To open our hearts to the truth revealed by God is not selfish nor sinful, but the only way to salvation, which the SOP explains here:



The love of God shines from the cross, and if we do not resist, but respond (i.e. open our hearts to the truth revealed by God), then we will be saved.

Regarding dying to self and sin, that's spoken of in the text cited. "I delight to do Thy will, O my God." This cannot be done without dying to self and sin. The law is written in the heart; this involves death to self and sin.

Here's another statement that speaks to the theme:

PTI, but here's one way:

Tom, isn't this another way of saying Jesus bought them probation? In what way do you think probation (or the provisions you cited) benefits the impenitent (people who refuse to embrace Jesus as their personal Savior)?

In the way she pointed out; it gives them physical life. Our physical life, and even the ability we have to refuse Christ, is the purchase of His blood. This is what she's saying.

Colin,

If Jesus, for some reason, had to die for Himself, He couldn't die for others.

Probation, mortal life itself, pro-creation, the pursuit of happiness - Mike, these are obvious benefits of the cross for "all men".

But, really...: the second death: it no longer applies to anyone, because of Jesus, by grace, while probation lasts. Jesus tasted the second death not only for those who will believe in him, but also for those who don't and/or won't....That's truly mind-blowing!!...and heart warming.


So, the world has been reconciled to God by the death of his Son. (Rom 5:10; 2 Cor 5:19)

[God leading in this reconciliation is the essence of propitiation, for expiation means that man appeases his heathen gods - such appeasement isn't Biblical. God also is wrath against sin, in propitiation, rather than not at all, in expiation. Yes, it's a philosophical difference between those words which impacts theology.]

Jesus is already the world's Saviour from the judgement of eternal death on sin - being saved from sin in the life is the experience of grace, not just the fact of grace that the world has a living Saviour. Next I'll deal with justification and the cross..., to clear up the confusion allowed by our scholars, as showed by the Primacy of the Gospel Committee report.

He can't free us from human nature's condemnation by taking it on himself, etc, huh?

Is that your question? If so: he isn't inherently human, since he is God's only begotten Son by nature: he took the condemnation of our nature into himself without becoming subject to it by letting corruption rest on him, and needing a Saviour on both counts. That is, he perfected righteousness, rejecting the old man, sinful mind of our humanity, not becoming carnally minded as a sinner, establishing "the mind of Christ" of the new humanity of the Second Adam.

We equally go outside our nature as Jesus gives us the power of God to become children of God, partaking of the divine nature which is experiencing the indwelling Spirit of God. Jesus did just that, pioneering the faith, and his meritorious, human character of righteousness raised him above the condemnation of divine wrath due his assumed, sinful human flesh.

He could thus die for others, indeed as all others whom he took into himself by taking their corporate nature, and corporately free them from their nature's condemnation in his person.

That's the essence of Rom 7:1-4: the law binding the woman to her husband is really this condemnation binding humans to eternal death: only by suffering & dying that condemnation in Jesus' person, by grace and then through faith, can all sinful humans be freed from the prison of living in a dead nature (Rom 7:24), to live eternally, born again in the new creation of Jesus' righteous mind of justification by faith.

...or was that not your question?

The question is, Did He die because He was condemned or because we were condemned?

Well, I guessed right first time, then, actually.

To your one-line, it's not that simple...

He took our condemned flesh as his own but was not personally condemned by it - as I said first time, he is both not naturally human in his own right and he lived a righteous life which preserved him from the condemned nature he took. He bore the condemnation of our nature, having taken it as his own; he suffered also our guilt, having been separated from his Father by the undiluted wrath of God, on the cross.

The assumed, i.e. taken, sinful humanity of Christ was condemned, but the human character of Christ was righteous by faith, so his death was our condemnation suffered in his body and our justification rooted in his merits as the Lamb of God (Rom 4:25).

What's the undiluted wrath of God?