Penal Substitutionary Atonement, Mice, & Olives

The function of a mouse-trap is to catch mice.  But have you thought of a mouse trap from the perspective of the mouse?  I’m not sure exactly how much knowledge a mouse has of a mouse trap and there workings, but I can imagine a mouse sneaking up to the trap trying to get the cheese, while at the same time trying to avoid being crushed and killed by the bar.  But we know what happens 9 out of 10 times don’t we?  The mouse sneaks up, grabs the cheese and BAM!  Their dead.  Keep that picture in your minds.

I want to give you some thoughts on the atonement.  But before I do, I should say that some people (who may even call themselves Christians) say, “Why do you evangelicals always talk about the death of Jesus?  Why all the blood talk?  There is more to Christianity than that.  The cross is nothing more than Divine child abuse.”  We evangelicals talk of the cross so much because the Bible says mankind’s biggest problem in life is God’s righteous anger and wrath against sin.  We are sinners and therefore this is a big problem for us because it means we‘re in danger of eternal punishment.  BUT, praise God that He gave us an answer to this problem in PENAL SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT.  What is that?  Read on:

ATONEMENT: regulations for atonement are laid out in the book of Exodus.  It says for an atonement to occur there must be a blood sacrifice.  Sin has a penalty and the sacrifice must bear the penalty itself.  The priest was to sacrifice a lamb before God.  This lamb was the atoning sacrifice because it bore the penalty of the people’s sins.  The people of Israel did not bear their own sins, the lamb did.  They did this sacrifice every year.  But there was a problem with these animal sacrifices; God said “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Heb. 10:4) The sacrifices had to be repeated because the cleansing it brought did not last! Against that background God said, “…I will make atonement for all you have done!” (Ezek. 16:63)

SUBSTITUTIONARY: This word means what it sounds like, substitute.  Because God knew the animal sacrifices would not last, He provided a substitute whose sacrifice would last, forever!  Hebrews 2:17 says, “For this reason Jesus had to be made like us in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high Priest in service to God, that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.”  1 Peter 3:18 says, “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous…” Did you see that?  Christ, the righteous One, suffered for the unrighteous.  He took our place!  He was our substitute on the cross!  He made atonement for us by being that spotless lamb!  Our sin should have put us there on the cross, He did nothing to earn that death, but He took it as our substitute!

PENAL: This word also means what it sounds like, penalty.  Not only was Jesus our substitute on the cross, He bore the penalty that we deserved.  Isaiah 53:5 says, “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the punishment that brought us peace, by His stripes we are healed.”  Jesus was wounded, crushed, ground to a pulp, destroyed, and killed on the cross.  But His death brought us peace!  How can it do that?  Earlier I said that mankind’s main problem in life is that God is angry and wrathful at us for our sin, and that put us in danger of being punished under eternal torment.  Jesus’ death brought us peace, because His death on the cross, as our substitute, satisfied the wrath of God that was coming toward us for our sin!

So why do we evangelicals talk about the death and blood of Jesus so much?  Why do we believe that God did not commit divine child abuse by sending His Son to die?  We talk about the cross so much, because it is only the cross that gives us hope!  If it weren’t for the cross we would receive nothing but wrath from God!  We would have to bear our punishment ourselves!  We would have no substitute to bear our penalty!  We would have to do it on our own and suffer eternal torment for it!  We will never get over this, we will never move onto something else, the cross is the center of our faith, the cross is the center of our lives!  Because without the cross we would not have life!

Now, let me ask you a question: Do you think it was a coicidence that the garden Jesus was in when He began to sweat drops of blood was called Gethsemane?  Gethsemane means “oil press”, because in that garden there were olive groves and a big olive press that crushed olives in order to get pure olive oil to be used in the temple.  The big olive press took the olives and crushed them down to a pulp, and once they were crushed, they produced the pure oil.  Do you see now why Jesus was in that place when He began to bleed?  Perhaps it was because He was beginning to be crushed for our sins in that garden!  He felt the weight of what He was going to have to go through!  It was no coincidence that Jesus was near the olive press that night!  Just as the olives only produced pure oil when they’re crushed, so too the Son of Man must be crushed under the weight of sin to set those under God’s wrath FREE FOR ALL TIME!

Remember the Mouse Trap?  Remember how I said the mouse tries to avoid being crushed in it?  Jesus did not try to avoid His crushing!  God had set the stage for the Son of God to come and die, and the Son willingly walked into the trap, to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18).  AMEN!