The Gospel in 1 Peter 3:18

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a tremendous act of divine intervention to save lots of sinners. Within the cross, God imported all of the wrath of the judgment day right into a second of time, dying within the place of those that imagine, bearing their punishment, settling the rating, and crediting them with a righteousness they didn’t earn in order that they’ll reside with Him perpetually.

The Gospel, in different phrases, is a message of alienation answered by reconciliation and ensuing within the promise that there will likely be no condemnation—a message that the apostle Peter summed up in just a few phrases in his first letter: “Christ additionally suffered as soon as for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he may carry us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). If we grasp the importance of those phrases, we could have grasped the message of the Gospel.

The Drawback: Alienation

Why did Christ should “carry us to God”? As a result of we’re separated from God. The issue that faces each lady and man is the issue of alienation.

It’s not troublesome to seek out materials on alienation in sociological textbooks and psychological literature. Many are the commentators who point out the issue of loneliness in our tradition. But behind and beneath peoples’ alienation from each other is one thing extra basic: their alienation from their good Creator and His design for his or her life.

We’re separated from God due to sin. With our ideas and our actions, by passive indifference and lively disobedience, we’ve got turned our backs on God. We’ve rejected our created function, and we regularly spoil God’s good world. And the result’s that we’re rightly topic to God’s wrath, which He’ll someday carry towards all who reside in rise up towards Him.

Behind and beneath peoples’ alienation from each other is one thing extra basic: their alienation from their good Creator and His design for his or her life.

The Resolution: Reconciliation

However the excellent news—the Gospel message—is that Christ died to carry us out of our state of alienation, to “carry us to God.” By the cross, Jesus Christ has supplied us with reconciliation.

How does the cross do that? It provides us reconciliation by one other -ion phrase: propitiation. What which means is that on the cross, Jesus sacrificially died to pay the wages for our sin, taking over Himself the wrath of God that sin deserves. Because the apostle John put it, “In that is love, not that we’ve got liked God”—as a result of we didn’t love Him—“however that he liked us and despatched his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Though we have been alienated from God, He reached out to us and made a means, at nice value to Himself, to fulfill the simply penalty towards sin. 

Some object that this can be a horrendous course of—a Father sacrificing His Son. And in some regards, they’re completely proper to notice the weightiness of such a sacrifice. However we have to keep in mind that God in Trinity is just not three events in a battle, making an attempt to work issues out, however one God in three individuals, agreeing utterly from eternity. The Father despatched the Son, and the Son went willingly. Within the particular person of the embodied Son, it was God Himself who skilled dying on the cross in His human nature.

Though we have been alienated from God, He reached out to us and made a means, at nice value to Himself, to fulfill the simply penalty towards sin.

And, after all, Jesus Christ didn’t keep useless, as a result of it was not possible for dying to carry the Writer of life (Acts 2:24; 3:15). And now alive once more, it’s Christ who actively reconciles us with the Father. It’s as if He takes us by the arm and says, “There may be somebody I need you to fulfill.” He leads us right into a room marked “Personal,” the place we had no proper to go on our personal. He brings us to God.

We are able to settle for this present of reconciliation by religion. Christ is extending His hand to guide us to the Father; religion is the means by which we attain out and take His hand. We are able to say to Him, “Lord Jesus, I do know that my sin has separated me from God. I imagine that You’ll be able to reconcile me by the blood of Your cross. Please forgive me and convey me into Your loved ones.”

The Impact: No Condemnation

Lastly, the result’s that that there’s “now no condemnation for many who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). In different phrases, Jesus brings us there, and He retains us there.

“Christ … suffered as soon as for sins”; He did it “as soon as for all” (Heb. 10:10). That is vitally essential to know. Some who come to know Christ by religion know that it’s God who reconciled us however suppose that it’s all as much as us to remain in God’s good graces.

However on what foundation did God reconcile us to Himself? Not based mostly on our goodness! “Christ … suffered as soon as for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous.” We have been unrighteous; even so, God has accepted us for Jesus’ sake. He knew what we have been earlier than He ever started the method, and there’s no discovery of our sin that can all of the sudden change His thoughts.

The decision God has handed is last, and the case is rarely going to be retried. What’s true about us is just not our emotions and moods, our ebbs and flows, our ups and downs. What’s true of us is what Jesus says is true. He holds no cost towards these whom He has accepted on the premise of the cross.

Many Christians are depressing. “Ah!” they are saying. “I’ve sinned. So how can I say that I’m God’s youngster? How can I declare that He has forgiven me?” Once more, we could do it by religion. We are able to take heed to what God has stated about us, and we will take Him at His phrase, even when our emotions level us in a special path.

God holds no cost towards these whom He has accepted on the premise of the cross.

What’s the issue? Alienation. What’s the answer? Reconciliation. What’s the impact? No condemnation. If we belief in something apart from the truth that “Christ … suffered as soon as for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he may carry us to God,” then we belief in a false hope—and we stay hopeless! However by leaning on Christ, we could know that the report is settled.

This text was tailored from the sermon “Alienation, Reconciliation” by Alistair Begg.