The monster within us, this sinful nature we’ve got that has us completely captive to “sin and death,” was in for a shock when God sent Jesus. Up to that moment, it had complete freedom to do whatever it wanted with us, because anything we threw at it was useless. Our determination to obey God’s law, for instance, only gave our sinful nature more ammunition to condemn us, because all the law did was show us, to our embarrassment, just how many laws we were breaking, and our powerlessness to keep them all. That’s why God released us from trying to fulfill the law’s requirements by our efforts, because our efforts were no more effective than shooting paintballs at a tank. They had no impact on our sinful nature whatsoever. It rolled on regardless, without a dent in sight. It was unstoppable.
Until, that is, God sent Jesus to be a “sin offering,” Romans 8:3, the effect of which must have startled our sinful nature as it frolicked away inside our heads, because Jesus’ sin offering “condemned sin in sinful man.” It was like a massive great fly swat swishing out of nowhere, whacking our sinful nature to the wall. But how was Jesus able to do that for each one of us? How was he going to get inside everyone’s head with the fly swat, hunt down the monster and destroy it?
He didn’t have to because all sin could be destroyed by just one man being a sin offering. Paul explains why that is in Romans 5:12, 19 - “Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man…so also through the obedience of one man the many will be made righteous.” Since sin came into the world by one man, it can also be destroyed by one man. So, anyone saying it wasn’t fair that Adam’s sin condemned us all, would also have to say it’s not right that Jesus’ sacrifice saved us all, too. God’s fair. It’s one for one. “For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many (5:15)!”
“Consequently,” verse 18, “just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.” Jesus’ sin offering, then, covers everyone who ever sinned since Adam. The power of sin, that gave our sinful nature control over us, has been broken. Neither it, nor the law, can condemn us any longer (Romans 8:1)…
Filed under: The new way of the Spirit
