Penalty For All Sin

April 30, 2022 – Ron Green

And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. I John‬ ‭2:2‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

In the New Testament, Jesus, God’s Son, came to earth to reunite us with God through the ultimate sacrifice: his own life. So Jesus lived a life without sin on our behalf. And then he died the painful death our sins deserve.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus was arrested and brought to trial before Pilate the Roman leader? Jesus was not a criminal or presented any harm to anyone. It was because the Jewish high council, the Sanhedrin felt threatened by Jesus’s teachings. The Jewish leaders became jealous of the teachings of Jesus and plotted to have Him arrested because Jesus knew more than they did, which in turn, they were loosing authority over the Jewish people. If the high council lost the authority over the Jewish people, then they would loose their status with the Roman leaders. 

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. Matthew‬ ‭26:14-16‬ ‭NLT‬‬

We can pick up the story in the book of Matthew starting in chapter 26:
Jesus knew that His time has come for the Son of Man to be taken away, so Jesus 
took His disciples to the olive grove called Gethsemane and said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and He became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 
It was in great anguish over his approaching physical  pain, separation from the Father and death for the world. The divine course was set, but He in His human nature struggled. Because of the anguish Jesus experienced , He can relate to our suffering. Jesus’s strength to obey came from His relationship with God the Father, who is the source of our strength. 
Since He himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested. Hebrews‬ ‭2:18‬ ‭NLT‬‬
This suffering was primarily the “Wrath of Man” which God used to punish his Son for our sins – as a human being just like us. This opened the door for Satan to tempt Jesus. Satan wanted Jesus to step out of His human form and return to the “Powers of Heaven” and send help to get Him out of this situation. Jesus did not fall for Satan’s temptations and continued to pray to the Father, asking for the Father’s will to be done. When the Father shown no other way out of the situation, Jesus knew that He was following the Father’s will. Because of that suffering, the door of eternal life with God has been opened for every person who believes that Jesus’ suffering was sufficient to pay the penalty for all their sin.

⁃ Chaplain Ron