The tone of our covenant in Christ was set by John the baptist when he said, “Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” The gravity and depth of this statement in scripture alludes many readers. For such a feat to be accomplished is phenomenal. Much of the Church has failed to accept and live in this reality. If Jesus came to take away the sin of the world, did he succeed in doing it? Where did he take the sin and what did he do with it when he got there? If the church of Jesus Christ can answer these questions and believe it, the church might be in a much better condition than what it is presently.

Scripture declares to us that sin is of the devil. But scripture also says, ” For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” (I John3:8) So we should understand that sin is the work of the devil and that Jesus was manifested in flesh to destroy those works of sin. But how did Jesus destroy the sin of the world or the works of the devil?

Hebrews 9:26 which says, ” . . .but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

This is almost identical to John 1:29. There is witness after witness many times over that testify to us of sin being either ‘taken away‘, ‘put away‘, ‘destroyed‘, ‘remitted‘, ‘purged‘, ‘dealt with‘, ‘removed‘, ‘condemned‘, ‘forgiven‘, ‘passed away‘, ‘made an end of‘, ‘atoned for‘, ‘sacrificed for‘, ‘no remembrance of‘, ‘not imputed‘ and ‘burned to ashes‘. These are all in the PAST TENSE. The believer needs to comprehend that sin, from God’s perspective, is a done deal. Sin and it’s penalty should only be recognized as past and done.

The Body Of Sin

But how could sin be put away in Jesus sacrificing himself? Well we must include 2 Corinthians 5:21 which gives us some additional insight as it says, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.“ The sin of the whole world was not just laid on him as viewed by the prophet Isaiah. The Lord revealed a deeper reality in the sacrifice of Christ. He was made to be sin. Our sin, the entire world’s sin, all sin from the sin of Adam until the last sin was all absorbed into the body of Christ.

When you look at the Old Testament pattern of worship, it serves as an interpretation through types and shadows. A ‘type‘ or ‘shadow‘ is not the real thing. It is only a picture of the real thing. What was played out in the worship events under the first covenant, were pictures that would reveal a reality to be fulfilled in Christ. The sinner laid his hands on the animal and confessed. God caused the sin of the sinner to be transfered to the animal. At that point the animal sacrifice became the sin of the sinner. At that point the animal was no longer considered to be an animal, but a body of sin. Scripture reveals to us that sacrifice of animals were insufficient and that God was not please with it’s ineffectiveness.

And for that reason the body of Jesus was brought into this world and made to be the vehicle for our sin to be carried away. “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:” (Hebrews 10:5) Only a body that had no sin, could be qualified to carry sin away. The body of Jesus was prepared for the purpose of absorbing and taking away the sin of the world. In my observation the church only seems to talk about the blood of Jesus but there seems to very little discernment about what was accomplished with his body.

After the animal was bled out, there was something done with the body of that sacrifice or the body of sin. The body of that sacrifice was taken by the priest and hoisted upon the brazen altar to be burned until there is nothing left but ashes. The body of sin was destroyed by fire. The animal sacrifice is a type of Jesus. The sin of the sinner is a type of the sin of the whole world. The Brazen altar is a type of the lake of fire. The ashes are a type of sin destroyed. The truth is, when it comes to sin, all that’s left is ASHES. This is why our covenant in Christ states, “I will be merciful to there unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.“(Hebrews 8:12) This covenant stands on the fact that God has destroyed sin through Christ. So many church doctrines go directly against this truth. It is a hard truth for much the church population to accept.

When Jesus became the sin of the whole world his Spirit experience separation from God. He died spiritually and descended into the realm of a sinner. He died physically and his soul descended into the realms of hell. There in the lowest realm he destroyed the sin of the whole world in the lake of fire.

Jesus had faith in the promise of God’s mercy, that upon his descent into hell, his soul would not be left there. He would be raised without his body ever seeing corruption. Scripture says, “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (Acts 2:27) Who can refute what the scripture says. His soul was in hell. He would not have been there unless he became sin and thus dying the sinner’s death unto the lake of fire. Because of his obedience to God, the Lord would not leave his soul in hell.

I Timothy 3:16 tells us one of the mysteries of godliness was that Jesus was ‘justified in Spirit’. Why would Jesus need to be justified? Sin is the only reason for the need of justification to be exercised. We all know that Jesus had no sin of his own. So his need to be justified was because he became our sin. Many find it hard to believe that Jesus died a spiritual death. In scripture, death means separation. When Jesus was made to be the sin of the whole world on the cross, he recognized that (death)separation when he cried, “with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) It was at that precise moment that he had become sin with our sin and that he died spiritually in that God separated himself from Jesus. The Father who had been fully tabernacled with him throughout his earthly ministry, had now withdrawn himself from his only begotten Son.

Jesus, on many occasions, revealed unified oneness that he and the Father had during his earthly ministry saying, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.“(John 14:10) But now he who was the only begotten Son, who had been one with the Father was now numbered with the transgressors. Jesus became sin with sin of the whole world and descended into the realm of being a sinner with all other sinners. “because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; (Isaiah 53:12)

The Father justified him in Spirit by raising him from the dead saying, “thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”(Hebrews 1:5) Thus Jesus was the firstbegotten from spiritual death to eternal life.  He was the first to be BORN AGAIN.

“And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all [things] he might have the preeminence. (Col 1:18)

If Jesus had not entered into spiritual death, justified from the dead in Spirit and born into new life; then there would be no such thing as born again people called Christians. The beauty of all of this is that because God justified Him in spirit, all that believe on him are justified with His justification. If Jesus did not die a spiritual death then we have no justification into spiritual life.