Nicodemus and Joseph bury the Crucified, not realizing that here rests God’s amazing answer! Jesus is the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. From eternity God knew the danger of giving man free will. God knew man would one-day use the power of choice against Him. Yet God placed the highest value on man and his real love (made possible by real choice). So, from the beginning, God chose His own solution: replacement. One who is pure takes man’s place, paying every penalty justice demands. Sinners cannot pay for others; their own death sentence takes all they can pay. God uses animals as pictures of replacement. But they have no spirit or will to truly suffer man’s punishment.
“It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).
Angels offering themselves would show their love, not God’s love. The truth is, God loves us, and wants to save us! All sin is against God, and only God can forgive it. God, therefore, chooses Himself as the substitute or replacement that allows mercy for humans.
This explains why God became man (John 1; Philippians 2). He shared our flesh “that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9).
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree…. By his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24).
He took on our sin so completely that 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, God “made him to be sin who knew no sin” for us. Here we see the meaning of the bronze snake (Lesson – New Birth is by Death, “Snakes” and “Sheep”), which stands for sin and death. Our Savior fulfills it by becoming sin, and suffering death on our behalf. We see His torment – loneliness and insults, curses and wounds, blood and death. Far greater is the unseen pain, for sin separates from God. Hear the Son’s desperate cry to the Father: “Why have You forsaken Me?” Unless we enter hell, we can hardly know the depths of fear in that cry. The sinless and infinite heart of God’s Son suffered the infinite punishment we deserved. What astounding love! Like Nicodemus, we only begin to grasp the fullness and depth of Jesus words:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16).
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:4-5).
…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
As both God and Man, Christ is the perfect sacrifice that pays the full penalty for all sin. So this is God’s answer, which proves Him to be both “just” and “the justifier” (Romans 3:25-26).