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Hey, I just had a great conversation with a friend of mine about this, and since neither of us are informed on the issue, I immediately thought to pose the question here.

There was a problem (our sins) that God wanted to fix. So in order to fix it, he sent Jesus, or took the form of Jesus, and the rest is history. We received a huge benefit, problem solved.

How was God's solution connected to the problem? What was the mechanism by which it was fixed?

For example, say I have a problem. My new job is 30 miles away and that's too far to walk. In order to solve the problem, I can: 1) Buy a car. 2) Draw a picture of a whale with a purple crayon.

One of those solutions is a good one, the other is not. The reason for that is because one addresses the problem—once I have a car, the 30 miles is no longer a prohibitive distance, because a car enables me to traverse that distance in a reasonable amount of time. The same is not true of 2).

So, God was faced with the problem of us all having been created as sinners. For analogy's sake, he could: 1) Send Jesus to earth to die a torturous death. 2) Draw a picture of a whale with a purple crayon.

Why is 1) the solution here, and not 2)? How does 1) address the problem in a way that 2) does not?

Hope that makes sense, I'm having a hard time articulating it, but that's my best shot. Thanks for your time!

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the question. I'll give it a good shot. God is life; union with him is life, separation from him is death. (Like picking a wildflower. As soon as you pick it, you have broken its contact with life. It is now dead. The question is merely how long it will take to fade. Though it looks alive [for the time being], that won't last long. Though it still has nutrients running through its system, it is technically dead [separated from life] and fading.) Let's use that analogy (though that analogy has some flaws).

Adam and Eve were brought into the Garden and given access to the Tree of Life. There they could enjoy unity with God and be alive. God wanted them to have a relationship of love with him, and since love must always be chosen, not forced, He gave them a choice. They chose to rebel against him and chose to be separated from His life. Therefore that day they "surely died", meaning they were separated from God. All children born to them were also under the status of separation from God (sort of as if [another analogy] they had left their country to become citizens of another country. Their children were now citizens of the far country as well).

The Bible says that sin brought separation from God by choice, nature, and behavior. The separation was complete, and the result was "death" (separation from the life of God). The idea behind Penal Substitutionary Atonement is that someone who did not deserve to die took the punishment of death (archetypally) for all humanity, making it possible for them to be restored. The one who had never sinned became sin for us so that we might become life once again through his death nd resurrection.

It's not substitution in the sense of quantifiable exchange, but in the sense of a legal demand: Jesus, who didn't deserve to die, died as a substitution for those who did deserve to die. Somebody else who didn't owe the creditor anything paid your debt for you (death) and set you free.

That's the premise behind it. It addresses the problem because it relates to death and life, redemption and substitution. Your second example (drawing a picture) obviously has no sets in common with the question at hand and is absurd.

> God was faced with the problem of us all having been created as sinners

This isn't true, according to the Bible. The Bible says God created us "good," and we chose to be sinners, rebelling, and separating our selves from his life. At the time of our sin he initiated a plan to redeem us back. That plan involved the death of an individual not subject to death (Jesus) as a substitution for those who did deserve to die (humanity).

I have two choices. I can address your question with the same themes, terminology, direction and focus, with an answer that addresses your query, and I can go outside and throw a baseball into the woods. I have chose to address your question.

God chose to address sin, death, and life by providing atonement for sin via an innocent life through redemption, substituting his life for yours, offering you life through his death and resurrection, something you could not do yourself. (You separated yourself from God, but didn't have the power to restore the connection.) I hope that makes sense. Let's leave the whales and crayons out of a theological discussion.