Furthermore, He has provided a way by which the great obstacle to the “salvation” of men and women, that is their own sins, can be removed for those who will hear and obey His word. He did it by first causing His Son, Jesus, to be born of Mary, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth, by the power of His Holy Spirit. The fact is clearly stated in the Gospel of Luke:

“The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (1:35)

But the real purpose of God’s action in causing His Son to be born of a human mother in this way is expressed in the angel’s words to Joseph:

“Thou shalt call his name Jesus (or Saviour); for it is he that shall save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

The death of Jesus

How could this be a means of “saving from sin”? The wonderful answer to this vital question lies in the life and character of Jesus and finally in his death on the cross. For consider his life. It is clear from the New Testament records that Jesus’ nature was exactly like ours. Inevitably he had the same nature as his mother, human flesh. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that he was, like us, “flesh and blood” (2:14). But that means he must have shared our experience in all its aspects. This is just what the letter to the Hebrews goes on to say:

“He himself suffered, being tempted … He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (2:18; 4:15)

To put it plainly, Jesus experienced all the desires common to human nature. He was under pressure to please himself; to seek his own comfort, the satisfaction of all his own physical needs, the upholding of his own pride, the desire to be rich and powerful. But unlike every other man and woman who has ever lived, he did not succumb to his natural desires. He rejected them and preserved his faithful obedience to God.

Now the significance of this is very great. For the first time in history a human being conquered sin. Sin was defeated in the very territory where it reigns supreme, human nature. What men and women are unable to do for themselves, was achieved by Christ.

Being “without sin”, and yet being fully a member of the human race, Jesus could offer himself as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, RSV). In other words he voluntarily gave himself to the death of the cross as a sacrifice for sin. As a representative of humanity he upheld the righteous judgement of God and “condemned sin”. What is more he condemned sin in the nature which in every other case has succumbed to sin – “in the flesh”. In this way he made his life “an offering for sin” (Romans 8:3, RV). Wonderfully, since Jesus was himself sinless, God could equally righteously raise him again from the dead to a new life of immortality and power.

All the same, how does this help us? We do not live perfect lives and can never expect to, so long as we live with these bodies of sinful flesh.

God’s conditions

The answer does not lie in some miraculous act. God will not automatically “change us”, just because we say we believe in His Son. Nor is it because in some mystical way He will regard us as sinless for the sake of His Son’s self-sacrifice. It lies in His mercy and grace in forgiving sins, on certain conditions. The prime condition is that men and women who come to Him through Jesus must recognise the truth about themselves, and also see in the death of Jesus on the cross the vital atonement for sin. Then they must resolve to live their lives not according to the demands of their own nature for self-satisfaction, but according to the spirit of Jesus in “grace and truth”.

Then God will “cancel the charges against us”, and will receive us into a right relationship with Himself. Only then can He treat us as His “sons and daughters”, members of His family, of which the head is Jesus, His only-begotten Son.

Repentance and conversion

We are now better able to understand two Bible terms, both found in an appeal of the Apostle Peter to the people in Jerusalem shortly after Jesus’ ascension to heaven:

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out …” (Acts 3:19)

It is a great pity that the two important terms, “repentance” and “conversion”, have been so misused in modern times. True repentance means “to have a change of mind”, that is of understanding. When we enquire, “A change of mind about what?”, the answer becomes clear from what we have already considered. It is a change of mind about ourselves, an understanding of our failure to live up to the standard God designed for us in Biblical terms, that we are sinners. Then follows the command: “Be converted”, a term which basically means “to turn round and go in the opposite direction”. This is the practical result of true repentance. It is a realization that we need to redirect our lives, and to live more in harmony with the will of God and the commands of Christ.

But Peter went one stage further in his message to the people of Jerusalem:

“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” (Acts 2:38)

It becomes clearer why Peter added the command to be baptized when we realise that in the days of Jesus and the apostles baptism was by total immersion in water. What it really means is explained by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans. “Don’t you realise”, he says,

“that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death …” (6:3,4, RV)

Or as he wrote to the Colossians:

“Buried with him in baptism …” (2:12)

But surely it is only dead people who are buried, not those still alive? Exactly; that is just what Paul goes on to say. He reminds the Colossian believers of their natural condition before they came to obey the Gospel:

“You, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh …” (verse 13)

Buried … and raised

His meaning is clear. They had been as good as dead in the sight of God, because the natural desires of their flesh had been uncontrolled. They had “no hope” and no prospect but death. They needed to acknowledge this truth about themselves, and to go down into the waters of baptism as to their own death, recognising that the judgement of God upon sin is just. Then of course they could rise again from those waters with a new purpose in life:

“… that like as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)

Or as he added to the Colossians:

“(Ye were) buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him …” (2:12)

The parallel is clear. As Jesus rose from the dead to a new kind of life, an immortal nature, so the believer in him rises from the waters of baptism to a new life. The believer has still the same physical nature as before; but his outlook has changed. He recognises that if he lives to satisfy nothing but his own natural desires, he will end in eternal death. He now has a new objective: the will of God and the commands of Christ.

This is what Jesus meant when he said to Nicodemus: “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). The Apostle Paul explains what this means in practice:

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts (or desires) thereof … Sin shall not have dominion over you.” (Romans 6:12,14)

In other words, you must not let your natural desires dominate you and so bring you into a kind of slavery. Rather, he says,

“… yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead …” (verse 13)

So the sincere believer has changed masters, because he has “changed his mind”, which is repentance in the Bible sense. He has a new life because he has a new outlook. This is how he is “born again”. The apostle presents this as becoming a different person:

“Put away … your former manner of life, the old man … and be renewed in the spirit of your mind … Put on the new man.” (Ephesians 4:22-24)

“Jesus died for all, that they which live should … live unto him who for their sakes died and rose again … Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature …” (2 Corinthians 5:15,17, RV)