Ecclesiophilist

As we contemplate the death of Jesus on this Good Friday, here is an excerpt from an article by J.I. Packer on The Logic of Penal Substitution. This excerpt comes from a section of the essay in which Packer is dealing with substitution and divine love.

Furthermore, if the true measure of love is how low it stoops to help, and how much in its humility it is ready to do and bear, then it may fairly be claimed that the penal substitutionary model embodies a richer witness to divine love than any other model of atonement, for it sees the Son at his Father’s will going lower than any other view ventures to suggest. That death on the cross was a criminal’s death, physically as painful as, if not more painful than, any mode of judicial execution that the world has seen; and that Jesus endured it in full consciousness of being innocent before God and man, and yet of being despised and rejected, whether in malicious conceit or in sheer fecklessness, by persons he had loved and tried to save — this is ground common to all views, and tells us already that the love of Jesus, which took him to the cross, brought him appallingly low. But the penal substitution model adds to all this a further dimension of truly unimaginable distress, compared with which everything mentioned so far pales into insignificance. This is the dimension indicated by Denney — ‘that in that dark hour He had to realise to the full the divine reaction against sin in the race.’ Owen stated this formally, abstractly and non-psychologically: Christ, he said, satisfied God’s justice ‘for all the sins of all those for whom he made satisfaction, by undergoing that same punishment which, by reason of the obligation that was upon them, they were bound to undergo. When I say the same I mean essentially the same in weight and pressure, though not in all accidents of duration and the like . . .’ Jonathan Edwards expressed the thought with tender and noble empathy: ‘God dealt with him as if he had been exceedingly angry with him, and as though he had been the object of his dreadful wrath. This made all the sufferings of Christ the more terrible to him, because they were from the hand of his Father, whom he infinitely loved, and whose infinite love he had had eternal experience of. Besides, it was an effect of God’s wrath that he forsook Christ. This caused Christ to cry out . . . “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This was infinitely terrible to Christ. Christ’s knowledge of the glory of the Father, and his love to the Father, and the sense and experience he had had of the worth of his Father’s love to him, made the withholding the pleasant ideas and manifestations of his Father’s love as terrible to him, as the sense and knowledge of his hatred is to the damned, that have no knowledge of God’s excellency, no love to him, nor any experience of the infinite sweetness of his love.’ And the legendary ‘Rabbi’ Duncan concentrated it all into a single unforgettable sentence, in a famous outburst to one of his classes: ‘D’ye know what Calvary was? what? what? what?’ Then, with tears on his face — ‘It was damnation; and he took it lovingly.’ It is precisely this love that, in the last analysis, penal substitution is all about, and that explains its power in the lives of those who acknowledge it.

Simcha Jacobovici thinks he may have found the nails that were used to crucify Jesus. If you have ever seen any of his documentary style films, you have probably noticed he has a penchant for the dramatic. It feels a little bit like archaeology meets the National Enquirer. At any rate, Jacobovici suggests that some nails found in an excavation of a first century Jewish tomb may be the nails that were used to crucify Jesus.

The International Antiquities Authority was not impressed. They stated in an email, “There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film, at the center of which is a genuine archaeological artifact. However, the interpretation presented in it has no basis in the find or in archaeological research.” Nails are often found in ancient burial sites. They were used to inscribe names on sarcophagi (burial boxes).

Like the Shroud of Turin, the nails will no doubt hold some fascination for people. People have always been interested in relics. If such a find should ever be validated, for many people it would be looked upon with a sort of spiritual power beyond its archaeological and historical value. Such a find would be displayed and venerated by pilgrims who would travel great distances to get a glimpse of the very nails that fixed Jesus to the cross.

The sad thing in such a scenario is that the real meaning of the cross is eclipsed. Make no mistake, the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection are historical facts. There was a real cross onto which the real body of the historical Jesus was fastened with real nails. I do not take issue with the historicity of the crucifixion. If the nails that fastened Jesus to the cross were found, it would be an important archaeological artifact to be sure. The problem is not that people find interest in the death of Jesus as a historical event. The problem is missing the theological significance of this historical event.

The Apostle Paul stated it succinctly in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The historical event of Christ’s crucifixion was also the power of God being exercised in the salvation of those who believe. This theme is repeated throughout the New Testament. The apostles viewed the crucifixion as a saving act by which the sinless Christ suffered as a sacrifice for the salvation of sinners. Peter said, “For he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds you were healed (1 Peter 2:24).” The cross is never less than a historical event. Yet, it is much more. It is a saving event in which Jesus became sin so that all who trust in him could be made righteous (2 Cor. 5:21).

Are the nails really the ones that were used in Jesus’ crucifixion? Who knows. But even if archaeologists were by some strange twist to find the entire cross on which Jesus died, the excitement which would accompany such a find should pale in comparison to the amazement at the fact that the sinless Son of God would humble himself to die on that cross for undeserving sinners. If they find the nails, that’s fine. But let’s not lose the cross in the process.