Charles Swindoll tells the story of a college student he refers to as Aaron, a young man who took a summer job as a bus driver on the South Side of Chicago:
“I'LL CALL this young man Aaron, not his real name. Late one spring he was praying about having a significant ministry the following summer. He asked God for a position to open up on some church staff or Christian organization. Nothing happened. Summer arrived, still nothing. Days turned into weeks and Aaron finally faced reality—he needed any job he could find. He checked the want ads and the only thing that seemed to be a possibility was driving a bus in south side Chicago—nothing to brag about, but it would help with tuition in the fall. After learning the route, he was on his own—a rookie driver in a dangerous section of the city. It wasn't long before Aaron realized just how dangerous his job really was.
A small gang of tough kids spotted the young driver, and began to take advantage of him. For several mornings in a row they got on, walked right past him without paying, ignored his warnings, and rode until they decided to get off... all the while making smart remarks to him and others on the bus. Finally, he decided it had gone on long enough.
The next morning, after the gang got on as usual, Aaron saw a policeman on the next corner, so he pulled over and reported the offense. The officer told them to pay or get off. They paid but, unfortunately, the policeman got off. And they stayed on. When the bus turned another corner or two, the gang assaulted the young driver.
When he came to, blood was all over his shirt, two teeth were missing, eyes were swollen, his money was gone, and the bus was empty. After returning to the terminal and being given the weekend off, our friend went to his little apartment, sank onto his bed and stared at the ceiling in disbelief. Resentful thoughts swarmed his mind. Confusion, anger, and disillusionment added fuel to the fire of his physical pain. He spent a fitful night wrestling with the Lord.
How can this be? Where's God in all of this? I genuinely want to serve Him. I prayed for a ministry. I was willing to serve Him anywhere, doing anything, and this is the thanks I get!
On Monday morning Aaron decided to press charges. With the help of the officer who had encountered the gang and several who were willing to testify as witnesses against the thugs, most of them were rounded up and taken to the local county jail. Within a few days there was a hearing before the judge.
In walked Aaron and his attorney plus the angry gang members who glared across the room in his direction. Suddenly he was seized with a whole new series of thoughts. Not bitter ones, but compassionate ones! His heart went out to the guys who had attacked him. Under the Spirit's control he no longer hated them; he pitied them. They needed help, not more hate. What could he do or say?
Suddenly, after there was a plea of guilty, Aaron (to the surprise of his attorney and everyone else in the courtroom) stood to his feet and requested permission to speak.
"Your honor, I would like you to total up all the days of punishment against these men, all the time sentenced against them, and I request that you allow me to go to jail in their place."
The judge didn't know whether to spit or wind his watch. Both attorneys were stunned. As Aaron looked over at the gang members (whose mouths and eyes looked like saucers), he smiled and said quietly, "It's because I forgive you.'
The dumbfounded judge, when he reached a level of composure, said rather firmly: "Young man, you're out of order. This sort of thing has never been done before!" To which the young man replied with genius insight:
"Oh, yes, it has, your honor ... yes, it has. It happened over nineteen centuries ago when a man from Galilee paid the penalty that all mankind owed.
And then, for the next three or four minutes without interruption, he explained how Jesus Christ died on our behalf, thereby proving God's love and forgiveness.
He was not granted his request, but the young man visited the gang members in jail, led most of them to faith in Christ, and began a significant ministry -Charles R. Swindoll, Improving Your Serve
What Aaron did for those young men, or tried to do, so impressed them that they turned their lives over to Jesus Christ. Aaron wanted to take their place…and it amazed them. It created a soft place in the cement-hardened interior of their urbanized souls. All he was doing was living out the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In this series of sermons, we have been trying to plumb the meaning of the gospel. My goal has been to hit the heart of it, like the sweet, firm stroke of an Edgar Martinez. What Aaron chose to do brings out the heart of the good news.
This is what Jesus Christ has done for us.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
This verse hits the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was our substitute. And when we understand that, it changes our life forever.
In the New Testament Jesus describes his purpose and Role:
Matthew 20:28 “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus explains his purpose for coming to earth, that he might serve people and then ransom them at the cost of his life.
Matthew wrote that he would give his life a ransom for many. In the original language (Greek), the preposition which we translate by the English word “for” means ‘in the place of’ or ‘instead of.’ It has the idea of ‘in exchange for.’ He, Christ, gave himself in the place of many. There is a substitutionary meaning. It is the offering of one life for many lives.
Paul wrote it this way:
2 Corinthians 5:21 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus Christ literally became the great moral garbage dump of the universe. He became sin. God placed all the human immorality of our sordid history upon the head of Jesus Christ.
Again, the original language is very specific. He was made to be sin for us, that is, instead of us, in the place of us. The Greek preposition—huper means in substitution for someone; in the name of someone, in the interest or for the benefit of someone.” Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, page 59. He became sin.
Six hundred years before Christ, Isaiah the prophet wrote of this same thing:
Isaiah 53:4-6 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
It’s an incredible, eternal exchange of places. Instead of offering to do a few months of jail time, as Aaron did, Jesus Christ offers to swap places with us so that we will not have to endure the everlasting punishment of Almighty God.
“When Jesus gives Himself in death there happens to Him what should happen to the many. He stands in their place.” Buchsel, quoted by Morris, page 32.
John Calvin wrote, “Our acquittal is in this—that the guilt which made us liable to punishment was transferred to the head of the Son of God.” Morris, page 272.
Another scholar states simply, “His life is offered for our life in profound sympathy.” (Morris, page 29)
He took our punishment. And when a person understands that this punishment rightfully belongs to him, and that God is just in giving it to him, but that Jesus took it instead, it has a profound effect upon that person.
Cliff Barrows, song leader of the Billy Graham crusade ministry, tells a story about his children when they were younger. They had done something he had forbidden them to do. They were told if they did the same thing again they would have to be disciplined. When he returned from work and found that they hadn’t minded, his heart went out to them. “I just couldn’t discipline them,” he said.
Any loving father can understand Cliff’s dilemma. Most of us have been in the same position. He said, “Bobby and Bettie Ruth were very small. I called them into my room, took off my belt and then my shirt, with a bare back I knelt down at the bed. I made them both strap me with the belt ten times each. You should have heard the crying. From them, I mean. The crying was from them. They didn’t want to do it. But I told them the penalty had to be paid and so through their sobs and tears they did what I told them.
“I smile when I remember the incident,” he said. “I must admit I wasn’t much of a hero. It hurt. I haven’t offered to do that again. It was a once-for-all sacrifice, I guess we could say, but I never had to spank those two children again, because they got the point. We kissed each other. And when it was over we prayed together.” Billy Graham, How To be Born Again, cited by Swindoll, Ox Cart, page 543f.
Did you notice? ….The penalty had to be paid.
For Cliff Barrows to teach his kids the necessity of obedience, and that his word means what it means, he had to follow through. For him to be a good father, he needed to show them how the world works.
Morris explains: “He (Christ) made Himself one with those for whom He suffered, so that the substitution which results is not the substitution of a casual stranger, but of one who stands in the closest possible relationship with those for whom He died.” Page 279.
James Denney wrote: “God condones nothing: His mercy is of an absolute integrity. He is a righteous God, even in justifying the ungodly; and the propitiation which He sets forth in Christ Jesus, dying in His sinlessness the death of the sinful, is the key to the mystery.” Morris, page 278.
God cannot overlook sin. Just as Cliff Barrows could not wink at the willful misbehavior his children, or any good father cannot overlook the purposeful disobedience of his children, so God the Father, for him to be just, must hold sin to account. “God condones nothing.”
My guilt before God should condemn me to eternal death:
Romans 6-.23 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When Adam and Eve sinned at the beginning of human history, they themselves began to die. And everyone else as well. But this death is more than physical. It is also spiritual:
Revelation 20:11-15 The Dead Are Judged
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
But Jesus died so you would not have to bear this righteous sentence of Almighty God. The wrath of God is a hard pill to swallow in our modern age. We would much rather contemplate his great love, his forgiveness, his mercy. But we cannot embrace one part of God and reject another. If we do, his love and mercy means less and less to us:
Again, quoting James Denney “Unless we give a real content to the wrath of God, unless we hold that men really deserve to have God visit upon them the painful consequences of their wrongdoing, we empty God’s forgiveness of its meaning. For if there is no ill desert, God ought to overlook sin. We can think of forgiveness as something real only when we hold that sin has betrayed us into a situation where we deserve to have God inflict upon us the most serious consequences, and that it is upon such a situation that God’s grace supervenes. When the logic of the situation demands that He should take action against the sinner, and He yet takes action for him, then and then alone can we speak of grace. But there is no room for grace if there is no suggestion of dire consequences merited by sin.” Morris, page 185.
The good news is only good news if we understand the reality of God’s wrath.
The Penalty has to be paid…and Jesus didn’t have to do it for us—but he did!
Again, “The Scripture is clear that the wrath of God is visited upon sinners or else that the Son of God dies for them. Either sinners are punished for their misdoings or else there takes place …that ‘self-punishment which combines the activities of punishing and forgiving.’ Either we die or He dies.” Morris, page 185.
No less a scholar than Karl Barth wrote, “Yes, exactly in the depths of our misery He intercedes for us, and substitutes Himself for us, warding off the wages justly due us and suffering and making restitution what we could not suffer and where we could not make restitution.” God in Action, cited by Morris, page 273.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way:
Romans 5:8— But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“Because of the blood of Christ …..those who are of faith no longer need fear the wrath. Thus we see that, whereas originally sinners were liable to suffer from the outpouring of the wrath of God, Christ has suffered instead of them, and now they may go free.” Morris, page 173.
What Should our Response Be?
1. Take Him Up on his offer!
The Bible is Clear: It’s Either Him Or Me: Do not waste the substitutionary death of Jesus. You don’t have to bear the penalty!
2. Love God! Seek to please Him
In the story of Cliff’s children, did you notice their response? He never had to spank them again. They obeyed
One day at Lake Retreat I was leaving the tabernacle after a moving dramatic presentation of what Jesus did for us on the cross. I met a young lady afterward who was just amazed at what she had seen. I asked her what impressed her most about it, and she said, “I can’t believe He would do that for me. That this applies to me.” 3.
3. Love your Neighbor: Tell them the good news:
Schlatter comments—“He (Christ) suffers what God does to sin, and makes visible what happens when man has God against him.”
If this is what God does to sin, I do not want to be caught in sin. I would not wish that on anybody. Not only would I want to trade places with Jesus Christ, and let my sin become his, and his righteousness become mine, but I would want to tell as many people as I possibly could that they too can be forgiven and avoid the wrath of God.
2 Corinthians 5:14 & 15 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Let me finish with this true story.
Back in the days of the Great Depression a Missouri man named John Griffith was the controller of a great railroad drawbridge across the Mississippi River. One day in the summer of 1937 he decided to take his eight-year-old son, Greg, with him to work. At noon, John Griffith put the bridge up to allow ships to pass and sat on the observation deck with his son to eat lunch. Time passed quickly. Suddenly he was startled by the shrieking of a train whistle in the distance. He quickly looked at his watch and noticed it was 1:07—the Memphis Express, with four hundred passengers on board, was roaring toward the raised bridge! He leaped from the observation deck and ran back to the control tower. Just before throwing the master lever he glanced down for any ships below. There a sight caught his eye that caused his heart to leap poundingly into his throat. Greg has slipped from the observation deck and had fallen into the massive gears that operate the bridge. His left leg was caught in the cogs of the two main gears! Desperately John’s mind whirled to devise a rescue plan. But as soon as he thought of a possibility he knew there was no way it could be done.
Again, with alarming closeness, the train whistle shrieked in the air. He could hear the clicking of the locomotive wheels over the tracks. That was his son down there—yet there were four hundred passengers on the train. John knew what he had to do, so he buried his head in his left arm and pushed the master switch forward. The great massive bridge lowered into place just as the Memphis Express began to roar across the river. When John Griffith lifted his head with his face smeared with tears, he looked into the passing windows of the train. There were businessmen casually reading their afternoon papers, finely dressed ladies in the dining car sipping coffee, and children pushing long spoons into their dishes of ice cream. No one looked at the control house, and no one looked at the great gearbox. With wrenching agony, John Griffith cried out at the steel train: “I sacrificed my son for you people! Don’t you care?” The train rushed by, but nobody heard the father’s words, which recalled Lamentations 1:12: “Is it nothing to you who pass by?” Charles Swindoll, citing D. James Kennedy, “Is It Nothing To You?” Ox Cart, page 542.
How about you? Do you care what the Father of the Universe did for you and me? His Son took our place. It should have been our death. Instead, it was his.
God did that for you. Have you accepted his costly, costly gift? Come and receive him today. You can come to him right where you are. Speak these words of faith:
Dear Jesus, you offered to trade places with me. I take You up on that offer. I am the sinner here. You are not. I deserve the punishment you suffered. You didn’t deserve it. Thank you for taking it for me. I now give you my life in exchange. Do with me what you will. I am totally, completely yours. Amen.
Dr. Wes Johnson Lead Pastor Bethel Baptist Church
"Father of Compassion, grant us passion to thrive in our brokenness." 2 Corinthians 1:3-6