God Himself devised the plan of Substitution; He demanded the full penalty of sin and divine justice to fall on an innocent Sacrifice. This was clearly intended to clear guilty sinners. Jesus suffered and paid for my sins with His own blood. God laid our sins on Jesus that He might never lay it upon us. The sinner who was once guilty is no more condemned, because Another has taken upon Him the condemnation to which he was exposed. The Lord Jesus Christ came voluntarily under the Law, obeyed the Law, fulfilled the Law, satisfied the Law, and now His Righteousness can be freely imputed to the believer. While Christ stands in the sinner’s place, the trusting sinner stands in Christ’s place. God looks upon Christ as though He is a sinner, and punished Him in the sinner’s place, so now, the Lord looks upon the trusting sinner as Righteous, even though He has no righteousness of His own. God loves Him, delights in His perfect beauty, as he is covered with the robe of the Redeemer’s Righteousness. We are free from sin for Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and the Righteousness of Christ is ours by Imputation. Without any works of our own, we are justified according to the Righteousness of Faith.
This is the wonderful exchange - The putting of Christ where the sinner was, and of the sinner where Christ was. Now the court of Heaven says to me, “Not guilty, absolved, acquitted - Case dismissed!” Faith in God’s dear Son has set you free indeed. God only forgives sinners because Jesus stood in the sinner’s place, and He puts the sinner into Christ’s place. The great plan of salvation by Substitution, by Atonement, by sinless Sacrifice. Satisfied, delighted, Jesus is all my salvation and all my desire.
Buy this truth, buy this wisdom, and sell it not. Christ instead of me. Jesus the Offended One in the offender’s place, yielding Himself to God’s vengeance. He that believeth in Him is not condemned, justified from all things, Acts 13:38, no condemnation, Romans 8:1, John 5:24. Now God doesn’t not impute our sins to us. They have been imputed to Another, who stood in sinner’s place, and bore the sinner’s guilt, and put it all away by His own suffering and blood. Our sinful deeds are transferred to Christ’s account, and His perfect holiness is transferred to our account. Guilt and guile are removed. We lay hold on the Substitute, and find peace with God. This blessedness comes to our sinful soul by grace alone.
Imputed means Charged. Heaven begins below when a poor sinner has his sin covered and heart purified from guile. Christ’s self-denying love, He loved His enemies, He loved such sinful creatures as we are, who could do Him no good, He was infinitely glorious, we were despicable and opposed to Him. He loved me and gave Himself for me. Out of pure affection, He came to earth, to dwell in a stable, nurse from a woman, a feeble infant, selfless life, died on a cruel Cross of scorn. There the Faultless One bears all our faults, because of our sins He was nailed and pierced, His back was scourged. God the Father forsakes Him not for any sin He had done, but because He was guilty of loving sinners. He dared to put Himself in the poor sinner’s place to bear the wrath of God. Look at Him, His face covering with spit, His back all bleeding from the Roman scourge. Bleeding love and dying love, this allures sinful men. God says, “I did all this for you, I lived for you, I died for you.” This wins the sinner’s affections.
The guiltiness of the guilty He took upon Himself on Calvary's Cross. Christ is the real sinner’s Savior. If a man is not a sinner, Christ has no salvation for Him. You must take the sinner’s place. Your cry must be, “God be merciful to me a sinner, save my guilty soul for Jesus’ sake!”, or God cannot save you. Confess your own guilt, confess your sins, God Himself put Christ into the sinner’s place through love to us, Christ stood in the sinner’s place, God treated Him as if He were actually the sinner. The Father’s wrath burns against human sin in Christ, God poured out His wrath on Christ just as if He was guilty, God smites Him. Jesus died the death we deserved, that we might live forever. God hates sin, I deserve His wrath, the convicted sinner’s thought, my sin is personal and actual and not like Christ’s, imputed. The awful guilt of sin provokes divine wrath. Jesus took our sins upon Himself and was put in the sinner’s place. He suffered the sinner’s doom, which was death. He paid our Ransom, the debt is paid in full. He bore the full penalty due to my sin. He satisfied all the claims of the law of God.
Jesus says, “I have borne the penalty that was due to sin, I have stood in the sinner’s place, I have suffered and fully satisfied the claims of divine justice on the sinner’s behalf, I have paid the sinner’s debt, so the Law can let him go free." *Isaiah 53:5* He was wounded for our transgressions. The great Sin-Bearer has suffered in the sinner’s stead, the sword of divine justice smote Jesus, He stood in the sinner’s place, and willingly bore the sinner’s penalty. Now, that human sin has been punished upon Him, God can be just and the Justifier of the sinner that trusts in His Son. The Lord Jesus took the sinner’s place, passed under the penalty, the sentence of death which the sinner deserved. Jesus willingly stood in the sinner’s place, you must rest in the reconciliation He has made. Jesus took your place. Your debts are put down beneath His name, and through them all is drawn the blood-red mark of His atoning sacrifice, canceling all of them, clearing the sinner.
God meets the sinner only on these terms, that whatever your guilt may be, He lays it at Christ’s door, makes Him to be Sin for you, and then, He puts you into Christ’s place, and makes you to be “the Righteousness of God in Him,” and so He saves you. God is only satisfied with the work of Christ. To God the debt was due, it is now discharged. *Romans 8:1* Christ stood in my place, I stand in His place; Christ was rejected, I am accepted. I am blessed, because He was cursed. I am accepted in the Beloved, because He endured my wrath on my account. You’ve never known anything worth knowing till you understand and trust this marvelous truth.
Jesus stood in the sinner’s stead and suffered in the sinner’s place. Get this truth into your mind, read-mark-learn-digest the Savior was wiling to suffer, even to die, to stand in the sinner’s place, He was reckoned as the sinner, the sword of divine justice He received, He endured the great terrors of wrath of God for our sins. We believe in the literal substitution of Christ for sinners. Christ stood in the sinner’s place. He suffered what was due to the sinner, even the curse and wrath of God. Sinners that trust Him have no sin laid to their charge. It is a maxim of all courts of justice that the Law cannot first punish the Substitute, and then punish those in whose place He stood. Every honest man admits that a debt once paid, is settled forever. Christ paid the debt that the sinner owed to infinite justice; it is forever blotted out and our debts to divine justice are expunged.
This is the joy of joys, God’s good news to guilty sinners. This is the glorious truth; Christ has made our sins cease to be. “There shall be none.” It is heaven on earth to really know your sins are forgiven. This man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever... Are you trusting in Him? You don’t need social security; you need eternal security. Jesus died for me and all my sins are gone because He was punished in my place. My wickedness was charged and transferred to Him, and He put it away forever, and now Christ’s merits are reckoned as my merits.
Substitution is the center of the Gospel; the sinner in Christ’s place and Christ in the sinner’s place, our debts to God paid by Christ, the chastisement of our peace laid upon Him, we have peace through His chastisement, Christ was both God and man, He took upon Him human sin and guilt, you have to take the sinner’s place before you can take Christ’s place. He suffered for your sin, His pure and most precious blood is able to take away all sin and blasphemy. The blood of Christ can make you clean, the drunkard, harlot, dope fiend, thief, and murderer.
Tell them all – whosoever believeth in Him is not condemned. The Eternal One stood in our place, suffered in our stead. The Infinite became an infant, the God who became man, that He might die in man’s place, His blood atonement is of infinite value. God bore my sins in His own body on the tree. God bled for me on Calvary, that I might live with Him forever, Christ was smitten instead of me, He was truly God as well as man.
