In the last chapter, we established the fact that at the Incarnation Christ joined Himself fully to the fallen human race that needed redeeming, assuming all its liabilities, in order to be the Saviour of the world. Now we must examine, in detail, this question: In what sense did He redeem mankind from the sin problem? It is extremely important for us to answer this question if we are to understand and proclaim our unique gospel message to the world and demonstrate its power.
According to the apostle Paul, the fundamental truth of the New Testament is found in Jesus Christ. He says, "No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11). He goes on to say that we must build our Christian experience and doctrines on this foundation (see 1 Corinthians 3:12-14). Unless we are clear about this foundation that Christ laid by His holy history, we will be confused about the distinction between what Christ accomplished in His earthly mission and what the Holy Spirit accomplishes in our lives.
As already indicated earlier, what the Holy Spirit does in the lives of believers does not add one iota to the objective facts of the gospel—the salvation obtained for all humanity through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit is not a coredeemer with Christ, but a communicator to us of Christ's redemption. He reproduces the holy life of Christ in the church. Jesus made it clear to His disciples that the Holy Spirit's work would be to guide them into all truth concerning Himself (see John 16:13). And Paul tell us that the Holy Spirit is the means of our sanctification—making real in the believer's experience what Christ has already accomplished for the fallen human race (see 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 14).
Once we realize the difference between what Christ did for us on the cross and what the Holy Spirit does for us in our lives, we will begin to understand the full significance of the Saviour's final words on the cross: "It is finished!" (John 19:30). What was finished? Salvation full and complete for all mankind was finished. That is why Paul could declare to the Christians at Colosse, "You are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power" (Colossians 2:10). This fact is the basis, or foundation for all our Christian experience. "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him" (Colossians 2:6; see also Ephesians 2:10).
In one of the last letters he ever penned before his martyrdom, his letter to the Philippian church, Paul admits that he had not yet reached perfection in his Christian walk, "but," he adds, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me... I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things" (Philippians 3:12-15, NIV).
What did Paul mean when he said he was pressing on "to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me"? He meant simply that his goal in life was to reach the heights that had already been obtained for him in Christ. "To me," he said, "to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21). In other words, all the believer's subjective experience must be founded on the finished work of Christ. All our Christian experience, as well as our goals in life, must be directly related to what Christ already accomplished for us in His earthly mission—the gospel. Christianity is more than merely believing in Christ; it is participating in Him (see 1 Corinthians 10:16-18 NIV).
Thus, if our understanding of the redemption Christ obtained for humanity is limited, so will be our experience because all Christian experience is founded on the finished work of Christ. So we need to ask ourselves, as the people of God with a special mission to the world: How much of the sin problem did Christ take care of by His birth, life, death, and resurrection? Or putting it more simply: How complete is the good news of the gospel?
If, in any way, Christ did not save us from our total sin problem, then the gospel is incomplete and we must depend on the Holy Spirit to put the finishing touches to us and complete the work. But this is not what the New Testament teaches (see Romans 3:21-28). The salvation our Lord Jesus Christ obtained for all humanity, which He accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit in Him, is a finished work to which nothing can be added or improved. What the Holy Spirit does in the believer is to communicate to him or her this full and complete salvation.
The only way God could totally redeem us from every aspect of sin in Christ was to unite His Son to our sinful humanity that needed redeeming. That is why the humanity of Christ is "everything to us." If we deny Christ's full identification with our sinful humanity—apart from actually sinning— we deny the complete redemption He obtained for us in the gospel.
Keeping this in mind, let's look at what the apostle Paul wrote to the believers at Ephesus, to those who were "faithful in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 1:1). After pointing out, in chapter 1, all the wonderful blessings that were theirs "in Christ" (see verses 3-10), he goes on to explain, in chapter 2, the full and complete salvation Christ obtained for humanity in His earthly mission.
In the first three verses of chapter 2, the apostle paints a dark and dismal picture of mankind, both Gentiles and Jews. In verses 1 and 2, he reminds his Gentile readers that before their conversion to Christianity they were sinners by nature as well as by performance. We know he is addressing the Gentiles in these first two verses because he speaks of them as "you." In the third verse, he turns to his fellow Jews (using the pronoun "we") and tells them that they, too, are sinners by performance as well as by nature, just like the Gentiles. In other words, there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles when it comes to the sin problem (see also Romans 3:22, 23).
Having painted this hopeless picture of the human race, Paul then turns his attention, in verses 4 to 6, to the matchless charms of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The first thing he says about the good news of the gospel is that "because of His [God's] great love with which He loved us" (verse 4), those who were once spiritually dead were made (past tense) spiritually alive when the divinity of Christ was united to their sinful humanity that needed redeeming (see verse 5). Are we reading too much into the apostle's words? Are we putting words in his mouth? I believe this must be what Paul intended in these verses. For if Christ assumed a humanity that was not spiritually dead—the humanity of Adam before the Fall—then the human nature He assumed would not need to be made spiritually alive. In addition, when Paul says that God "made us alive together with Christ" (verse 5), he clearly indicates that the humanity to which Christ was joined was our very humanity that was spiritually dead.
Paul adds this tremendous gospel statement at the end of verse 5, "by grace you have been saved." This expresses in a nutshell all that Christ accomplished for fallen humanity in His life and death. All that the law requires of us sinners in order that we may be justified to life is summed up in this one statement, "by grace you have been saved."
By His perfect life, which met the positive requirements of the law, and by His sacrificial death, which met the justice of the law, Christ rewrote humanity's history and changed mankind's status. Our status was transformed from one of condemnation, which we inherited from Adam, to one of justification to life (see Romans 5:18). This is what it means to be saved by grace alone. This is the "righteousness of God" Christ obtained for all mankind by His holy history and which is made effective by faith alone (Romans 10:3).
The corporate sinful, condemned life of our humanity died forever in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:14). But our corporate human body that Christ assumed at the incarnation (see Hebrews 10:5), was not left in the grave forever. Paul tells us that we were raised "together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6). In Christ's resurrection, God gave to the human race in Christ, the very life of His Son (see John 3:16; 1 John 5:11, 12). Thus, the good news of the gospel is that by His death and resurrection, Christ "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10). This is salvation, full and complete.
But what does this full, complete salvation involve or include? This is the important question we must now answer so that we can appreciate the fullness of the gospel message.
First, we were made spiritually alive in Christ (see Ephesians 2:5). This took place through the incarnation when our sinful humanity, which was spiritually dead, was united to the divinity of the Son of God.
Ellen White says that when Adam fell by turning his back to God, the Holy Spirit left him and he "ceased to be a temple for God" (The Desire of Ages, 161). Since Adam could not pass on to his descendants what he did not have, all of us were born uninhabited by God's Spirit. This is what Paul meant when he told the Christians at Ephesus that they were by nature spiritually dead. And this is how we all are born; this is what we inherit from Adam.
But at the Incarnation this spiritually dead humanity was united to the divine life of the Son of God by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and we were made spiritually alive in Christ. Paul says, "When we were dead in trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ" (Ephesians 2:5). He uses the aorist tense of the verb "made," a past historical tense, indicating that he is not talking about the believer's subjective experience when he or she experiences the new birth, but rather an objective fact that took place in Christ at the Incarnation. This is the foundation "already laid" (1 Corinthians 3:11, NIV), on which the subjective experience of the new birth is based.
Second, by His perfect life which He lived out in our corporate sinful humanity, Christ not only satisfied the positive demands of the law on our behalf, but, much more, He defeated the law of sin—that power or principle of sin that resides in our sinful natures and which makes holy living impossible in and of ourselves (see Romans 7:15-24).
Understood in this context, Christ's perfect life, which he lived in our corporate sinful humanity, could not have been accomplished for us vicariously. The reason is simple: It is impossible to defeat a force, the power of sin, vicariously, or "in the place of another," in a sinless human nature. Neither, could Christ be tempted vicariously in all points, as are we sinful humans. The only way we are tempted, says James, is when we are drawn away by our own desires and enticed (see 1:14). One cannot be drawn away by his own desires and enticed "in the place of another" if one's human nature is sinless.
Christ was tempted by the self principle of our sinful flesh, which He assumed at the Incarnation. In His case, the temptation was to depend on His own divine power, independently of the Father. This temptation proceeded from His humanity, however Christ defeated our sinful flesh through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit (see Luke 4:14). This was no make-believe victory, but actual reality. This is why Paul could admonish the believers at Rome to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Romans 13:14, emphasis supplied). The Bible describes this victory over the sinful flesh in Christian living as the fruits of the gospel. It, too, is part of the foundation "already laid" and is an integral part of the good news of the gospel.
If not, if victory over the sinful flesh is something left for the Holy Spirit to accomplish in us apart from the finished work of Christ, then we are admitting that the gospel of Christ is an incomplete work and that God has to send the Holy Spirit to finish it up in us. If this is true, then the Holy Spirit does indeed become a coredeemer. Yet this is not at all what Scripture teaches.
Third, by His death, Christ redeemed humanity from the guilt and condemnation of sin. All Christians accept this truth, but what do we mean by "the guilt and condemnation of sin"? Guilt comes upon us as the result of our personal sins. But in addition, we have also inherited condemnation as a result of the Fall (see Romans 5:18). This condemnation is passed on to us from our father Adam because we are born with Adam's life—a life that is indwelt by sin and which disqualifies us for heaven. In order for Christ to save us completely—not only from the guilt, but also from the condemnation of sin—He had to bear our personal sins and He had to bear our sinful nature which condemns us. Both were executed on the cross in Christ.
In fact, since our sins are merely the fruits of our sinful nature, Christ could actually bear our sins on the cross only if He also bore us and our sinful human nature. Christ assumed this sinful humanity at the Incarnation when He was "made flesh" (John 1:14, KJV); He defeated it by His perfect life; and He finally executed that condemned nature on His cross (see 1 Peter 2:24). All this constitutes the good news of the gospel. By bearing us on the cross, Christ struck at the very root of our sin problem. This, too, is part and parcel of the foundation "already laid" on which we build our Christian experience.
Finally, at Christ's resurrection, the redeemed human race was raised in Christ with a glorified body, totally cleansed from sin. Christ took this glorified humanity to heaven, there to represent us in His priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. At His second coming, the saints will experience this glorified body (see Philippians 3:20, 21). Thus "by one Man's obedience many will be made [future tense] righteous" (Romans 5:19, NRSV). When this happens, "when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality" we will shout "thanks be to God, who gives us the victory thorough our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:54, 57).
God's salvation in Christ is indeed full and complete. The Holy Spirit adds nothing to it in our lives, and we can do nothing to improve on it. All we can do is to accept God's "indescribable gift" with a grateful heart and let the Holy Spirit reproduce in our lives the matchless life Christ prepared for us in His holy history. When that happens, Adventism will have fulfilled its God-given mission, the earth will be lightened with His glory, and the world will finally witness that "the kingdom of God is not in word but in power" (1 Corinthians 4:20).
Here is how the apostle Paul sums up the fullness of this glorious gospel: "Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ He has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world" (Ephesians 1:3, GNB, emphasis supplied). Again he says, "God has brought you into union with Christ Jesus, and God has made Christ to be our wisdom. By Him we are put right with God; we became God's holy people and are set free" (1 Corinthians 1:30, GNB, emphasis supplied). And Ellen White reflects this clear teaching of Scripture:
By His obedience to all the commandments of God, Christ wrought out a redemption for men. This was not done by going out of Himself to another, but by taking humanity into Himself. Thus Christ gave to humanity an existence out of Himself. To bring humanity into Christ, to bring {tie fallen race into oneness with divinity, is the work of redemption. Christ took human nature that men might be one with Him as He is one with the Father, that God may love man as He loves His only begotten Son, that men may be partakers of the divine nature, and be complete in Him {Selected Messages, 1:250, 251, emphasis supplied).
The purpose of redemption is to reverse the results of the Fall, to break the power of sin, to redeem our sinful nature "sold under sin." This is possible only if the humanity Christ assumed was the corporate, sinful humanity of those whom He came to save, for that which is not assumed could not have been redeemed.
The moment we deny this truth and insist that Christ came in a sinless human nature like Adam's spiritual nature before the Fall, we sever Christ's complete union with the humanity He came to save. In doing this, we preach an unethical gospel. Justification becomes a legal fiction, and the justice of God comes under question. No wonder many within Adventism are beginning to embrace the moral influence theory of the atonement which denies its legal framework.
Let's look at it in this way: Which died on the cross as the wages of sin— sinful humanity or sinless humanity? If we admit that it was sinful humanity, then not only were the law's just and legal demands met, but fallen men and women can honestly identify themselves, through faith, with the death which sets them free from the curse of the law as well as its power (see Romans 6:7—the Greek word translated freed in this text means "justified"). This in fact is Paul's point: "So far as the Law is concerned, however, I am dead— killed by the Law itself—in order that I might live for God. I have been put to death with Christ on His cross, so that it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. This life that I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave His life for me" (Galatians 2:19, 20, GNB).
On the other hand, if we say that it was sinless humanity that died vicariously on the cross, instead of 'our corporate condemned nature, we are accusing God of an injustice, since His own Word will not legally accept the death of an innocent person in the place of one who is guilty (see Deuteronomy 24:16; Ezekiel 18:20). Such a belief also makes it impossible for fallen human beings, to identify themselves truly and sincerely with the death of Christ, as true faith demands (see 2 Timothy 2:11; Romans 6:3, 8). This, in turn, can easily lead to cheap grace.
On the cross, the human life of Christ, which was in reality our corporate condemned life, died the second or eternal death—the wages of sin. The New Testament clearly teaches that on the cross, sinful humanity died in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:14; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 2:20; 3:3; 1 Peter 2:24). This death fulfilled or met the just demands of the law (see Romans 6:7; 7:1, 4, 6) and gave God the legal right to forgive us of our sins (see Matthew 26:27, 28; Romans 3:24-26).
Then, in exchange for our condemned life that died eternally on the cross, God gave us the immortal life of His Son so that we may live again (see 1 John 5:11, 12; 2 Timothy 1:8-10). This is God's love gift to humanity and the glorious truth of the gospel. God's gift to fallen mankind is the divine, eternal life of His Son (see 1 John 5:11). This gift made it possible for our humanity, united to Christ, to be resurrected to life the third day, and thus give us eternal hope (see 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22). "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things [the old life with its condemnation] are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV; see also 2 Timothy 2:11). With this new life, which we experience through the new birth, we are now able to demonstrate the power of the gospel over the sinful flesh in our own personal lives (see Romans 8:9-11).
This is the message God gave to the Adventist Church in 1888. Ellen White said that it was the beginning of the latter rain and the loud cry, which, had they been fully accepted, would have lightened this earth with Christ's glory. According to this 1888 message, Christ assumed human nature as we know it after the Fall. In spite of this, however, Jesus lived a perfect life through the power of the indwelling Spirit, triumphing over the "law of sin" in the flesh. Finally, the message asserted, this nature was cleansed on the cross, and Jesus rose from the dead with a redeemed or glorified human nature. This nature is now reserved for the believer in heaven until the second coming. This is how God legally justified all mankind in the doing and dying of Christ and liberated us totally from our sin problem to give us eternal hope now and in the world to come.
This being so, the good news of the gospel not only guarantees legal or forensic justification to all who believe, but it also offers total victory over the clamors of our sinful nature. Righteousness by faith, therefore, includes, on the one hand, peace with God through justification by faith (see Romans 5:1), but at the same time, it also gives hope to the justified believer that he or she can live a life above sinning (see Romans 13:14; Galatians 5:16). This was the true understanding of the 1888 message on righteousness by faith in Christ.
Having discovered the full significance of Christ as our Redeemer, we are now able to look at Him as our Example. This will be the topic of our next chapter.
Key Points in Chapter Thirteen Christ, Our Redeemer