by Timothy Jennings, MD

God did not make the infinite sacrifice of sending Jesus to take upon Himself our sin and to suffer the most grotesque treatment, shameful rejection, horrible abuse, and disgraceful death in order to secure for us the privilege of breaking His law in this life and the future eternal life. It is a lie of Satan that Jesus died so that we could be saved in sin. Jesus died so that we can be saved from sin. As John the Baptist said, Jesus came to “take away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), not to take away the punishment of God for our sins.

Jesus came so that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10), and life in God’s universe is built to operate upon His design laws for life, the protocols the Creator built for the function and operation of all living systems and organisms in His universe. Jesus came to restore His living law of love into humanity; to write His law into our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8:10); to restore sinners to rightness with God; to cleanse our hearts and minds; to heal us; to renew us; to remove fear, shame, guilt, and distrust; and to restore us to right, whole, and pure living in harmony with God—all of this is known as righteousness.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV84, emphasis mine).

It is a lie of Satan that Jesus died so that we can continue to break God’s law. It is a lie of Satan that Jesus’ death was the means to do away with God’s law, to set it aside, to somehow pay a penalty so that it isn’t applicable in our lives any longer.