Would you kindly turn with me in your
Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 2.
We are going to look at the concluding
words of this rather wonderful chapter.
On Wednesday evening in our preparatory service we
were meditating upon the passage that begins with
verse 21.
To this you were called because Christ suffered
for you leaving you an example that you
should follow his steps.
We were then considering how our Lord Jesus
Christ in his suffering, in his anguish is
an example, the example, the only perfect example
for his people.
And we saw that Peter tells us here
for example that he suffered sinlessly, he did
no sin.
He suffered guilelessly, there was no deceit in
his mouth.
He suffered silently and above all he suffered
believingly, handing over the whole of the affairs
of his life and of his death to
God the Father in the confidence that nothing
could go wrong, but that his heavenly Father
would straighten out all the tangled webs and
in due course righteousness would prevail, the Father's
will be done and God would be praised.
He then in those verses is the supreme
example of his people.
Now that was our subject on Wednesday evening.
Now this morning we proceed.
We're going to look at verses 24 and
25.
He himself bore our sins in his body
on the tree so that we might die
to sins and live for righteousness.
By his wounds you have been healed, for
you were like sheep going astray, but now
you have returned to the shepherd and the
overseer of your souls.
Here we are going to look at the
solitary sin bearer and therefore the solitary Savior,
the Savior of God's appointment, the one and
only, anointed of God, appointed of God, sustained
by God to do the work necessary for
the salvation of men and women, the one
and only Savior, the solitary sin bearer.
Now there is more in this passage than
we can deal with this morning.
We're going to look at just two or
three things only.
We're going to concentrate particularly on the fact
that he is the bearer of sin, but
I want you to notice that because he
bore our sins away, he has accomplished many
things all at once.
For example, Peter goes on to say, by
his stripes you were healed.
He did not simply bear our sins away
as if he were carrying a burden that
was on our shoulders and taking it away
from us.
He did that, but he did more than
that.
In bearing away the sins of men, he
accomplished for his people a means of healing,
of spiritual healing, and those who receive that
healing behave in a particular way.
Now he gives us an illustration.
You, he says, you were like sheep going
astray.
You see, those are the symptoms of the
malady of sin.
We were like foolish sheep wandering hither and
thither from the fold and from the God
under whose hand and guidance we ought to
live.
We were sick.
Sin is not simply a matter of breaking
an objective law and earning the righteous indignation
of God, though it is that.
Sin is a sickness of the soul, and
it reflects itself in a waywardness, a going
in the wrong way.
On the Lord's Day, you are not where
you ought to be.
In the hour of prayer, you are somewhere
where you shouldn't be, and you are not
where God meant you to be.
It is a moving out of the way
of the commandments of God.
It is a wandering like lost sheep.
But these people whom Peter addressed, Peter could
say to them, you've been healed.
You've been healed.
By his wounds, you have been healed, because
you were like sheep going astray, but now
you've returned to the shepherd and the overseer
of your souls.
You're in your right place.
You're in the fold.
You're in the care of the Good Shepherd.
You are where you're meant to be.
You're in the right place at the right
time.
You're His, and you're sensitive to His leading
and His guiding, and responsive to His ministry.
So somehow or other, there flows from the
sin-bearing work of Jesus Christ a healing
virtue.
And brothers and sisters in Christ, let us
remember that today.
Down the years and the corridors of time,
there are men and women gathered out of
every kindred and tribe and people and nation,
black and white, brown and yellow, whatever color
you may choose to mention.
They've been washed in the blood.
They've been healed through His stripes, and they've
ceased their wanderings, and they've come back under
the care of the Good Shepherd.
And this means they've been inwardly healed.
Are you healed?
But now, I had to say that.
But what I want to concentrate upon for
the rest of the time, the short time
available this morning, is just this, the basis
of it all.
Because Peter traces the river to its source.
And the source of all the saving and
the sanctifying benefits of the gospel are found
where?
They're found in one person.
They're found in one person in His death.
They're found in the one person dying where?
On the cross of Calvary.
Who?
His own self.
There was no one with Him.
No one shared in the task.
No one will have the honor of saying,
I was associated with Him in His sin
-bearing work.
His own self, in solitary splendor, but with
sufficient grace, and glory, and power, and all
else, to finish the work that the Father
gave Him to be, and to bear away
our sin.
Here in these words, then, we have moved
away from those features of our Lord's sufferings,
in which He appeared as the accredited and
only perfect example.
Here, He is not the example.
We cannot copy Him here.
We need not.
Here, He performs a work, and finishes it,
and completes it, and says, Tis done.
Believe.
Trust.
And rejoice.
Now, it will be fully appreciated that the
language and concepts employed here are far from
popular and familiar in our contemporary world.
The very mention of sin-bearing is enough
to earn the wrath of a very large
section of the theological world at one stroke.
Many will laugh at us that we advertise
a subject such as this in the 20th
century.
But the writers of the New Testament found
that this was the heart of it all.
And they did not blush.
And they were not ashamed to speak in
this term, in this language, because it took
them to the very heart of the saving
work of God in Christ.
Christ was our sin-bearer.
He bore our sins in His own body
to the tree.
James Denny once put it like this.
Now he says, To bear sin is not
an expression for which we have to invent
or excogitate a meaning.
There are terms like that.
We're not quite sure what they mean, and
so we've got to put our heads together,
and pray, and bend our knees, and seek
the light of God.
This is not a term.
We don't need to look for this, says
James Denny.
It is a familiar expression of which the
meaning is fixed.
And he quotes the Scriptures in order to
explain exactly what he means.
This term, its meaning, has been fixed in
the Old Testament.
And no one has been given authority to
change its significance, so that we may know,
if we care to read the Word of
God, what it means to bear sin.
Now, let us examine some of the relevant
passages, just to see what it all means,
and may the thrill of it, and the
wonder of it, grip us as a congregation
this morning.
Oh, may the Spirit of God wing this
truth, despite my feeble words, and my feeble
attempts to let you, to expound this passage.
Please, God, let the Spirit bring it home
to everyone this morning.
What does it mean to bear, and bear
away sin?
Let me quote, first of all, from Leviticus,
chapter 5, and verse 17.
And I'm quoting from the Revised Standard Version,
rather than from the NIV.
It's clearer.
If anyone sins, doing any of the things
that the Lord has commanded not to be
done, though he does not know it, yet
he is guilty, and shall bear his iniquity.
What does that mean?
It means this, he will have to take
the consequences of his misdeeds.
That's what it means to bear sins.
Come again, Numbers 14, 33, and 34.
And your children shall be shepherds in the
wilderness for forty years, and shall suffer for
your faithlessness until the last of your dead
bodies lies in the wilderness.
According to the number of the days in
which you spied out the land, forty days,
for every day a year, you shall bear
your iniquity.
Forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.
What does it mean?
This, they shall have to bear the consequences
of their misdeeds.
A year for a day.
Come again to the book of Numbers, chapter
18, verses 21 and 22.
To the Levites I have given every tithe
in Israel foreign inheritance in return for their
service which they served, their service in the
tent of meeting.
And henceforth, the people of Israel shall not
come near to the tent of meeting lest
they bear their sin and die.
What is the message?
The message is this.
God has appointed a priesthood to function in
the tent of meeting.
And the ordinary people of Israel were not
allowed to have dealings in the sacrificial system
and certainly no one but the high priest
was allowed, and only once a year into
the Holy of Holies.
In case, says the Lord through his servant,
they shall bear sin and die and suffer
the consequences of their misdeeds.
Shall I give one other?
The soul that sinneth, says Ezekiel in 18
and 20, it shall die.
The son shall not bear the iniquity of
the father, neither shall the father bear the
iniquity of the son.
The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon
them and the wickedness of the wicked shall
be upon him.
What is the message?
The message is the same.
To bear sin means that you accept what
is due to you for your own sin.
Not the sin of your father for the
moment, but your own sin, my sin.
In all these passages the meaning is clear.
The crucial phrase has reference to one's reaping
the harvest of one's own misdeeds.
I for my sin, you for your sins.
Brother and sister, you are responsible to God
for every transgression and iniquity and you are
answerable yourself alone.
And so am I.
You will bear your sin and I will
bear my sin unless we come to that.
Now sometimes the task of sin bearing was
undertaken by a third party.
This was a divine and a gracious provision.
The inspired writers never raised the question of
the propriety of such an act.
They simply state the fact and they were
commissioned to do so.
I can only quote two illustrations now.
Leviticus 10 and 17.
Moses is asking a question of Aaron and
two of his sons.
Why have you not eaten the sin offering
in the place of the sanctuary since it
is a thing most holy and has been
given to you that you may bear the
iniquity of the congregation to make atonement for
them before the Lord?
Moses is chiding Aaron and these his sons
because they have not partaken of the offering
which they should have eaten and devoured in
the presence of the Lord.
Because that was part and parcel of their
ministry in which they symbolically bore the sins
of the people.
They were the priests who stood in between
the people and their God and made atonement.
Made amends and they hadn't done what God
had expected them to do.
A very more better known illustration comes from
Leviticus 17 and verse 22.
The ministry of the day of atonement.
You remember the two goats were chosen.
Concerning one of the goats, this is what
we read.
The goat shall bear all the iniquities upon
him to a solitary land and he shall
let the goat go into the wilderness.
Have you got the picture?
First of all, Aaron would confess all the
sins of Israel as it were on to
the head of an innocent little goat.
And he would put his hands upon the
head of the goat as if to say
I'm transferring the whole thing onto the head
of an innocent party who will carry it
away.
Its partner will be slain.
This one will affect another aspect of the
symbolism and carry the sin away for which
its partner will die.
Now you see when John the Baptist introduced
the Lord Jesus, he didn't need to give
any great explanation.
You remember how he introduced him on the
banks of Jordan.
Behold he says.
And the word behold is really a shaker.
It says look man.
It says look.
There's something to see and look.
Behold the Lamb of God who is taking
away, carrying away, bearing away the sin of
the world.
Says John the Baptist, the sin bearer supreme
has come.
All the others were but pointers to him.
He has come who was promised and here
he is.
And it's no wonder of course that some
of John's disciples hearing him speaking left John
and followed Jesus.
They knew they needed a sin bearer.
He who knows the sin of his heart
is wise if he leaves anybody and everybody
in order to follow Jesus in the way
for there is no other sin bearer.
Peter you remember in this context had only
just previously referred to our Lord's sinlessness and
guilelessness.
And this adds of course tremendously to the
meaning of the whole thing.
Jesus died as the sinless sin bearer.
He died as the guileless.
There was no twist in him.
The guileless sin bearer.
But now you see here we come to
the heart of it and this is the
marvel of it.
There was no sin in him because he
loathed sin.
He hated sin.
He loved righteousness.
And yet for love of you men and
women let me repeat it.
Let not a cough disturb this.
For love of you and of me he
who hated sin put his arms around it
and his shoulders underneath it and he carried
the wretched load to his cross for your
salvation.
He hated it but he embraced it.
Why?
Out of love for you.
Out of mercy for you.
Out of his care for me.
Out of his compassion for the lost.
He so loved the world.
Now something of this paradoxical tension emerges I
believe later on and with this I must
draw to a close.
Something of this paradoxical nature emerges again later
on particularly when our Lord you remember insisted
on remaining silent during his period before the
Sanhedrin and before Herod and before others.
He was silent.
You notice that?
Has it ever puzzled you?
Why was he silent?
You see personally he could have pleaded not
guilty and he could have summoned a whole
array of witnesses to prove that he went
about doing good and he had not done
the kind of things that he was accused
of having done.
He could have done that.
He could have lifted his head high as
the totally guile less, guilt less son of
God Jesus of Nazareth.
But he didn't do that.
He was silent.
He could have silenced his accusers.
Instead he was silent himself.
Why?
Shall I tell you?
Because he wasn't going through those courts simply
as a private individual.
Had he stood before Annas the high priest
or Caiaphas as a private individual, he could
well have stood on his two feet and
say I'm not guilty.
Here is the evidence.
Here are the witnesses.
Here are the reasons.
He could have done the same before Herod
and before Pilate and Pilate at any rate
six times declares him not guilty even as
it was without evidence.
But you see he wasn't proceeding as a
private individual pure and simple.
He was going through it all as your
sin bearer.
My sin bearer.
My substitute.
My representative and yours.
And as my substitute, he didn't feel comfortable
to plead not guilty because even though there
was no sin in him, there was sin
upon him.
And so he was silent.
Silent to the accusations and more.
He accepted all that was due to sinners
from the hands of men and more.
All that was due to our sins from
the hand of a holy God.
Behold the Lamb of God that carries away,
bears away the sin of the world.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I
hope that something of the thrill of this
is bringing new peace and hope and joy
to your soul this morning.
So what this?
Trust Him.
Thank Him.
Praise Him.
Confess Him.
Serve Him.
Live for Him.
Die for Him.
He is the All.
Maybe there is someone who has come into
our service this morning who has yet to
accept what Jesus did upon the cross.
And you're trying to put yourself right with
God on the basis of your own efforts
and your self-righteousness and perhaps your church
going and perhaps you're even coming to partake
of the sacrament, though you shouldn't.
If you're depending on your own self-righteousness
and your tradition and your family affairs and
merits, so-called, I ask you this morning,
look at the sin-bearer.
He's taken your sin and he's carried it
away.
And he offers you pardon and he offers
you peace.
Will you receive it?
And you who have received it, rejoice in
your seats where you are.
As you sit on these hard benches, make
them glad and sanctify them with the joy
of the Lord and the gratitude of the
redeemed.
And as you come to the table, do
not come with any coldness or lethargy or
half-heartedness.
It ill befits the table of our Lord
where the broken bread speaks of his broken
body and the outpoured wine speaks of his
shed blood.
There needs be gratitude here.
There needs be love at boiling point here.
I know we rarely come up to it,
but brothers and sisters, we should.
It is not the way we express it
that is the important thing.
But it's the fact that it's there, that
we come as grateful, glad, rejoicing, believing, humble
souls who have laid our own hand as
it were on the sin-bearer and said,
I confess my sin to be there.
And who with such natural reaction and response
to it all can say, all is well.
Payment God will not twice demand.
Once at my blessed surety's hand and then
again at mine.
Tis done.
It is finished.
By his grace I am free.
Let us bow for a moment in prayer
before we sing our hymn.
Let us bow together.
Our heavenly father, write the message of your
word upon our hearts and particularly the
deep most and central truths of this passage
and of all the truths, write this into
our consciousness that you sent your son into
the world to be the only savior of
men and he died bearing our sins in
his own body to the tree.
Enable us to match that solitary and splendid
fact with faith and hope and love and
obedience and especially now with worship as we
continue at your table.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.