Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)
CHRIST'S PENAL WORK
Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952) S CRIPTURE plainly teaches that God is both holy and righteous, and that "justice and judgment"—not "love and pity"— are the establishment of God's "throne" (Psa 89:14). Thus, there is that in the divine Essence that abhors sin for its intrinsic1 sinfulness, both in its respect of pollution and in its aspect of guilt.
The perfections of God are therefore displayed by both forbidding and punishing the same. He has pledged Himself that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Eze 18:4). Therefore, in order for a full satisfaction to be rendered unto God, sin must be punished; the penalty of the Law must be enforced. Consequently, as Savior of His Church, Christ had to suffer vicariously the infliction of the Law's curse.
What we shall now seek to show is that the sufferings and death of Christ were a satisfaction to divine justice on behalf of the sins of His people. In case any should object against our use of the term satisfaction, let us point out that this very word is found in our English Bibles, being given by the translators as the equivalent for the Hebrew word that is ordinarily rendered atonement: "Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction2 for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall surely be put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest" (Num 35:31-32).
The deep humiliation to which the Son of God was subjected in taking upon Him the form of a servant and being made "in the likeness of sin's flesh," was a judicial infliction imposed upon Him by the Father, yet voluntarily submitted to by Himself. The very purpose of His humiliation, His obedience, and His sufferings makes them penal,3 for they were unto the satisfying of the claims of God's Law upon His people. In being "made under the law"
(Gal 4:4), Christ became subject to all that the Law enjoins: "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law" (Rom 3:19), which means the Law calls for the fulfillment of its terms. "Christ, in our room and stead, did both by
1 intrinsic – belonging to something as a basic and essential feature of what it is.
2 satisfaction – Hebrew = kopher.
3 penal – subject to punishment under the law.
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doing and suffering satisfy divine justice…the legislatory, the retributive, and the vindictive4 in the most perfect manner, fulfilling all the righteousness of the Law, which the Law otherwise required of us in order to impunity5 and to our having a right to eternal life."6
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust" (1Pe 3:18). The reference here must not be restricted to what
Christ endured at the hands of God while He hung upon the cross, nor to all He passed through during that day and preceding night.
Beware of limiting the Word of God! No. The entirety of His humiliation is here included. The whole life of Christ was one of sufferings.
Therefore was He designated "the Man of sorrows," not simply, "sorrow." From His birth to His death, suffering and sorrow marked Him as their legitimate victim. While yet an infant, He was driven into exile to escape the fury of those who sought His life. That was but the prophetic forerunner of His whole earthly course. The cup of woe, put to His lips at Bethlehem, was never removed until He drained its bitter dregs at Calvary.
He experienced every variety of suffering. He tasted poverty in its severest rigor. Born in a stable, owning no property on earth, dependent upon the charity of others (Luk 8:3), oftentimes being worse situated than the inferior orders of creation (Mat 8:20). He suffered reproach in all its bitterness. The most malignant7 accusations, the vilest aspersions,8 the most cutting sarcasm were directed against His person and character. He was taunted with being a glutton, a winebibber,9 a deceiver, a blasphemer, a devil.
Therefore do we hear Him crying, "Reproach hath broken my heart" (Psa 69:20). He experienced temptation in all its malignity.
The prince of darkness assailed Him with all his ingenuity and power, causing his infernal legions to attack Him, coming against Him like "strong bulls of Bashan," gaping on Him with their mouths like ravening and roaring lions (Psa 22:12-13). Above all,
He suffered the wrath of God, so that He was "exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Mat 26:38), in "an agony" (Luk 22:44), and ultimately, "forsaken of God."
4 legislatory…retributive…vindictive – the legal, punishing, vengeful aspects of justice.
5 impunity – freedom from punishment.
6 Herman Witsius (1636-1708), The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man, Vol.
1 (Edinburgh: Thomas Turnbull), 207.
7 malignant – extremely wicked.
8 aspersions – slanders; attacks on someone's character.
9 winebibber – one who habitually drinks too much wine or alcoholic beverage.
Christ's Penal Work
What then is the explanation of these unparalleled "sufferings"?
Why was the most perfect obedience followed by the most terrible punishment? Why was unsullied holiness visited with unutterable anguish? David declared, "Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken" (Psa 37:25). Why then was the Righteous One abandoned by God? Only one answer is possible. Only one answer fully meets all the facts of the case. Only one answer clears the government of God. In taking the place of offending sinners, Christ became obligated to discharge all their liabilities. This involved bearing their sins, being charged with their guilt, suffering their punishment. Accordingly, God dealt with Him as the representative of His criminal people, inflicting upon Him all that their sins merited. As the sinbearing substitute of His people, Christ was justly exposed to all the dreadful consequences of God's manifested displeasure.
Of old the question was asked, "Who ever perished being innocent?" (Job 4:7), to which we may without the slightest hesitation answer, "None." God never has and never will smite the innocent.
Therefore, before His punitive wrath could fall upon Christ, the sins of His people must first be transferred to Him, and this is precisely what Scripture affirms. Remarkably was this foreshadowed of old in the great type of Israel's annual Day of Atonement: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat" (Lev 16:21). So too was it plainly prophesied, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all…he bare the sin of many"
(Isa 53:6, 12). So also is it expressly affirmed in the New Testament, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Heb
9:28). Once again we would point out there is not a hint in these passages that Christ bore the sins of His people only while He was hanging upon the cross. We are aware that many have so affirmed, but in doing so they have not only been guilty of adding to the Word of God, but also of flatly contradicting it.
We have already pointed out that the expression of Romans 8:3, made "in the likeness of sinful flesh," clearly presupposes the transfer of His people's sins to Christ, and that what happened immediately after His birth was in full keeping with this fact and cannot be understood apart from it. That He was "circumcised"
(Luk 2:21) not only proved that He had been "made in the likeness of men" (Phi 2:7), but also evidenced that He had been made "in the likeness of sinful flesh." So too the ceremonial "purification" of His mother (Luk 2:22) and her presentation of a "sin-offering"
(Lev 12:2, 6) was in perfect keeping with the fact that, though His
Christ's Penal Work
humanity was immaculate, yet He had entered this world officially guilty.
As little children, we sinned—"the wicked are estranged10 from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies"
(Psa 58:3)—and therefore as a child Christ suffered. [He] suffered not only as our Substitute, but because our sins had been transferred to Him. In our youth, we sinned; and as a youth Christ suffered, and suffered at the hands of God as His own words clearly testify: "I am afflicted and ready to die from youth up: I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted" (Psa 88:15). In the prime of our manhood, we sinned; and in the prime of His manhood, Christ suffered. Let us refer once more to His being assailed by Satan.
Hebrews 2:18 tells us that He "suffered being tempted," and that very suffering was penal. That Christ's "suffering" under Satan was designed and appointed as an infliction from God is proved by the statement that "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil" (Mat 4:1).
Man having allowed himself to be overcome by Satan, God has by a just sentence delivered him up as a slave to his tyranny.
Therefore was it necessary that Christ, as His sinful people's substitute, should be exposed to the harrassings of the devil, that in this respect also He might satisfy divine justice. Most assuredly
Satan and his agents could never have assailed Christ had He not been so (legally) charged with the guilt of our crimes that God righteously exposed Him to injuries from them (Act 2:23). The elect themselves, as sinners, were subject to Satan's power (Col
1:13), and that by the righteous sentence of the Judge of all the earth. Therefore were they not only the "prey of the mighty," but also were "lawful captives" (Isa 49:24). Therefore, as Christ came here as Surety in their room, He, by virtue of God's sentence, also became subject to the buffetings of Satan.
"Christ's passive or suffering obedience is not to be confined to what He experienced in the garden and on the cross. This suffering was the culmination of His piacular11 sorrow, but not the whole of it. Everything in His human and earthly career that was distressing belongs to His passive obedience. It is a true remark of Jonathan Edwards that the blood of Christ's circumcision was as really a part of His vicarious atonement as the blood that flowed from His pierced side. And not only His suffering proper, but His
10 estranged – turned aside.
11 piacular – making atonement for sin.
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humiliation also was expiatory."12 "The satisfaction or propitiation13 of Christ consists either in His suffering evil, or His being subject to abasement14… Whatever Christ was subject to, which was the judicial fruit of sin, had the nature of satisfaction for sin.
But not only proper suffering, but all abasement and depression of the state and circumstances of mankind (human nature) below its primitive honor and dignity (such as His body remaining under death, and body and soul remaining separate) are the judicial fruits of sin."15
When the Scriptures speak of the satisfaction of Christ, they ascribe it to His sufferings in general. "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Isa 53:4), that is, He suffered all the pains and sorrows due to us from sin. It is to be most carefully noted that the inspired declaration "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa 53:6) comes before "He was oppressed" and before "he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter." It was at the commencement of His public ministry, and not while He hung upon the cross, that God moved one of His servants to cry, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (Joh
1:29). Christ was brought "to the slaughter" before the three hours of darkness, yet even then "affliction" lay upon Him; and our iniquity was exacted of Him. So too this very chapter (Isa 53) ascribes our "healing" to the stripes that He received from men, as plainly as other passages attribute our being delivered from the curse of the Law through God's visiting Him with its curse.
"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example" (1Pe 2:21). "To suffer here denotes to be in affliction; for all those sufferings are here intended in which Christ has left us an example of patience. These sufferings He affirms to be for us, that is, undergone as well in our stead as for our good. For this is ordinarily the signification of the [Greek] word huper…And that this is the true meaning of Peter, we conclude
12 William Greenough Thayer Shedd (1828-1894), Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 2 (New York:
Scribner's Sons, 1891), 430.
13 expiatory…propitiation – "Expiation has reference to the guilt of sin. To expiate is to remove or cover the guilt of sin. Propitiation has reference to the wrath or displeasure of God. To propitiate is to satisfy the divine justice and thus to appease His wrath. In the Biblical usage of the term, the justice of God is satisfied by the propitiatory sacrifice." (Morton H. Smith, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 382.)
14 abasement – humiliation.
15 Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), "A History of the Work of Redemption" in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1 (Carlisle, Penn.: The Banner of Truth Trust), 574.
Christ's Penal Work
hence, that in 3:18 he says, 'Christ suffered for sins,' namely, that He might be 'the propitiation for our sins' (1Jo 4:10)."16
When the sovereign rights of God are emphasized, there is generally raised the objection that we are hereby "reducing man to a mere machine." Many are they who are prepared to hold a brief 17 for human responsibility. But rare indeed is it that we ever hear anything about transferred responsibility. Yet, at this point lies one of the chief wonders and glories of the gospel. The responsibility of God's people was transferred to Christ: He assumed their liabilities, made Himself chargeable with their debts, answerable to every demand of the Law against them. Had this not been the case, how could God have righteously laid the iniquities of His people upon the head of His Holy Son? Still less could He have called for the sword of justice to smite Him. It was because Christ was "made sin" for us that He was also "made a curse" for us: the latter could not be without the former. As this is a point of such vital importance, we must amplify a little further.
Hebrews 7:22 declares that Christ is Surety of a better covenant:
He was the Sponsor of His people, as Judah undertook to be for Benjamin. "I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever" (Gen 43:9). Or, as Paul was for Onesimus, "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth ought, put that on mine account; I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it"
(Phm 1:18-19). Just so did Christ engage Himself unto His Father for us: "Reckon to Me whatever they owe Thee, and I will satisfy for it." "A surety, whose name is put into a bond,18 is not only bound to pay the debt, but he makes it his own debt also, even as well as it is the principal's, so that he may be sued and charged for the debt. So Christ, when He once made Himself a Surety, He so put Himself in the room of sinners, that what the Law could lay to their charge, it might lay to His."19
Christ must take on Him the guilt of our transgressions before He could take our punishment upon Him, and so satisfy divine justice on our behalf. That He did so is demonstrated by His own words. It is indeed remarkable to find how that Christ actually owned our sins as being His. First, in the 40th Psalm: That this
Psalm is Messianic, we know from its quotation in Hebrews 10.
16 Witsius, Economy, Vol. 1, 219.
17 hold a brief – to express oneself like an advocate rather than an unbiased person.
18 bond – certificate of debt.
19 Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680), "Of Christ the Mediator" in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol. 5 (repr., Eureka, CA: Tanski, 1996), 184.
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That it contains the very words of Christ is plainly evident from verses 7-11. He is still the speaker in verse 12, where He declared
"For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me."
What a proof that the sins of His people had been transferred to Him! Second, in the 69th, another great Messianic Psalm: There too we find Him saying, "O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee" (v. 5). How unmistakably do those words show our sins had been reckoned to Him! Those sins were
His not by perpetration,20 but by imputation.21
"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on [to] the tree"
(1Pe 2:24). " 'Our sins' here are our liabilities to punishment on account of our violations of the divine Law and the necessary consequences of those liabilities; in other words, guilt in the sense of binding over to punishment, and punishment itself."22…In entering the Law-place of His people, Christ became answerable to the righteousness of God on their behalf. Whatever they owed must be exacted from their Sponsor: He must pay their debts, suffer the full penalty of their iniquities, and receive sin's wages in their room. Christ now became exposed to all that the holiness of God must inflict upon sin. Therefore we read, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal 3:13).
"The cross was accursed, not only in the opinion of men, but by the decree of the divine Law. Therefore when Christ was lifted up upon it, He rendered Himself obnoxious to the curse."23
The very mode of death that God appointed for His Son reveals to us the penal nature of it. The cross was no mere "accident," as though it made no difference what form His death took. Fundamental reasons rendered it expedient and necessary that the Surety should die a death that was accursed of God; hence, the frequent reference in the New Testament to the "cross" and the "tree" (cf.
Joh 12:32-33). At Calvary, God's terrible curse on sin was publicly displayed, of which the cross was not the cause but the symbol (cf.
Joh 3:14). Under the Mosaic Law (to which the Apostle refers in Galatians 3:13), hanging on a tree was a death reserved for great criminals. Hence, the force of the word tree in 1 Peter 2:24. Christ
20 perpetration – the act of committing or performing.
21 imputation – being charged to one's account.
22 John Brown of Edinburgh (1784-1854), The First Epistle of Peter, Vol. 1 (Carlisle,
Penn.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 523.
23 John Calvin (1509-1564), Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, xvi, 6.
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hanging upon the tree was the public testimony to God's curse on Him. "The cause of the curse was not the hanging on the tree, but the sin with which He was charged. That mode of punishment exhibited that He was the object of God's holy displeasure, not indeed because He was suspended on the tree, but because He was the sin-bearer. The punishment of the offenses for which that ignominious24 penalty was allotted was then inflicted. Divine wisdom appointed that He Who bore the sin of the world should be exposed as a curse, for the divine displeasure was there most awfully displayed."25
As to why this means and method of death was selected by God out of all others possible—poisoning, stoning, beheading, etc.—
Genesis 3 supplies the answer: "As the fatal sin which diffused the curse over the human race was connected with the forbidden 'tree,'
God wisely ordered that the last Adam should expiate sin by being suspended on a tree; and He appointed in the Law (Deu 21:22-23) such a symbol of the curse as reminded all men of the origin of the divine curse on the world. He would not have the curse removed in any other way."26 Among the Romans, death by crucifixion was the deepest possible humiliation. It was the most degrading of punishments, inflicted only on slaves and the lowest of the people. If freemen were at any time subjected to crucifixion for great crimes, such as robbery, high treason, or sedition, the sentence could not be executed until they were put into the catalogue of slaves, and that by the utmost humiliation. Their liberty was taken from them by servile stripes27 and scourging, as was done to Christ. Thus, the curse of God's Law was executed upon the Head and Substitute of His people. To "preach Christ crucified" (1Co 1:23) is to proclaim and expound His being "made a curse for us."
Because Christ was "made sin" and "made a curse" for His people, the wrath of God's holiness flamed against Him and the sword of His justice pierced Him. "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd" (Zec 13:7; cf. Mat 26:31). God inflicted punishment on Christ as if He had been the personal offender.
"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin" (Isa 53:10). As
24 ignominious – marked by shame or disgrace.
25 George Smeaton (1814-1889), The Doctrine of the Atonement as Taught by the Apostles
(Carlisle, Penn.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 14.
26 Smeaton, Atonement, 15.
27 servile stripes – marks and wounds on the back of a slave from a whip.
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all the sufferings of men, whether inflicted immediately28 by God or mediately29 by Satan or men (Jer 2:15-17), arise from the demerits of sin, so all the sufferings of Christ—from man, Satan, God— arose from the demerits of His peoples' sins imputed to their Substitute.
The punishment that God meted out to Christ was the very punishment that was due His people. That He was accursed of God is seen from His hanging on the tree. That He received sin's wages was evidenced by God's forsaking Him. That He was numbered with transgressors was exhibited by His dying between two thieves.
True, He did not suffer eternally, for the eternity of our punishment was only a circumstance arising from our incapacity to suffer the whole weight of God's wrath in a brief season, and therefore the brevity of duration of Christ's sufferings is no valid objection against the identity of penalty that He received. Moreover, the infinite dignity of His Person more than compensated the Law. "To the enlightened eye, there is found on the cross another inscription besides that which Pilate ordered to be written there: THE VICTIM
OF GUILT. THE WAGES OF SIN."30
From Studies in the Scriptures, reprinted by Chapel Library.
The death of Christ on the cross, it was a bitter death, a sorrowful death, a bloody death. The bitter thoughts of His sufferings put Him into a most dreadful agony: "Being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luk 22:44)…The things that our Savior strove against were not only the terror of death, as other men are wont to do—for then many Christians and martyrs might have seemed more constant and courageous than He—but with the terrible justice of God, pouring out His high anger and indignation upon Him on the account of all the sins of His chosen that were laid upon Him, than which nothing could be more dreadful (Isa 53:4-6). Christ was in a vehement conflict in His soul, through the deepest sense of His Father's wrath against sinners, for whom He now stood as a Surety and Redeemer. And for a close of this particular, let me say that God's justice, that we have provoked, being fully satisfied by the inestimable merit of Christ's passion, is the surest and highest ground of consolation that we have in this world.—Thomas Brooks
28 immediately – directly, without the help of someone or something.
29 mediately – indirectly, by the use of means.
30 Brown, First Peter, Vol. 2, 143.