God, Remission of Sin, and the Timing of Jesus’ Death

Dave Miller, Ph.D.

Doctrinal MattersSalvation

Q:

When were the Old Testament saints forgiven—during their lifetime or after Jesus died on the cross?

A:

As finite beings, we are completely tied to time. We cannot even conceptualize existence without our conceptions being characterized by the transpiring of time. But such is not the case with God. God is not subject to time. He exists outside of time and is the Creator of time. Indeed, He is “the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15). As this divine attribute relates to the question of salvation, God did not have to wait until the literal, physical crucifixion of Christ in order to forgive pre-cross peoples on the basis of Christ’s blood. The fact that pre-cross saints could not be forgiven without the blood of Christ did not mean that they were in some sort of spiritual limbo and unsaved until the cross. They could be saved at the time they lived on Earth—as subsequently made clear by their being placed in the Paradise portion of Hades.1 Perhaps, then, the old expression “sins were rolled forward” is inadequate to express Bible teaching on this subject.

Indeed, to speak of “the righteous in Hades”2 is an admission that they were saved (Luke 16:22-23). The mere fact that they were in Paradise demonstrates that they were already redeemed by Jesus. In fact, why have two separated areas—one for the righteous and one for the unrighteous—if both were yet unforgiven? The phrase “that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Hebrews 11:40) stresses that their salvation was not disconnected from the salvation that those after the cross would receive. They were tied together based on the same divine sacrifice. Indeed, while the faithful were alive on Earth long before the cross, God reckoned them “righteous,” “pleasing to God,” an “heir of the righteousness which is according to faith,” and “look[ing] to the reward”—as indicated in Hebrews 11:4,5,7,26.

Critical verses that clarify this concept may be seen in Romans 3:25-26 and Revelation 13:8. The first passage, referring to Jesus, reads: “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness.” In other words, God did not have to consider pre-cross saints as lost because He was able to forgive them, based on the blood of Christ, since His sacrifice was an inevitability. Neither Satan himself nor anyone else could thwart the eternal purposes of God. No wonder, then, that Jesus is described as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8; cf. “before time began”—2 Timothy 1:9). Atonement, so far as God was concerned, was a “done deal” since He is not subject to time constraints. His eternality places Him above time and He could reckon forgiveness to the faithful even before the earthly, physical mechanisms were brought to fruition.

God used the physical hemoglobin that flowed through the physical body that He “prepared” (Hebrews 10:5) for Jesus to inhabit as the means by which He could count people forgiven—but that forgiveness occurred in God’s mind, not on a wooden cross in first-century Palestine. Neither the wooden cross and nails nor the physical hemoglobin possessed any intrinsic saving power—even as the waters of baptism do not. Yet Scripture declares that both “save.” But in what sense? Only in the sense that, in harmony with His perfect, infinite nature, God designates them as components of His plan to redeem people. Hence, “passed over” in Romans 3:25 does not mean they remained unforgiven. It means God forgave them based on the timeless, eternal sacrifice, thus demonstrating His justice in allowing them to be saved prior to the actual sacrifice. If, on the other hand, they remained unforgiven until Jesus died on the cross, then they should have been in the torment “compartment” of Hades and not in the Paradise portion. The timeless nature of God in handling man’s redemption is further seen in the fact that if Jesus’ blood could be shed for countless people yet unborn and sinless without regard to actual timing, why not also for those before the cross?

Hebrews

The writer of Hebrews provides crucial clarifications regarding what was needed to atone for sin, and that the blood of bulls and goats would not do it (10:4). But these technicalities were not divulged nor understood until the New Testament era. Old Testament saints could not have known these subtleties (1 Peter 1:10-11). Nor did they need to. But what they did need to know was that, if they manifested “obedient faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26), they were saved (which is precisely what Hebrews 11 elaborates). Consequently, God provided ample reassurance to those who predated the cross of Christ that they were in a saved condition. Here is a small sampling of such indications:

• Leviticus 4-5 uses the expression “it shall be forgiven him/them” eight times to describe the condition of those Israelites for whom animal sacrifices were made.
• Numbers 15:25-26 states twice that the sin offerings would enable the “whole congregation” of Israel to be forgiven.
• In Psalm 103:12, David insisted: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
• The prophet Micah declared: “Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:18-19).

Perhaps a comparable, though admittedly inadequate, illustration would be the way we “pay our bills” every month. When, for example, we receive an electric/utility bill in the mail, we either sit down and write a check for the required amount, or we go online to the electric company website to pay the bill with a credit card. If we write a check, we place that check in a provided envelope, place a stamp on the envelope, and place it in a mailbox for the mailman to retrieve—who then takes that envelope to the central Post Office for sorting in order to redirect that envelope to the electric company. Upon arrival, a machine or employee opens the envelope, retrieves the check, and enters your payment into the system for you to receive credit for paying your bill. At that point, the check is again redirected (physically or electronically), this time to your bank, in order for the electric company to receive the actual funds that are represented by the check that you wrote on your bank account. The bank must then transfer those actual funds from your bank account to the electric company. Once the electric company receives those funds, your bill is actually paid. If you pay the bill online at the electric company website, you enter your bank account number from which the electric company draws your payment—a process that delays you receiving actual credit for having paid the bill.

Carefully observe that throughout this time-laden process, technical payment of your bill is not achieved until all the actions in the chain of events leading up to that payment come to fruition. Yet, when you wrote the check and placed the envelope in the mailbox, and your spouse asks you, “Did you pay the bills?,” you answer in the affirmative. Did you lie? Of course not. So far as you were concerned, you implemented the actions required on your part to fulfill your responsibility to pay the bills. You literally did all you can do to achieve that objective. And so it was with Old Testament saints. When they lived a life of “obedient faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26; Hebrews 11; Habakkuk 2:4) before God, they were in a saved condition. That assured condition was based—in God’s mind—on the blood of Christ, regardless of the time frame and technicalities that God brought to fruition in His own ways and own time (cf. Romans 3:25; Galatians 4:4). All of the righteous—both alive and dead—are eagerly awaiting the Second Coming at which time we will receive the salvation for which He offered Himself: “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:27-28, ESV).

To summarize: God did not have to wait for the actual, historical occurrence of the cross on Earth to forgive pre-cross saints. Like Christians today, when they lived a life of obedient faith, walking in the light, and acknowledging their sins and seeking forgiveness, they could be assured of their salvation.

Endnotes

1 Dave Miller, (2002), “One Second After Death,” Apologetics Press, https://apologeticspress.org/one-second-after-death-1188/

2 F.G. Allen (1886), “The State of the Righteous Dead” in The Old-Path Pulpit: A Book of Original Doctrinal Sermons (Covington, KY: Guide Printing & Publishing Co.), 1:274, emp. added.

REPRODUCTION & DISCLAIMERS: We are happy to grant permission for this article to be reproduced in part or in its entirety, as long as our stipulations are observed.