He Died Our Death

The astonishingly good news of the gospel is that Christ died for our sins. He was willing to bear our curse, willing to pay our debt, willing to cover the cost and take our failure upon himself in our place. He was willing to make a great exchange. But one of the more shocking parts of this glorious truth, is that the eternal “Word became flesh” (John 1:14) in order to do that. Here is what we read in 1 Peter 2:24:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

Peter has just told us that Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree. Isn’t that interesting? Why did he have to feel a whip on his back and the weight of God’s wrath upon his shoulders? Why did he have to be crucified? Why couldn’t he have just taken care of our debt from heaven? Why did he have to bear our sins in his body?

Because the only way that God can be perfectly just and true to himself (for he cannot deny himself) is to enforce the penalty of sin — and the penalty is death. God had told Adam and Eve that on the day they disobeyed and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. So in order for God to be just and true, there must be death for disobedience. 

But if God would pay our debt, if he would remove our guilt, if he would bear our curse — then that means that he must somehow taste death. But God cannot die. And yet he has determined that he himself will deliver us and bring us back to himself. So what happens? The Word becomes flesh. God the Son assumes full humanity while remaining fully divine, so that he can both live a perfect life and so that his human body can suffer the judgment of death for our sin. 

Not only that, but just as the world was racked and ruined when we sinned at a tree, so God performed the ultimate act of restoration and reconciliation at a tree. Whereas we would hide behind trees of our own making, afraid to show ourselves to God because of our sin, Christ was hanged upon a tree, on display for all the world to see as he bore our sin. Thus, Christ’s wounds bring us healing; his scars make us beautiful; his death gives us life. So as it turns out, God is not just a God of justice; he is a God of poetic justice.

Christ, Our Justification and Sanctification

But Jesus did not die only to take away our sins and pay our debts so that we could live however we would like. No. We have been bought with a price, the very blood of the Son of God himself — and as that blood washes over us, it transforms us. 

Christ’s death grants to us what theologians call justification and sanctification. Justification is where Jesus makes us right with God once-and-for-all through the forgiveness of sins, in spite of our inherent unrighteousness and wretchedness; in other words, we’re set as far as the records go, because Jesus nailed our certificate of debt to the cross (Col. 2:14). But sanctification is where Jesus empowers us to actually live as God has asked us to, step-by-step and day-by-day. He makes us holy as he is holy. Peter says as much in the middle of the verse: Christ bore our sins… so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. 

Do You Believe?

The question now is: do you believe this? Do you believe that you couldn’t do so much as remove one little penny of your debt, couldn’t do enough good works to make up for even onesin, couldn’t do one thing to save yourself from the curse of death and the wrath of God — and that only Jesus could save you by bearing your sins upon the cross and dying your death? Do you believe that the Son of God loved you and gave himself for you (Gal. 2:20)? 

Because that is how we receive Jesus: by the hand of faith. You do not need to touch his body to lay hold of him; you do not need to pierce his side with a spear to be washed in his cleaning blood; you need only believe, and he will be nearer to you than you are to yourself, and will wash you whiter than an unstained, untouched field of snow, glimmering under the winter sun. He will free you from the curse of sin, even as he frees you to live a holy life. Praise be to him.