The aim of this arti­cle

Many peo­ple today think that right­eous­ness and mer­cy are two con­flict­ing aspects of God’s char­ac­ter. It is claimed that on the one hand God’s right­eous­ness requires him to pun­ish sin, on the oth­er hand he is mer­ci­ful and wants to for­give and not to pun­ish the sin­ner. This idea of a con­flict between God’s right­eous­ness and mer­cy has shaped the con­cept of sal­va­tion held by many peo­ple today. In this arti­cle we want to show that no such con­flict exists with­in God and that Jesus was not sent to solve it. Jesus was born as a man, lived obe­di­ent­ly, died, and rose again so as to be a per­fect medi­a­tor between man and God. He came to offer us a rela­tion­ship with the Father and with himself—a rela­tion­ship whose seal is eter­nal life. The bib­li­cal expres­sion “right­eous­ness” or “jus­tice” must be under­stood in the con­text of a rela­tion­ship, and not as an imper­son­al legal prin­ci­ple which must be ful­filled.

1 God’s Righteousness, Faithfulness and Mercy

Peo­ple often asso­ciate God’s right­eous­ness with his unbi­ased and impar­tial judg­ments. This aspect of God’s right­eous­ness is expressed in pas­sages such as the fol­low­ing:

Man is hum­bled, and each one is brought low,
and the eyes of the haughty are brought low.
But the Lord of hosts is exalt­ed in jus­tice,
and the Holy God shows him­self holy in right­eous­ness (Hebrew: tsedaqah). (Isa­iah 5:15–16)

The times of igno­rance God over­looked, but now he com­mands all peo­ple every­where to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in right­eous­ness (Greek: dikaiosyne) by a man whom he has appoint­ed; and of this he has giv­en assur­ance to all by rais­ing him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30–31)

The mean­ing of the Hebrew word for right­eous­ness tsedaqah and the cor­re­spond­ing Greek word dikaiosyne, which occur in the Bible pas­sages above, is not lim­it­ed to “unbi­ased and impar­tial judge­ment”. This ought to come of no sur­prise when we take the rich­ness of God’s being as our start­ing point. If we want to under­stand God’s right­eous­ness, we can­not neglect the fact that God is love (1 John 4:16). There is no con­tra­dic­tion in God’s being. There­fore we can­not sep­a­rate and con­trast God’s right­eous­ness¹ with His mer­ci­ful­ness, faith­ful­ness, good­ness, grace, forgiveness—that is, with every­thing His love implies.

For the Jews of the bib­li­cal times these terms were not con­tra­dic­to­ry either but in their lan­guage, Hebrew, the word “right­eous­ness” had a wider mean­ing and expressed var­i­ous aspects of the rela­tion­ship among peo­ple and between God and man. One fact is worth men­tion­ing in this con­text: when the Jews trans­lat­ed the Old Tes­ta­ment from Hebrew into Greek (known as the Sep­tu­agint), the trans­la­tors ren­dered the Hebrew word for right­eous­ness (tsedaqah) most­ly as “jus­tice” (dikaiosyne) but occa­sion­al­ly also as “mer­cy”.² In some oth­er pas­sages they also trans­lat­ed the Hebrew word for grace (chesed) into Greek as dikaiosyne (right­eous­ness, jus­tice).³ They felt free to do this because they did not regard right­eous­ness, grace, and mer­cy as con­tra­dic­to­ry.⁴

By look­ing at sev­er­al bib­li­cal exam­ples we would like to point out how God’s right­eous­ness is con­nect­ed with His help, faith­ful­ness, good­ness, and even with His mer­cy.

Let’s look at an exam­ple from the life of a right­eous man in the Old Tes­ta­ment to illus­trate our point:

After­wards David also arose and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage. And David said to Saul, “Why do you lis­ten to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, David seeks your harm’? Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anoint­ed.’” …As soon as David had fin­ished speak­ing these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” And Saul lift­ed up his voice and wept. He said to David, “You are more right­eous than I, for you have repaid me good, where­as I have repaid you evil.” (1 Samuel 24:8–10,16–17)

Dri­ven by jeal­ousy, King Saul per­se­cut­ed David into the desert. On his way Saul went into a cave to “relieve him­self”. He was unaware that David was hid­ing in the cave—a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for David to elim­i­nate his arch ene­my and repay him right­eous­ly. David’s com­pan­ions prompt­ed him to act: “And the men of David said to him, ‘Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, “Behold, I will give your ene­my into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.”’ Then David arose and stealth­ily cut off a cor­ner of Saul’s robe.” (1 Samuel 24:4) David act­ed right­eous­ly, but not in the sense of pun­ish­ing just­ly. His “heart struck him” (verse 5), and he was not will­ing to do Saul any harm. David was mer­ci­ful and showed that he want­ed the best for Saul, even though Saul did not deserve it. Faced with David’s mer­cy, Saul acknowl­edged that he was “more right­eous”. If David, a god-fear­ing man, saw no con­tra­dic­tion in show­ing mer­cy to Saul instead of pun­ish­ing him just­ly, how much less does it con­tra­dict God’s right­eous­ness for him, the Father of mer­cies⁵ to have mer­cy on the unde­serv­ing?

1.1 God’s Righteousness Towards His Nation

In one of the most des­per­ate peri­ods of Jew­ish his­to­ry, Daniel prayed for his nation:

To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mer­cy and for­give­ness, for we have rebelled against him…. There­fore the Lord has kept ready the calami­ty and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is right­eous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. (Daniel 9:8–9 & 14)

He con­tin­ues:

…we have sinned, we have done wicked­ly. O Lord, accord­ing to all your right­eous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniq­ui­ties of our fathers, Jerusalem and your peo­ple have become a byword among all who are around us. (Daniel 9:16)

In the Hebrew text the same word “right­eous” occurs both in verse 14 and verse 16 (see under­lined). Verse 14 speaks about God’s right­eous judge­ment, while in verse 16 Daniel, who is con­fi­dent of God’s loy­al­ty to his covenant, asks for mer­cy in accor­dance with God’s right­eous acts. The rea­son he does this is that in the Old Tes­ta­ment God’s right­eous­ness is not lim­it­ed to his impar­tial judge­ment. It express­es his faith­ful­ness to his covenant and his promis­es. His right­eous­ness is mag­ni­fied because he remains faith­ful even though his peo­ple are unfaith­ful. He for­gives them and ful­fills his promis­es although his nation had failed.

In anoth­er pas­sage God says the fol­low­ing:

Lis­ten to me, you stub­born of heart,
you who are far from right­eous­ness:
I bring near my right­eous­ness; it is not far off,
and my sal­va­tion will not delay;
I will put sal­va­tion in Zion,
for Israel my glo­ry. (Isa­iah 46:12–13)

Here the Jews are reproached for being stub­born-mind­ed and far from right­eous­ness. They were unwor­thy of receiv­ing God’s for­give­ness. Nev­er­the­less, in His faith­ful­ness and love, God grants them sal­va­tion and glo­ry. In this pas­sage God’s right­eous­ness is a para­lel­lism for his sal­va­tion and does not stand for judge­ment.

From the pre­vi­ous and sev­er­al oth­er pas­sages we can see that for the Jews God’s right­eous­ness was not in any way at odds with His grace and for­give­ness. On the contrary—by show­ing mer­cy God con­firms his right­eous­ness because he proves to be faith­ful even when peo­ple are not faith­ful.⁶

When God made a covenant with his nation he promised to be with them, to lead them and to reveal him­self to them. In return, the Jews also promised to obey him, to fol­low him and be faith­ful to him, to have no oth­er gods beside him. This faith­ful­ness, from both man and God, is also called “right­eous­ness” in the Bible. It is right­eous when God and man behave towards one anoth­er as they promised.⁷

1.2 God’s Righteousness Towards Individuals in the Old Testament

Indi­vid­u­als in the Old Tes­ta­ment tes­ti­fy about God’s right­eous­ness which they expe­ri­enced through his for­give­ness and grace. In a psalm we read:

Have mer­cy on me, O God, accord­ing to your stead­fast love;
accord­ing to your abun­dant mer­cy blot out my trans­gres­sions. (Psalm 51:1)

These words are a plea for for­give­ness for a grave sin. The psalmist knew that, being a sin­ner, he has no right to demand mer­cy, and God’s judge­ment is just:

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be jus­ti­fied in your words and blame­less in your judge­ment. (Psalm 51:4)

How­ev­er, the psalmist, filled with regret for his sin, trusts alone in God’s mer­cy. He knows that he can­not offer any com­pen­sa­tion for his sin. He can only hope for the free gift of for­give­ness from God:

Deliv­er me from blood­guilti­ness, O God, O God of my sal­va­tion,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your right­eous­ness.
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sac­ri­fice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offer­ing.
The sac­ri­fices of God are a bro­ken spir­it;
a bro­ken and con­trite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:14–17)

The psalmist’s sure hope led him to sing joy­ful­ly of God’s right­eous­ness. When God grants grace his faith­ful­ness is dis­played and his right­eous­ness con­firmed.

Like­wise, in anoth­er psalm we read that the author was deeply con­scious of his numer­ous sins. Yet, he asks God to pre­serve him accord­ing to his faith­ful­ness, lov­ingkind­ness, com­pas­sion and sal­va­tion. He pro­claims these as God’s right­eous­ness as an encour­age­ment to many:

I have pro­claimed glad tid­ings of right­eous­ness in the great con­gre­ga­tion;
Behold, I will not restrain my lips,
O LORD, You know.
I have not hid­den Your right­eous­ness with­in my heart;
I have spo­ken of Your faith­ful­ness and Your sal­va­tion;
I have not con­cealed Your lov­ingkind­ness and Your truth from the great con­gre­ga­tion.

You, O LORD, will not with­hold Your com­pas­sion from me;
Your lov­ingkind­ness and Your truth will con­tin­u­al­ly pre­serve me.
For evils beyond num­ber have sur­round­ed me;
My iniq­ui­ties have over­tak­en me, so that I am not able to see;
They are more numer­ous than the hairs of my head,
And my heart has failed me. (Psalm 40:9–12, NASB)

Psalm 103 is a song of praise for God’s mer­cies. Verse 6 speaks of God’s right­eous deal­ings with the oppressed:

The Lord works right­eous­ness
and jus­tice for all who are oppressed. (Psalm 103:6)

God’s right­eous­ness is also dis­played in his rebuke of the sin­ner. How­ev­er, because of his stead­fast love, patience and grace, he will not keep his anger for­ev­er:

The Lord is mer­ci­ful and gra­cious,
slow to anger and abound­ing in stead­fast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger for ever.
He does not deal with us accord­ing to our sins,
nor repay us accord­ing to our iniq­ui­ties.
For as high as the heav­ens are above the earth,
so great is his stead­fast love towards those who fear him; (Psalm 103:8–11)

For those who fear God his right­eous­ness goes hand in hand with his stead­fast love.

But the stead­fast love of the Lord is from ever­last­ing to ever­last­ing on those who fear him,
and his right­eous­ness to chil­dren’s chil­dren. (Psalm 103:17)

In God’s right­eous­ness they see hope for sal­va­tion:

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me nev­er be put to shame;
in your right­eous­ness deliv­er me! (Psalm 31:1)

The psalmist knew that because of his sins he did not deserve the help he received.

…my strength fails because of my iniq­ui­ty,
and my bones waste away. (Psalm 31:10b)

His hope rest­ed on God’s faith­ful­ness which he expe­ri­enced through his grace.

1.3 God’s Righteousness in the New Testament

The New Tes­ta­ment also teach­es us that God is faith­ful and right­eous and that he for­gives.

If we con­fess our sins, He is faith­ful and right­eous to for­give us our sins and to cleanse us from all unright­eous­ness. (1 John 1:9, NASB)

God does not need to give an account to any­one when he gen­er­ous­ly shows mer­cy. This is expressed in the para­ble of the work­ers in the vine­yard when the own­er of the vine­yard says:

Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last work­er as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my gen­eros­i­ty? (Matthew 20:14–15)

Accord­ing to human stan­dards it would appear unright­eous to pay the same wage to the man who worked for one hour as to the man who worked for twelve hours. But God is not bound by human stan­dards. His gen­eros­i­ty, good­ness and love sur­pass all human expec­ta­tions of right­eous­ness and rewards.

Jesus teach­es us to be ready to for­give with­out receiv­ing any com­pen­sa­tion or sat­is­fac­tion.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my broth­er sin against me, and I for­give him? As many as sev­en times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you sev­en times, but sev­en­ty times sev­en.”

“There­fore the king­dom of heav­en may be com­pared to a king who wished to set­tle accounts with his ser­vants. When he began to set­tle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thou­sand tal­ents. And since he could not pay, his mas­ter ordered him to be sold, with his wife and chil­dren and all that he had, and pay­ment to be made. So the ser­vant fell on his knees, implor­ing him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you every­thing.’ And out of pity for him, the mas­ter of that ser­vant released him and for­gave him the debt. But when that same ser­vant went out, he found one of his fel­low ser­vants who owed him a hun­dred denarii, and seiz­ing him, he began to choke him, say­ing, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fel­low ser­vant fell down and plead­ed with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fel­low ser­vants saw what had tak­en place, they were great­ly dis­tressed, and they went and report­ed to their mas­ter all that had tak­en place. Then his mas­ter sum­moned him and said to him, ‘You wicked ser­vant! I for­gave you all that debt because you plead­ed with me. And should not you have had mer­cy on your fel­low ser­vant, as I had mer­cy on you?’ And in anger his mas­ter deliv­ered him to the jail­ers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heav­en­ly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not for­give your broth­er from your heart.” (Matthew 18:21–35)

The debt owed to the king was impos­si­ble to pay.⁸ But no-one would accuse the king of being unright­eous for freely for­giv­ing his debtor. When we hear of the king’s mer­cy our hearts burn with joy and we confirm—yes, this is right­eous, this is good.

Jesus also taught us to pray:

…and for­give us our debts,
as we also have for­giv­en our debtors. (Matthew 6:12)

If God demands of us to for­give freely, is He not able to do the same? The para­ble of the king who set­tles accounts with his ser­vants demon­strates that the king is able to for­give with­out requir­ing com­pen­sa­tion and that he also does it.

2 Who Can Be Forgiven?

If God can freely for­give why doesn’t He for­give every­one? Isa­iah teach­es us that an unre­pen­tant per­son would abuse God’s grace if he received it:

If favour is shown to the wicked,
he does not learn right­eous­ness;
in the land of upright­ness he deals cor­rupt­ly
and does not see the majesty of the Lord. (Isa­iah 26:10)

If a wicked per­son received for­give­ness he would con­tin­ue in his wicked­ness. For­giv­ing him would only lead to the abuse of this for­give­ness. God does not for­give such peo­ple because He does not want to sup­port evil. He does not for­give every­one.

…but if you do not for­give oth­ers their tres­pass­es, nei­ther will your Father for­give your tres­pass­es. (Matthew 6:15)

…but who­ev­er speaks against the Holy Spir­it will not be for­giv­en, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matthew 12:32b)

He for­gives those who hum­ble them­selves, con­fess their sins, and want to learn to live upright lives, which is the right response to His grace.

For the grace of God has appeared, bring­ing sal­va­tion for all peo­ple, train­ing us to renounce ungod­li­ness and world­ly pas­sions, and to live self-con­trolled, upright, and god­ly lives in the present age, (Titus 2:11–12)

Jesus’ aim was to draw us clos­er to God and to arouse in us regret for our sins and love for God. This is what hap­pened to the woman in the fol­low­ing sto­ry:

One of the Phar­isees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Phar­isee’s house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sin­ner, when she learned that he was reclin­ing at table in the Phar­isee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of oint­ment, and stand­ing behind him at his feet, weep­ing, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anoint­ed them with the oint­ment. Now when the Phar­isee who had invit­ed him saw this, he said to him­self, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touch­ing him, for she is a sin­ner.” And Jesus answer­ing said to him, “Simon, I have some­thing to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

“A cer­tain mon­ey-lender had two debtors. One owed five hun­dred denarii, and the oth­er fifty. When they could not pay, he can­celled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I sup­pose, for whom he can­celled the larg­er debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged right­ly.” Then turn­ing towards the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anoint­ed my feet with oint­ment. There­fore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is for­giv­en lit­tle, loves lit­tle.” (Luke 7:36–47)

She had become entan­gled in sin and lacked the strength to change her sit­u­a­tion. Scorned by her fel­low Jews, there seemed to be no hope for her. She had prob­a­bly heard Jesus speak­ing and through her encounter with Jesus she was filled with the long­ing for pure love and life, which she did not hes­i­tate to express. She did not want to sin any­more and expressed her readi­ness to repent. As a result she received for­give­ness. The same offer is valid for all of us. If we accept the call of Jesus, as this woman did, we too can expe­ri­ence his for­give­ness.

3 Did God Forsake Jesus?

A wide-spread expla­na­tion of sal­va­tion today is that it is impos­si­ble for God to be both right­eous and to leave sins unpun­ished. But God, in His love for us, want­ed to save us from this pun­ish­ment, choos­ing instead to pun­ish his own Son by aban­don­ing him in his most dif­fi­cult moment on the cross, regard­ing him as sin­ful instead of us. This expla­na­tion of Jesus’ death was strong­ly formed and, with some vari­a­tions, pro­mot­ed by the­olo­gians like Mar­tin Luther⁹ and John Calvin¹⁰. In many reli­gious groups nowa­days sal­va­tion is explained in terms of a court case in which the judge is oblig­ed to stay with­in the laws of the state and would be guilty of injus­tice if he just freely for­gave severe crimes. We have already shown that God’s right­eous­ness is dif­fer­ent and does not require pun­ish­ment when a sin­ner regrets his sin. Now we would like to dis­cuss some pas­sages which are often used to sup­port the idea that Jesus was for­sak­en by God and expe­ri­enced con­dem­na­tion as a pun­ish­ment for our sins.

3.1 The Last Words of Jesus on the Cross

Some of the last words Jesus spoke while hang­ing on the cross are found in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark:

My God, My God, why have you for­sak­en me? (Matthew 27:46)

Jesus quot­ed these words from Psalm 22. The con­text of the whole Psalm will help us to under­stand their mean­ing. In verse 1 the Psalmist cries, “My God, my God, why have you for­sak­en me? Why are you so far from sav­ing me, from the words of my groan­ing?”
He remem­bers the Jew­ish fathers who expe­ri­enced the mirac­u­lous help of God: “In you our fathers trust­ed; they trust­ed, and you deliv­ered them” (verse 4). Yet he does not share the same expe­ri­ence: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the peo­ple” (verse 6). He expe­ri­ences severe per­se­cu­tion at the hands of evil peo­ple: “For dogs encom­pass me; a com­pa­ny of evil­do­ers encir­cles me; they have pierced my hands and feet” (verse 16). He asks God to deliv­er him: “Deliv­er my soul from the sword, my pre­cious life from the pow­er of the dog!” (verse 20), and God lis­tened to his prayer: “For he has not despised or abhorred the afflic­tion of the afflict­ed, and he has not hid­den his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (verse 24). The psalm fin­ish­es with the praise of God. In the con­text of the psalm we can see that (a) being for­sak­en does not mean being for­sak­en spir­i­tu­al­ly but being exposed to suf­fer­ing, and (b) the words “why have you for­sak­en me?” are not a des­per­ate cry with­out a response but a prayer which was heard. In a sit­u­a­tion in which, from a human point of view, it could seem that he had been left alone, Jesus prayed this prayer full of trust in God’s deliv­er­ance. His words show that the unde­served suf­fer­ing of right­eous peo­ple is a recur­ring theme in the Bible—and that as the ulti­mate­ly Right­eous one he expe­ri­enced suf­fer­ing in agree­ment with the mes­sage of the Old Tes­ta­ment. Jesus did not have the phys­i­cal strength to quote the whole Psalm but those who lis­tened knew the con­text of these words. They knew that with these words Jesus actu­al­ly claims that he is right­eous and deserv­ing of God’s sal­va­tion. This becomes even clear­er when we com­pare these words with the last words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke which are full of con­fi­dence in God.

Father, into your hands I com­mit my spir­it! (Luke 23:46)

The cen­tu­ri­on stand­ing at Jesus’ cross observed the way he died and tes­ti­fied about him.

And when the cen­tu­ri­on, who stood fac­ing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Tru­ly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39)

A man for­sak­en by God would not have been rec­og­nized by the cen­tu­ri­on as the Son of God. Had he been for­sak­en, Jesus would not have been able to give such a tes­ti­mo­ny. In the par­al­lel report in the Gospel of Luke, the cen­tu­ri­on attest­ed that Jesus was a right­eous and inno­cent man (Luke 23:47). This also shows that Jesus did not die as a sin­ner aban­doned by God.

Briefly before his death Jesus him­self expressed that the Father would not for­sake him.

Behold, the hour is com­ing, indeed it has come, when you will be scat­tered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. (John 16:32)

3.2 He Bore Our Sins

Jesus ful­filled the prophe­cy found in the book of Isa­iah:

Yet He Him­self bore our sick­ness­es,
and He car­ried our pains;
but we in turn regard­ed Him strick­en,
struck down by God, and afflict­ed.
But He was pierced because of our trans­gres­sions,
crushed because of¹¹ our iniq­ui­ties;
pun­ish­ment for our peace was on Him,
and we are healed by His wounds. (Isa­iah 53:4–5, HCSB¹²)

This pas­sage belongs to Isaiah’s four prophe­cies (Isa­iah 42:1–9, Isa­iah 49:1–13, Isa­iah 50:4–11, Isa­iah 52:13–53:12) in which the prophet calls the Mes­si­ah “the Ser­vant of the Lord” (42:1, 49:7, 50:10, 52:13). Step by step the char­ac­ter and mis­sion of the Ser­vant is revealed. In his final Ser­vant song, from which we quot­ed above, the Bible speaks for the first time about the fact that the Mes­si­ah will bear our iniq­ui­ties and griefs. Bear­ing the sins of mankind, how­ev­er, does not describe a spir­i­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion from God. The words of the Ser­vant in his pre­vi­ous song show that God is near to him even in his suf­fer­ings:

But the Lord God helps me;
there­fore I have not been dis­graced;
there­fore I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
He who vin­di­cates me is near.
Who will con­tend with me?
Let us stand up togeth­er.
Who is my adver­sary?
Let him come near to me. (Isa­iah 50:7–8)

Those who observed his suf­fer­ing from the out­side “regard­ed Him strick­en, struck down by God, and afflict­ed” (Isa­iah 53:4). But the prophe­cy itself reveals that this inter­pre­ta­tion is wrong. God is not the one who wrath­ful­ly crush­es his ser­vant, but the one who expos­es him to the wicked­ness of the peo­ple by send­ing him into this cor­rupt­ed world with a good aim. The next verse express­es it in the fol­low­ing words:

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 encounter¹³ Him. (Isa­iah 53:6, NASB)

Our iniq­ui­ties are not trans­ferred from us to the ser­vant in a mag­i­cal way. There is a more direct effect of the peo­ple’s sins on the ser­vant. He comes into our world in order to rec­on­cile us with God, but in this way he is also con­front­ed with and exposed to the wicked­ness of peo­ple.

When Isa­iah 53:6 says that “the Lord has caused” it, the prophet want­ed to express that the Lord ful­ly accept­ed and allowed the sins of peo­ple to have an influ­ence on His ser­vant. Noth­ing on earth hap­pens with­out God’s knowl­edge and per­mis­sion. In a sim­i­lar way Paul expressed that God will allow the com­ing of the law­less one: “There­fore God sends them a strong delu­sion, so that they may believe what is false…” (2 Thess 2:11). To the 21st cen­tu­ry west­ern mind, this way of express­ing God’s activ­i­ty sounds rather for­eign. How­ev­er, it is a fact that the Hebrews some­times used an active form to express that God allowed some­thing to hap­pen, while at the same time the sit­u­a­tion was not tak­en out of His hands.

Matthew quotes Isa­iah 53 in his gospel in the con­text of Jesus’ heal­ings.

When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-pos­sessed; and He cast out the spir­its with a word, and healed all who were ill. This was to ful­fill what was spo­ken through Isa­iah the prophet: “He him­self took our infir­mi­ties and car­ried away our dis­eases.” (Matthew 8:16–17, NASB)

Jesus’ heal­ings and mir­a­cles were meant to be a sign that God’s king­dom had come near and expressed the spir­i­tu­al renew­al of fall­en man. God is not indif­fer­ent to our suf­fer­ing. He bowed down to us by becom­ing a man and serv­ing us. This is meant here with the words, “Yet He Him­self bore our sick­ness­es, and He car­ried our pains…” (Is 53:4, HCSB). He did not become ill, nor did he become a sin­ner, but he left his glo­ry and came close to us in order to set us free from suf­fer­ing and death.

Jesus’ sol­i­dar­i­ty with mankind went even a step fur­ther. Although he was not a sin­ner he accept­ed treat­ment as the worst of them. Inspite of his inno­cence, he was exe­cut­ed like a crim­i­nal and a trans­gres­sor of the law. Isa­iah describes this with the words, “…upon him was the chas­tise­ment that brought us peace…” (Isa­iah 53:5). Jesus was pun­ished by the peo­ple in a way that he appeared as some­body who was strick­en by God’s wrath. But this pun­ish­ment did not come from God. Just the oppo­site: God turned the evil that was com­mit­ted by men to good. His suf­fer­ing serves for our well-being (or peace).¹⁴ Paul expressed a sim­i­lar thought in the let­ter to the Gala­tians:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becom­ing a curse for us—for it is writ­ten, “Cursed is every­one who is hanged on a tree.” (Gala­tians 3:13)

Paul referred to the Old Tes­ta­ment pas­sage of Deuteron­o­my 21:22, 23 which deals with the law con­cern­ing the exe­cu­tion of dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals. The pas­sage in Deuteron­o­my says, “a hanged man is cursed by God.” Paul omits the words “by God” because Jesus was not cursed by the Father on the cross, but was near to him in his suf­fer­ing. He did not become a sin­ner but suf­fered like a sin­ner. In its Old Tes­ta­ment con­text, the quot­ed pas­sage from Deuteron­o­my pre­sup­pos­es that the exe­cut­ed per­son was con­demned righteously—which was not true of Jesus.

Some Jew­ish false teach­ers tried to influ­ence the Gala­t­ian Chris­tians to keep the law, although as Gen­tiles they had been accept­ed by God through faith in Christ with­out the law. Paul warns them that if they now start keep­ing it they will have “fall­en away from grace” (Gala­tians 5:3—4). In this con­text Paul speaks about the law as about a set of rules which “is not based on faith” (Gala­tians 3:12). The law, tak­en in this nar­row sense, con­demns every­body “who does not keep every­thing writ­ten in it” (Gala­tians 3:10), and also every­body “hanged on a tree”, includ­ing Christ.

To sum up, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by accept­ing the cross, which was a death of a cursed crim­i­nal. Despised by peo­ple and even “con­demned” accord­ing to the quot­ed verse, he showed us what it means to live by faith and set us free from the law. The Gala­tians who were tempt­ed to find their con­fi­dence in the law must have been ashamed at read­ing this. While bear­ing the unright­eous­ness of peo­ple Jesus did not for­feit his own right­eous­ness.

…by his knowl­edge shall the right­eous one, my ser­vant,
make many to be account­ed right­eous,
and he shall bear their iniq­ui­ties. (Isa­iah 53:11)

Jesus nev­er lost God’s favour and pres­ence in his life. With­out the sup­port of God, if he had been for­sak­en in his most dif­fi­cult moment to fight alone, he could be con­sid­ered a hero, but not a man of faith. This was nev­er His inten­tion. Jesus’ tes­ti­mo­ny was that with God and only with God can we with­stand any temp­ta­tion or tri­al. How could Jesus have fought with God’s strength to accept and enter a very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion in which he knew God would for­sake him? Jesus said:

And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleas­ing to him. (John 8:29)

Wouldn’t it be the great­est injus­tice to for­sake a com­plete­ly inno­cent per­son?

For the Lord loves jus­tice;
he will not for­sake his saints. (Psalm 37:28)

Should God’s right­eous­ness be dis­played in the great­est act of unright­eous­ness? In the Old Tes­ta­ment God revealed his abhor­rence of human sac­ri­fice (Jere­mi­ah 7:31). The idea that Jesus’ suf­fer­ing and death sat­is­fied God’s right­eous­ness, that God even for­sook him, comes close to this pagan prac­tice and thought.

3.3 Why Did Jesus Suffer?

If God was always with Christ in his suf­fer­ings, why did He allow them at all? Why was it God’s will? In the Bible the death of Christ is described as a con­se­quence of people’s wicked­ness and rejec­tion of his call (John 1:10–11, Matthew 21:33–41). In this fall­en world it is not pos­si­ble to live in the truth with­out suf­fer­ing (2 Tim­o­thy 3:12).

God would have been strong enough to pro­tect Jesus from all the evil peo­ple, yet he knew this was not the best for us. An evil inten­tion (to kill Jesus) itself can nev­er bring about any­thing good (sal­va­tion), but the response of Christ—the way He bore his suf­fer­ing and death—opens up the way back to God for us.

In his suf­fer­ing Jesus went through a very dif­fi­cult fight. He did not avoid this fight, but through his humil­i­ty and prayer God gave him the strength to bear up under it.

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and sup­pli­ca­tions, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his rev­er­ence. Although he was a son, he learned obe­di­ence through what he suf­fered. And being made per­fect, he became the source of eter­nal sal­va­tion to all who obey him. (Hebrews 5:7–9)

Through his res­ur­rec­tion and glo­ri­fi­ca­tion Jesus now helps us to have the same atti­tude in our fights—to admit our weak­ness­es and with his help to be able to endure in them.

For because he him­self has suf­fered when tempt­ed, he is able to help those who are being tempt­ed. (Hebrews 2:18)

As Chris­tians we some­times expe­ri­ence pain but with him it is not an unbear­able bur­den. The fact that Jesus suf­fered so much and over­came all dif­fi­cul­ties is a com­fort for us and strength­ens our trust in him—the trust that he is always with us, even in our most dif­fi­cult times. He invites us:

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gen­tle and low­ly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my bur­den is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)

The New Tes­ta­ment con­tains many pas­sages which express that Chris­tians die togeth­er with Christ (Mt 16:24, J 12:24–26, Rom 6:3–4, Gal 5:24, Phil 3:10, Col 2:12):

I have been cru­ci­fied with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave him­self for me. (Gala­tians 2:20)

The death of Christ was not in vain. The cru­ci­fied and risen Christ guides us through the process of dying to our sins and worldy aims and on to the joy­ous new life which nobody can take away from us.

And when they had inflict­ed many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, order­ing the jail­er to keep them safe­ly. Hav­ing received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fas­tened their feet in the stocks. About mid­night Paul and Silas were pray­ing and singing hymns to God, and the pris­on­ers were lis­ten­ing to them…. (Acts 16:23–25)

For the love of Christ con­trols us, because we have con­clud­ed this: that one has died for all, there­fore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for them­selves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Corinthi­ans 5:14–15)

Read more about Jesus’ death in our arti­cle: “Jesus’ Death For Us: A Sac­ri­fice”.

4 Seen As Righteous or Made Righteous?

In the begin­ning of the pre­vi­ous sec­tion “Did God for­sake Jesus?”, we briefly described the con­cept of sal­va­tion prop­a­gat­ed by some his­tor­i­cal­ly influ­en­tial peo­ple. It is our expe­ri­ence that this way of think­ing influ­ences many peo­ple today and has formed their under­stand­ing of God and repen­tance. If Jesus suf­fered, died, and was sep­a­rat­ed from God as a result of God’s own right­eous demand for pun­ish­ment, then it turns out that Jesus’ task was to change the way God sees and treats us rather than to cause a real change in our lives.¹⁵ In oth­er words, the con­se­quence is not that we are made right­eous but only seen as right­eous, as if God now sees us through a dif­fer­ent set of lens­es.

The Bible, how­ev­er, tes­ti­fies of a real vis­i­ble change of life caused by sal­va­tion through Jesus. As Chris­tians we can­not con­tin­ue to live in grave sins:

Or do you not know that the unright­eous will not inher­it the king­dom of God? Do not be deceived: nei­ther the sex­u­al­ly immoral, nor idol­aters, nor adul­ter­ers, nor men who prac­tise homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunk­ards, nor revil­ers, nor swindlers will inher­it the king­dom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanc­ti­fied, you were jus­ti­fied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spir­it of our God. (1 Corinthi­ans 6:9–11)

Jesus did not come to save us “in our sins” but “from our sins” (Matthew 1:21). He wants to puri­fy not only our deeds but also our thoughts and moti­va­tions so that we can live a life of love and devo­tion.

So those who received his word were bap­tized, and there were added that day about three thou­sand souls. And they devot­ed them­selves to the apos­tles’ teach­ing and the fel­low­ship, to the break­ing of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many won­ders and signs were being done through the apos­tles. And all who believed were togeth­er and had all things in com­mon. And they were sell­ing their pos­ses­sions and belong­ings and dis­trib­ut­ing the pro­ceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attend­ing the tem­ple togeth­er and break­ing bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and gen­er­ous hearts, prais­ing God and hav­ing favour with all the peo­ple. And the Lord added to their num­ber day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:41–47)

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and who­ev­er abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love per­fect­ed with us, so that we may have con­fi­dence for the day of judge­ment, because as he is so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:16–17)

With­out expe­ri­enc­ing a deep change in our life and with­out love we can­not be tru­ly con­fi­dent of eter­nal life. The source of our con­fi­dence is not our deeds but our rela­tion­ship with Christ.¹⁶ But if we do not prac­tise right­eous­ness we can nei­ther have nor main­tain this rela­tion­ship with him.

And now, lit­tle chil­dren, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have con­fi­dence and not shrink from him in shame at his com­ing. If you know that he is right­eous, you may be sure that every­one who prac­tis­es right­eous­ness has been born of him. (1 John 2:28–29)

Jesus said:

I am the vine; you are the branch­es. Who­ev­er abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do noth­ing. If any­one does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and with­ers; and the branch­es are gath­ered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what­ev­er you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:5–7)

Jesus described the rela­tion­ship with him as “abid­ing in him”. To abide in Christ means to be saved. Not to abide in him means to be thrown out and “to burn”. In a sim­i­lar way John the apos­tle wrote:

If we say we have fel­low­ship with him while we walk in dark­ness, we lie and do not prac­tise the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fel­low­ship with one anoth­er, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleans­es us from all sin. (1 John 1:6–7)

A sin­cere puri­fy­ing rela­tion­ship with Jesus is only pos­si­ble if we walk in the light. Being in the light is not about being per­fect but striv­ing for holi­ness in all areas of our life, con­fess­ing our sins to God and to one anoth­er, and turn­ing away from them. This is the indis­pens­able effect of sal­va­tion in our life. Sal­va­tion is a free gift found in Christ. If we accept it we can­not con­tin­ue our old, evil lives because this would make it impos­si­ble to be in fel­low­ship with him—to be in him.

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wis­dom from God, right­eous­ness and sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion and redemp­tion. (1 Corinthi­ans 1:30)

Jesus rose from the dead and con­tin­ues his medi­a­tor­ship. Every­one who approach­es God through him receives all he needs to change his life, to per­se­vere and to arrive at the goal.

5 Conclusion

The Bible says many times and in var­i­ous ways that Jesus died for our sal­va­tion. How­ev­er, as we have already shown, the wide-spread inter­pre­ta­tion which implies that God had to pun­ish an inno­cent per­son in our place in order to be able to for­give us while not com­pro­mis­ing his right­eous­ness, is not part of the Holy Scrip­ture and rais­es seri­ous prob­lems. Instead,

• the Bible tes­ti­fies of a lov­ing God who freely for­gives every­one who hon­est­ly repents;
• the Bible does not teach that Jesus was spir­i­tu­al­ly sep­a­rat­ed from the Father, but describes the afflic­tion he had to bear as the con­se­quence of mankind’s sins;
• and last but not least sal­va­tion is not some­thing that Jesus arranged between him­self and God. It is more close­ly con­nect­ed with our lives.

The cen­tre of the bib­li­cal mes­sage is the restora­tion of the rela­tion­ship between man and God which has been bro­ken as a result of man’s sin. By draw­ing near to us, God, in Jesus, enables us to draw near to him.

Now all these things are from God, who rec­on­ciled us to Him­self through Christ and gave us the min­istry of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, name­ly, that God was in Christ rec­on­cil­ing the world to Him­self, not count­ing their tres­pass­es against them.… (2 Corinthi­ans 5:18–19, NASB)

By becom­ing man Jesus took on our nature, becom­ing like us in our weak­ness, temp­ta­tions, and afflic­tions. His iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with our weak­ness meant that he even accept­ed suf­fer­ing and cru­ci­fix­ion when he was reject­ed by those he came to help.

For it was fit­ting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bring­ing many sons to glo­ry, to per­fect the author of their sal­va­tion through suf­fer­ings. (Hebrews 2:10, NASB)

Now he invites us to walk with him on the same path he took: accept­ing the weak­ness of our per­ish­able human nature, yet being strong through faith, love and humil­i­ty. As the one who rose from the dead and is exalt­ed with the Father, he unites us with God and grants for­give­ness with all we need to reach eter­nal life.

Though there is much more to say, it would go beyond the scope of this arti­cle. We would be glad to hear your thoughts and ques­tions, and would wel­come the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss this mat­ter in more depth with you in per­son.

1. The Hebrew lex­i­con (Koehler, Lud­wig, and Wal­ter Baum­garten. The Hebrew and Ara­ma­ic Lex­i­con of the Old Tes­ta­ment. [Vol­ume III]. New York: Brill Pub­lish­ers, 1996. 1003.) gives us four def­i­n­i­tions for the word “right­eous” (צַדִּיק—tsad­diq, the adjec­tive form of tsedaqah) in regards to God (יְהוָה—Yah­weh):
   1. just (judg­ing or punishing)—Psalm 7:12; 129:4; Job 34:17.
   2. just, estab­lish­ing or set­ting up justice—Zephaniah 3:5; Psalm 119:137.
   3. upright, in the right in the face of accusations—Exodus 9:27; Jere­mi­ah 12:1; Lamen­ta­tions 1:18; Daniel 9:14; Nehemi­ah 9:33; 2 Chron­i­cles 12:6.
   4. loy­al, in the sense of help­ful and faithful—Deuteronomy 32:4; Isa­iah 45:21; Psalm 11:7; Psalm 116:5 (par­al­lel to gra­cious: חַנּוּן—chan­nun) Psalm 145:17 (par­al­lel to kind: חָסִיד—chasid) Ezra 9:15; Nehemi­ah 9:8. ↩
2. Psalm 24:5, 33:5, 103:6, Isa­iah 1:27, 28:17, 56:1, 59:16 (as well as Daniel 9,16 in Theodotion). ↩
3. Gen­e­sis 24:27; 32:10; Exo­dus 15:13; 34:7; Isa­iah 63:7. ↩
4. Accord­ing to the opin­ion of some schol­ars (e.g. McGrath, Alis­ter E. Iusti­tia Dei: a His­to­ry of the Chris­t­ian Doc­trine of Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Cam­bridge: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2002. 1–16.; Gop­pelt, Leon­hard. The­olo­gie des Neuen Tes­ta­ments. [Part 2, Vielfalt und Ein­heit des apos­tolis­chen Chris­tuszeug­niss­es]. Göt­tin­gen: Van­den­hoeck und Ruprecht, 1980. 465–471.; Buber, Mar­tin. Zur Verdeutschung des let­zten Ban­des der Schrift, sec­tion 1, 5–6. Appen­dix to: Die Schrift. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelge­sellschaft, 1992. Vol. 4.), which we find inter­est­ing, in Hebrew cul­ture the bib­li­cal term right­eous­ness (and oth­er key terms, such as grace or sac­ri­fice) was under­stood large­ly in the con­text of the rela­tion­ship (i.e. covenant) with God. That is why words like right­eous­ness, faith­ful­ness, mer­cy and grace had a close­ly con­nect­ed mean­ing for Jew­ish authors and expressed var­i­ous aspects of the rela­tion­ship between God and man. The Greek and Roman cul­tures, into whose lan­guages the Bible was trans­lat­ed, were not shaped by the con­cept of a rela­tion­ship with God. For the Greeks, soci­ety was the mea­sure and judge of what is just and unjust. For the Romans it was the law. This fact made it quite dif­fi­cult to find a suit­able equiv­a­lent for the Hebrew tsedaqah (צְדָקָה—right­eous­ness) in Greek and Latin.
   For the first two cen­turies of Chris­tian­i­ty Greek was the lan­guage of the church, and Greek ver­sions of the Old Tes­ta­ment pro­duced by Jew­ish authors were in use. From the 2nd cen­tu­ry onward the church in the West­ern part of the Roman Empire began increas­ing­ly to com­mu­ni­cate in Latin, and Latin trans­la­tions of the Bible were made. The expres­sions “right­eous­ness” and “to make (some­one) right­eous” were trans­lat­ed into Latin as justi­tia (jus­tice) and jus­ti­fi­care, (to jus­ti­fy) respectively—both of which are terms with strong legal over­tones.
   The way of think­ing of many Latin church fathers was formed by legal thought, which was the base of Roman edu­ca­tion. Over the cen­turies in the West, the com­par­i­son with a court case became the cen­tral pic­ture for explain­ing sal­va­tion (com­par­ing sin with a crime, the sin­ner with a guilty offend­er, grace with the acquit­tal of the offend­er, jus­tice with the pun­ish­ment of the guilty). In this con­text Jesus’ death on the cross even­tu­al­ly took on a role in the West which it did not have in the East.
   Greek church fathers were free of this influ­ence and pre­served a non-juridi­cal view of sal­va­tion, explain­ing it as an encounter with God who took on our human nature in order that we may be changed into his like­ness. In this view, the incar­na­tion and res­ur­rec­tion are the key ele­ments. For exam­ple, Ire­naeus and Athana­sius of Alexan­dria under­stood sal­va­tion in Christ as being effect­ed through his incar­na­tion, and the cru­ci­fix­ion as an inte­gral part of the incar­na­tion (Ire­naeus: Against Here­sies, Book III, Chap­ter 18; Athana­sius of Alexan­dria: On the Incar­na­tion of the Word). ↩
5. 2 Corinthi­ans 1:3. ↩
6. How­ev­er, God’s faith­ful­ness does not mean that He always for­gives. There are also numer­ous cas­es in the Old Tes­ta­ment when He did not over­look the sins of the peo­ple. For exam­ple, con­cern­ing the God-fear­ing king Josi­ah we read: “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, accord­ing to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him. Still the Lord did not turn from the burn­ing of his great wrath, by which his anger was kin­dled against Judah, because of all the provo­ca­tions with which Man­asseh had pro­voked him.” (2 Kings 23:25–26) The rea­son that the right­eous­ness of the king did not turn away the wrath of God is that, in spite of the king’s good­ness, the hearts of the peo­ple did not change. Con­cern­ing the same peri­od of time we read in Jere­mi­ah: “Yet for all this her treach­er­ous sis­ter Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pre­tence, declares the Lord.” (Jere­mi­ah 3:10). ↩
7. The Hol­man Bible Dic­tio­nary says: “We under­stand right­eous­ness to mean ‘upright­ness’ in the sense of ‘adher­ence or con­for­mi­ty to an estab­lished norm’. In bib­li­cal usage right­eous­ness is root­ed in covenants and rela­tion­ships. For bib­li­cal authors, right­eous­ness is the ful­fill­ment of the terms of a covenant between God and human­i­ty or between humans in the full range of human rela­tion­ships.” (Hol­man Bible Dic­tio­nary, Broad­man and Hol­man Pub­lish­ers, 1991. See online at StudyLight.org–Holman Bible Dic­tio­nary: Right­eous­ness (17. 06. 2020.). ↩
8. 1 tal­ent = 6,000 denarii, 1 denar­ius = 1 day’s work. ↩
9. Lec­tures on Gala­tians (1535), Chap­ters 1–4, in Luther’s Works, edit­ed by Jaroslav Pelikan and Wal­ter A. Hansen, 55 vol­umes (St. Luis and Philade­pl­phia: Con­cor­dia and Fortress, 1958–1986), 26:28. ↩
10. Calvin wrote in the Insti­tutes, ‘there is a per­pet­u­al and irrec­on­cil­able dis­agree­ment between right­eous­ness and unright­eous­ness’ (II.XVI.3). It was nec­es­sary for Christ ‘to under­go the sever­i­ty of God’s ven­gance, to appease his wrath and sat­is­fy his just judge­ment.’ (Insti­tutes, II. XVI.10. Cf II.XII.3.). ↩
11. Here we fol­low the Hol­man Chris­t­ian Stan­dard Bible as the more lit­er­al trans­la­tion. The Hebrew prepo­si­tion מִן /min/ used here describes the ori­gin (from/by) or the rea­son (because of). ↩
12. Scrip­ture quo­ta­tions marked HCSB are tak­en from the Hol­man Chris­t­ian Stan­dard Bible®, Copy­right © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Hol­man Bible Pub­lish­ers. Used by per­mis­sion. Hol­man Chris­t­ian Stan­dard Bible®, Hol­man CSB®, and HCSB® are fed­er­al­ly reg­is­tered trade­marks of Hol­man Bible Pub­lish­ers. ↩
13. Accord­ing to the foot­note in the NASB the lit­er­al trans­la­tion of this word is “encounter” and we quote this ver­sion. The basic mean­ing of the Hebrew word פָּגַע (paga’) is “encounter, meet, touch”. When the Jews trans­lat­ed the Old Tes­ta­ment into Greek (i.e. in the Sep­tu­agint) they wrote “and the Lord gave him over to our sins”. ↩
14. Isa­iah 53:10 “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him” can be trans­lat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly: “But the LORD took plea­sure in his crushed one.” This trans­la­tion shows the spir­i­tu­al real­i­ty. The ser­vant was ready to be crushed. God was well-pleased in this atti­tude of love and devo­tion. This is con­firmed by the vers­es that fol­low: “The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebel­lious; I turned not back­ward. I gave my back to those who strike,and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from dis­grace and spit­ting” (Isa­iah 50:5–6). ↩
15. Fol­low­ing in his foot­steps, sev­er­al protes­tant move­ments rep­re­sent the same opin­ion as Luther in this point: “A Chris­t­ian per­son is not made up of his out­ward con­duct; Nor does he behave accord­ing to the exter­nal sit­u­a­tion, but accord­ing to the inner one. That is to say, it is a dif­fer­ent heart, a dif­fer­ent courage, will and mind, which does the same works as anoth­er does with­out this kind of courage and will. …so that you will not notice his Chris­tian­i­ty, as Christ says in Luke 17:20 f., ‘The King­dom of God cometh not with out­ward show. Nei­ther shall they say, “Lo, it is here!” or “Lo, it is there!” For behold, the King­dom of God is with­in you.’” (empha­sis ours, Wei­h­nacht­spos­tille 1522: Luther deutsch, Erg.Bd. Luther­lexikon, p. 57f cf. WA 10I1,137,18–138,5); “A Chris­t­ian can­not be dis­cerned accord­ing to his exter­nal life. For it is no less impure and dilap­i­dat­ed than the life of an non-Chris­t­ian. That is why they must dai­ly pray, ‘For­give us our sins.’” (Haus­pos­tille 1544, Von der Frucht der Aufer­ste­hung Christi: Luther deutsch, Erg.Bd. Luther­lexikon, p.58, cf. WA 52,251, 18–24). ↩
16. See also our arti­cle “Faith and Works”. ↩