Live to Righteousness

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 1 Peter 2:24-25

These are some powerful words by Peter. Do you understand what this means? Without Christ and His sacrifice and death on the cross we are hopeless. He is the great Healer. You may argue, “I don’t need healing.” I would disagree. We see in Genesis 3 that after the fall of man we are all broken. This means that we are sinners. You must know that we are not sinners because sin. We sin because we are sinners. That is who we are, we are born that way. This is easily illustrated in children. How many children have you ever taught not to share? How many children have you taught to throw a temper tantrum? How many children have you taught to lie? These are traits that come natural to us. We naturally love our stuff and want to keep it from others. We naturally get mad when things don’t go our way, and we naturally lie. This is who we are. We, apart from God, always run to sin. That is our “Adamic” nature. This is what the law showed us. Paul illustrates this point as well in scripture.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15:22

This is where Jesus comes in. Look back to verse 24 in 1 Peter. Jesus bore our sins on the cross. Please understand and appreciate what that means. We are all sinners and destined for hell. This is our path. Christ came and created another path. On the cross Christ took on our sin. The perfect spotless lamb bore your sin so that you could live to righteousness. Do you see that? He didn’t simply die to set an example. He died in the place of you—you deserved that cross. He not only paid the ransom, He became the ransom! This substitutionary death makes us like Him. Salvation brings a new desire for the believer. Our new desire is to be like Christ. We now turn from sin and turn to Him. He is our treasure and our desire.

I love verse 25. Since the fall of man we have been straying like sheep. Remember, our natural desire is to sin. In our “Adamic” nature we look out for ourselves. We revert back to what I discussed earlier in the behavior of children. We continue to act that way as adults, some of us are just better at covering it up. The cross changed all of this. We are no longer straying because we see what Jesus did and we understand the call He has for us. When he became our substitute He called us to be like Him. This is what Paul was referring to in 1 Corinthians—“in Christ shall all be made alive.” We are alive because of Him. We have eternal life because of Him. We live to righteousness because of Him. The old man of Adam dies when God regenerates and saves you. We are now alive in Christ.

I pray that God saves you. I pray that you would see that Christ paved the way for you by becoming a substitute on the cross. I pray that we would boast in God’s work and His action in our salvation. Boasting in Him knowing that apart from His saving grace we are destined for destruction. I pray that your desires would be of Him and that we would continue to live to righteousness knowing that we are made alive in Christ!