A
thorough study of Jesus’ death
is extensive. His role in the
plan of salvation raises many
questions. For example, why does the
plan of salvation require that
someone die? If the Father
loves sinners enough to sacrifice
Jesus, why did the Father not give
Himself to die for sinners? What
prevented the Father from selecting
or creating an angel to die for
sinners? Is there something in
God’s law that requires an
innocent person to die so a guilty
person can go free? Why did the
Father wait 4,000 years before He
sent Jesus to Earth? What
happens to people who have died
without hearing about the ministry of
Jesus? Did Jesus die the first
or second death? Did Jesus die
in our place?
Most
Christians believe the Father sent
Jesus to die as a sinless substitute
for sinners. (Romans 3:23;6:23)
These two verses declare thateveryone
has sinned and the penalty
for sin is death, therefore God has
condemned all human beings to
death. Furthermore, since one
sinner cannot atone for the sins of
another sinner and since each sinner
has been condemned to death for his
own sins, the Father’s solution
for saving sinners was for a sinless
substitute to die. Christians
maintain that the Father sent Jesus
to Earth to die in our place.
Still the question remains how the
death of a sinless person can save a
guilty person. Is there
something in God’s law that
requires an innocent person to die so
that a condemned person can go
free? God said“The
soul who sins is the one who will
die.” (Ezekiel 18:4)
Jesus’ role in the plan of
salvation is complicated.
However, most Christians agree that
salvation requires a sinless
substitute. This understanding leads
to an interesting dilemma if we
consider an endless number of people
and an endless amount of time.
Sin
has already occurred twice, once in
Heaven and once on Earth. If
sin does occur again, will God
provide another sinless
substitute? I know many
Christians believe sin will never
occur again (the Bible does not teach
this) and I cannot say that it
will. However, billions of
years from now, after God has created
billions of new planets with billions
of new beings living on them, the
possibility of sin exists because
what I call God’s “sudden
death law” never expires.
As long as finite beings live with an
infinite God who we cannot understand
and as long as finite beings have the
power of choice, theprobability of
sin occurring is low but thepossibility is
never eliminated. However, when
created beings have knowledge of good
and evil, if a person sins, God will
immediately execute him just as God
was to execute Adam and Eve on the
day they sinned. (Genesis 2:17)
Guilt
is Transferred to Heaven’s
Temple
The
Bible does not teach that Jesus died
in our place; instead, Jesus died for
much higher reasons! The Bible
teaches that Jesus saves sinners
through aprocess I
call, “The Transfer
Doctrine.” God does not
forgive sin (all sins are recorded),
but God is willing to separate a
sinner from his guilt bytransferring
a sinner’s guilt into
Heaven’s temple through the
sinless blood of Jesus. This
transfer is possible if the sinner
will in good faith confess and
forsake the sin, provide restitution,
and humbly obey the inner voice of
the Holy Spirit.
Hebrews 8:5 says the
earthly temple (starting with the
tabernacle Moses built) and its
services were ashadow of
the real temple in Heaven.
sThis means the ceremonial law
in the Old Testament and its temple
services were amodelthat
generations of people could carefully
study and understand how Jesus
accomplishes the plan of salvation in
Heaven’s temple. During
Old Testament times, if a person
sinned and wanted to be free of
guilt, the first step was to show
sorrow for his sin by making
restitution to the person he
offended. Then the sinner
brought a flawless lamb to the
temple. When the sinner arrived
at the Altar of Burnt Offering, he
confessed his sin to God with his
hands resting on the lamb’s
head. The sinner then killed
the lamb and a priest captured some
blood in a cup. The priest
applied this blood to the four horns
of the altar, separating the sinner
and his guilt. The
sinner’s guilt wastransferred to
the temple through the sinless blood
of the lamb and simultaneously, the
righteousness of the lamb (lambs are
sinless) wastransferred to
the sinner.
The
beautiful point is that when the
sinner left the temple, it was as
though, in God’s sight, he had
never sinned! So, God is
willing to separate the sinner from
his guilt bytransferring it
to the temple. Simultaneously, God is
willing tojustify a
sinner bytransferring the
righteousness of the lamb to
him! The wordjustify in
this context means, from God’s
perspective, it is as though the
sinner never sinned. Remember
that earthly temple services were a
model, a shadow of events
occurring in Heaven’s
temple. The Bible says that
animal blood could not transfer
guilt. (Hebrews 10:4)
The
Transfer Doctrine is wonderful
because it also makes salvation
possible for people who have never
heard of Jesus. After Adam and
Eve sinned, the Father planned to
send Jesus to Earth about 4,000 years
later. The Father foreknew that
billions of people would live on
Earth who would not have a chance to
hear about Jesus. So the
Father, with generosity and love,
designed the plan of salvation to
includeall human
beings. Here is the process:
From the time Adam and Eve sinned,
salvation has been based on faith,
not knowledge. This occurs
whenever a person hears and obeys the
voice of the Holy Spirit. This
is why God gives the gift of the Holy
Spirit to every person (Romans 12:3)
andour response to His
voice determines our eternal destiny.
(Matthew 12:31,32)
God will save everyone who faithfully
obeys the Holy Spirit (as the harlot
Rahab did –Hebrews 11:31).
Through faith, the Father can
legitimatelytransfer a
sinner’s guilt to Heaven’s
temple through the blood of Jesus and
simultaneously bestow the
righteousness of the Lamb of God on
him.
The
Scapegoat is the Guilt Bearer
The
Transfer Doctrine resolves an
interesting problem. If the
penalty for sin is death and Jesus
did not die in our place, who pays
the penalty for the sins of the
saints? First, all who refuse
to obey the voice of the Holy Spirit
will die for their own sins.
Their guilt will rest on their own
heads. Jesus said,“I
am He who searches hearts and minds,
and I will repay each of you
according to your deeds.”(Revelation 2:23)
Unfortunately, this will be a huge
number of people! (Revelation 20:8)
On the other hand, each person who
faith-fully obeys the voice of the
Holy Spirit will have his guilttransferred to
the temple through the blood of
Jesus; his guilt remaining there
until the temple is cleansed andtransferred to
the head ofthe guilt-bearer.
Once
a year, on the Day of Atonement, the
earthly temple was cleansed of
guilt. After the high priest
was found worthy to officiate for
Israel, two flawless goats were
brought into the temple courtyard and
the priest cast lots to see which
goat would die. The remaining
goat became the guilt-bearing goat
(scapegoat) and the guilt in the
temple wastransferred to
its head.
Two
goats, instead of two lambs, were
used on the Day of Atonement to show
that sin began in Heaven. The
two goats represented Michael and
Lucifer. (Jesus lived in the
form of Michael the archangel before
coming to Earth to live in the form
of a man. Although Jesus is a
member of the Godhead, He takes our
form and lives among created beings
as one of us.)
Before
sin began, Michael and Lucifer were
“covering cherubs,” the
highest possible positions in
Heaven. Both of them were
sinless until Lucifer became jealous
of Michael, because Lucifer wanted to
be worshiped as Michael was
worshiped. When the Father told
Lucifer that was impossible because
Michael was a member of deity,
Lucifer became angry and
rebellious. The Father was
patient and He did everything
possible to keep Lucifer and his
followers from sinning.
Eventually, the Father cast the devil
and his angels out of Heaven when
they rebelled.
The
casting of lots to see which goat
would become the guilt-bearer
indicates the Father’s
omniscience. The Father
foreknew the mind, heart, and ways of
Lucifer long before Lucifer was
created. Yet, the Father gave
him life and made him the highest and
most capable of all created
beings. The Father and Michael
loved Lucifer dearly, but Lucifer
became vain and hostile when fellow
angels could not worship him like
Michael. Lucifer’s
disaffection led him to seek
sympathetic followers, and one-third
of the angels followed Lucifer.
In
the temple services after the lot was
cast, the priest killed thechosen
(the anointed) goat. He
sprinkled the blood of the sinless
goat on the Ark of the Covenant, the
horns on the Altar of Incense, and
the horns on the Altar of Burnt
Offering. After this, the
priest placed his hands on the head
of the guilt-bearing goat and
announced that the temple was
clean. All of the guilt that
had been stored in the temple during
the year wastransferred to
the scapegoat. A strong man
took the scapegoat far into the
desert so that the goat might die a
slow protracted death. The
scapegoat was not killed. In
this service, the scapegoat does not
pay the penalty for sin; instead, it
bears the consequences for sin.
This part of the model reveals there
is no substitutionary death in the
plan of salvation. Lucifer will
suffer for a period of time in hell
before he dies. First, he must
die because his own guilt is upon his
own head. Second, he must die a
protracted death because he received
the guilt, which the saintstransferred to
the temple.
The
cleansing of the earthly temple model
illustrates how judgment day occurs
in Heaven. After breaking the
third seal on the Book of Life in
1844, Jesus began reviewing the
records of every dead person.
Jesus presents the life of each
person to watching angels. He
shows them everything, most of all,
that person’s response to the
Holy Spirit. When Jesus
completes His presentation, as God He
pronounces a verdict: The
sinner’s guilt isassigned to
his own head ortransferred to
Lucifer’s head. Either
way, that sinner’s guilt is no
longer in the temple. When Jesus
completes the judgment process, the
Heavenly temple will be clean,
totally free of guilt.
Jesus
is the Perfect Sacrifice
The
Father selected Jesus to die for
sinners because Jesus, as a member of
the Godhead, had elements within
Himself that could be transferred to
sinners. When Adam and Eve
sinned, they lost face-to-face
communion with God, their beautiful
garden home, access to the Tree of
Life, and the infinite joy and
excitement that comes with endless
life. They also lost
two elements that a created being (an
angel or a perfect man) could not
give a sinner – their ability to
live forever and propensity for
righteousness.
All
created beings borrow life from
God. We live from one moment to
the next because God gives us the
breath of life. Sinless beings
have a propensity for righteousness
because the power from God never
ceases to flow. Therefore, the
Father needed a God, a member of the
Godhead, who was willing to bestow
these powers to sinners. If the
Father could provide such a donor, He
could legitimatelytransfer both
divine powers to sinners and
intelligent angels would unanimously
agree that the Father had infinitely
exceeded the demands of
justice. This is achieved by
transferring the guilt of sin to the
head of thefather of sin and
transferring Christ’s propensity
for righteousness to every repentant
sinner. All of the redeemed
sinners, despite how evil they might
have been, would easily “fit
in” with the eternal happiness
and joy that fills Heaven.
When
the Father informed Jesus that He
needed a “divine donor,”
Jesus volunteered. On the day
that Adam and Eve sinned, Jesus
became “The Son (the subject) of
God.” (Psalm 2:7-12)
When Jesus came to Earth, He came as
the “Lamb of God,” (John 1:29)
and through His infinite sacrifice,
the Father can restore Adam and Eve
and their offspring to Eden without
breaking or changing His laws of
love! The Father is a God of
love. He and Jesus have proved they
love their neighbors as
themselves. No greater
demonstration of love is
possible! No price for the
salvation of sinners could be higher!
When
we combine the Transfer Doctrine with
the conclusions presented in the
first three parts of this study, the
evidence is clear: Monotheism
and the idea that one God manifests
Himself as three different persons
areinsufficient doctrines.
The truth is the Father and Jesus are
separate, distinct, coeternal members
of the Godhead, who love one another
with all their hearts and their
neighbors as themselves.
