Substitution Series

To receive free weekly sermon emails, please contact jonrmcleod@yahoo.com

Visit Jonathan’s sermon blog - http://jonathan-mcleod.blogspot.com/

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

After suffering on the cross for six hours, Jesus finally shouted, “It is finished!”

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:30).

“Finished” (tetelestai) – fulfilled, completed, accomplished.

What was finished?

• His SUFFERING

• His MISSION

Jesus knew that “all was now completed” (v. 28). Jesus had finished what He was sent to earth to do. “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).

When former President George W. Bush was asked about regrets during his presidency, Bush answered that he regrets speaking in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner just weeks after the invasion of Iraq. Bush said, “To some it said, well, Bush thinks the war in Iraq is over, when I didn’t think that. But nonetheless, it conveyed the wrong message.”

“It is finished!” did not send the wrong message. It was a shout of triumph. (It was apparently the loud cry of Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46.) Christ’s mission was accomplished!

John states in 19:31 that the day after the crucifixion was the Sabbath. Just as the Sabbath began after God finished His work of creation, so the Sabbath began after Jesus finished His work on the cross.

In this sermon series, we will examine four of Christ’s accomplishments on the cross:

• Substitution

• Redemption

• Propitiation

• Reconciliation

A SUBSTITUTIONARY DEATH

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45; cf. Matthew 20:28).

“For” (anti) = instead of, in place of.

The view that Christ died as a substitute is sometimes called the theory of vicarious atonement. “A ‘vicar’ is someone who stands in the place of another or who represents another. Christ’s death was therefore ‘vicarious’ because he stood in our place and represented us. As our representative, he took the penalty that we deserve.” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 579).

1. The OT sacrifices taught SUBSTITUTION.

a. The PROVIDED lamb (Genesis 22:6-8, 13)

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together (Genesis 22:6-8; cf. v. 2).

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son (Genesis 22:13).

b. The PASSOVER lamb (Exodus 12:21-23)

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your house and strike you down” (Exodus 12:21-23).

c. The SCAPEGOAT (Leviticus 16:20-22)

“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert” (Leviticus 16:20-22; cf. v. 10).

d. The SUFFERING Servant (Isaiah 53:5-7)

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. 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. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, do he did not open his mouth (Isaiah 53:5-7).