Substitutionary Atonement: Jesus Died for Us By MICHAEL BROWN for The Stream
The prophet Isaiah said it so beautifully, hundreds of years before Jesus’ death: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). What a message!
We sinned. He died.
We deserved the punishment. He took it on Himself.
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That is the meaning of the cross.
Christ Took Our Place
As expressed by Peter, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; you have been healed by His wounds. … For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God” (1 Peter 2:24; 3:18a).
Or in the words of Paul, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
The perfectly righteous one died for the totally unrighteous ones, taking our place on the cross. And did it all because of love.
That is God’s heart for a sinful human race. Rather than wiping us out, He sent His Son to die for us and offer us new life. That is the grace of God — a holy God who had even reason to destroy us yet chose to offer us mercy instead.
The Importance of the Shedding of Blood
As a teacher of the Jewish Scriptures, Paul understood that the heart and soul of the sacrificial system was substitution, an innocent animal dying for the guilty Israelite. As described in Lev. 17:11, it was a matter of life for life. That’s why the shedding of blood was so important (see also Heb. 9:22).
And that’s why, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would lay his hands on the scapegoat and confess the sins of Israel over that goat. The animal would then be sent into the wilderness, while the blood of another goat would be killed to provide expiation (meaning atonement and cleansing) for the nation.
