What Happened on the Cross. Nick Peros

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СКАЧАТЬ was that done, and how is it just? If our sins have never been punished, doesn’t that mean God is not just? How we understand what happened on the cross speaks directly to how we understand the character and nature of God. What kind of God is he? Is he a God who demands satisfaction, punishment, and vengeance, or is he a God of love, mercy, and forgiveness? In fact, Jesus taking our sin away is a magnificent witness to God’s supreme and perfect justice, founded in his great and infinite love.

      The foundation upon which we are to understand what happened on the cross—of how and why our salvation was accomplished—is to understand that Jesus Christ is the Second Adam. In fact, this is the true grace of God, that there even was a Second Adam (referred to in the Bible as the Last Adam because, even though Jesus Christ is the Second Adam, he is also the Last Adam, since after Jesus Christ there will never be another Adam. In this book the term “Second Adam” will be used interchangeably with the “Last Adam”).

      In order to understand the nature and work of the Second Adam—to ultimately understand what happened on the cross—we must first understand the nature of the First Adam, the father of humanity, and the fall of man. In order to fully understand the First Adam and the fall of man, we must also understand creation, the angelic rebellion, and the origin of sin—we must understand the beginning.

      Part I

      The Beginning

      1

      Creation

      In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth.

      (Gen 1:1 NIV)

      God is Creator

      The Bible tells us God is the creator, he is the maker of all things, and nothing exists apart from him. The Bible tells us this creation happened “in the beginning.”

      The Beginning

      What is “the beginning?” The beginning is defined as the initial creation of time and space. Too often, we think of time and space as some sort of preexisting, eternal elements—but they are not. Until God created time and space, they did not exist. Time and space are in fact the physical fabric of creation, they are the canvas upon which the rest of creation was made. Time and space were created by God first, before he created anything else.

      Time had a Beginning

      Second Timothy 1:9 testifies to the fact that time had a beginning when it tells us: “. . . This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (NIV). We are told here that time had a “beginning.” We, as creatures of time and space, cannot comprehend the concept of the creation of time, nor do we even have the language to speak of such a thing since all of our language, as well as our nature, is completely subject to time. Yet, it remains true that time is as much a created thing as is the moon or a rock. When 2 Timothy 1:9 talks about “the beginning of time,” this is, in fact, the same “beginning” as outlined in Genesis 1:1. The creation of time is “the beginning.”

      Time and Space: The Fabric of Creation

      Existing hand in hand with time is space. Time and space are united elements, the one is inextricably tied in its nature to the other. Time is as much the nature of space as space is the nature of time, and together they act as the fabric of God’s creation.

      The term “fabric of creation” means the physical foundation upon which all the rest of creation would be constructed. This concept of the fabric of creation, the foundation upon which all creation was to be laid, is affirmed throughout Scripture:

      He stretches out the Heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in (Isa 40:22 NIV).

      The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the Heavens like a tent (Ps 104:2 NIV).

      The Lord your Maker, who stretches out the Heavens and who lays the foundations of the earth (Isa 51:13 NIV).

      In each of these verses, as well as in many others, God’s creative act is described as a “stretch[ing]” out of the heavens—these are the heavens of Genesis 1.1—with those heavens being spread out like a “tent” or a “canopy.” These are words and images of fabric and material. All the heavens exist only within and upon the foundation of time and space, so as God “stretches” out the heavens, and “spreads” them out like a tent, it is implicit that includes the foundational fabric upon which the heavens are laid, and that foundational fabric is the fabric of time and space.

      The Fabric of Creation Created First

      Since time and space are the foundational fabric of creation, they were created before the heavens and the earth that were to be laid upon that fabric, and therefore the creation of time and space constitutes the beginning. In Genesis 1:1, the “beginning” precedes the creation of the heavens and the earth. Since “the beginning” precedes the creation of the heavens and the earth, and since the creation of time and space constitutes “the beginning”, this again affirms that time and space was created first, and then, as stated in Genesis 1:1, the heavens and the earth were created next.

      Time and space, as the foundational fabric of creation, are themselves wholly physical and, as such, define the physicality of God’s creation. All of God’s creation as created in Genesis 1.1, including all the heavens, is constructed upon the foundation of time and space and, as such, is therefore just as physical as is time and space. The entirety of God’s creation is a physical creation.

      The Heavens

      In Genesis 1:1, after the “beginning,” after the creation of time and space, God then created the heavens. Why is the word “heavens” plural? If we contrast Genesis 1:1 with Revelation 21:1, we see a slight difference:

      In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen 1:1 NIV)

      Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. (Rev 21:1 NIV)

      In Genesis 1:1, God is described as creating the “heavens,” while Revelation 21:1 describes a new “heaven.” Why is “heavens” in Genesis 1:1 plural while in Revelation 21:1 it is not? What does this difference mean?

      The Three Heavens

      Genesis 1:1 is an account of the initial act of creation by God, while Revelation 21:1 is not. As a result, Genesis 1:1 is describing a different event than is Revelation 21:1, and the Genesis 1:1 description is a very specific and exact description of the initial creation.

      In the Bible, the term “the heavens” is a collective term that refers to three types of heaven. From the perspective of standing on the earth, when we look up, we see the heavens as follows: First, we see the sky that surrounds the earth, which is defined as the first heaven. Second, when we look beyond the earthly sky, we see what we call outer space, where the sun, moon, stars, and galaxies reside, which is the second heaven. Beyond outer space is the place where God has established his throne within his creation, the place which we call Heaven (referred to here as “Heaven” to distinguish it from the other two heavens)—the Bible calls this, the place of God’s throne, the third heaven. As a result, the plural term “heavens” referenced in Genesis 1:1 encompasses all three types of heaven, and describes each of the three types of heaven as being created in “the beginning.”

      The Third Heaven

      The СКАЧАТЬ