Jesus Came to Die to Cancel the Legal Demands of the Law Against Us

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Jesus Came to Die to Cancel the Legal Demands of the Law Against Us

20 September 2009 2 Comments

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Chapter 7 of John Piper’s book, “Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die” talks about how the death of Jesus Christ wiped clean the debt we owe to God because of our sin.

Colossians 2:13-14 says:

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

What is that certificate of debt that the apostle Paul is talking about in Colossians? The debt he is referring to is our sin. What are the decrees against us? The decrees against us come from the law, which point out our sin. The law shows us where we have failed. It shows us where we are weak. It shows us where we have rebelled against God. And it shows us where we sinned, and never even realized we were sinning.

The law brings to light our sin.
Romans 3:20 says, “Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”

The law shows us where we we sinned
Romans 7:7
What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ” YOU SHALL NOT COVET.”

Take the Good Person Test

The law points out that no one can say they are without sin
Romans 3:19
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God;

God doesn’t save us based on our good works
Will God let me into heaven if I’m a good person? No, because the bible says in Romans 3 that there are none who are good. Everyone has sinned.

John Piper writes, “It is folly to think that our good deeds will outweigh our bad deeds before God.” He then states again, “There is no salvation by balancing the records. There is only salvation by canceling records.” That means that we can’t depend on our good deeds to save us, hoping they will somehow cover up our bad deeds.

Isaiah 64:6 says that all of our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment before God. That’s because many times even when we do good things we don’t do them from right motives. We want a pat on the back or we want to look good before others. Whenever we don’t do something to exalt Christ we have wrong motives.

Titus 3:5 says, “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

What about that debt of sin that stands against us?
That debt of sin was nailed to the cross when Jesus died for our sins. How is that possible?

2 Corinthians 5:21, says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

What does that mean? God made Jesus sin. He treated Him as if He had committed our sin, even though He never sinned. God punished Jesus for our sin and when we place our faith in Jesus, God looks at us and He sees the righteousness of Jesus. This is the heart of the gospel.

How can you be saved?
1) Put your faith in Jesus Christ. Believe that he died and rose again.

2) Repent of your sin and follow Him.