1. Jesus Christ became sin for us but He was not a sinner. Sin was applied to Him so we might become the righteousness of God in Him. At the Cross in His propitiation and expiation, He appeased the wrath of the Father and removed sin as far as the east is from the west. He earned spiritual salvation for us by His perfect life, and He died for our sin to the Father that we might be forgiven and cleansed.
2. The question is, does God forgive the worst offender? If someone committed murder would God forgive them? Did God forgive Moses, David and Paul? Suppose its the worst offense concerning murder, does God forgive that offense? I would say that God means the Cross for the most desperate case.
3. With prayer and a searching of God's commandments from Scripture, I think a criminal could reform unto repentance and faith. I think reformation by itself is nothing, because everyone is in desperate need of divine grace. If they learn that Jesus took their place they will savingly understand the profound importance of the work of Christ alone in their place. Saving knowledge comes with the work of the Spirit of God; that is, He gives us the redemptive wisdom to hold onto Christ but He first holds onto us.
4. We must understand the impeccableness or sinlessness of the divine and holy substitute. Christ was innocent of sin, corruption or depravity unlike Adam. Adam had the changeable will to fall into sin, but Christ had the unchangeable will to fall into sin; that is, He was immutably sinless. Christ did not have the potential to fall into sin and He could never submit to outward temptations. He was indeed the Second Adam but no sinner could fulfill the place of a substitute if they were not sinless. Only a sinless substitute would work in God's redemptive plan; that is, Jesus did not share in the original depravity of the imputation of sin when He was born and He did not suffer from radical corruption like our first parents. He was the Lamb without blemish; that is, He was free from original sin and total depravity.
5. At the Cross, sin was imputed to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior; that is, He bore our sin on the redemptive tree. The Father laid on Him the iniquities of us all. He was our sin-offering; however, He knew no sin but sin was applied to Him alone. That means He bore all our defilement, depravity, corruption, and evil.
6. The Cross happened that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. This righteousness was a pure righteousness; a good righteousness; a holy righteousness; a altogether lovely righteousness and a heavenly righteousness. It was indeed God-honoring and God-delighting righteousness.
7. I think the substitute had to be divine; that is, the substitute had to be God Incarnate. God bore our sins on the Cross; that is, only God could do this. It would take the righteousness of God Himself to stand before God Himself and this is why the substitute had to be God in human flesh.
8. The sacrifice had to be free. Jesus died freely and He was the Good Shepherd who gave Himself freely for His people. We cannot merit spiritual salvation; we cannot deserve salvation; and we cannot deserve the redemption that is only found in the Cross of our great God and Redeemer Jesus Christ!
9. The substitute had to be born of woman but conceived of the Holy Ghost. He had to conceived by the Holy Spirit of God because the human race is a sinful race. Jesus was not a sinner and it means He was free from original sin and radical corruption. Jesus asked who accuses Him of sin and no one replied because they were convicted of His sinless testimony in a spiritual sense.
10. The substitute had to be eternal; that is, He was the eternal Son of God or God the Son. His life and death out do all of our eternal sin before the Father because the Son was and is eternal. The Son is eternal because He is the God-man; that is, He knows of all our weaknesses and infirmities because He was truly and fully man, but He also knows what it means to be God because from everlasting He existed as the eternal and Incarnate Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
11. We needed an authentic and divine righteousness; that is, only a God-born righteousness would do but everyone who embraces it by faith does not enter into Godhood; however, we remain sinners in the presence of God but we are also righteous. It is what Luther said at the same time just and sinner. We can only be just if we have His imputed righteousness, and it only comes to us by His Spirit's spiritual application to us in sovereign regeneration (John 3; Titus 3:5). He gives us a heart of flesh and takes out the heart of stone, and He provides for us His divine righteousness by the sufficiency of grace alone through faith alone.
12. We needed a substitute that already existed from everlasting to everlasting; that is, the Bible clearly says there is nothing new under the sun. I think we can safely say that God the Son existed before His birth in Bethlehem; that is, He was the Angel of God that men worshiped; however, He was not the redeemer of the angelic race but only of the human race through the holy incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth. God became man in Jesus Christ; that means Jesus is the divine Second Person of the Trinity.
I am founder or chairman of Lord of Glory Ministries. I have provided my materials as a few "fishes and loaves" to attempt to exalt the Holy Trinity alone and debase the idolatry of man. I hope and pray to provide sound and free online books (although they are not cheap!) and Reformed sermons related to biblical apologetics and theology or regular Reformed "blog posts".
