In My Place

April 25, 2018

It’s not uncommon for preachers to declare that God loves us so much that he sent his Son to die for us. After all, this statement is at the heart of the Gospel. Nominal Christians and even unbelievers are often familiar with such statements, but I suspect that most of us don’t even begin to understand the ramifications of it. We tend to think of his death on the cross as we would think of someone who stands in harm’s way, like the soldier who throws his body on a grenade to save others, or the person who is killed shoving a child out of the path of a speeding car. In thinking this way, Jesus becomes more our hero than our Savior.

The ancients had a keener sense than we of the devastating effect of sin. They understood that something is desperately wrong with life; that humanity is somehow cut off from Life itself. There was a deep sense of disconnect; we are at such odds with life that it is correctable only by a vicarious sacrifice: life must be given up for the life of the sinner. The genius of Christianity is in the understanding that even this vicarious sacrifice is insufficient unless it has infinite worth, and that is only possible if somehow God himself provided in himself the sacrifice for sins.

The Scriptures say that Christ “appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:26). We are not saved by Christ’s love; we are saved by his sacrifice on our behalf, which was the demonstration of his love. I am grateful tonight that my sins, as great and as abhorrent as they are, have been forgiven because Jesus took on himself the punishment I deserved, and set me free.