Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, (2) in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, (3) among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”
Each one of us was guilty of a life of disobedience to God’s laws before we came to Christ. In other words we were guilty of a life of sin. In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul teaches us that we were all at one time sons of disobedience. Some of us were more wicked than others, but nevertheless even the ones who tried to live good lives by obeying their consciences still ended up disobeying God’s laws, for the scripture teaches us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). And so before we came into the kingdom of God we were all sinners and as such we had no hope, but rather a certain fearful expectation of the wrath of God on the Day of Judgment. However I want you to notice in the above passage that the apostle Paul speaks about the believers’ lifestyle of sin in the past tense, and there is a reason for that. Satan on the other hand, would try convincing the church that they are still sinners, and in doing so he has managed to get many in the church to take up his saying that they are “just sinners saved by grace”. But under the New Covenant the Lord Jesus never calls His church sinners, He always calls them saints.
1 Timothy 1:13-15 “although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. (14) And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. (15) This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I was chief.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul teaches us the faithful truth which is worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. When Paul shared this truth with us he then put himself forward as an example of one who was the chief of sinners, for he tells us that before he was saved, he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man. And so contrary to every bible translation in print today, I have replaced the word “am” with the word “was” in this passage of scripture, and the reason I did that is because the same word translated “am” can also be translated “was”, and in the context of this passage the word should be translated “was”. Sadly the translators, in using the word “am” instead of “was”, would have us to believe that even though Paul was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and an insolent man before he was saved, that nothing changed after he was saved, and he remained the chief of blasphemers, persecutors and insolent men. In this series we will see from scripture that Paul certainly didn’t agree with the men who mistranslated his letter. So why did men mistranslate this one little word? The answer to that question is that they simply could not believe it was possible that Christians could walk free from sin, for they had forgotten the word’s that our Lord taught us, that with God all things are possible. And so they chose to try convincing the church that the Lord’s foremost apostle was unable to overcome sin and in fact claimed to remain the chief of sinners even after being saved. You will find that this series is controversial because it teaches the truth of God’s word that sin no longer has dominion over the born-again believer. And so the truth remains that as believers, we were sinners but now we are saints.
Hebrews 2:2 “For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward.”
The Holy Spirit in the above quoted passage of scripture teaches us that every transgression and disobedience under the Old Covenant received a just reward. In other words every sin had to incur its due penalty. That principle however did not apply only to those who were under the Old Covenant; it also applies to every person that has ever lived. And so we see that every sin ever committed by all of mankind, past, present and future sin had to be dealt with, for no sin can go unpunished. It is precisely because God requires an accounting for every sin committed that unless God Himself intervened mankind would be completely lost.
1 Corinthians 15:3 “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”
Thankfully God did intervene on behalf of mankind, for as revealed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture Jesus the Son of God went to the cross and died for of our sins. In other words Jesus paid the price for our sins. So how did the death of Jesus account for our sins? The scripture teaches us that Jesus Who knew no sin was made to be sin with our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). And so Jesus took all the sin of mankind upon Himself, for the apostle Peter teaches us that He bore our sins in His body (1 Peter 2:24).
Psalms 88:6-7 “You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths. (7) Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your waves.”
As the one who bore the sins of the world Jesus then had to incur the due penalty for each one of those sins, so that the righteous judgement of God could be met. So how did Jesus pay the price for our sins? As revealed to us in the passage of scripture quoted above, after Jesus died on the cross He went down into hell for three days and three nights where He incurred the wrath that was due for each sin that mankind had ever, and would ever commit. And so we see that Jesus paid the price for our sins by incurring the wrath of God the Father for each and every sin.
Romans 4:24-25 “It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, (25) who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”
When Jesus had fully paid the price for every sin, God saw each one of us as justified and He then raised Jesus from the dead because of our justification. This truth is revealed to us in the passage of scripture quoted above. And so we see that our sin was dealt with long before (two thousand years before) we ever accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. It is for this reason that those who reject the gospel will incur a greater punishment on the Day of Judgment than even the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Mark 6:11), for those who reject the gospel hear that Jesus has paid the price for their sins and thus treat the sacrifice that He made for their sin with contempt. The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah did not do this.
Michael E.B. Maher
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