new (“after modern”) at all. It is as old as Adam. Adam was the first “post-modernist” writing his own “meta-narrative” over/against the narrative of God!
Because mankind has acted in this way with regard to the authority of God - that is, attempting to bind God’s authority so we can act on our own - so too will God act with regard to “the authority” of man in the end.
“As you have done, it will be done to you.
Your dealings will return on your own head.”
— Obadiah 15
What is amazing is that in the mercy of God, He acted in the middle of history to bear this future punishment (our “binding”) on our behalf so that we can repent, and receive pardon before it is too late. That is what true faith is. It grasps the reality that God has shown mercy to us by plunging Himself under our future judgement - as our representative King - serving our “sentence” vicariously in order that we can live a repentant life TODAY, free from all legal guilt, as new creatures.
This is what Martin Luther meant when he said that “in” Christ, we are “simultaneously just and a sinner.” This is because by becoming a man, God made Himself “simultaneously just and a sinner.’ Now, in God, the order is exactly opposite. God is “just” who became a “sinner” on the cross. But, man is a “sinnner” who becomes “just” by faith. It is a great exchange! Who could have ever imagined that God would do this!
In other words.
“Legal guilt is NOT “attached permanently“ to those “in” Christ. We still are felons; we still have a “criminal record”; but we are no longer ‘guilty’. Our ‘unworthiness’ continues on after forgiveness, that ‘demerit’ doesn’t transfer per se (only the legal liability to punishment), and we are forever ‘indicted’ (even after justice has been served).”
If “in” Christ, we have already served the sentence, then we are truly free. There is no condemnation from God because Jesus bore our condemnation! All we have to “do” is “believe” and live a repentant and thankful life before the Face of God until Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead.
No wonder the prophet Isaiah - when he saw this in a vision - wrote:
“Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”
— Isaiah 53:1