Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Well, today on Focal Point, a very important conversation with Mike Fabarez on the reason for the cross. I'm Dave Drouy, your host here on Focal Point. Glad you could join us today because around this time each week we have a standing appointment with Pastor Mike.

It's a chance to sit down one on one and ask him some tough questions about life and faith and get some clear answers. We welcome your questions as well. Stay tuned to find out how to contact us.

In the meantime, let's join executive director Jay Wirtin inside the pastor's study for this edition of Ask Pastor Mike.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Dave. Pastor Mike, one of our listeners wrote to us and asked in Mark 2:10, Jesus said he had the ability to forgive sins even before he died. So why then was his death on the cross necessary?

Speaker 3

That's a great question. And I think we need to recognize that God had been forgiving sins of human beings in the Old Testament regularly. I think of David in Psalm 32:51. Those two Psalms are great, speaking of how great it is to have God not count our sins against us and how blessed is that man. So God had been doing it. The question is, how could he do it? And so Jesus did say that he had the authority to do that. But it has to be based on something.

It'd be like me having a huge racked up debt on my Visa card and going to the bank teller who's a friend of mine maybe, and she looks at my balance on the computer screen and I know that just with a few keystrokes she could just zero that out. Well, okay, you could do that, but it would be wrong. Unless there was a payment that could settle that account. In other words, you could do that, but it would be a criminal act. Unless, of course, she took her account and transferred that to my account. Then she could zero it out and she could even do it with a check. But that check's going to need to clear at some point.

I don't want to take this illustration too far, but the idea is there has to be a payment. Even though there can be forgiveness, the transaction of forgiveness can take place. There has to be a payment that makes that valid. And the way I like to talk about it, before the death of Christ, it was all done on credit, if you will, that someone sinned and God forgave. David commits adultery. God forgives—well, on what basis? Well, there has to be punishment for the sin of adultery, and it needs to be paid. How is it going to be paid? Well, it's going to be paid on the cross one day, the day that Christ was going to be treated as though he were the adulterer that David was. And then David could be forgiven.

Well, he could be forgiven in advance, just like we can purchase something on a credit card in advance. But it had to still be paid in human terms. In other words, human sin needs human punishment. And God had to meet that out somewhere to be a just God.

Well, after the cross, of course, the same transaction of forgiveness can take place. It's just now it's drawing on the merit and the payment of the cross. So one looks forward to it, one looks back to it. And even though God was forgiving from the earliest days of human history right on up until the death on the cross, when Jesus cried out "tetelestai," which is the Greek word for "paid in full," or translated, "it is finished," well, that's when it was paid.

Then after that, every sin of Peter or anybody else in the church or right on down to us, all of our sins now are all reckoned and made right. The balance sheet is made right because of the cross. So God can't forgive out of thin air, just like my teller can't, just for the few keystrokes, zero something out unless she wants to be a criminal. There has to be some forgiveness, some merit, some grace that God is going to impute to each sinner to make them right before a holy God.

Speaker 2

A lot of people will say to that kind of reasoning or line of thought that if God is all powerful, all knowing, why can't he just do it without having to sacrifice his son for that?

Speaker 3

Because God would then be inconsistent. It's like saying, well, can't he make two plus two equal five? Well, you could say, I guess in some Alice in Wonderland theology he could. But God is a God who's consistent. There are things that he cannot do, including deny himself in the denial of himself. That's what it would be for him to look at sin and say, well, I'm just going to forgive that.

The illustration I often give is, you know, if I'm going to candidate for the judge position in Orange County here in California, I can't run on the campaign slogan that if I become the judge, I'm the nice judge and everyone goes free, right? Vote for me, they all go free. That won't fly because you want a judge who's going to do his job and dispense his duties the way he should, which is that he's there to uphold justice. This means he can't just let all the murderers and rapists go; he's got to respond justly.

And so God would cease to be just if he just looked at sin and said, well, let's just forgive them all out of thin air. There has to be a payment. There has to be equilibrium. To kind of put it theoretically in the universe, God has to somehow solve the problem of sin. The only way to do that while maintaining his justice is to pay for sin in some way. And he's done that in the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2

When we look at that costly payment that Christ had to make on the cross, how do we respond to people who flout the grace card as a license to do whatever they want?

Speaker 3

Sure. And in theory, I guess that's where you go. I mean, you think, okay, if my sin is forgiven and that merit from the cross is so vast and immense that it would cover any sin, you know, no matter how heinous, then what would it matter if I did those sins?

Well, it matters because we love Christ. I don't mean to put so many illustrations in here in this brief, casual conversation, but I think about a marriage. It's like sitting there at the front of the aisle where your bride says, "Hey, I'm never going to leave you. I'll be with you thick and thin. Sickness, health, rich or poor, you know, better, worse, doesn't matter. I'm going to be with you."

Speaker 4

Well, if I got that kind of.

Speaker 3

Promise, why not just be the worst husband ever? Well, I guess that's a logical question if you didn't love your spouse. And so, yeah, you could say, well, why don't I just sin because I got a free pass. God's promise that the cross is sufficient and he's not going to leave me.

Well, okay, I guess you don't love God. That's kind of a silly, ridiculous, contradictory thing to say. We want to do what's right because we don't want the pain of the cross to have to be invoked because of a decision I make this afternoon.

I want to love God and I want to do what's right. It pleases him. I don't want to rely on his promise of acceptance through Christ and the cross to say, oh, I can just be any kind of jerky Christian I want to be.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. We're going to keep this conversation going by listening to a message you gave called the Word's Ultimate Solution.

Speaker 4

Well, have you ever needed something you couldn't afford? I didn't say want something you couldn't afford. I know that list is long. I'm talking about need. Something that you couldn't afford. I mean, we are so blessed to live in a place and in a time where every truly needed commodity is available to us at some level. For every budget. There's rarely a real need that we ever have that we can't afford.

But consider for a moment if I told you that a large asteroid was currently plummeting toward Earth, and I happen to know about it, and it's coming; it'll be here by 6:00 tonight. And it doesn't matter where you live, really. Call your relatives in Canada, it doesn't matter. It's going to destroy the whole planet. Life as we know it on Earth will be over at 6:01 tonight. It'll be done. The planet and everybody's going to annihilate the world.

But the good news is I have already done a little work. I've colonized the rear portion of the moon. You can't see it, but I've put townhouses and I got homes, I got oxygen now being pumped in there. I've got, you know, I've got golf courses, I've got parks, there's shopping malls, Outback Steakhouse, the whole thing. It's all set up for you to go there. And Richard Branson and I have put together this little lunar shuttle, and we're going to get people there; lots of room, it's big. And I have talked Branson into launching from our parking lot. And anyone who would like to come with us, you can come with us.

The only real downside and potential problem is every seat on the shuttle is going to cost $103 million. So I don't know what the limit is on your ATM, but we're going to need it in cash before we leave. Now, you'd have a need you couldn't afford. Am I right?

Which, by the way, is precisely the dilemma that is painted for us in the scripture. Right. You have an urgent, pressing need to be delivered from the coming wrath of God that will be here at any moment. He didn't tell us when that was coming. And it's going to come. And when it comes, you will have to suffer and be punished for your sin for all eternity. That's the problem.

But the good news is there's a solution. And the word of God is going to great lengths to tell us that there is a way out, a solution where you can live in a great place. I don't know if there's an Outback there, but there are all kinds of wonderful things to enjoy in the kingdom of heaven. God said it would be like saying, "Enter into your happiness. Here it is, into the joy of the kingdom." It's here, it's available.

And the only downside is you can't afford it. As a matter of fact, we spent three chapters in the book of Romans really analyzing the kind of spiritual balance on your checkbook. You know, your good deeds and you're all pretty much bankrupt. Sorry. So, the coming wrath of God. There is a solution.

Speaker 3

You just can't afford it.

Speaker 4

But of course, you know, the great news about the book of Romans and the whole Bible is that it's already been paid for, so you can get on for free.

But here's the deal in Romans 3:24, stating the reality that this came by the redemption that was really. That means purchase.

Speaker 3

That's what redemption is, is a purchase.

Speaker 4

It was made by the purchase of Christ. Christ purchased it. And while your money is no good to get on the spiritual ark, if you will, to be able to end around the wrath of God at the end of your life, the reality is the benefactor has paid for it all and he is willing, if you would trust him, to give you a seat on the shuttle for free. But it was costly. And that's kind of the paradox of biblical faith. You can't work for it, it's not for sale, you can't buy it. But it was tremendously expensive.

Romans, chapter 3 verses 25 and 26 tell us just how costly it is. And I got to tell you, this is a critically important passage for you to understand because today it is increasingly unpopular and it's not even accepted by a lot of modern pastors and theologians. People double talk their way through this and it's just pretty much swept under the carpet. Because if the problem is sin and the solution is forgiveness, why would that cost anything? I mean, that's the real modern view on this, right?

As one very popular best-selling quote, unquote, Christian author puts it, if you want to forgive your wife, you don't have to go in the next room and kick the dog for half an hour, right? There's no price to be paid for forgiveness. Which, by the way, is training a whole generation of young pastors to get into pulpits and misunderstand the whole point of the cross. Because the cross in Scripture is a costly payment for sin. And people say, why in the world would there need to be a payment, right? If forgiveness is the point, you just overlook it.

And yet there is something about that old-time religious perspective in the Bible that says, well, that's not. It can't. It doesn't happen that way. If you don't understand this really one Greek sentence, it's two in English, in Romans, chapter 3, verses 25 and 26, you will miss the whole point of the cross. You'll have to reinterpret the cross into something else besides a payment, which is how this started in verse 24 for sin. That's what redemption means.

Take a look at the context. This righteousness from God that's revealed comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. Are you with me here? Romans 3:22. There's no difference because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely. Now here's some phrases we're used to from Ephesians 2:8 by his grace. The other component to that is down there in verse 25, through faith. It's by grace, through faith. And it comes on the basis of or through the redemption, the price, the purchase that came by Christ Jesus.

Now verses 25 and 26 unpack that one phrase. And if we don't get it, we've missed the whole point of the cross, which it seems is very popular today to willfully redefine what the cross was all about. The Bible says forgiveness costs, and the cost is huge. And that's why we honor the Gospel by recognizing that though it's free, it's not cheap.

Now what God does for us, and it's very helpful in getting us to understand this, is that he gives us illustrations throughout the Bible, particularly Jesus in his preaching, to show you why forgiveness costs. The best way to do it is to take our minds and get us to think about things that we value. And then say, don't you want settlement there? And then he says, you know what? I value this over here, which may not be that, but it's important to me because it's part of my nature and therefore I need settlement here.

The thing that God values is holiness. The illustration God often uses through the teaching of Christ is money because that's the thing that we value. And if only we could value holiness as much as we value money. But here's the thing: Jesus tries to make the point that because the God of the universe values holiness, it is the top and supreme attribute of God. When there is some impinging upon that holiness, when there's some transgression of that holiness, there needs to be a settling of accounts just like you guys, this is how Jesus seems to put it, want a settling of accounts when it involves money.

The word in the text, we haven't even read it yet.

Speaker 3

Here it is.

Speaker 4

Let's read it. Is the word justice. But verse 25 says God presented him this redemption as a sacrifice of atonement through faith. There's the second half of this transaction in justification. It's by grace through faith in his blood that really is connected with the sacrifice of atonement. I'll prove that later.

Here's the second sentence in English, which is just a big run-on sentence in the Greek language. He did this to demonstrate his key word. What is it? Justice. That's the key to all this. Because in his forbearance, he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. Which, by the way, would cause you to throw a flag on the play and say, well, you're not all that just because look, you're calling Abraham your friend, but we know he's a pretty bad sinner. And David, a man after your own heart. But look at his sin. How can you say all that? You must not be just. No, he is just. In his forbearance, he hadn't punished sins beforehand, but he did it.

Now look at verse 26. He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just. He is just and the one who makes right or justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Do you get the theme here? Justice in the second half of this. This explains why Christ had to purchase our salvation with a sacrifice of atonement, quote unquote. He did it to demonstrate his justice. Because before you could say where's the equilibrium? Where's the settling of holiness and sin because you didn't punish those sins? Oh, there may have been discipline involved for sinners and some temporal kind of punishment, but where's the real punishment of God towards sin?

Well, we didn't see it when he didn't punish sins beforehand, but now that we see the cross, he demonstrates his justice and he does it now after the cross. We see it so that he can be just because he is, but he's demonstrating that justice. And he can also now justify what people want is a God who can justify without being just. Because if God just overlooks sin, he doesn't settle accounts. And if he doesn't settle accounts, there's not an equilibrium in the cosmos. That may sound a little funky to say it that way, but you want equilibrium in your relationships with people you hang out with, right?

Turn to Matthew chapter 18. Real quick. Matthew chapter 18. Just to try and drive this home with an illustration. And Jesus gives us the best one. The analogy here is of money. But because we value money, maybe this will be helpful. Look at verse 23. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to. Now, here's two great words. Settle accounts with his servants. That's called the judgment, by the way. That is what settling accounts is all about for us. We think money because this illustration is about money. But the issue is forgiveness.

As a matter of fact, just glance up at the first two verses that preceded this. Peter's talking about forgiveness. Now, I know that the point of the illustration is Peter forgiving his brother, but it's predicated on divine forgiveness. And that divine forgiveness he wants to put in terms of money. And so he illustrates it. Verse 24, Matthew 18:24. He began the settlement, and a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him. And we all go, oh, whatever that means. Play the piano. He can juggle. He's good at Nintendo, you know, whatever. With talents? I don't know. That's not what talents mean. You understand that, right? Talents is a unit of money. And because they weighed out their precious metals, it was a way to weigh out precious metals. And you started talking about talents when you were talking about big sums of money. A talent is £66. There's your equation of silver. That's what talents were all about.

Speaker 3

That's a lot of silver.

Speaker 4

He owed him how much? 10,000 sets of 66. That's £660,000 of silver. That's more than your donkey can carry, right? That's a lot of cash. It's a lot of money. He wants to settle. When does he want his money? Right now. We're settling now. Can I have $100 million, please? Because we need to settle accounts.

Verse 25. It's comical. You can see him reaching for his wallet. Well, hmm. I don't have it on me. Not able to pay. So the master said, fine, you're going to pay with your life. The master then ordered that he and his wife and his children, all that he had, be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged. I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him.

You want to know the equivalent of salvation in our hearts? Here comes three words. He canceled the debt and let him go. Now, in this illustration, it's about the fact that God has canceled a great debt in our life. So we should be able to cancel debts in each other's lives. But it doesn't speak to the pain that is involved in paying the debt. Because God, in the equilibrium of the universe, has to settle accounts. And because he values holiness the way you value money—actually values it much, much more—he's got to settle up.

Who's going to pay if he cancels the debt? Who's going to pay the $103 million for this guy? That's what Romans 3 is all about. The redemption was paid by Christ. Here's a cross reference for you. You can put in the margin if you want. Proverbs 29:4. By justice, a king gives a country stability. That's a great word. That's the concept. The equilibrium. There has to be justice if you're going to be the monarch of the universe. God highly values it among us. And if he values it among us, certainly he's got to value it in heaven.

The wages of sin is death. And justice demands a solution. You and I need to admit that justice demands a solution. Isn't He a forgiving God? Yeah, he's a forgiving God, but he's a just God. And because of his justice, we need a cross. See, that's the whole point. So payment must be made. And payment was made.

How did he save you? With a substitutionary death. The wages of sin is death. The wrath of God is going to come on someone who doesn't deserve it. So that you, who do deserve it, don't have to have it. It's a substitutionary sacrifice. Every sacrifice was a picture of substitution. Because justice demands a payment, a propitiation, a satisfaction of his justice.

That's why hymn writers have said for years things like this: When I survey the wondrous cross. This is a juxtaposition of strange feelings.

Speaker 3

Think about it.

Speaker 4

A Roman executioner act where someone died on which the Prince of glory died. That would seem repulsive. But no. My richest gain I count but loss. There's that picture.

Speaker 3

My resume done.

Speaker 4

And I pour contempt on all my pride. He saved us, we don't earn it. You think that one's theologically rich?

Listen to this one. The types and figures are all fulfilled. Exacted is the legal pain. The precious promises have all been sealed. The spotless Lamb of God is slain. Tis finished. All the debt is paid. Justice divine is satisfied. The grand and full atonement made.

God for a guilty world has died. Accepted in the well beloved and clothed in righteousness divine. I see the bar to heaven removed and all your merits, Lord, all your credit, all your riches are mine.

Speaker 3

That's a good hymn.

Speaker 4

Those are good words. The glory of God can shine in our lives. The favorite?

Speaker 3

An acceptance of God because the price has been paid.

Speaker 1

The Word's ultimate solution. Well, that's the title of today's study here on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. You know, sometimes life has to take a drastic turn for someone to consider the magnitude of the exchange that took place on the cross. And perhaps there's someone on your heart right now who doesn't know the Lord. Even if they've been resistant before, life has a way of tilling the hardest soil, and this might just be the year they'll come to know Jesus.

To be ready for that day, we encourage you to get the book called *Did the Resurrection Happen? Really?* It's a short read about a coffeehouse group who gather together to wrestle with the spiritual and eternal ramifications of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, and it'll prepare you for exciting discussions. When you open a conversation about the Lord with friends or coworkers, we'll send you a copy of *Did the Resurrection Happen? Really?* when we receive your generous gift to focalpointradio.org or by giving us a call at 888-320-5885.

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To do that, I'm Dave Drouy for Mike Fabarez, wishing you a restorative weekend. Mike Fabarez returns with more biblical encouragement Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.