This semester I'm in a class on the book of Romans. We've been going through the entire book looking at what Paul was teaching in it by the Holy Spirit. A few weeks ago we reached Romans 5 and it has caused me to ponder something about is death. I've been pondering verse 12 and some implications of my own thought. Verse 12 reads "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned." (Romans 5:12 HCSB).
What I've been thinking about heavily revolves around the Christian belief that Christ was indeed sinless, that he lived the perfect life free of sin (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). What I've been thinking about is that Christ shouldn't have died, not in a purpose sense but in a consiquence sense. As we see in Romans 5:12 death is a natural consiquence of sin. If sin had not entered the world, death would not have entered it either. This is a difficult idea for us to grasp because death is so real to us, more real than sin at times. By that I mean we consciously grasp death better than we do sin. Since Jesus never sinned he should never had died. I had never thought about this before. It never occured to me that Christ would never have died. Death is so normal to us that we expect all people to die, which is a quality I mistakenly put upon Jesus. If someone were to never sin they would live forever. Every man's death is proof of his sinfulness.
But then we must ask "Why did Jesus die? If he never sinned then why did he receive the punishment for it?" That is because God put the punishment of the sin of men upon him. This is clearly seen in the 2 Corinthians verse I linked to above. If Christ had not taken our sin upon himself he would have lived forever in a human sense. But God in his infinite love for humanity made Christ sin so that we might be made righteouss. We still face death but we also face eternal life as well, depending on if we have faith in God it will be eternally with him and if we do not place our faith in him it will be eternally seperated.
On this Good Friday, or any day you happen to read this, may you realize the depth of your sin that Christ himself took upon himself. May you turn to him and receive his free gift of salvation. May you glorify the Lord in his glorious death.
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