Today we continue our discussion on the biblical worldview of salvation. A biblical worldview of salvation is pivotal. Every other worldview, every other religion, every other philosophy, if it is looking for any form of salvation from this world and our own bondage to self and sin, it looks for it in other places. It might look for it in mythological gods, our own self, or our own merits. Every other religion in the world is a merit religion. Meaning that we must merit or do something to appease the gods in animism. It also means we do something to make ourselves right even before the true God. That is what every false religion of the world is about.
Christianity teaches something very different. Christianity teaches that we are hopelessly lost in our sins and because of that, the only way we can be right before a holy God is for the Lord to step up and do something. He did that in Jesus Christ. Sending His Son to die for us in our place and offer us eternal life and forgiveness of sin and righteousness of Himself. We are going to look at the word substitution today. This is a word, I think in past generations, was very prominent in the church. The conservative church talked a lot about substitution and Jesus Christ dying for us and in our place. Somehow, I think sometimes that gets lost in our conversation. We forget, or we just brush over this issue that the Lord couldn’t simply forgive our sins and be a holy and righteous God, but that something or someone or some process had to redeem us from sin, and it had to deal with our sin and had to take our sins. That became the task of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself when He died in our place.
When He died in our place, what did He do? He died as our substitute. Our sin and the wrath of God was on us, so what replaces that? Who is going to take that burden off of us? Christ did! He died in our place, and He died as our substitute. That was necessary for our salvation. There are many, many places in the Scriptures that talk about His substitution, but I think the clearest and best is actually in the Old Testament.
Isaiah 53 speaks about what Christ did for us in dying in our place. We are going to look specifically at Isaiah 53:4-6, it says, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him Stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.” How clear is that? This is a wonderful passage that points to what He has done for us. He died for our transgression it says in Isaiah 53:5, and He was crushed for our iniquity. The Lord did nothing wrong. He deserved no punishment or death and no execution. Sin never touched Him, but He took our sins upon Himself. It all fell on Him, and He is our substitute . . .
