Trespasses & Justification
He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification. Rom 4:25
To begin to understand why He (Jesus Christ) was crucified for the sin of man, we must first ask “Why so serious?”, what were these trespasses that warranted the death penalty?
Firstly, what is a trespass? In modern English, the most common definition of a trespass is: “the illegal entry into a land or property”. According to the Oxford dictionary, the origin of the word from Old French trespasser ‘pass over, trespass’, trespas ‘passing across’, from medieval Latin transpassare.
The webster dictionary defines trespass as “an unlawful act committed on the person, property, or rights of another”.
When does trespassing become a criminal offence?
if one enters into property which you know you do not have the right to enter, or if one remains on a property after learning you do not have the right to be there.
The law assumes that a property owner has rights to their property, and although entering it might seem harmless to the trespasser after all they may just be standing there doing nothing — yet this is infringing on the rights of the owner.
Now if we take this argument upward — The Scriptures say, “The earth and everything in it belong to the Lord.” 1 Cor 10:26,
“The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.” Psalm 24:1
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Now all of us have trespassed on God’s property, not because we all entered His world illegally, but because since entering into the Lord’s earth we have committed acts against His person and His property — we have criminally infringed upon his rights.
How? Every day, we choose to act or think knowingly or unknowingly in ways he does not approve of or ways He has explicitly commanded us not to — we are trespassing against God.
This lawless behaviour is what the bible calls sin, and the penalty of sin against the Holy God who created and owns all things is DEATH.
Now the text says “He (Jesus Christ) died for our trespasses” — it begs so many questions “what has He got to do with it? why was He singled out for this? why Him?”
Ever since all humans fell into sin, we all have been condemned to continue in our sin and to perish for our own trespasses. However, the good news of Jesus Christ is that He was sent into the world to save and to reconcile sinners to God. The sins of men from the beginning of the world till today cannot be swept under a carpet. Someone had to take the punishment for the sins of men. He was that worthy “someone”.
Because He was fully God and fully man, He had in himself the worth (sinlessness) to carry sin on behalf of us and because He was a man — He could truly be our representative and so He wilfully offered himself to pay for our trespasses which deserved death and so He died.
The text doesn't end there — but says that “He (Jesus Christ) was raised for our justification” — to understand this, we must first define:
What is Justification? It is a one-time event (Not a process) — whereby God in Heaven (the Judge of all men) pronounces that a man who has been proven guilty — is NOT GUILTY… because His sin has been transferred to another (Jesus Christ). Christ has suffered in the place of all who will repent and put their faith in him for salvation.
Christ died in the place of all repentant sinners and whoever repents and turns to Christ for salvation receive the NOT GUILTY verdict and eternal life. ** Dear reader — read Romans 4 & 5**
How was this accomplished — Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for sin and was raised to life by God the Father on the third day proving that his sacrifice was accepted by God and proving that God’s promise of salvation to man is True and that Christ’s message was sure.
