Saturday is a day of anticipation. We wait for the greatest
day, the day when our Lord was raised from the dead.
As we wait for tomorrow, I thought I would raise a couple
questions that puzzle many people. The answers are from Wayne Grudem’s great
book Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine.
If Christ paid the
penalty for our sins, how come He suffered for such a short time?
Answer: If we had to pay the penalty for our own sins, we would have to suffer eternally in separation from God. However, Jesus did not suffer eternally. There are two reasons for this difference: (a) If we suffered for our own sins, we would never be able to make ourselves right with God again. There would be no hope because there would be no way to live again and earn perfect righteousness before God, and there would be no way to undo our sinful nature and make it right before God…(b) Jesus was able to bear all the wrath of God against our sin and to bear it to the end. No mere man could ever have done this, but by virtue of the union of divine and human natures in himself, Jesus was able to bear all the wrath of God against sin and bear it to the end….When Jesus knew that he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, It is finished” (John 19:30). If Christ had not paid the full penalty, there would still be condemnation left for us. But since he has paid the full penalty that is due to us, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).…if there is eternal suffering, it simply shows that the penalty has never been fully paid, and that the evildoer continues to be a sinner by nature. But when Christ’s suffering at last came to an end on the cross, it showed that he had borne the full measure of God’s wrath against sin and there was no penalty left to pay. It also showed that he was himself righteous before God. In this way the fact that Christ suffered for a limited time rather than eternally shows that his suffering was a sufficient payment for sins (pp. 577-578).
Did Christ descend
into hell, as the Apostles' Creed says?
I know these are long answers, but what comes roaring out to me in both cases is this: Jesus paid it all! He actually accomplished, by virtue of His infinitely valuable and perfectly obedient life, an atoning death that cancelled our debt of sin and reckoned unto us His righteousness!Answer: Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43), imply that after Jesus died his soul (or spirit) went immediately to the presence of the Father in heaven, even though his body remained on earth and was buried…In addition the cry of Jesus, “It is finished” (John 19:30) strongly suggests that Christ’s suffering was finished at that moment and so was his alienation from the Father because of bearing our sin. This implies that he would not descend into hell, but would go at once into the Father’s presence.Finally, the cry, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46), also suggests that Christ expected (correctly) the immediate end of his suffering and estrangement and the welcoming of this spirit into heaven by God the Father…These texts indicate, then, that Christ in his death experienced the same things believers in this present age experience when they die: his dead body remained on earth and was buried (as ours will be), but his spirit (or soul) passed immediately into the presence of God in heaven (just as ours will). Then on the first Easter morning, Christ’s spirit was reunited with his body and he was raised from the dead—just as Christians who have died will (when Christ returns) be reunited to their bodies and raised in their perfect resurrection bodies to new life (p. 593).
