God is the creator, who created a perfect and beautiful world and humans, designed for a perfect and unique relationship with God. Yet we wanted to the right to rule ourselves, and this means we are God’s enemy. The extent of our sinfulness—our rejection of God—is such that we deserve God’s judgement, and death. And the reality is, as Paul explains in Romans, that none of us are able to earn our way back to God.

However, in the Old Testament God promised that some one would defeat the serpent. Abram was promised that all nations would be blessed through him. Other passages have made it clear that God’s judgement on those who rebel against him is death, but yesterday in the Exodus passage there was another way. A lamb was killed in the place of the Israelites’ sons—a substitution was provided. This substitution was itself without sin—it was unblemished.

Jesus is the perfect sacrifice

It was mentioned that Jesus identified himself with the Passover lamb—He too was a blameless sacrifice, but in a much wider sense. For Jesus was not merely redefining the terms of the Passover, but rather something more powerful. He was saying that it had been about Him from the beginning.

In the same way that the lamb had saved the Israelite sons from death, so would his death save all men who accepted it from their own punishment. He had nothing to be punished for himself—that much is clear from Pilate’s reluctance to sentence him—but he was a willing sacrifice, taking the punishment we deserve in our place.

That is grace—He chose to die even while we were still rejecting God, as a free gift. The message of Jesus’ death on the cross is “the power of salvation for all who believe.” (Romans 1:16).

The price for our sin is paid!

The consequences of this are mind-blowing. First, because of Jesus death we are justified: made right with God. We need no longer bear the guilt for the wrong things we have done. Paul says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). We must no longer suffer the consequences of our sin.

In the first talk of the series, we saw that human being were designed to enjoy perfect relationships with God and each other, and have since learned how these were marred by our rejection of God. Another astounding result of Jesus’ death on the Cross is that now we can be reconciled to God—our relationship can be made perfect again; we can be restored to the state God created us.

We might ask how God cannot “simply forgive”, but we should remember that our wrongdoing against God does not just hurt him, but that it also makes us culpable. The fault lay entirely with us, and we need not just forgiveness, but a way to avert God’s just anger. This is why Jesus’ death is so wonderful—God will no longer be angry towards us. Our relationship with him can be made right with our Creator.

A personal God

The relationship is more intimate than we might suppose. God is no celestial being who has been appeased by Jesus’ death, and the relationship to which Christians are restored is much more fulfilling. John puts is like this, “To those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Christians have gained the right, because of Jesus’ death on their behalf, to talk to God on the most intimate terms—to call him “Father”.