Who His Own Self Bare Our Sins in His Own Body on the Tree (1 Peter 2:24)

2024-05-03

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

Jesus bore our sins on the cross so we would not have to. This is Jesus as our substitute. Since He bore our sins there, He took them away, so that we could finally live righteously.

There is no separation from our old man and our sins. If He bore our sins on the cross, He also bore the sinner there as well. So we died to sin there on the cross with Him. But here, we also see the implication of our new life in Christ as well. Being dead to sins means that we are separated from those sins, free to live to righteousness, being healed from our mortal wound of sin.

Note the slight difference here: “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Romans 6:2). We are dead to sin according to this verse, but we are dead to sins in 1 Peter 2:24. Sin is the nature of the old man; sins are the symptoms of the old man, the individual actions of sin.

To be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ is a beautiful truth. The more I meditate on the matter, the more wonderful it becomes.