If Sin’s Penalty Is Eternal, Why Isn’t Jesus Still Suffering?

Audio Transcript

Welcome back again on this new 7 days as we pick up with our third consecutive apologetics question on the human being and operate of Christ. It started off very last 7 days, when we questioned, Even if the Christian religion is untrue — if the cross and resurrection didn’t come about — are not Christians continue to happier than non-Christians, in this lifetime? That was APJ 1977, followed by a look at 6 causes why Jesus experienced to leave earth right after Easter. Visualize existence on earth if Christ ended up continue to listed here with us! Effectively, he’s not why not? That was last time, in APJ 1978.

That normally takes us to today. If the outcomes of our sin versus a holy God call for everlasting judgment, why did Christ suffer for no a lot more than 33 a long time? Shouldn’t his sufferings also be eternal, if that’s what we have earned? In this article are two e-mails: “Pastor John, hi to you. My title is Glenn from San Jose. Thank you for your ministry. As with several individuals, APJ has been a section of my frequent regimen, and it has blessed me and enables me to bless others in return. I have a question for you about Jesus that I are unable to answer for myself, particularly: Why did Jesus not invest eternity in hell, if this was the amazing and holy price tag to be compensated for sin? Does the Bible inform us why?” This is mainly the identical question from a listener named Floris: “Pastor John, can you explain why Jesus’s payment for our sins was not eternal, as it is for sinners?”

This is an excellent problem because it pushes us to get severely the truly worth of the dying of Jesus, and we have to have to do that. We really do not ponder far too usually the greatness of the accomplishment of Christ in spending the credit card debt for thousands and thousands upon tens of millions of hell-deserving sinners, like the thief on the cross, who before he was crucified experienced in no way carried out one particular solitary operate of religion in his lifetime. Or like you and me, who may have identified Jesus all our lives, and still have fallen brief so numerous 1000’s of occasions we could not even start off to depend them.

“The track of the slaughtered Lamb will be sung without end. It was a staggering achievement on the cross.”

Our worship, and our really like for Christ, should to burn brightly when we ponder that 1 man, a person God-man, could endure plenty of in 33 a long time to offer a ample gratification in the justice of God for everlasting salvation for so numerous wicked people today. This is why we will sing “the music of the Lamb” — the crucified Lamb — permanently, not just “the tune of the risen King” (Revelation 15:2–4). The track of the slaughtered Lamb will be sung forever and ever. It was a staggering achievement on the cross.

Sin’s Eternal Price tag

The question is, How is it possible? Jesus taught us that sinners like us are entitled to eternal punishment. “These will go absent into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life” (Matthew 25:46). So, the punishment for sin is as long as daily life is long for the saved: endlessly. Paul explained the identical factor: “They will put up with the punishment of everlasting destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

So, the problem Glenn is asking is, If Christ bore our punishment, why then does he not have to endure the exact same punishment — specifically, everlasting struggling? And make no blunder, these who trust in Christ are saved from everlasting punishment for the reason that Christ bore our punishment for us.

• Colossians 2:14: “The history of financial debt that stood against us with its lawful needs . . . [God] set apart, nailing it to the cross” — that implies through the palms of Jesus.
• Galatians 3:13: “Christ . . . [became] a curse for us.”
• Isaiah 53:5: “He was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities.”
• 1 Peter 2:24: “He himself bore our sins in his physique on the tree.”
• Romans 8:3: “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, [God] condemned [our] sin in the flesh.”
• Mark 10:45: “The Son of Man came . . . to give his lifetime as a ransom for many.”
• 1 Corinthians 6:20: “You have been acquired with a rate.”
• Functions 20:28: “[God] acquired [the church] with his very own blood.”

Christ realized this substitution for hundreds of thousands of believers, not by suffering eternally in hell, but by being obedient in suffering unto death, “even demise on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). And the issue is, How does he bear eternities of punishment in the room of 33 decades of lifestyle? How does his suffering suffice to cancel the punishment of tens of millions of people who were being bound to eternal punishment?

Christ’s Infinite Dignity

Now, the Bible does not say explicitly how this works. But just as we uncovered the demerit of sin by on the lookout at God’s appointed penalty for it — particularly, everlasting punishment — so also we discover the advantage, or the worthy of, of Christ and his struggling by hunting at the achievement of it — specifically, salvation for thousands and thousands of hell-deserving sinners. So, the question results in being, What is it about the worthy of of Jesus and his suffering that will make it sufficient to take out the punishment of millions of sinners?

Allow me examine you the reply supplied by Jonathan Edwards and then say a term about it. This comes from a sermon he preached in 1729 entitled “The Sacrifice of Christ Appropriate.” Here’s what he states:

Nevertheless Christ’s sufferings have been but temporal [that is, not eternal], but they had been equivalent to our eternal sufferings by motive of the infinite dignity of his individual. Although it was not infinite struggling, still it was equivalent to infinite suffering, for it was infinite price. His blood which he spilled, his existence which he laid down, was an infinite price simply because it was the blood of God, as it is expressly known as. Acts 20:28, “The church of God, which he hath acquired with his very own blood.” His everyday living was the lifetime of that human being that was the everlasting Son of God, even though it was the life of the human mother nature. Now, upon this account, the rate presented was equivalent to the demerit of the sins of all mankind, [and] his sufferings equal to the everlasting sufferings of the whole globe. (Performs of Jonathan Edwards, 14:452)

“We find out the benefit, or the really worth, of Christ and his suffering by searching at the achievement of it.”

Now, the basic principle powering that argument is that the higher the worth — or the dignity or the honor — of a particular person, the extra insulting and dishonorable and shameful is the innocent struggling of that person. So, the suffering of the Son of God is a higher evil than the struggling of a sinful human. And since the well worth and the honor of the Son of God is an infinite worth and an infinite honor, therefore, his struggling experienced an infinite worth, a lot more than plenty of to be the punishment for finite human beings.

Or to say it one particular a lot more way, when Christ descended from the situation of “equality with God” (Philippians 2:6) to the point of forsakenness by God on the cross in agony, that depth of descent was infinitely increased than the descent of any sinful human into the sufferings of hell — in truth, all of them together.

Worship Burning Vivid

So, one particular way of answering the issue, “How does Christ’s 33-12 months-very long suffering protect the sins of tens of millions of people who deserve eternal suffering?” is this: Due to the fact the infinite worth of his individual will make his struggling of infinite really worth and adequate for the covering of all the sins of all his people.

As I reported at the beginning, our worship and our enjoy for Christ should to burn off extremely brightly when we take into consideration that one particular man, one particular God-guy, could endure ample struggling to cover so numerous hell-deserving sins.