The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross-45

"It is finished"

5. Here we see the end of our sins.

The sins of the believer - all of them - were transferred to the Saviour. As saith the scripture, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:6). If then God laid my iniquities on Christ, they are no longer on me. Sin there is in me, for the old Adamic nature remains in the believer till death or till Christ’s return, should he come before I die, but there is no sin on me. This distinction between sin IN and sin ON is a vital one, and there should be little difficulty in apprehending it. Were I to say the judge passed sentence on a criminal, and that he is now under sentence of death, everyone would understand what I meant. In like manner, everyone out of Christ has the sentence of God’s condemnation resting upon him. But when a sinner believes in the Lord Jesus, receives him as his Lord and Master, he is no longer "under condemnation" - sin is no longer on him, that is, the guilt, the condemnation, the penalty of sin, is no longer upon him. And why? Because Christ bore our sins in his own body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24). The guilt, condemnation and penalty of our sins, was transferred to our substitute. Hence, because my sins were transferred to Christ, they are no more upon me.

This precious truth was strikingly illustrated in Old Testament times in connection with Israel’s annual Day of Atonement. On that day, Aaron, the high priest (a type of Christ), made satisfaction to God for the sins which Israel had committed during the previous year. The manner in which this was done is described in Leviticus 16. Two goats were taken and presented before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle: this was before anything was done with them: it represented Christ presenting himself to God, offering to come into this world, and be the Saviour of sinners. One of the goats was then taken and killed, and its blood was carried into the tabernacle. within the veil, into the Holy of Holies. and there it was sprinkled before and upon the mercy-seat - foreshadowing Christ offering himself as a sacrifice to God, to meet the demands of his justice and satisfy the requirements of his holiness.

Then we read that Aaron came out of the tabernacle and laid both his hands upon the head of the second (living) goat - signifying an act of identification by which Aaron, the representative of the whole nation, identified the people with it, acknowledging that its doom was what their sins merited, and which, today, corresponds with the hands of faith laying hold of Christ and identifying ourselves with him in his death. Having laid his hands on the head of the live goat, Aaron now confessed over him "all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat" (Lev. 16:21). Thus were Israel’s sins transferred to their substitute. Finally we are told, "And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness" (Lev. 16:22). The goat bearing Israel’s sins was taken into an uninhabited wilderness, and the people of God saw him and their sins no more! In type this was Christ taking our sins into that desolate land where God was not, and there making an end of them. The cross of Christ then is the grave of our sins!