1 Peter 2:24
The death of Jesus at Calvary was more than the execution of a Jewish carpenter some 2000 years ago. By living a sinless life, and fulfilling every demand of the law, Jesus was incapable of dying as a result of His own sins, for He had none. As a perfect man, He offered His life in exchange for all who would put faith in Him, and in order to make the sacrifice proper, all of the sins and transgressions of the world were placed on Christ so that His death would not be for Himself, but for the whole world.
What happened at the cross was a great exchange: my sins for His righteousness. He knew no sin of His own, yet He bore my sins “in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). As awesome as that thought is, the apostle Paul took it even further.
While Peter explains that Jesus bore our sins by His sacrificial death, which killed our sin nature, allowing us to live righteously, Paul says that Jesus did even more than bear the sin, for the Father, “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus was actually viewed as sin when He hung at Calvary, and it was for this reason that “it pleased the Lord to bruise him” (Isaiah 53:10).
The understanding of this is crucial if you wish to have knowledge as to your right standing with God. If Jesus bore your sins, then you bear His righteousness. That is great, but it denotes that you can take it off by your actions, thus bringing righteousness back into your hands instead of His. However, if Jesus was made to be sin, and we were made to be righteousness, that speaks to a position, not a possession. In that case, I am not simply wearing His righteousness (though we certainly are), but I am doing even more than that, as I AM HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS!
The only way that the believer could ever do as Peter said and “live unto righteousness” is if our sins and their consequences were gone. Nothing stands in the way to growth and development like the constant guilt and condemnation that is accompanied with our sins and failures. If that guilt and condemnation is done away with by the sacrifice of Jesus, then the sin is soon to follow, as we will live righteous only when we realize that He has borne our sins.
Paul confirmed this when he told the Corinthian church to “Awake to righteousness, and sin not” (1 Corinthians 15:34). The power to stop falling into sin and failure is to wake up to how righteous that Jesus is in us, knowing that He has took our sins into His body at the cross and then had that body split open by the judgment of God. If God has judged it once, then the results are a guarantee. That is why Peter closes the verse with, “by whose stripes ye were healed”. If our healing is spoken of in the past tense, our sins should be as well. Hallelujah!
The death of Jesus at Calvary was more than the execution of a Jewish carpenter some 2000 years ago. By living a sinless life, and fulfilling every demand of the law, Jesus was incapable of dying as a result of His own sins, for He had none. As a perfect man, He offered His life in exchange for all who would put faith in Him, and in order to make the sacrifice proper, all of the sins and transgressions of the world were placed on Christ so that His death would not be for Himself, but for the whole world.
What happened at the cross was a great exchange: my sins for His righteousness. He knew no sin of His own, yet He bore my sins “in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). As awesome as that thought is, the apostle Paul took it even further.
While Peter explains that Jesus bore our sins by His sacrificial death, which killed our sin nature, allowing us to live righteously, Paul says that Jesus did even more than bear the sin, for the Father, “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus was actually viewed as sin when He hung at Calvary, and it was for this reason that “it pleased the Lord to bruise him” (Isaiah 53:10).
The understanding of this is crucial if you wish to have knowledge as to your right standing with God. If Jesus bore your sins, then you bear His righteousness. That is great, but it denotes that you can take it off by your actions, thus bringing righteousness back into your hands instead of His. However, if Jesus was made to be sin, and we were made to be righteousness, that speaks to a position, not a possession. In that case, I am not simply wearing His righteousness (though we certainly are), but I am doing even more than that, as I AM HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS!
The only way that the believer could ever do as Peter said and “live unto righteousness” is if our sins and their consequences were gone. Nothing stands in the way to growth and development like the constant guilt and condemnation that is accompanied with our sins and failures. If that guilt and condemnation is done away with by the sacrifice of Jesus, then the sin is soon to follow, as we will live righteous only when we realize that He has borne our sins.
Paul confirmed this when he told the Corinthian church to “Awake to righteousness, and sin not” (1 Corinthians 15:34). The power to stop falling into sin and failure is to wake up to how righteous that Jesus is in us, knowing that He has took our sins into His body at the cross and then had that body split open by the judgment of God. If God has judged it once, then the results are a guarantee. That is why Peter closes the verse with, “by whose stripes ye were healed”. If our healing is spoken of in the past tense, our sins should be as well. Hallelujah!
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