The death penalty operated for certain crimes under the law of Moses. No reprieves, no mitigating circumstances, no getting off because of a past good record. You break, you pay, and saying sorry did not.
God has not changed. God never changes, ‘with him there is no variation, no play of passing shadows,’ James 1:17
So all my best does not get me off for good behaviour. On the scale of eternity, I am still under the penalty of death.
Unless the lawgiver himself acquits, his law must stand. And Luke says he acquits. He has not changed the criteria, he simply sent someone else to take my place under the death penalty. The death penalty still operated, but not on me.
And I can’t believe it even though I am told it is true. I just can’t believe it, it is too good to be true.
The only thing it requires to move it into operation is that I come face to face with the reality of God, and the reality of God is that he appointed a substitute for me.
If I will just feebly grasp that Jesus was for real and that he justifies the ungodly, I have it all: Perfect forgiveness, perfect peace.
It is that easy.
I have the same criminal record as a lot of other people I meet. I am weak, pathetic, unlovely, not at all like God, and most of my heart, mind, soul and strength is directed everywhere but at God. Nobody would ever recommend me for pardon but there it is, I am acquitted of everything for which there was no acquittal under divine law.
‘There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,’ Romans 8:1
‘It is through him that everyone who has faith is acquitted of everything for which there was no acquittal under the law of Moses.’ Acts 13:39.
In acquitting me, God does not break his own law, he puts all the guilt and punishment on the substitute, and he whispers to me in the depths of my despair, ‘You’re free.”
Elizabeth Price