And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. -- Lev 16:21-22; Isa 53:6; 1Pe 2:21-25; 1 John 1:9-10; 2:1-2 To say that Christ’s being “made sin for us” means that God appointed Him to be a sin-offering in our stead, does not go back far enough: nothing could be offered as an expiatory sacrifice unless and until sin had been imputed to it—note the laying of the offerer’s hands upon the head of the animal before slaying it in Leviticus 1:4, 5 and 4:4. Christ not only endured the full penalty which our sins deserved, but the very guilt and breach of the Law was charged to Him. How definitely our sins were made (legally constituted) His, appears from His actually confessing them as His own: “For innumerable evils have compassed Me about: Mine iniquities have taken hold upon Me” (Psa. 40:12). He owned—see verses 7 and 8 for the identification of the Speaker. So again He declared, “O God, Thou knowest My foolishness, and My sins are not hid from Thee” (Psa.69:5) To say that Christ’s being “made sin” signifies that He was paid its wages or caused to suffer the penalty of His people’s transgressions is also an inadequate and faulty definition, for it confounds an effect with its cause. Christ could not have been punished for sin unless He had stood guilty in the sight of the Law: punishment always supposes guilt, personal or imputed. Christ was culpable in the eyes of the Law because He took the place of and acted as the Sponsor for His sinful people; the awful load of the accumulated guilt of all their iniquities being laid upon Him. The Lord Jesus was “made sin for us”: that is, in our place, for the idea of substitution is necessarily involved in the very nature of this transaction. The spotless Victim occupied the room of the foul violators of the Law, and therefore He must die. Because He was “made sin” He was also “made a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13): the latter being the consequence of the former. -- Studies in the Scripture -A40. A. W. Pink
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 03:53:08 +0000
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