1. “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
We have been redeemed from our sins by the death of Christ. In order to deal with our record of sins and our sinful nature, Christ carried our sins to the cross and bore God’s righteous judgment on our behalf as the Lamb of God. On the cross He bore all the righteous requirements of God, which were upon us as sinners. Thus, He dealt with our record of sin.
2. “He has been manifested for the putting away of sin through the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26).
Christ offered Himself on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins to put away our sins and to deal with our record of sin.
3. “This One, having offered one sacrifice for sins” (Heb. 10:12).
Christ’s offering was an eternal sacrifice for our sins. He solved the problem of our sins forever.
4. “Through His own blood, entered once for all... obtaining an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12).
Christ’s sacrifice was an eternal sacrifice. Therefore, He obtained an eternal redemption for us. His one act solved the problem of our sins for eternity. He solved our problem of sin once for all.
1. “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3).
We have sin inwardly and sins outwardly; therefore, when the Lord Jesus dealt with sin, He had to deal with both aspects. To deal with our sinful nature, the Lord became flesh, coming in the likeness of the flesh of sin. He put on the flesh of sinners, which means that He put on us sinners in order to deal with our sinful nature. He was crucified for us sinners, and in His flesh He condemned sin within our flesh. Thus, He resolved the problem of our inward sinful nature, the sin dwelling and reigning within us, which enslaved us. The indwelling sin in us is in our flesh. To deal with this aspect, the Lord became flesh and put on the likeness of the flesh of sin. Then He went to the cross to condemn, judge, kill, and abolish sin in the flesh.
2. “Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21).
The Lord Jesus did not know sin, but God sent Him in the likeness of the flesh of sin to deal with the problem of sin in the flesh. In God’s eyes He was made sin. As a result of being made sin, He could go to the cross to kill and deal with the flesh of sin. When the Lord Jesus was in the flesh on the cross, God saw sin there, and then He condemned and judged it. When Jesus was in the flesh, He had the likeness of the flesh of sin outwardly but not the reality of sin inwardly. When He was judged by God on the cross, He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin in order to deal with sin in the flesh. This is typified by the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness in Numbers 21:4-9. They were bitten by poisonous serpents, and in God’s eyes the Israelites were like snakes. God then told Moses to lift up a bronze serpent on a pole to bear His judgment for them and to deal with the poison that had been injected into the Israelites. The bronze serpent had only the outward form of a serpent, not its inward reality. The Lord is like the bronze serpent. On the cross He bore God’s judgment for us and dealt with the inward poison of the old serpent, the Devil (Rev. 12:9), that is, the sin in our flesh. The Lord dealt with our inward sin through the death of His flesh on the cross so that we might escape the control of sin and no longer be its slaves.
1. “Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all / To fall on Him” (Isa. 53:6).
The Lord not only became sin for us in order to deal with our inward sin, but He also bore our iniquities on the cross in order to deal with our outward sins. When He was dying on the cross, God caused all of our iniquities, our outward sins, to fall on Him. He bore our sins and also bore God’s righteous judgment on our behalf in order to solve the problem of our outward sins.
2. “Who Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24).
God put all our sins onto the Lord when He was hanging on the tree, the cross. He bore up our sins and solved the problem related to our outward sins before God.
The Lord not only solved the problem of our sinful nature on the cross but also the problem related to the sins which issued forth from our sinful nature. He solved the problem of our sinful nature by becoming sin for us and by condemning and judging sin in the flesh. He solved the problem of our outward sins by bearing our sins and by bearing God’s righteous judgment for these sins in order to satisfy His righteous requirement.