Many may balk at the idea that death and dying is a sin... But the very fact that people are dying and have died throughout the existence of humanity is a testimony against the fact that we were created in the image of a pure and holy God who never meant for death to be our inheritance. Beings whose immortality is conditional upon obedience to the counsel of God reveals the progression of darkness and sin in this corrupt age. We have come to regard death as a natural consequence of life... This was not so from the foundations that were laid by the son of God. Here is a statement by Paul:
1 Corinthians 15:56 The sting of death [is] sin; and the strength of sin [is] the law.
Christ Became sin so that Death Could become Life for sinners...
I have heard lately in preaching that Abraham's being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac is/was proof that the old covenant was somehow defective... Can we really say that the Old Covenant was not sufficient? It would not be sufficient for us since we were not born under that covenant. For the Jew, who was born under the law, there was no other way was there? But when Jesus came, he made the new requirements: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice".
Well now, if God really wanted Abraham to know what the Old Covenant was like, He would have let Abraham sacrifice his son. Right? But no, this would not have been sufficient, nor right. It would have been unnecessary. What was the point of the test then? It was to test the faith of Abraham, not Abraham's understanding of the law. Where was the law saying "thou shalt not kill" when Abraham was asked to kill Isaac? It was not yet written right? The law pointing to Christ had not yet been etched on stone tablets with the finger of God.
But one was coming to put down the sin of death forever. This was the point of the New Covenant. Faith is what leads us to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. If we cannot be sure that we will sacrifice everything, even our own flesh and blood, for God and Christ, what can we be sure of? There would be nothing at all left for this life except misery and halting between two opinions. This, I believe, was the test for Abraham, and through this testing of Abraham's faith, we are tested as Christians. For in this test, Abraham was asked to sacrifice the one thing that took him nearly a lifetime to acquire. Surely the weight of familial expectations in the heart of Sarah and those who have ever raised children would remind us of the depth of emotional responsibility that was invested in this dear promised child. God gave the promise of the child, and then He asked Abraham to give it up. Can you see the lesson for us? Where do the parallels lie?
Even the promises of God must be laid hold of through bitter experiences in our flesh. We must not only know of the promises of God, but be able to withstand the temptations of Satan to make the promises invalid. This was true especially for Christ.
He was the object of illustration in Abraham's experience. There was more at stake in Christ's case though. Christ had the sins of humanity past, present, and future to cause the anxiety of sweating great drops of blood. More than this, he had to become sin so that sin would not rise up a second time. Christ was getting ready to condemn sin in his flesh. This could only be done if Christ became sin itself.
Christ became death on the cross so that in his life we might be brought back from the death of sin. Christ gave his life on the cross so that his resurrection would contain the power of life for the sinner. The life of Christ was not for men to take, it was his to give. The men could cut his flesh, but they could not sever his faith in the Father to give life. There was no taking the life of Jesus without the Father's will being exercised. It was death and sin that died on the cross, which is the penalty of the law. The penalty is made mercy in the crucifixion, and the sacrifice becomes eternal for the penitent.
But this was not identified by the common Jew. The Jews assumed their traditions and system was to extend until their own views were fulfilled, not the promises of God. The Jews clung to the system of sacrifices as a means of life rather than clinging to the one who was the fulfillment of the system. In this, they turned the truth upside down and turned error right side up so that their traditions would be proffered instead of the commandments and promises of God. Bad had become their good, and good had become their bad. Righteousness and peace had become strange bedfellows and in this attitude, they desired to take the life of the person in whom all their hopes in the truth had rested.
