General Substitution – The problem of death

The basic form of substitutionary atonement should not be confused with penal substitutionary atonement or satisfaction theory. For this reason, I will properly call it General Substitution. The thesis of substitutionary atonement is that the death and resurrection of Christ made eternal life possible for all those who unite themselves to Christ. It is through the death of Christ that the power of sin and death was broken and it is through the resurrection of Christ that the power of life and immortality is gifted to us through Christ’s indwelling presence. It was an exchange of His life for our life. The mechanics of how this actually works and by what exact means it works is a miracle and a mystery and the result of Christ’s work must be taken by faith. However, for the more rationally minded, I will explain all that I can so that we can at least come to a partial understanding of this great work.

Apart from Christ, it is the natural end result of all mankind to die. It was this way in the garden of Eden as well. Adam and Eve were created as mortal beings yet they possessed immortality so long as they ate from the tree of life. God warned Adam that if he were to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die (Gen 2:17). Once they ate from it, they were cast out of the garden of Eden and removed from the tree of life because otherwise, they would live forever in their sinful state (Gen 3:22-24). God was merciful to not let mankind live for an eternity in a sinful state which would have resulted in an existence of exponential suffering and chaos. Imagine if every rapist, child molester, and violent person were allowed to exist forever in their sinful condition to continue to corrupt the world. They would become experts at their sinful craft. Imagine if you were a slave and had to live as one forever. It would be an awful existence but God was merciful and didn’t let the world become that way. So, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree they were forbidden to eat from, their biological clock began to tick. Their lifespan was limited and they became susceptible to death and decay along with all the rest of humanity that came after them. In Romans 5 it says that sin and death entered the world through Adam. Death is the result of sin because sin results in removing ourselves from God’s life and grace; and apart from the life of God, we die since God alone possesses immortality (1 Tim. 6:16). But God has been gracious to humanity and has extended a measure of life to them until they die. Our souls are also susceptible to this death. That is why apart from God, we feel like something is missing and we have within us the capacity to think and imagine something beyond this present life since God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc 3:11). Many people have questioned, “Isn’t there more to this life?” Or, “Is there anything beyond the grave?” Augustine has said that God has made us for Himself and our souls are restless until they find rest in God.

Romans 6:23 says that “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Some interpret these wages as the natural consequence of our sinful choices. Others interpret these wages as God’s retributive justice. Maybe it’s both. Regardless, the result from our sin is the same—it’s death. This death is spiritual and physical disintegration, fragmentation, and entropy. Sin is what breaks and destroys us and it is only through partaking in the life of Jesus that we can truly live to be who we were created to be and to go on living forever in wholeness.

In Romans 6 Paul tells us that sin should not reign over us because we have died to sin and this happened when we became united to Christ Jesus. This union means that the death He died, we died with Him and the life He lived and resurrected, He imparts to us through our continual abiding in Him. From the time of Adam, no one was able to break the cycle of sin and because of this, death spread to all men. But then Jesus came and broke the cycle of both sin and death. He conquered them through His power and perfection being both God and man so that He could grant to us this grace of His power and life. Jesus learned obedience through the things that He suffered and through this, He has shown us the way of obedience and the way back to God. Also, the work that He has achieved in living a perfect life, He imparts to us this life through infusion as we abide in Him. As He has mentioned, He is the Vine and we are the branches (Jn 15). If we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit but apart from Him we can do nothing. He achieved righteousness for us so that we can live out of His righteousness. What I am speaking about is a state of a transformed life of Christ in us where we abide in Jesus through faith and love and this produces through us an obedience pleasing and acceptable to God. As it says in Hebrews 11:6 “without faith, it is impossible to please Him.” And this faith is not a one-time thing but a continual way of living. In this way, we walk by the Spirit as we are led by the Spirit rather than in our own efforts, seeking acceptance from God on the basis of laws, rituals, and commandments. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Ro. 10:4).

For these reasons, the incarnation of Christ was necessary. But it was also necessary for God to take on human flesh so that He could become the second Adam—the perfect Adam. It was necessary for Him to live a perfect life because all of humanity had failed to do so and this resulted in their death. But since Jesus lived a perfect life, He Himself was not subject to the powers of death. The wages of sin is death but since Jesus never sinned, death could not hold Him in the grave. Death had no power over Him. Sin and death could not claim Him. The devil could not claim Him. The law could not claim Him. Jesus rose from the grave and conquered all. In 2 Timothy 1:10 it says that Jesus “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

There was a supernatural miracle that happened on the cross when Jesus abolished death. To do this, Jesus needed to truly have the substance of mankind, that is our very flesh, our bodies. Hebrews 2:9 says that Jesus was made man and was crowned with glory and honor since He experienced the suffering of death and He did this “so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:14-15 says, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

In the incarnation, Jesus took on our flesh so that He could be our perfect representative and provide a way to break the powers of death. Forgiveness wasn’t the problem in this scenario. Reconciliation wasn’t the problem. Before Jesus died, He freely forgave people simply because He had the authority to do so (Mt 9:2, 6; Mk 1:4; Lk 7:48; Jn 8:11). He didn’t wait until after His death and resurrection to forgive. In the Old Testament as well we see that God forgave people even though Jesus had not come yet to die and rise again. The problem was that death needed to be dealt with. Humanity could not go on to live forever after death because death had conquered them. But when Jesus died, He broke the power of death and as it is written, “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many” (Mt 27:52-53). Those who had “fallen asleep” were those who were dead. But when Jesus broke the power of death, those who previously died having a right relationship with God now rose up out of their graves in bodily form. These were not ghosts but soul and body united together just as Jesus Himself appeared to the disciples after His resurrection in both soul and body. Jesus’ resurrected body along with these people were proof that Jesus had conquered death for us so that if we are reconciled to Him, we also should expect our bodies to rise from the grave one day at the end of the age (1 Cor 15:22; Rev 20:4). Jesus Himself is the tree of life, the bread of life from heaven, the fountain of living water, and eternal life. It is only through Jesus living in us that we will have the power to conquer death because that power is in Jesus (1 Cor 15:57).

For this miracle on the cross to happen, it was also necessary for Jesus to be truly God. It was through His infinite power and perfection that He was able to destroy death and provide an efficacious power over death sufficient for all who believe in Him. How does the death of Christ mechanically work to give us life? We don’t know exactly how but think of it this way. You have Jesus who is God and then He takes on human flesh and combines Himself with it. You now have these two very unlike things combined into one. You have the spirit of God and the flesh of man. One is immortal and the other mortal. One is all-powerful and the other is frail with weakness. So when Jesus died on the cross, something powerfully supernatural took place as His spirit separated from His body. It was like an atomic explosion, like an atomic bomb that is activated through fission. It changed and transferred the natural into the spiritual, like opening a wormhole into the cosmos. Through this act of death and separation, He defeated death. He broke the powers of death. This He did in accordance with natural law. He broke the laws of nature. Not that He violated the law. Rather, He superseded it. He found a way when there appeared to be no way. Also, in Jesus defeating sin, death lost its power and thereby, the devil lost his power to subject people to death; for where there is no sin, there is no death. The curse of death through sin had been broken. United to the first Adam we inherit death but united to the second Adam, Christ, we inherit life eternal. Now, for those who believe in Him, we don’t have to fear death anymore. For us, death is just a doorway into eternity where we will live and rule with Christ on the new earth where there will no longer be any pain, suffering, or death.

2 Timothy 2:11
“For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him.”

Romans 6:8
“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”

One does not need to understand the mechanics of how nuclear fission works to believe in the reality of an atomic bomb. In the same way, one does not need to understand the mechanics of how Jesus’ death and resurrection conquered death in order to believe that He did. Ultimately, it was a miracle and a mystery that we must accept by faith. What is important though is that we believe Jesus was truly God and truly man, that he died, went to the grave, and then three days later rose to life. But if He did not rise from the dead, then we will not rise either but shall remain dead; and if that is so, then our faith and all that we have invested into our Christian lives would be worthless and all for nothing (1 Cor 15:12-19). Those who believe that Jesus did not come in the flesh, do not have the Spirit of God but rather, the spirit of the antichrist (1 Jn 4:1-3; 2 Jn 1:7). And those who do not believe in the deity of Jesus, do not have eternal life (1 Jn 5:20; 2 Jn 9). Life is only found in Jesus and Jesus has given to us the Holy Spirit to give us this basic understanding of God and if we reject the resurrection, the humanity, and divinity of Christ, then we prove that we do not have the Spirit within us and are not connected to the eternal life of Jesus. For it was necessary for Jesus to be truly God, truly man, to die and rise from the dead to bring us life.

St. Athanasius said that Jesus as the Son of God and eternal Word took on a human body that was mortal but the eternal Word was immortal and was life itself. For this reason, death could not corrupt the body and nor could death kill the spirit of God. The presence of God’s life brings life and healing to everything it touches. Therefore, “the death of all was consummated in the Lord's body; yet, because the Word was in it, death and corruption were in the same act utterly abolished.” (Chapter 4, pg. 16-17).

Summarizing more of what St. Athanasius has said:

The Word was moved with love and compassion to save humanity from the penalty of death that they incurred and to free them from the primal transgression. He was also moved out of His own honor to save humanity because He was the one who created them. What would it say of God if He did nothing to help them? They had so utterly corrupted themselves from the image to which God had originally made them and for Him to do nothing would result in the very undoing of His crowning work of creation. He could not merely leave them to live without purpose and without hope only to return to the dust to non-existence. For in that case, it would have been better if He never made man to begin with than for death to be their only fate and for them to serve the devil rather than the Creator and King over all. God created His image-bearers for Himself and it was His intention that they should serve Him to do what they were designed to do, to intimately know their Creator, and to live with fulfillment and joy. Some might speculate: “what if people just repent from their sins so that they can come back to their incorruptible state to become immortal?” But this simply would not suffice. Even if people were to stop sinning, they would not free themselves from death because their very nature is still corrupted with the curse of death. This they received from Adam and this they cannot undo. Athanasius also said “Repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue.” (pg. 6).

The divine consistency is in reference to God upholding the law and the penalty for sin. Repentance wasn’t an option that God gave Adam and Eve as a means to re-enter the garden of Eden. God told them what their consequence would be and they would endure that consequence. For God to remove this penalty in which He said, “you shall surely die” would make God out to be a liar and unjust. It would be to break His oath. Athanasius said “It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption.” (pg. 6). For these reasons, the Word needed to take on human flesh “to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all,” “to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father” (pg. 7). “He saw that corruption held us all the closer, because it was the penalty for the Transgression; He saw, too, how unthinkable it would be for the law to be repealed before it was fulfilled.” (pg. 7). Therefore, Jesus came to perfectly fulfill God’s moral law and “canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col 2:14).

Athanasius explains that since Jesus as the Word was the one who made all of humanity and brought them to life, it was only fitting for Him to rescue them from the death and corruption that they incurred through sin. But it would not have been fitting to nullify the law that they violated. It was for this reason Jesus came to fulfill the law and put the matter to rest through His death. His body was given as a sacrifice on behalf of all and offered His body to the Father and fulfilled all that death required. This is about honoring the law that was set in place from the beginning and thereby honoring God. Because Jesus satisfied God’s law as our representative, the Father was well-pleased and His honor was upheld. The law of death could not hold Jesus down. Instead, it was nailed to the cross.

The view that Athanasius held was not about the Father’s wrath against us. He does not mention that once in his treatise On the Incarnation. His view was more that Jesus suffered on behalf of all and was the Father’s representative to the world of His love, compassion, and honor for doing that which is right. This view resembles the Governmental Theory of the Atonement or Satisfaction Theory but not Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

Athanasius’ primary emphasis was on the debt we owe really being to death itself. Jesus “abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent. For naturally, since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required.” (pg. 8). Athanasius said that “there was a debt owing which must needs be paid; for, as I said before, all men were due to die” and Jesus gave Himself “to settle man's account with death and free him from the primal transgression.” (pg. 16). Athanasius also viewed the curse of Jesus on the cross as Jesus bearing death itself. It was death which was the curse. It wasn’t the Father cursing Jesus. Athanasius says, “He had come to bear the curse that lay on us; and how could He ‘become a curse’ otherwise than by accepting the accursed death? And that death is the cross, for it is written ‘Cursed is every one that hangeth on tree.’” (pg. 20). Therefore, the real enemy or antagonist here is the condemnation of the law, sin, and death, not God. Jesus came and died for us to settle man’s account with death.

2 Corinthians 2:5

For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.

Jesus defeated sin and death so that we might have life and live unto Him in love and gratitude. His sacrifice is substitutionary for all those who put their faith and trust in Him and respond to Him with a devoted heart. Death only remains defeated when the eternal life of Christ dwells within us. Then, like Jesus, His light and life will ultimately dispel all that remains of corruption so that these corruptible bodies can put on immortality.

Jesus was a substitute on behalf of all people to deal with their account with death but this substitution is not automatic because Jesus was a representative on behalf of all and in this way, He died for all. In this way He died in their place. Jesus did the hard work and made the home-run for us but we still need to run all four bases to home. He was our representative as the batter but we won’t make it to home if we don’t run with Him.

Quotes from Athanasius: On the Incarnation of the Word

The effects of death:

For God had made man thus (that is, as an embodied spirit), and had willed that he should remain in incorruption. But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death. Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion. For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt. (Chapter 1, pg. 4-5).

Repentance was not the solution:

What, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. (Chapter 2, pg. 6-7).

Jesus alone could both maintain God’s honor and rescue humanity:

His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. (Chapter 2, pg. 7).

He saw that corruption held us all the closer, because it was the penalty for the Transgression; He saw, too, how unthinkable it would be for the law to be repealed before it was fulfilled.
(pg. 7).

Why Jesus took on human flesh:

Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire. (Chapter 2, pg. 7).

The hypostatic union abolished death:

(9) The Word [Jesus] perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father's Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection. It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent. For naturally, since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required. Naturally also, through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word's indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all. You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death. (Chapter 2, pg. 7-8).

By the offering of His own body, He abolished the death which they had incurred, and corrected their neglect by His own teaching. Thus by His own power He restored the whole nature of man. (Chapter 2, pg. 8).

By man death has gained its power over men; by the Word made Man death has been destroyed and life raised up anew. (Chapter 2, pg. 9).

Death itself was a debt that needed to be paid:

But beyond all this, there was a debt owing which must needs be paid; for, as I said before, all men were due to die. Here, then, is the second reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man's account with death and free him from the primal transgression. In the same act also He showed Himself mightier than death, displaying His own body incorruptible as the first-fruits of the resurrection. (Chapter 4, pg. 16).

He had come to bear the curse that lay on us; and how could He "become a curse" otherwise than by accepting the accursed death? And that death is the cross, for it is written "Cursed is every one that hangeth on tree." (Chapter 4, pg. 20).

The corruption of death could not overcome the divine power of Jesus:

The body of the Word, then, being a real human body, in spite of its having been uniquely formed from a virgin, was of itself mortal and, like other bodies, liable to death. But the indwelling of the Word loosed it from this natural liability, so that corruption could not touch it. Thus it happened that two opposite marvels took place at once: the death of all was consummated in the Lord's body; yet, because the Word was in it, death and corruption were in the same act utterly abolished. Death there had to be, and death for all, so that the due of all might be paid. Wherefore, the Word, as I said, being Himself incapable of death, assumed a mortal body, that He might offer it as His own in place of all, and suffering for the sake of all through His union with it, " might bring to nought Him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver them who all their lifetime were enslaved by the fear of death.” (Chapter 4, pg. 16-17).

On the Incarnation of the Word