“It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished.“
– Lyrics from “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”:

As I read this line of the song lyrics this morning, it didn’t quite sit right with me. I may have missed the author’s meaning, but as I thought about it, it became clear that the line would better read: “It was His love that held Him there”.

Here’s why:

Jesus is not a victim of our sin.

It wasn’t our sin that kept him up there.  It’s his great love that kept him there.

Dan Mohler says something like “Jesus did not die on the cross because you were sinners. He had to die because you sinned. He died to save what was lost” (I’ll try to explain this in a future post).

The Old Testament law revealed our sinfulness. Not the cross. The cross was the revealing of God’s love for us.

Romans makes it clear that the law was instated to reveal our sinfulness. Our failure to uphold the law came as no surprise to God. It wasn’t as if God instated the the law hoping that we’d be able to keep all the commandments, and then when we couldn’t, Jesus became the victim of our great failure.

No, the law was put in place to reveal how impossible it was and how far off we were. How we desperately needed saving.

Romans 5 says that the law was added so that sin might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.

Jesus dying on the cross was not to reveal us as failures, but to save us and reveal His great love for us! And to reveal our created value. We were considered worth His son dying to redeem.

Knowing how lost we were in our sin is incredibly important, because without knowing that, the cross remains meaningless to our lives.

But when we see the depths of our sinfulness, the cross reveals God’s love, grace, forgiveness and solution! Not his disappointment!

And here’s why I think this important. It’s a total change in mindset for a believer who has seen Christ as a victim of our sin. If Jesus was and is a victim of our sins, then we will naturally start to believe that we too are victims of other people’s sins. The Bible says that we are in Christ.

You sin against me and “OUCH!” I am really hurt by it.

The New Testament says not to fear, not to be anxious, not to worry, but when sin is lurking around every corner we’ll always be fearful, anxious, and worried. If we are victimized by sin, then we are in trouble because we are going to be constantly pummeled by it.

What if Jesus was not victimized by our sin, but instead, sin had no power over him. Sin could not pin Him down to anything. He was not victimized, but took our sins upon Him and defeated them willingly. He faced the world’s sin past/present/future and conquered it.

Insulted beyond all measure, beaten beyond all recognition, spit on, hit in the face, speared, and nailed to a cross.

And at no point was Christ defeated. It was Satan and sin being defeated.

At no point was Christ powerless. He was demonstrating Kingdom power. The laying down of one’s life for another.

At no point was he a victim. This was all done freely and willingly. It was all playing out according to the plan. The ultimate revealing of God’s love.

Paul says that in Christ we are “more than conquerers”. That’s because Christ was a conqueror. And we get to start where He finished.

If we realize that we are in Christ and His Spirit lives in us, then we will no longer live as victims, tossed around by circumstances and sin in the world.

Those things do not affect Christ, He affects them.

And in Him, we too affect, not become affected.

If you are in Christ, sin has no power over you. (See Romans 5-8)