We are Dead to Our Sins

“For [as a believer] you have been called for this purpose, since Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you may follow in His footsteps. He committed no sin, nor was deceit ever found in His mouth. While being reviled and insulted, He did not revile or insult in return; while suffering, He made no threats [of vengeance], but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges fairly. He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross [willingly offering Himself on it, as on an altar of sacrifice], so that we might die to sin [becoming immune from the penalty and power of sin] and live for righteousness; for by His wounds you [who believe] have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:21-24, AMP)

Imagine you have a huge debt. I’m talking six figures. Whatever it is– medical, educational, a mortgage– it is crushing and the interest rate on it means that you will be paying it off for the rest of your life. The payments on that debt are so high that you will have to work and work and work around the clock to try and make it. Forget about vacations, luxury items, and eating meals out. You’re just lucky to have food on your table. Everything you think about, do, and work towards seems to have that debt looming over it, shadowing everything.

No hope, no relief, no peace.

You realize we all have that debt, right? And it’s not a financial debt, either. You can’t throw money at it to pay it down.

It’s the debt of our sin. And under its weight, we would be marked for eternal suffering and death as the repayment. What an awesome blessing that there is someone who made it so we don’t have to: Jesus.

Jesus is the only one who could forgive those debts and pay them in full. He was sinless and rich in righteousness. Even during the suffering necessary to blot those debts out, He was quiet and meek. He took it all upon Himself and suffered like no one else could fathom. Because yes, he was beaten and mocked and put to death– and there are sinful people who have faced that, too– but that all pales in comparison to the fact that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, every sin of all time consumed Him.

In that moment, Jesus was wholly something God hated. He took on every sin that God despised. And Jesus didn’t curse us for making Him do it. He didn’t threaten the men that did that to Him. He accepted suffering on a scale that we could never understand and died for the glory of God the Father and the propitiation of our sin.

But because Jesus died on the cross, the moment we believed, we died to our sin. In an instant, that debt was of no concern to us. He covered it all. And it wasn’t because we were exceptional or brilliant or beautiful. It wasn’t because we did a prerequisite of good things to other people. It wasn’t because we were good or because we had an impressive resumé. It was because He finished all the work to forgive the debt before we were ever alive to sin. He stepped in because we couldn’t do it ourselves. He was the only one who could accomplish it.

And His suffering doesn’t just forgive the charges of our sin. It heals. Everyone knows the saying, “by His stripes, we are healed.” And when we quote it, it’s often associated with disease, infirmities, and disabilities. It’s often used in healing services and when we lay hands in prayer for others' physical ailments. 

Yes, it’s true Jesus does miracles and heals the sick and the physically broken. He is the Great Physician. But too often, we overlook the fact that He is the healer of spiritual ailments, too. He can heal things that are so deeply embedded in us, we mistake them for our personality. After all, relationship with Jesus is a transformative experience. The deeper we get with Him, the more we find that we’ve changed and become more like Him. The closer we come to His glory, the more we notice the sin we struggle with and become convicted to lay it down and walk away from it. 

That doesn’t mean that we attain perfection. It just means that when we see Jesus for who He is and live in proximity to His person and presence, the more and more we will be healed of those spiritual stumbling blocks. He is the ultimate healer, and His primary concern isn’t our physical body or even our mental state. It’s our spiritual state. It’s our eternal soul. And only He is good and powerful and mighty enough to diagnose what ails us that deeply and heal it. 

His stripes have healed you, and they have healed you  to the absolute depths of your soul. There is no power in heaven or earth other than Him that could do that. There is no other god who can accomplish it. There is no other remedy we can turn to.

Jesus is our Savior, through and through. He is the payor of a debt that we would have no hope of satisfying and would pay with our lives without Him. He is our healer, who can reach even the deepest of spiritual disease that we believe is beyond remedy. And He is the only One worthy of our worship. He lived and died for us, so that we could live free, unashamed, and out from under the burden of our sin.