Jesus and Substitution By Nyron Medina

Jesus and Substitution 

By Nyron Medina

If Jesus paid the price for our sins, to whom or to what did He pay it? He could not have paid it 

to God because it was God that paid the price. We cannot say that God paid the price to the law because the law did not require a substitute and an innocent One, to pay the price of death. The soul that sinneth it shall surely die. The Law demanded the price of death to the guilty and from the guilty only and actually guilt is not transferable in time and history. However, if we say that Jesus paid the price of our redemption, this is better understood. Jesus paid what was necessary to save sinners. This is not actually death, it does not save man from sins, not even from the actual penalty due to the guilty man. However, what was needed to save man from sin was sufferage for sin to cause man to have an adequate repentance to receive divine 

forgiveness, and the gift of life to substitute spiritual death with the Spirit of Life or God within him. Thus this “payment” is not to anyone or anything, but rather means “offered” or “made available”. But if we want to say “paid to God”, then this “offering” or its “merits”, were paid to God in the sense that God presented to Himself a sacrifice that He can with justice accept, or He made a just sacrifice available. It was God that did it. We are all condemned for three things. The idol-values of the mind, the state of present sinning and all the past sins we have ever done. The penalty for these is eternal death. By slaying the old man or idol values, we are absolved by God Himself from the condemnation for these inner sins, and as we are delivered from the idols within and given the Righteousness of God( God Himself) within as our substitute, we are made to cease present sinning, thus we are made to do the 

righteousness of the Law, and this is forgiveness by God Himself also. We need to understand that this “first” forgiveness is not an automatic thing that happens when we are changed. This forgiveness is by God, and it is transformative, and God then literally exercises His graciousness by not condemning us for the idol-values and present sinning. God dwelling in the converted man as a substitute of his former idol-values is what is meant by Jesus being our Substitute. This is the chief meaning. This subjective substitution is the first replacement application of the death of Christ and refers to His gift of Life to change man, it is not His death in place of our death penalty on the cross. This concept is not Biblical and when it is believed, leads to a most dangerous and insidious error that leads far away from the Truth. It attacks the justice and Love of God in the concept it structures about the death of Jesus on the cross. The great and infinite difference between the subjective substitution intention of the death of Christ on the cross and the instead of objective substitution application of the death of Jesus on the cross must be clearly seen by all to avoid the kindred dangerous errors that spring from the false concept. False theories about the death of Christ are poisonous concepts that 

consequentially destroy the teachings of Adventism in a subtle way, until the whole nature of the religion becomes openly changed. If it was God’s will that the innocent Jesus should be punished for guilty man’s sins instead of man, why does man yet remain under condemnation after Jesus died? If this transaction was on condition of man’s repentance, then it should not have been before man repented, and it would also mean that those who never repented before the death of Christ, were not included in this substitutionary benefit of Jesus’ death; this plainly means that Jesus did not die for all men. This clearly shows the falsehood of this teaching. It was the will of God that innocent Jesus should be 

punished with the punishment man had to face for this guilt of sins, but this was to give man a 

display of the horribleness of sin so that the right penitent condition would be created in man’s mind to receive divine forgiveness. 

Jesus’ punishment was not intended to replace the sinner’s punishment, but to cause the sinner to escape his own punishment by the merciful forgiveness of God, once the conditions were met. There can never be replacement punishment as divine justice, but there can be replacement of values within the operation of divine justice. Guilt is responsibility for wrongs, it is the false 

knowledge and choice of it that causes the individual to sin or transgress. Death for guilt does not erase guilt, but merely confirms the guilt by the death payment for it. Since guilt is based upon choice; it cannot be transferred; one would have to exercise choice upon wrong, but then a new guilt is created in the person that did this. The physical death of Jesus or even His sufferage on the cross does not, cannot, and was never meant to save man from the guilt of sins. Guilt as the knowledge responsibility is removed by the gift of Faith, the revealed Truths of God, in justification, and the re-education of the mind in sanctification as the knowledge valuesare changed or reformed. But the former guilt of the choice of the wrong is not removed in that process, but will only be absolved by the mercifulness of God’s forgiveness in the judgement. 

It is better to say that we are redeemed from guilt rather than freed from guilt since this is a 

process. Forgiveness does not come by the death of a substitute; rather, forgiveness is provided for by the death that has a substitutionary intention and it is effected by the substituting of that part of the sacrifice intended for a subjective replacement and this is the Life of Christ. Finally, Jesus does not stand in the judgement as the substitute for the penitent Christian objectively, He stand in the Christian as a substitute or replacement for his old man of sins and this substitute is given to him by justification and retained in him by sanctification. It is this Christ within the man that causes him to pass in the judgement, because Christ within makes the Christian sinfree. There are concepts about the death of Christ that destroys Adventism and there is also a concept that preserves Adventism intact. The former is false the latter is true. Does God save us because of the blood of Christ being shed? Does the Father saves us because of the split blood of Christ? 

Is Christ able to save us because of His split blood? This idea of the death of Christ that appears to be made to the glory of the cross is very dangerous if not properly understood. By the split blood of Christ the false teaching means His death as the actual penalty for our sins in place of and instead of us; it means the vicarious death penalty of Christ that causes man to escape this death penalty. This dangerous idea, when put together with the idea that this spilt blood is the ground whereby we are saved, leads to a dangerous teaching that attacks the Love that God is. The dangerous teaching is namely this: 

That the death of Christ appeased (they call it ‘propitiate’) the wrath of God that He may grant 

the penitent salvation. This means that God only gave to man salvific Love because of the death of Christ or because He put penalty upon Jesus Christ. This makes God vindictive, and only capable of salvific Love when He is ‘propitiated’. This makes God punish the innocent to let the guilty go. This is a most destructive thought for the survival of society. However, we know that God is able to save us not because of the spilt blood of Christ, but because He is God the savior. But if God could only be able to save us because the spilt blood of Christ satisfied (really, gratified) his wrath, then the death of Christ was meant to deal with God’s wrath as a priority and not so much human sin, because this wrath was an obstacle to His salvific Love and to saving man. 

Certainly, the nature of this teaching is clearly against God’s love and makes Him appear closer to Satan in Hs character. The idea that it was the spilt blood of Christ that caused God to save us, is thus a dangerous teaching when understood with the thought that the spilt bold is the death of Christ and not the gift of His life; a knowledge of God and Christ. The facts are, the death of Christ made two major merits available to man, His sufferage and His gift of Life; these are what saves man, not the physical death of Christ paying a penalty under God’s wrath. It is the Life of Christ that substitutes spiritual death in the lost sinner and thus changes him, making him 

holy or righteous. Life is a knowledge of God and Christ, and this is an experience of the Love of God in the mind of the converted. It is this Life that dwells in the converted as the indwelling of the Holy spirit and determines the man being converted and thus acceptable to God. This is what is meant to be saved from sin within the heart. So we can say that because of the split/given blood/life of Christ 

man is able to be saved. It is blood/life that makes atonement for sin, that is, it is blood/life thelife of Christ that removes sin and replaces it with the Love of God. This shows us that it is the spilt blood of Christ that is His given life that cause us to be saved. 

Thus it is in this sense that we can say God saves us because of the spilt blood of Christ. The track of truth may appear very close to the track of error, and the mind not worked upon the Holy Spirit of Truth may not discern the difference; so it is that error, especially about the death of Christ, may enter into Adventism and completely change its principles. But when the mind of the Christian is exercised greatly in the word of God by the enlightening aid of the Spirit of Truth, a world of a difference parts the track of truth from that of error that the difference can be clearly seen and the truth may be exalted before all. (Jn 3:16,17; Proverbs 17:15,26; Exodus 23:7; Ezekiel 18:20,23,31,32; John 10:10,11,15; 1Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 4:1,2; 1 John 4:10,11; Proverbs 21:3; John 17:3). 

May God bless you all. Amen