Jesus Takes Our Penalty

  Jesus Take’s Our Penalty?

By Russ Kujawski

What does it mean " Jesus take’s our penalty?" What penalty am I speaking of? It's the eternal penalty, the spiritual side of our sinful failures. There are consequences (a result or effect of an action or condition) for our sin in this current life that we must deal with. We have the Holy Spirit who dwells in us to help us and guide us through our consequences of our sin, but we also have Jesus the Christ who removed those consequences or penalty in our eternity. That’s because Christ is our propitiation that is he makes atonement for our sin.

Atonement

 

   :"Atonement “occurs 90 times in 78 verses in the ESV.  The Hebrew word for Atonement is kaphar it’s a verb that is it’s an action word, it means: to cover over, pacify, propitiate: to cover over, atone for sin, make atonement for: to cover over, atone for sin and persons by legal rites

 Atonement is the covering over of our sins, that is removing the penalty of sin in eternity, this was done in Old testament times by the sacrifice. Depending on the sin or who has sinned, determined the type of sacrifice to be made. In Leviticus 4 there are a few examples of who sinned and the type of sacrifice required. If a anointed priest sins v3 a bull from the herd is sacrificed, the anointed priest kills the bull v4, the whole congregation sins v13 a bull from the herd is sacrificed v14, the elders of the congregation kills the bull v15, if a leader sins v22, then a male goat is sacrificed, v23 and the leader kills the goat v24. Then the last one below

 Ex: Lev 4:27-30

27 “If anyone of the common people sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, and realizes his guilt, 28 or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without blemish, for his sin which he has committed. 29 And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill the sin offering in the place of burnt offering. 30 And the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out all the rest of its blood at the base of the altar.

 I've underlined common people, he, him, his to make a point that it’s the person in this section of scripture that has sinned brings a female goat without blemish and the sin offender kills the goat. He actively participates in the sacrifice. In the atonement for his sin. That in my opinion make it personnel.

Propitiation

 "propitiation “occurs 4 times in 4 verses in the ESV.

 Propitiation:

akin to hileos ("merciful, propitious"), signifies "an expiation, a means whereby sin is covered and remitted." It is used in the NT of Christ Himself as "the propitiation,"

 in 1Jo 2: 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.  1 John 4: 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. signifying that He Himself, through the expiatory sacrifice of His Death, is the Personal means by whom God shows mercy to the sinner who believes on Christ as the One thus provided. In the former passage, He is described as "the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world."

Gods Laws

Gods good and moral laws The Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments

1 Then God spoke all these words, saying,

2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

 The book of Leviticus the third book of the bible details God’s laws and the procedures and or rituals that are performed when laws are broken. Such as sin as mentioned above.

What did the Law do? It identified sin. It did not interduce sin into the world Adam did that.  

What’s the problem with these laws that God gave to the people? Nothing! They are good moral, and just laws or as its titled commandments. The problem is man, from the time in the garden of Eden when Adam ate the fruit that he was commanded to not eat directly from God, and became aware of good and evil, right and wrong. Adam brought sin into the world as I mentioned the law identified sin.

 Romans 5: 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man(Adam), and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

  ***Footnotes: ***

Romans 5:12 The Greek word anthropoi refers here to both men and women; also, twice in verse 18

As you can see sin entered the world through one man that is Adam also can be seen in versus 17,18, and 19.

Romans 7: 7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

 Was there sin prior to the laws of God? Yes!!!! See the following examples

 Gen 4: 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother.  And when they were in the field, Cain revolted against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you (Cain) are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.

If murder wasn’t a sin in the beginning, then God would have been unjust in punishing Cain.

Gen 6: 5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

If there was no such thing as sin prior to the law, then God would not have been justified in wiping out mankind apart from Noah and his family.

One more example of sin prior to Gods laws Gen 20.

 Gen20: 20 From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.” 4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her.

 If sin did not exist prior to the laws of God, then God would not have a need to keep Abimelech from touching (that is having sexual relations) with Sarah.

 Sin has been around because of Adams failures in the garden as stated in Romans 5 “through one man Adam sin entered the world”. I believe that there is a natural moral code with in man to know right from wrong. Probably like sin the natural since of right and wrong, good and evil came from Adam because the fruit he ate came from the tree of knowledge. So, the laws of God identified sin so man no longer can say I did not know. There are no more excuses. The thing the law couldn’t do was save mankind. If man was able hypothetically to keep the law perfectly man would be saved by it hypothetically, but man cannot because of our desire to sin, our desire to be the god of our life instead of letting God be our God. Enter Jesus Christ the Messiah.

Enter Jesus the Christ

 Romans 5: 17 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one-man Jesus Christ.

 Thru Jesus the Christ mankind has a means to salvation has a means to a relationship with God. Even though we did not love God he loved us and sent his son to be our propitiation our atonement to be our sin covering

 1 John 4: 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 John3: 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

 Jesus came not to save only a selected few but the whole world.by bearing our penalty for sin on the cross. Above I talked about what was needed for a sin sacrifice. It mentions a spotless bull or goat. one without blemish. Jesus is our spotless, without blemish sacrifice on the cross for our sins. He took on the weight of the worlds sin on his shoulders.

 1Peter 2: 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

 1peter2: 24 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.

 Jesus did not sin he bore our sins on the cross so that we who chose to follow him. May not be a slave to sin that we are healed from our sinful failures. In him we have redemption. That is Christ redeemed us when he died on the cross he said “it is finished” that was an accounting term means paid in full. Christ redeemed us he paid the price in full.

 Eph1: 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

 Colossians 1: 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Redemption is technically for the whole world as stated in John3:17 he came to save the world not condemn it, with that said I need to be clear although Jesus came to save the whole world we as a people must decide to except his sacrifice for our sins and believe in him. In a way, we play a part in our redemption by choosing or not choosing to follow Christ.

John 5: 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Notice this verse is saying “whoever hears and believes” we as a people must make a choice This isn’t like common grace. What is common Grace? The doctrine of common grace pertains to the sovereign grace of God bestowed upon all of mankind regardless of their election. In other words, God has always bestowed His graciousness on all people in all parts of the earth at all time. Psalms 245: 9 The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.

Final thought

There is NO common redemption you either are or you’re not you can’t sit on the fence to see what will happen Satan owns the fence. As I stated in Leviticus 4 the offender the sinner had to bring the sacrifice he made a choice to seek forgiveness seek redemption, then the offender also is the one who commits the killing of the sacrifice. the offender makes a choice and participates in the redemption ritual.

Just like we have participated by choosing to Come to him Jesus and receive his work on the cross for us, his redemption for our sins.

 The tile of this paper is” Jesus takes our penalty” Why does he do that? Because there is no sacrifice we can do, no good work we can do, there is nothing we can do to earn forgiveness of our sins and have communion with God, Jesus is the only way we can have forgiveness and re-establish communion with God. Why did God send his son to be the sacrifice for our sin’s? It’s simple John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

 If you haven’t received Christ as your savior do it now.