The Gospel: 7
The Gospel Is:
Sin Dealt With
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
1 Peter 2:24
I’ve said this before. I’m going to say it again, and again. We have a problem. Why is it so important to understand that we have a problem, what the problem is and why the gospel is the solution? The answer is at least threefold. Firstly it is important so that we can understand that the gospel is a solution. Secondly it is important so we can understand how the gospel is a solution. After all, if you do not understand what a solution is a solution to, the logic of why it is indeed a solution is going to escape you. Thirdly, because sin is foundational to a Christian worldview.
What I mean by that is not something that I’m going to be able to draw out fully here, that would take a book, but the Christian understanding of the human condition is that we are sin-sick. We are depraved and because of our depravity everything we do, think and touch has become depraved. We are depraved people in a depraved world. Basically, to jargonise, we are sinners. This actually forms the foundation for all Christian engagement with culture: all Christian apologetics and ethics. It does this because it is the basis of a Christian ‘anthropology;’ that is, a Christian doctrine of what it is to be human. You might quite often here people speak of ‘the human condition.’ In the simplest summary the human ‘condition’ is that: we are alienated from God. We are sin-sick.
So, we have a problem. Our problem is our sinfulness: our alienation from God. But why is this a problem? It’s a problem because God is holy. The reason we are alienated from God is because we have acted in an unholy fashion. For example, we have disobeyed God. We have worshipped other objects, or even ourselves, as though they were gods. Christians still do it all the time. This ungodliness leads to wickedness. This wickedness taints everything we do. We do not have thoughts which are untainted by sin. This is not to say that everything we do is so tainted by sin and that we are incapable of any act of goodness, or that our reason is useless. It is to say that everything is tainted by sin. Sin’s breadth covers everything, even if its depth leaves us some capacity to function. It is not enough of a capacity to function, however. Our own faculties will not allow us to reach to God, we would not look in the right place.
So, we are alienated from God. More than that, we are incapable of even finding him again. The Bible goes further and says that we do not even want to find him again (Rom. 3:10-11). However, this might not concern you. Why would you want to find God? You are coping alright at the moment, are you not? A lack of desire for the presence of God is symptom of our sin-sickness. Sin so taints our vision that not only can we no longer see God, but we forget that we desire him, we forget one simple fact:
We were created for a purpose.
We were created for a purpose, and that purpose was to be worshippers of God. That is why sin is such a big problem, it corrupts us to such an extent that we are lost to our created purpose. To return to the reason sin is a problem, God holiness means more than that we are not fulfilling our potential by being apart from him. That is no gospel. God’s holiness means that he cannot stand sin. God’s justice means that his holiness works itself out as wrath against sin. The wrath of God is not a cup that you want to drink!
As we have seen, though, Jesus drinks that cup for us. The wrath of God against our offense was instead poured out on the body of Christ. This means that sin is dealt with. Once and for all, dealt with. This does not mean that we are not tainted creatures in a tainted world. It does not mean that we have ceased to sin. It means that our sin no longer has the consequence of the eternal wrath of God. It means that, by God’s grace, we can see God again; we can regard God as infinitely precious just like we were created to. It means that we can be reunited and reconciled to God. It means we can have a personal relationship with him. It means that our hearts can quicken with desire for the God of the universe. The mysteries of God’s grace are such that even sinners like us can enter into to the throne room by the blood of Jesus, gaze upon the king on the throne and cry out: “This precious One, he is God!”
Let us look briefly at the logic of 1 Peter 2:24. Firstly then Jesus ‘bore our sins in his body on the tree.’ What this means is that Jesus, in a very real and actual way, bore the full punishment for our sin when he hanging on the cross (that is what ‘the tree’ refers to). It means that it actually touched the incarnate son of God. It was ‘in his body,’ this does not mean that the punishment was simply his physical death, but it does mean that he did not avoid it somehow: he suffered it. Jesus did not run away to hide in heaven while the wrath of God was poured out on his carcass, he experienced the full physical and spiritual pain of the anger of the Almighty against sin. What is more, he did it for us. It was a substitutionary sin-bearing, hence that word ‘our.’ It was our sins that Jesus bore, not somebody else’s. That means two things. Firstly it means that Jesus’ death was substitutionary. Secondly it means that if Jesus has saved you then any sin you have, are, or will ever commit Jesus died for 2000 or so years ago at Calvary. Period. They are done and dusted. Forever.
Peter continues: ‘that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.’ So, Peter says that this is the reason that Jesus died: firstly so that we might die to sin. That is, broadly speaking, what we have just been talking about: Jesus’ death removes sin. It removes sin to such an extent that we can be spoken of as having died to righteousness. If the gospel is described as bringing new life, it is not simply a renewal, it is a resurrection! The previous self that was bound to sin is dramatically and decisively dead (c.f. Rom. 6 & 7). Secondly Jesus died so that we might ‘live to righteousness.’ I do not really have to time to do this theme any justice, but broadly speaking our new life is one of righteousness in two ways: it is one of moral righteousness, in that God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s action enables us to live according to the commands of God (NB: not the OT Law, but that is another topic!); it is also one of righteous status, in that we are now emphatically righteous in standing before the judgment seat of God because we stand with Christ.
Peter continues: ‘By his wounds you have been healed.’ In essence this just sums up the sentence before, while alluding to Isaiah 53. Jesus’ wounds dealt with our sin. Our sin is a sickness. His wounds have, therefore, healed us. The ‘great physician’ has healed us with an unfailing, unlimited, unmerited, unending healing.
We will not ever get sick again.
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