The Sinless Sin-Bearer: Christ Bore Our Sins on the Tree

1 Peter chapter 2. I would like you to think with me about the sinless sin-bearer. The sinless sin-bearer.

Now, when I say sinless, just imagine if someone serves you a meal and you tell them, “Well, that was tasteless.” That means it had no taste. I sometimes eat a healthy bar that is made of only natural ingredients, and I tell people it tastes like mildly flavoured cardboard. It is almost tasteless.

When we say that someone is sinless, we mean they have no sin. That is the Lord Jesus. He is sinless, and He is a sin-bearer. That means He carried our sins.

We are going to read a statement. He bore — that is the past tense of that word — He carried our sins in His own body on the tree. But let’s read from verse number 21.

1 Peter 2:21:

“For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us.”

You are not the only one who suffers. Christ also suffered for us, “leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled,” or insulted, “did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten.”

He did not say, “I’m going to get you.”

“He did not threaten, but he committed himself to him,” to God, “who judges righteously; who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we having died to sins might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.”

Notice that statement in verse 25: “You were like sheep going astray.”

The Bible very frequently compares us to sheep. And when it does that, it is not because He is trying to make us think that we are cute and cuddly. It is because sheep have a tendency — it is in their nature — to get lost, to go astray.

Sometimes you might say to someone who is really bothering you — you should not say this, but you might have said it sometime — you might say to someone, “Get lost.”

Well, sheep one never has to say that to sheep two. He just has to wait a little while longer, and the sheep will get lost. That is what they do.

He has in mind, as he uses this phrase, the words of Isaiah 53. Actually, Nick just mentioned a minute ago that the Lord Jesus says, “If anyone wants to be my follower, he has to give up his own way.”

Well, Isaiah 53 says our problem is that we are like sheep. Every one of us, we are like sheep that go astray, and every one of us turns to his own way.

That is our nature. We are like sheep. We go our own way, which is the opposite way of what God wants us to do. So He is calling us in the gospel to come to the Shepherd, the Lord Jesus.

Sheep need a shepherd, and sinners need a Saviour. Sinners need a Saviour.

And there is a Saviour, but only one, and that is Jesus Christ. He is a perfect Saviour. I was thankful that Nick spent a couple minutes at the beginning telling us how the Lord Jesus is perfect. We have read about that here. It says that He committed no sin. There was no deceit in His mouth.

The perfections of Christ are actually a really important part of the gospel. It reminds us that He is different from us. He has become like us because He has become a real man, but He is different from us because He is sinless.

He said, “I always do the things that please my Father in heaven.” He was a perfect five-year-old, and a perfect ten-year-old, and a perfect teenager, and a perfect adult, and He is a perfect Saviour. No sin in the Lord Jesus.

So He is a wonderful man. But I want you to recognize that when we are telling you about the Lord Jesus, we are not only telling you about a good man. We are telling you about a man who is God in the flesh to become our Saviour.

Why would God take on a human body and the restrictions that brings, of needing to sleep and needing to eat, and to suffer? Why would God take on a body?

Well, our text on the screen tells us: because in that body, He could bear our sins and die in our place. He is a sinless Saviour.

Now, you cannot have sin and still be God. God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. He is perfect. You cannot say that you are God, but then go around and do wrong things. Only God is without sin. God must be without sin. And that is the Lord Jesus Himself. He is God in the flesh.

Do you remember that story when some men were carrying a friend of theirs who could not walk, and they wanted Jesus to heal him? They could not get in the door because there was such a crowd inside that room. So they were able to remove a tile from the house, and they lowered that man down right in front of the Lord Jesus.

They were hoping the Lord Jesus might say, “Rise up and walk.”

And Jesus looks at that man and says, “Your sins are forgiven.”

A little mumble started to go through the crowd. “Did you hear what He said? Only God can forgive sins. Who does He think He is?”

And Jesus said, “The Son of Man” — that is how He referred to Himself — “has authority on earth to forgive sins.” And to prove it to you, just watch this. “Take up your bed and walk,” He said to the man. And the man stood up and walked.

They said, “Wow, we have never seen anything like this before. Who is this that can forgive sins also?”

I will tell you who He is. He is the Saviour. He is God who has become a man.

He met a woman at the well one day, the Samaritan woman, and she is having a little conversation with Him. The Lord Jesus tells her to go call her husband, and He knows that she has endured some failed relationships and life has not been easy for her. She is stunned that He knows so much about her.

She goes to find the other people in the city and says, “He knows everything about me. This man must be the Christ, the Messiah, God’s King. He knows everything about me.”

So He does.

Jesus knows everything about you. He knows the things you have forgotten about. He knows the things that you think no one else does know or could know. Jesus knows.

He knows all of the sins in your past, and He wants to forgive all of those sins. He is a perfect Saviour.

I love that time when officers were sent to arrest the Lord Jesus in John chapter 7. They were going to try and maybe catch Him in His words and find something that they could use to accuse Him. They came back empty-handed. The officials who sent them said, “Why didn’t you bring Him to us?” And they were just stunned. They said, “Nobody has ever spoken like this before.”

Perfect speech. Well, that is what we just read: no deceit in His mouth. It is wonderful.

He never told a half-truth to try and trick people. He is a sinless Saviour.

In fact, when He is hanging there on the cross, do you remember that one of the criminals on one side of Him says, “Hey, if You are really the Christ, save us.”

And the other criminal says, “Hey, we are getting what we deserve. We are hanging here because we broke the law, but this Man in the middle has done not one thing out of place.”

That is amazing.

You know, this is one of the things I love about preaching the gospel. I am not telling you that you need to become a follower of Nick and Matthew. We are going to let you down. I am sorry. I will be honest with you.

And we are not saying, “Here is the key to your salvation: you have got to become a member of this Gospel Hall church in Ottawa.” No. It is not a perfect church.

But we are telling you that you do need to come and trust a perfect Saviour, a perfect Christ. That is the Lord Jesus. And that is what qualified Him to go to the cross to bear our sins. It is because He has no sins of His own.

He could be the sacrifice for our sins, to bear our sins in His body on the tree. He is the sinless man. He is the sinless God who has become a man, that He might die and be our substitute.

He bore our sins.

There was a practice in the Old Testament. It was in other cultures as well, not just Israel, but the one that Israel had was given to them by God. The way that they could find acceptance in the tabernacle to worship God with the people of God, the way that God could dwell amidst those sinful people, was if they brought an animal sacrifice when they sinned.

In fact, on one special day of the year — this is an interesting thing — the high priest would take two goats for a sin offering, a sacrifice for their sin. One of those goats would be killed. And the other goat, the priest would come and stand over it.

Let’s pretend this is the goat here.

The priest would take both his hands and confess all the sins of the people. He would take his hands and push them down on the head of the goat. Symbolically, what he was doing was transferring their sins to the goat.

Then it says the goat would be sent away, and the goat, this is what it says, would bear away their sins. They know that one goat has died, and they see this other goat, and he goes far away, and they do not see him anymore. He has borne away their sins.

Well, the Lord Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice.

Our sins deserve death. The Bible says this repeatedly. When Adam and Eve first sinned, the warning they had from God was, “The day you eat the fruit of that tree, you will die.” Ezekiel says, “The soul that sins shall die.” Romans 5 says that by one man sin entered into the world, and death because of sin. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” James 1 says when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it produces death.

Sin and death.

So in the Old Testament, when they sinned, an animal would die, and they would see: sin leads to death. But instead of my dying, that animal has died in my place.

When I look at the cross of the Lord Jesus — the tree, Peter calls it — I see that is what I deserve because I have sinned. So have you. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. One exception is Jesus Christ.

And I look at Him there on the tree, and He is a sacrifice for my sins. He carried my sins in His own body. Why does it say “in His body”? It is telling us He is a real man. He is identified with us. He has become one of us. Yet He is still without sin.

This is the great wonder and glory of the gospel. To some people, it is almost offensive that God would become a man. But this is the glory of the gospel.

Some people look at the cross and say, “That is an awful thing. Why would God’s man, a prophet of God, be there in such shame? It is awful.”

But I look at the cross and say, “It is wonderful. It is glorious.” Because that is where that Man is becoming a sacrifice for my sins. He came to do that for me.

My sins need to be paid for. I cannot pay for them myself. I needed a Saviour. Jesus Christ is a perfect Saviour. My sins were my problem. My sins were placed upon Christ. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

And here is a wonderful thing. Our sins make us unholy in God’s eyes. When Christ took our sins, He did not become infected by sin. He is still perfectly holy.

There are people in a very difficult circumstance right now. Maybe a lot of them have been evacuated, but maybe you have heard about that cruise ship over near the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, or Spain. A virus was spreading on that ship.

So let’s say you and I were sent to help these people, and we get dropped off on the cruise ship. We are healthy. You and I are healthy, and we are going to help these sick people.

There is someone sitting on a chair in front of us with a virus, and we just come right up to them, you and me. We are healthy, remember. We breathe the air that they are breathing, touch them on the shoulder, and say, “It is going to be okay.”

We are in close proximity to them. But when I do that, my healthy status does not get conferred upon them. What might happen is that their illness will come to me. I cannot make them healthy by that, but their sickness can come to me.

In the days of the Lord Jesus, one of the diseases that people wanted nothing to do with was leprosy. Nobody would touch a leper. Nobody would come near the leper, because the fear was that if you touched the leper, you would become infected.

One day a leper fell down before the Lord Jesus and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” He knew he had a problem. He cries out to the Lord, “If You are willing, I know You can make me clean.”

This must have shocked people around Him, but the Lord Jesus reaches out and touches the leper. That man probably had not felt a touch in a long time.

When the Lord Jesus touched him, the leprosy did not come to the Lord Jesus. No, the healing from the Lord Jesus came to that man.

When the Lord Jesus hung upon the cross, He bore my sins. And yet, He was not infected by those sins. In fact, what can happen is that His healing can come to you and me.

He did not become a sinner, but His healing can come to you and me. “With His stripes, we are healed.” It is wonderful. It is a great gospel.

Remember the story of the cave rescue in Thailand? I think that was back in 2018. It is hard to believe it was that long ago. There was a soccer team, a football team, eleven or twelve boys and their 25-year-old coach, who went exploring a cave.

They stayed in a little bit too long, and I do not know if it was raining or if the tide came in. I think it was raining heavily, and that cave flooded, and they got trapped inside the cave. July 2018. No way out.

People did not know what had happened to them. They found them, I think it was nine or ten days later. Amazing that they were still alive, but they could not get out on their own.

So elite Navy SEAL divers in the Thailand Navy were going through this narrow passage to rescue those boys. They sedated the boys to bring them back through.

One of the men who was one of the elite divers, his name was Beirut, and he was on that rescue team. He helped pull those boys out of the cave. It was wonderful. But when Beirut was in that cave, there was a lot of bacteria in that water, and an infection got into his blood. He fought that infection until December of 2019, and he died.

He got infected while trying to rescue others.

Now you see how Jesus is different. No infection. No sin. The moment we die, our body begins to corrupt. Jesus died: no corruption, no decay. He is without sin. He is perfect.

And to prove to us that He is perfect, on the third day God raises Him from the dead.

Someone might say, “If He is a good man, why would God just leave Him to the cross?” Well, God sent Him to the cross for our sins, but God does not leave Him in the tomb.

Men treated Him as a criminal. Men treated Him as a sinner. God raises Him from the dead to say, “He is not a sinner. He is a perfect Saviour. He is My beloved Son.”

God raises Him from the dead. And He says, “I am satisfied. What He did was a perfect work. It was absolutely enough to save everybody, because He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” God raises Him from the dead, and God says, “I am pleased with what Jesus did.”

Are you pleased with what Jesus did? Are you excited about what the Lord Jesus did on the cross? Or does it frustrate you? Does it disgust you? Does it mean nothing to you?

Well, I am very thankful for what He did on the cross. I have accepted what God has said: that what Jesus did was enough. He is a perfect Saviour.

He has died to deliver us from our sins. In the language of the text, so that we might die to sins and live to righteousness; to make us good, to enable us to live in a way that pleases God.

When I was forgiven of my sins, I did not become sinlessly perfect, but God now gives me the liberty to live a life that pleases Him. And you cannot do that unless you have appreciated the sacrifice of Christ.

Let me just run that by you again. When I received the Lord Jesus and appreciated what He did for me on the cross, God then gave me the liberty to live a life that pleases God. And you cannot do that unless you have appreciated the sacrifice of Christ for yourself.

Because our problem is our sins, and it is only the cross-work of Christ that can take away our sins.

When I recognized my sin, and that my sin was taking me down to hell, I received mercy from God in the Lord Jesus. And I was just like the sheep in this verse. I returned to the Shepherd of my soul.

He is a good Shepherd. It is so good to belong to the Lord Jesus. It is wonderful to be saved.

He is such a great Shepherd that He will never, ever, ever lose me or let me go. When I became a believer in Jesus Christ, God guaranteed me eternal life and a home in His heavenly kingdom. Nothing can change that.

There is nothing that I can do that takes me out of the care of the Shepherd. He is a perfect Saviour, and He is a perfect Shepherd.

Can you say this from your heart? Some of you have probably memorized these words, but I am wondering if you can say it sincerely: “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

Those are wonderful words.

The Lord Jesus who died for me, He lives for me. He is my Shepherd, and He will never let me go. It is wonderful to be a Christian. It is a great thing to be saved. It is wonderful to know that my sins are forgiven.

What about you? Have your sins been forgiven? Are you still working on it?

Well, working on it will never get you there, because Jesus Christ has done the one and only work that matters, the one work that can take away our sins. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

That is why God tells us to look to Christ. You do not look inside here. This is where you find the problems. You look away from yourself. You look to the Lord Jesus, what He did on the cross, and you put your faith in that living, resurrected Saviour.

The Bible says, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. It is wonderful.