Geoffrey Bingham on the Cross and Justification

I don't know much about this Anglican preacher from Australia, but I know I was deeply stirred by his teaching on the cross in this old video which has only received a few hundred views on YouTube. Bingham speaks with great insight about human depravity, and thus also with great insight into the grace of Christ. His side comments about the winds of doctrine that were floating around when this was filmed in 1985 are timeless.


He is the second preacher I've heard propose the unique (but, I believe, correct) theory that Christ's prayer in Gethsemane was a plea that He might survive the sufferings of the garden in order to go on to the cross - and not in any way a plea to avoid the cross as most commentators assume (note Bingham's comments around the 43 minute mark). The textual evidence for this position is striking if you take the time to study the passages closely.


More information on Bingham and a long list of his books can be found by clicking here. Many of his books are available as PDF scans for FREE. 

A Picture of the Cross in Joshua

When the tribes of Israel began to conquer the land of Canaan, each tribe was given a specific portion of land as an inheritance. This is true of every tribe except Levi. What was Levi's inheritance? Did Levi get the "short end of the stick"?

This question is answered with a resounding "NO!" in Joshua 13, where the inheritance of Levi is presented in two parallel statements:

Joshua 13:14 To the tribe of Levi alone Moses gave no inheritance. The offerings by fire to the LORD God of Israel are their inheritance, as he said to him. 

Joshua 13:33 But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance; the LORD God of Israel is their inheritance, just as he said to them.

Levi had the best inheritance! 
Did you notice the similarities and the crucial differences in these two verses? Levi had only one inheritance, yet it is described in two different ways. Can you see the cross in these verses? 

In the cross, the LORD is the offering made to the LORD. He is both the sacrifice and the offerer. He is the one who offers and the one offered - as well as the One most pleased by the sacrifice. We are the beneficiaries of the propitiation thus effected. God has worked salvation with His own arm, all by Himself. As a result, we get HIM, both as our sacrifice and as our inheritance. He gives Himself for us and He gives Himself to us!

The tribe of Levi could not gain its inheritance by conquest or battle. The inheritance could only be received by faith, as a gift. The tribe would sustain itself by feeding on the sacrifices offered . . . sacrifices that prefigured the cross.

Why couldn't Moses give an inheritance to Levi?

Because "the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17)

Acts 20:32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Why I am a Bad Calvinist - Part 3

Because my sins and offenses against a holy God are so completely wicked they require an infinite payment - a payment in sinless blood. A Perfect man had to die in my place to satisfy the justice of a Perfect God, so that the unutterable sinfulness of my soul would be forgiven and a sufficient, saving righteousness would be freely given to me. My moral bankruptcy is so great that I can not even pay a fraction of a penny toward my own salvation. I can bring only the immensity of my debt and the fact of my inability to pay.

Man's iniquity is so vile that there is no way for us to approach God (or even continue to breathe!), apart from the Mediator who experienced the immeasurable spiritual agony we deserve, died in our place, and rose to new life so that He might apply the benefits of His sacrifice to His chosen ones.

 

Incarnation Mysteries: He Humbled Himself

. . . although He existed in the form of God,

He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but emptied Himself,

taking the form of a bond-servant,

and being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:6-8 

Some have called the incarnation the most paradoxical of all Christian doctrines, and this could be true. The incarnation forms the necessary link between an incalculable and transcendent Trinity on the one hand, and an ultra-ironic and concretely historic Cross on the other. Who can fathom what took place as God the Son humbled Himself to become the fully-human-and-completely-divine Son of God? In His Person He draws together the realms of eternity and the world of men, and he affects both by His mediating work. He is perfect God and perfect Man - as perfect in the limitations of His humanity as He is perfect in the superlatives of His deity. He is God and He is man. He is the Mediator between God and man.

In a short essay, entitled The Excellency of Christ, Jonathan Edwards noted:

"There is a conjunction of such excellencies in Christ, as, in our manner of conceiving, are very diverse from one another. . . . There do meet in Jesus Christ infinite highness and infinite condescension. . . . He is so high, that he is infinitely above any need of us; above our reach, that we cannot be profitable to him. . . . Our understandings, if we stretch them ever so far, cannot reach up to his divine glory. . . . And yet he is one of infinite condescension. . . . Such a conjunction of infinite highness and low condescension, in the same person, is admirable."

The following list of incarnation mysteries is offered as a seed bed for thoughtful reflection on the incarnated Son, Who stands at the exact center of the Father's eternal plan . . . at the focal point of human history . . . and at the eternal epicenter of redemption.

Consider . . .

The Creator became a creature . . .

The Eternal One entered time . . .

The pure One encountered a world saturated with sin . . .

The One Who cannot sin appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh . . .

The One Who cannot be tempted by evil faced the fiercest temptations possible . . .

The Immortal God took on a mortally vulnerable body . . .

The Self-sufficient One became dependent . . .

The Righteous Judge placed Himself under the faulty dictates of human justice . . .

The Sovereign Lord submitted to imperfect human authorities . . .

The omnipresent One placed Himself within finite space . . .

The Almighty lived within natural human limitations . . .

The omniscient mind of God was hidden within a human being's ignorance

The All-knowing One experienced the process of learning . . .

The changeless, immutable One experienced the process of maturing . . .

The eternally joyful One became a man of sorrows . . .

The Great Intercessor became a man of prayer . . .

The Maker of Law was born under law . . .

The Owner of everything made Himself poor . . .

The Supreme Master became a suffering servant . . .

The Invisible One was seen and touched . . .

The One Who is Forever Blessed would become a curse for us . . .

The Living God would die for us . . .

Although He "emptied" and "humbled" Himself in this way, He never ceased in His perfections - human or divine. His divine attributes were not removed, but covered over and veiled by human characteristics. While in many ways His glorious power was hidden, His love and grace and wisdom and goodness and justice were only magnified by the incarnation - yet they were magnified in a way that is forever hidden from the hard-hearted and indelibly revealed to those who trust in Him.

The many paradoxes of Christ's Person are unbelievable to the unbelieving, yet they are the very means by which God effectually calls sinners to choose Him.

"Let the consideration of this wonderful meeting of diverse excellencies in Christ induce you to accept him, and close with him as your Savior. As all manner of excellencies meet in him, so there are occurring in him all manner of arguments and motives, to move you to choose him for your Savior, and every thing that tends to encourage poor sinners to come and put their trust in him. His fullness and all-sufficiency as a Savior gloriously appear in that variety of excellencies that has been spoken of." (Edwards, The Excellency of Christ)

Isaiah 52:14 - The Astonishing Sacrifice

"Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men. "

There are some intense thoughts here for the interested reader. Please consider these points as seeds for deeper meditation on the cross of Christ. God's Word REVEALS God's character - and His work on the cross reveals mysterious wonders that are satisfying food for our hungry, sin-sick souls. This is where we find the greatest encouragements, and the deepest change. We begin with an examination of the Hebrew word for "astonished." I pray that you and I and all mankind will fall down in utter awe before the Beautiful One Who died for lost, disgusting sinners like us. (Had I said "wretched," you wouldn't have tripped over that sentence. But the two words are synonymous - do you believe it? Until we believe it, won't be astonished by the cross.)

Astonished = Heb. SHAMEM, שמם - "To be desolate, be appalled, stun, stupefy ... to be desolated, be deflowered, be deserted ... be awestruck." (Brown-Driver-Briggs). "Basic to the root is the desolation caused by some great disaster, usually as a result of divine judgment.... the sense of 'horror' and 'shock' brought about by the vision of desolation. It is the inner response to the outward scene." (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament), "Awestruck or astonished." (Bible Knowledge Commentary).

The Cross is an Astonishing Thing
Gazing upon the cross of Christ will leave us blessedly desolate, as we are finally freed from ourselves, and liberated from the destructiveness of sin, and rightly made nothing in our own eyes. The cross properly deflowers us from the self-wrought veneer of our own glory. As worms looking up to the cross, we see what we are in what He became for us. As puffed up, self-inflatable gods looking down upon the cross, we see the means by which we may be made worms again. God knows we need to be astonished by some things. We need to be shaken out of the stupor of sin.

The Astonishment of the Cross Comes from the Marring of Christ's Appearance and Form.
Marred = Heb. MISHCHATH, משחת - "disfigurement (of face), corruption" (Brown-Driver-Briggs). Note that this is not an adjective, but an adjectival noun - representing disfigurement as personified and epitomized. The word is only used twice in the Old Testament. The other occurrence is in Leviticus 22:25, where it refers to an animal that has been bruised, crushed, torn, or cut, and is therefore unacceptable as a sacrifice. These terms fit well as a description of crucifixion, and the unacceptability of the animal may relate to Christ's work as the sin-bearing sacrifice, the One who became sin for us, and also became a curse for us. He bore our marred image, and shared with us in the destructive effects of sin - but for Him it was taken even further, so that He was marred by sin to a greater extent than we were.

This marring of the Son of God is designed to astonish us on many fronts . . .

The Cross Gives an Astonishing Revelation of the Depth of Man's Sin

On the surface of it, in the garden of Eden a piece of fruit was eaten. Today, fruit is eaten innocently on a regular basis. So what's the difference? In short, the difference is a matter of will. Adam and Eve ate the fruit contrary to God's command. In that act, for the first time, human beings defied the divine authority. We chose a course of action that was opposed to the revealed will of God. Our choice in the garden demonstrated extreme distrust for God, accusing Truth Personified of being a liar.

We dared to base the destiny of our race on the notion that Goodness Himself is somehow less than good. Our actions declared that God, Who IS LOVE, is unloving. We concluded that God was unreliable, imperfect, and unloving, and opted to build our future on the shaky sands of self-reliance, pride, and human wisdom. And by the way, we can still sin by eating fruit - if we don't eat it in faith, and to the glory of God.

Our choice in Adam opened the door to all sorts of calamity. It forfeited a perfect world for an existence fraught with tragedy. It separated us from God, ostensibly for eternity and without hope of repair or remedy. Adam had no hint that God would later move heaven and earth to undo the damage caused by humanity's rebellion.

The Cross is an Astonishing Revelation of God's Righteous Hatred for Sin, and His Just Judgment Against Sin

God's hatred for sin is not a mere preference. It is a deadly serious abhorrence of that which deserves to be abhorred. If Christ's experience on the cross shows us God's attitude toward sin, then in God's eyes there can be nothing more heinous than sin. Sinners who are not redeemed are ultimately abandoned by God. Bearing our sin, Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" The final result of sin is complete separation from God. He will have nothing to do with sin, for it is utterly and eternally odious to Him.

To further discern the awfulness of God's judgment against sin, consider that Christ's wounds were not merely physical. He appears even in heaven as "a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain." God's judgment against sin, meted out vicariously against His Own beloved Son, was much deeper than bodily death. What Christ suffered in His body was an illustration of His greater afflictions.

Just look at some of the internal aspects of Christ's sufferings:

Isaiah 53:6 ... the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

Isaiah 53:10 But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.

Isaiah 53:11 As a result of the anguish of His soul ...

Isaiah 53:11 ... He will bear their iniquities.

Psalm 22:14 I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it is melted within me.

Even in Gethsemane, our Lord spoke these words:

Matthew 26:38 "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death ..."

The Cross is an Astonishing Revelation of Christ's Willingness to Suffer

Our Lord's suffering was greater than any other man's suffering ever was. At particular times, each of us has carried the objective and subjective guilt of his own sins. To an enlightened conscience, the weight of this is unbearable. Yet our knowledge of personal guilt is spread out across a lifetime, and we often succeed in distracting ourselves from it. When we believe the Gospel, we find a salve which brings comfort to our bedraggled hearts and cleanses our consciences continually. But Christ carried the sins of the many, all at one time, and without benefit of distraction or comfort. He suffered the fully concentrated blast of sin's horrendous condemnation, and the unbridled wrath of the Father. It would take an eternity in hell to justly execute God's wrath against our sin upon us. Christ received that eternity's worth of wrath, multiplied by millions or more, all in the space of a few hours at most. It's no wonder there was darkness, and there were earthquakes. In light of this, it's remarkable that the earth itself did not burst into shards of cosmic debris, and that the sun did not implode at the sight of God enduring the agony of man's sin.

When Adam's fallen sons receive the wrath of God in any measure, they can at least realize that they are receiving exactly what they deserve, and what their deeds have warranted. But Christ's suffering was magnified by His divinity and sinlessness. He never deserved an ounce of divine wrath, but He received all the infinite fury of it.

"Because Christ was infinite in dignity, glory, and power, he had to descend an infinite distance to save us." (William P. Farley, Outrageous Mercy, p. 93)

Christ's sufferings were unimaginably heavy, yet He did not suffer under compulsion. He gave Himself willingly and without a trace of malice. Typically, when we human beings suffer even slightly, we rise up with cursings of hellish anger and hatred. But the Man Christ Jesus, suffering fathomless horrors, offered forgiveness to His murderers.

The Cross is an Astonishing Revelation of God's Humble Omnipotence

There are wonders here! Absolute wonders!

Implicit in the Gospel is Christ's amazing ability to become something MORE (or at least "other") without losing (or changing) what He essentially IS in His perfect divinity. He existed eternally as God, but became a man. He lived sinlessly on earth, but became sin for us on the cross. He is forever blessed, yet He "became a curse for us." (Galatians 3:13). He was, and is, and always will be divinely perfect - yet He "took the form of a bondservant" (Philippians 2:7) "became obedient" (Phillippians 2:8), "learned obedience" (Hebrews 5:8) and "was made perfect" (Hebrews 5:9). Nevertheless, He is "the SAME yesterday, and today, and forever." All of this is consistent with His astounding humility and grace, not to mention His abundantly and overwhelmingly great and indescribably magnificent LOVE. God can do things that we can't even begin to imagine, because He is moved by "the great love with which He loved us." (Eph. 2:4).

Note: This is not an acquiescence to the heresy known as "process theology." Process theology teaches that some aspects of God are changeable by nature. Contrary to this, Scripture teaches that Christ took on human characteristics in time, without any change in His eternal deity. There is mystery here, to be sure, but the mystery should never lead us to a denial of God's sovereignty and immutability, for those are Biblical facts which must never be denied. Link: http://www.theopedia.com/Process_theology

The Cross is an astonishing Revelation of God's Infinite Love for Human Beings

Why did God the Father send His Son? Why did God the Son consent to suffer death in our place? Why did God the Holy Spirit actively participate in this divine conspiracy which involved the crushing and alienation of one member of the Holy Trinity? Surely the collective heart of the entire Godhead was broken in Christ's passion! And we ask again, WHY?

The New Testament offers up a disarmingly simple answer to this complicated question:

Titus 3:4-5 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy ...

Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) ...

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

At the cross, inexorable justice meets fathomless love. And there is sufficient sacrifice here to save a world that has abandoned it's Creator.

The person who looks upon the cross with faith sees this: his own sins have caused the suffering, shed the blood, and taken the life of the Perfect Man who is the Son of God. By this fact we are ever crushed. But God has used the cross to wipe out the debt of our sins and bring us back into fellowship with Himself. By this fact we are ever renewed and made joyous again.

So, first we are astonished at our wretchedness. But as we continue to consider the cross, we become even more amazed at God's stupefying grace.

Dear friend, are you astonished yet? If not (or if not enough), keep setting your gaze upon the cross. There you will find that God gives you everything you need, and all that He requires.