Coromandel Baptist Church

Sunday 7 February 2010 Bible Readings 2 Corinthians 5:11-21; 1 John 4:7-21

Knowing the Father Through the Cross

P. T. Forsyth once wrote,

Christ came, not to say something, but to do something....He revealed by redeeming. The thing he did was not simply to make us aware of God’s disposition in an impressive way. It was not to declare forgiveness. It was certainly not to explain forgiveness. And it was not even to bestow forgiveness. It was to effect forgiveness, to set up the relation of forgiveness both in God and man....The great mass of Christ’s work was like a stable iceberg. It was hidden. It was his dealings with God not man. The great thing was done with God. It was independent of our knowledge of it. The greatest thing ever done in the world was done out of sight. The most ever done for us was done behind our backs. Only it was we who had turned our backs. Doing this for us was the first condition of doing anything with us. (God the Holy Father, p. 19)

We can become very used to the fact of the cross, and very used to explaining the theories of atonement that have made our reconciliation with God possible. These may all have their place, and may even be indispensible. We do need to understand the principles of substitution; of priestly representation; of the principle of atonement according to the Old Testament cultus; of imputation; of sanctification and of justification as a forensic declaration; to name just a few aspects of the work of the cross and the benefits that flow from it to us. But none of these things can actually take us to the nine tenths of the iceberg that remains hidden from view. We have no paradigm, parallel or personal experience that matches what the Father, the Son and the Spirit did on that great and terrible day. We have no way of entering into the very heart of the Triune suffering that that cross was, nor any way of plumbing the depths of Jesus’ experience on that dreaded hill, where he who knew no sin was made to be sin on our behalf.

We can only come to know the Father in and through the work of the cross. The heart and soul of the new covenant promise was that of the knowledge of God through the forgiveness of sins. The new covenant promise of full and free forgiveness as seen in Jeremiah 31:31-34 is expressed in many other Old Testament passages that exalt the free mercy of God in forgiving without remainder or restraint (e.g. Jer. 33:8; 50:20; Ezk. 36:22-32; 37:23; Is. 4:2-6; Zech. 3:1-10; Is. 1:18; 38:17; 43:25; 44:22; Mic. 7:19; Ps. 103:12; 32:1ff.; etc.). That forgiveness is necessary for us to know the Father is beyond doubt. It is our sin and guilt which has rendered us dead and senseless towards him on the one hand (e.g. Eph. 2:1ff.), and it is the response of his holy love expressing itself in wrath which renders judgement on that state on the other hand (e.g. Rom. 1:18ff, especially verses 24, 26, and 28). But what it means to forgive; what it means for God to forgive (who is the only one who can!); what it means for God to bear his own wrath; and what it means for him to so love us in Christ that he abandons up the only begotten Son to the curse (in its Old Testament sense of ‘the ban’ i.e. that devoted to destruction); these things are beyond our knowing. These are the hidden parts of the iceberg.

So, while we can say without doubt that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19) or that he propitiated his own wrath in and through his Son as the action of his own love (e.g. 1 John 4:9-10), what this actually meant for the Father, the Son and the Spirit is beyond our telling. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we have the classical expression of what later came to be known as the ‘great exchange’. All that we are in ourselves Christ became on the cross, so that all he is in himself might be freely granted to us. The ‘mechanism’ of the exchange may be helpfully expressed in the language of imputation for example, but it still keeps in eclipse the actual work of suffering love which the Godhead accomplished in the event of the cross on our behalf.

What we do know is that there was a total reversal of the ‘natural’ order of things. The only begotten beloved Son became the most cursed and reviled object in the universe, as he became the embodiment of sin itself. The Son fell under ‘the ban’ and, instead of receiving the fullness of the blessing, received the excoriating judgment of exile and rejection. Instead of enjoying the light, joy and peace of the Father’s presence, as he became one with us in our sin he entered into hell itself, where the only presence was as a spirit of judgement and burning. The Branch was consumed. The Shepherd was killed. The Shoot was cut off. The Lord’s Associate was slain by the Lord’s own sword. The Beloved Son was disinherited. The Righteous one was dealt with as the unrighteous, by unrighteous men. The Lover was cut off from the bride. The Son was cut off from the Father. And Spirit held him there, without restraint, as by the Spirit Jesus the incarnate Son of God offered himself up to God. The righteous Judge was judged in our place. The merciful One was shown no mercy. The man who was Goodness incarnate was treated as a criminal. The Truth was judged as a liar. He who is our Peace had open war declared on him under the wrath of God, being abandoned up to his enemies like a pillaged city. He who is our Resting place knew no rest. He who was the Life of the world was consigned to death.

And yet…all the while, the Beloved was most beloved. The Son was more precious to the Father than ever he had been. The Spirit was fully present to effect the full purposes of love, though all seemed to be rejection. We cannot say this cost the Father nothing. He fulfilled that which was typified in Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah, except that the Son was the Lamb. Abba’s heart and soul was torn in two. He who wept over the sins of Israel, and could not abandon them up (Hos. 11:1ff.), and whose face is seen in the Son who wept over Jerusalem in like manner, now abandons up His most beloved and treasured possession. And what did it mean for the eternal Spirit, whose whole ministry is to unite and reconcile? And how can this be love? And how can it not be love? And how can the Father and the Son and the Spirit love us that it should thus be so?

But, the greatness of the Giver is in the fact that he does not stress to us the cost of the atonement, but the joy of it, the freedom of it and the love of it. P. T. Forsyth again:

It would not be like the grace of God, it would be ungracious, if He came forgiving man and yet laying more stress on what cost Him to do it than His joy, fullness and freedom in doing it. You find poor human creatures who can never overlook your mistake without conveying to you that it is as much as they can do. They think no little of themselves for doing it. They take care that you shall never forget their magnanimity in doing it. They keep the cost of your forgiveness ever before you. And the result is that it is not forgiveness at all.…What an ungracious way of dealing with the graceless! (God the Holy Father, p. 17)