Explain How Jesus Died For My Sins?

One of the Christian doctrines that I've had a hard time understanding is the answer to "how and why did Jesus die for my sins?" You always hear it - "Jesus died for your sins - by just believing in Jesus, your sins are forgiven". But that sounds too simple and easy. Why did Jesus die for my sins? How are my sins forgiven through the death of Jesus two thousand years ago? Why, by just believing in Jesus, are my sins forgiven?

Penal Substitution

I recently read a book, edited in part by William Lane Craig, titled "Contending with Christianity's Critics". It has an essay written by Steven L. Porter titled "Dostoyevsky, Woody Allen, and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution" - it addresses this through the doctrine of "penal substitution". It is actually the first thing that I've ever read that actually helps explain penal substitution in a way I understand.

In short, it goes like this (I will not do it justice, but here's my summary):

1) We have been given an incredible privilege - to live an earthly life as physical stewards over God's creation and, spiritually, in loving dependence on God. We have all, in our own ways, abused that privilege time and time again.

2) God's moral nature and holiness demands that punishment be exacted for those very serious sins against him - the punishment being to withdraw those very privileges given to us by God (i.e. take away our physical and spiritual life).

3) Wouldn't it be better, and more in keeping with God's merciful nature, for God to forgive human sin and continue to offer the privilege of physical and spiritual life even though we continue to abuse this opportunity and therefore do not deserve it?

4) But if God does continue to offer these privileges and waive punishment, this diminishes the human sinner's responsibility and trivializes the wrong done to God thus trivializing God Himself.

5) BUT! What if there was a way for God to do BOTH!? Exact a punishment in keeping with the seriousness of the "crime" (and thus not devaluing nor trivializing God) but yet mercifully forgive the human sinner and allow him to retain physical and spiritual life and therefore be given a second (and third and fourth...) chance?

Enter "the Lamb of God".

The suffering on the cross is the just penalty of human sin (i.e. the loss of life) - it demonstrates that sin against God is not a trivial matter and God takes human sin very seriously. Thus "justice is served" and the seriousness of sin is affirmed. However, God mercifully takes on this punishment we deserve via the incarnate Christ's voluntary submission to that suffering. Jesus was "without sin", so clearly He wasn't punished for his own sins (since He had none). He was the perfect sacrificial lamb - the "Lamb of God".

Thus God miraculously does both! He exacts the punishment for human sin as demanded by his moral nature and holiness, but yet mercifully let's the human sinner retain life!

Another Way To Atonement?

Thanks to "Catholic Nick" and his comments to the original version of this blog entry, I've come to question certain aspects of the notion of penal substitution (did God, the Father, pour out his wrath on his own Son, Jesus, as penalty for our sins?) I'm finding pretty good answers in another explanation. Indeed, after studying his arguments, Nick points out problems with penal substitution (both in his own blog and links to other documents - see the comments section for links to references, from which I will quote below) in part through the description of what it meant in the OT to offer "blood sacrifices" and how Jesus's suffering in the NT correlates to the OT notation of sacrifice and atonement of sins.

As mentioned earlier, God's merciful nature could forgive man's sin with amnesty, but because sin is so serious in God's eye, forgiveness must be more than a matter of ignoring it or forgetting it - that would diminish and trivialize God. But how then does that sin get forgiven?

First, for those unfamiliar with the Old Testament, let it be clear that God did not require the sacrifice of animals because He is bloodthirsty. God did not need man's sacrifices for his own sake; He was not pleased by animal sacrifices simply as such. God did not accept the life of an animal in lieu of human life, if that meant that having sacrificed an animal a man did not also need to offer his own spiritual life to God. Rather, God accepted the sacrificial offering of animal life as a visual expression of a man's spiritual self-offering (which was the true sacrifice that God wanted). In other words, a man parting with something of value (the sacrifice) was his outward expression of his desire to be closer to God (it is for this reason why the sacrificial animals were to be "perfect" and "without blemish" - for what good is a sacrifice if it isn't of any great value?). This explains the "expiatory power" in sacrificial blood (where the blood of the sacrifice represents the very life of the animal, a symbol of the human life whose sins are to be atoned for). To be clear, God wasn't punishing the animal, He was lovingly and mercifully extinguishing the guilt of the sinner due to the visible expression of the sinner's invisible offering of his own life to God.

Now let's move to the new covenant, ushered in by Jesus Christ. Yes, Christ stands in the place of sinners - but He is not guilty of the sin nor is He receiving punishment from God due to the sin, but rather He is atoning (i.e. making amends or reconciling) for the sin through His voluntary suffering on the cross. His bearing of our sins is expiatory, not penal - just as in the Old Testament the animal wasn't being punished in substitution. How do we benefit from Jesus' sacrifice? By putting our faith and trust in Him that He did this for us! We must provide ourselves (an invisible self-offering) to God and seek His forgiveness, through Jesus Christ - if we are sincere, God will freely forgive us for all our sins.

Conclusion

I have a feeling that it may not be possible to articulate a perfect theory of Atonement. The two theories above definitely do have different approaches, but underlying them both (and underlying most other theories) is Jesus Christ, the need to place our faith and trust in Him and that what He did, He did out of love for us. On that we Christians can all agree.

And to go further, I think I finally have some clarity to John 3:16 - it makes a whole lot more sense now. "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son" (i.e. He so loved the world that He showered mercy on all human sinners by providing a way to atone for our sins through the suffering of His Son) "that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (i.e. if you believe Jesus suffered for you, that's all you need to receive the gift of God's eternal mercy).

Postscript

I'm just now in the process of reading C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" and to my amazement he actually directly addresses my exact concerns and comes to the same conclusion I did (perhaps this is God working in his "mysterious" ways, perhaps it's just coincidence, but I find it interesting that so soon after I post this blog entry and fail to come to a satisfactory answer to my question "how and why did Jesus die for my sins?", that I start to read C.S. Lewis and find that he, himself, wondered the same thing and provides me confirmation of my own conclusions). Here's his thinking on the subject, from pages 54-56:

"The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians are agreed on is that it does work. ... Theories about Christ's death are not Christianity: they are explanations about how it works. Christians would not all agree as to how important those theories are. ... But I think they will all agree that the thing itself is infinitely more important than any explanations that theologians have produced. ... In my view the theories are not themselves the thing you are asked to accept. ... A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works ... We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary."

I couldn't have said it better myself (though I did try my best earlier :)