He Claimed Our Sins as His Own (Part 1) — Erlo Stegen

The Indescribable Greatness of Christ’s Death and Resurrection

Today, across the whole world, we remember the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus. And I'd like us to have a closer look at his death. But I have to confess to you all that I do not have the words to describe the greatness, the height, the depth, the width, the magnitude of this matter.

It's indescribable. I'm sure for all eternity we'll be delving into this truth and not ever getting to the end of it. I feel like a small boy standing on the shore, on the beach, putting his toes into the water, just feeling this little bit of water here when there's this vast ocean in front of me.

And I said, Lord, I cannot convey this, but Lord, please work through your Holy Spirit in each heart that each one will understand this. There's absolutely nothing to be compared to this, to the greatness of his death and his resurrection.

One should forget every other thing, and this thing should take complete control right to the depths of our being, of this. The gospel is something great that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to us. Old and young should be captivated by this.

There should be nothing else that means so much to us as this. Let us now read from God's word from Psalm 40, starting from verse 6. To 8. And then also verse 12. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire.

My ears you have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require. Then I said, Behold, I come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God, and your law is written within my heart.

This is verse 12. For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. Therefore my heart fails me. This here conveys to us something great which happened between our Lord Jesus Christ and his Father in heaven.

Psalm 40 and the Father’s Plan of Redemption

Here we are shown a discussion between the Lord Jesus and our Heavenly Father. His Father in heaven. Something which they were discussing. Something unbelievable. They were talking about mankind. In fact, talking about you and me.

Where God the Father said, What shall we do about this person? What can be done to save him from his sin? And then the Lord Jesus answered, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require.

But my ears you have opened. This is the psalm of David. During his time there were very many different offerings that were brought in the temple. They burnt offerings. Food offerings. Sin offerings. If you read about it you will be amazed because there were days when thousands of cattle were slaughtered and the blood just flowed.

The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. If you read during the time of Solomon how thousands of cattle and sheep and goats were slaughtered.

The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. But all that did not help mankind in his slavery to sin and in his misery. Mankind was lost in a hopeless situation not knowing where he came from and where he was going to.

The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed.

The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. And he says, Father, I am prepared. I will go to the earth. I will go down to earth and I will be the living sacrifice which will bring reconciliation between mankind and you.

The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. The blood just flowed and the blood just flowed. And I don't have time to go into the scriptures and to point out all the scriptures, but in Isaiah 53 it's written of the lamb that was slain and the blood that flowed.

And where the Father has said, it's written about me, I will go. I will go, Father, and I will suffer and I will be crucified and I will go so that these people will be helped. I will go and redeem them.

I'll pay the price and atone them. I will go. I will pay the price for them because they are lost, hopelessly lost, and they deserve hell and nothing else for all eternity. I will go down to them. I will become like them.

The Son as the Living Sacrifice

I will take upon me even their flesh that I will be as they are. And I will take upon myself their transgressions, their iniquities, and I myself will take it upon me and carry them. Not that an animal has to be sacrificed and die.

I will do it myself and give my innocent, my precious blood for them. Is this not something great? It's wonderful. It is glorious. It's amazing. It's amazing how we hear here this discussion between the Son and the Father and how the Son says, I'm prepared.

I will go to save them from sin, from the world, and from death, and from hell. From all eternity to all eternity, the Son and the Father were totally united and one. They were so one that what the one loved, the other loved, and what the one felt, the other felt.

God had given him his law, the Ten Commandments, and all his laws, yet God had told him do not steal, and yet they stole. Do not tell lies, yet they told lies. Do not be immoral, and they were immoral.

The law had failed. And then God said, let them bring sacrifices. That they put their hands on that animal so that that animal must carry their sin and that the animal's blood must flow. So that they describe it.

And God the Father said to the Son, I don't know what to do. How can I still help these people, old and young? How can I help the Zulus? How can I help the blacks? How can I help the whites? How can I help the young people, the older people?

Whatever I try doesn't seem to help. I've brought calamities upon them and diseases upon them, yet nothing seems to bring them to their senses to help them. We see it even today with AIDS. In spite of the disastrous consequences, people continue with immoral lives.

And Jesus says, Father, I will go down to earth. He says, I will go. I will be the sacrifice to atone for their sins, that they may be redeemed and saved from their sin. Save them from hell and win them for heaven.

He says, Father, I will go down to earth. I will be the sacrifice to atone for their sins, that they may be redeemed and saved from their sin. He says, Father, I will go down to earth. I will be the sacrifice to atone for their sins, that they may be redeemed and saved from their sin.

He says, Father, I will go down to earth. I will be the sacrifice to atone for their sins, that they may be redeemed and saved from their sin. He says, I will go down to earth. I will become one of them, live among them, live like them, and I will take all their troubles and their punishment.

I will take upon myself. I carry it. And he even says, Oh God, I will do it gladly because I delight to do your will. He says, Oh God, I will do it gladly because I delight to do your will. He says, Oh God, I will do it gladly because I delight to do your will.

He says, Oh God, I will do it gladly because I delight to do your will. He says, You have opened my ears for burnt offering and sin offering you did not require. In other words, it's no longer any use.

It doesn't help anymore. And he says, Father, I'm prepared to go and be the sacrifice myself. And that's why you do not require the blood of animals and sacrifices of animals anymore because that has failed.

I will know and give my own blood that it may flow. The blood of cattle and of sheep and goats have failed to take away sin. No matter what trouble I bring upon a person, whether it be poverty or even losing his or her child, but all that, even though he goes through all that trouble, doesn't seem to help him anymore.

And he says to his son, he says, there's only one way left to help mankind. And then the son says, behold, I come as it is written in the scroll of the book of me. That I can atone for their sin, to heal them from this cancer of sin.

I'm prepared to go, Lord, to, oh, Father, to break down this wall of sin. That's a separation between you and mankind and that they may be reconciled to you once again. That the one who has lost in his sin, that he may be reconciled to the Holy, three times Holy God.

That, oh, Father, your wrath may be taken away from them. Because I have seen, Father, that there is no sacrifice, no blood of any animal can remove that sin anymore. Because the blood of an animal cannot take away the sin.

That you have committed and cannot separate you from sin, cannot set you free from sin. Because even at that time, that blood that flowed and that lamb that was slaughtered was only symbolic of the lamb of God that would one day hang on the cross and die for us.

All those rivers of that blood that flowed couldn't take away even one sin. That was just pointing to the lamb of God who would one day carry the sins of the world. And the Son says, Father, I hear, you've opened my ear, and I hear what you're saying about these lost souls.

And he said, Father, I am prepared to surrender myself totally to your will, to go and to become that sacrifice that will save mankind from their sin, from the world, from hell itself. And he said, Father, I will go, I'm prepared to go and give myself as that sacrifice.

The Brother Who Took Another’s Guilt

And he says, Father, I do it willingly, for I delight to do your will, O Lord. He says, because I want to atone for people's sin that they may be reconciled to you, O Father. Someone reminded me and asked whether I remember 1962 or 63 when I preached about two boys.

One of these boys was a Christian who had committed his life to the Lord. But his brother was not interested. He didn't want to know anything about the gospel. Even when one tried to speak to him, he had a heart that was like rock.

He told his brother, look, brother, I'm not interested in giving up the world and the girls and all the things of the world. And his brother would plead with him and say, the Heavenly Father is inviting you to come back to Him.

He's pleading with you. But all the brother's attempts and his pleading with his brother was in vain. And his brother, he just went his own ways in the world, sometimes not even coming home. And the brother at home just could pray and say, O Lord, have mercy, because my brother is not interested in you.

He tramples your blood, your death underfoot. He was out with the gang, out on the streets after the girls. And one day as he was at home, reading the Bible and praying, suddenly the door burst open and it was his brother.

Came in there violently, very disrespectfully. And when the brother looked up, he saw his brother standing there before him, his clothes were full of blood, stained in blood. And he saw that his brother was in great despair.

And he said, O my brother, I'm in big trouble. Here's this knife. I've just stabbed somebody, killed somebody, and the police are after me. They are right here on my heels. And he says, this is going to be my end.

And those days there was still the death penalty. And this brother who before had no time for his other brother, didn't want his help or his advice, now suddenly he was there begging him for help. And then he said to him, take off that shirt full of blood.

Take off all the clothes that are stained in blood. And then he took off his own clothes and he said, you put on my clothes. And he said, the blood that's on your hands, wipe it off onto my hands. Give me that knife and put it into my pocket.

And then he said to his brother, now escape. Run away quickly. And he said to his brother, now escape. Run away quickly. And he had just left when the police arrived. When they saw him, they said, well, there you are.

We caught you red-handed. You're the guilty one. You've just killed that person. And this boy didn't respond. He didn't deny it. So they arrested him, took him into the police van and off to jail. Locked him up.

And he was imprisoned until he came before the court. And he was asked whether he pleads guilty or not guilty. And he says, well, I don't deny it. And so he was convicted and the sentence was the death penalty.

As God says, the soul that sins must die. And so he was sentenced to death, to hang. And all this time, he never denied having done what his brother had actually done. And he carried the guilt of his brother right to the end.

His brother had fled. He was far away by then to hide from the police. And after some time, he heard that his brother had been sentenced to death. And that then troubled him. And he said, oh, my brother, he was innocent.

He carried my guilt. He was actually innocent. He died in my place. And eventually he headed back home. He went to the police and inquired about his brother and said, what has happened to my brother? Did he really hang?

And they said, yes, he was guilty. And they said he was caught red-handed. He was still full of blood and even the knife with which he had committed the murder was on him. And then he confessed. He said, look, it was not my brother who did it.

I actually committed that crime. He was at home reading his Bible, praying. I committed that crime. And then he said, I will go to the authorities and I will tell them that this has been a mistake. I'm the guilty one.

They've killed an innocent person. He went to the police, to the court. And he asked for the records to be checked. And they said, well, here, it's all clear. He killed someone. He said he was guilty of murder.

But by this time, he was full of regret and sorrow and tears running down his cheeks. He said, but it was not my brother. I'm the guilty one. I committed that crime. I deserve to die. Arrest me. I must hang.

Then they said, but the price has been paid already. He paid for your crime. He died for this crime. So you can, you are free because he has paid for your crime. And they let him go. And he said, but I can't go back to my old life.

From this day, I want to live like my brother lived. He said, the life that he lived, I now want to live. What he did, I want to do. I'm giving up my old life with the gang and with all the old life that I lived.

With that, I'm giving up. I'm not going to live the life my brother used to live. Now God gave his only begotten son to pay the price of your sin and your guilt. Well, we can only marvel at what the father in heaven did, and we can only thank him for it.

God’s Love in the Sacrifice of His Son

That he was prepared to send a son with whom he had such wonderful, perfect fellowship and unity. There was nothing and no one he loved more than his only begotten son. He sacrificed him. He sent him to be a stranger in this world.

And he sacrificed his only begotten son to save us who were lost in our sin. We cannot compare God's love with anything else, for God loved us while we were still his enemies. And then the love of the son, Jesus Christ, who was prepared to give himself for us.

And then the love of the son, Jesus Christ, who was prepared to give himself for us. And the son was prepared to be parted, separated from the father, in spite of the fact that they had such perfect unity.

Yet he was prepared to be split away from him like bark from a tree, even though it was painful and the tears flowed. Yet he was prepared to do it for us. He forsook heaven. He left his glory. He, as part of the Trinity, one with God, the creator of heaven and earth, He was prepared to leave the glory of heaven, and come down to earth, to this filth, this defiled state of mankind, and came to give himself as a sacrifice to save man.

He came to shed his own blood to save you, sinner. Even his own life. It would break my heart if these words were in vain to you, if they don't touch you and move you. This is something that should move you to the point that you are totally transformed, changed, that you'll never again live the life that you've lived in the past.

Christ Bearing the Sins of His People

And when Jesus came down to earth, he was not ignorant of the fact of what was going to happen to him. He knew exactly what was in store for him, what would happen to him because of your sin. He knew that he would have to come here and put on your bloodstained clothes and take the blood off your hands and that he would carry it.

He knew that all. For he says, for innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me so that I'm not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. Therefore, my heart fails me.

No one has ever, no one will ever suffer like he had to suffer. You can't imagine, even start to imagine what he had to go through. As he says, for innumerable evils have surrounded me. They have seized me.

They are vampires. They are vultures. They have seized me. They are vultures. He says, surrounded me. In German it says, they have caught hold of me. What's taken hold of him? It's the sins which you have committed.

What's taken hold of him? It's the sins which you have committed. But it's amazing, he doesn't say that it's so and so's sins or Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith's sins. He says, it's my sins, my iniquities. He says, it's my sins, my iniquities.

And he suffered because of all the filth that you have ever done and the sins you did before your conversion and even after. And he says all those things, he takes them upon himself to the point where he says, I have committed those sins.

And he says, I cannot even look up anymore. Can you imagine that Jesus himself takes your sin that you've committed and he doesn't even say you've done it. He says, I've done it. It's my sin, he says.

All the punishment that you have deserved, everything, he's taken it upon himself. But he doesn't even say it's your sin, he says, oh my God, that's the sin I've committed. You should have been beaten, but he was beaten for you.

You should have been punished and carried your sin and thrown into hell, but he went and he did it for you. All that came upon the Lord Jesus. That agony he took upon himself, which you should have carried.

You should have carried it. You should have carried it. You should have carried it. You cannot grasp the love of God and of the Lord Jesus that he was prepared to come and confess that to his father and say, it's, it's my sin as if he has committed all those things, even though he was innocent.

He took everything you've ever done and he took it upon himself and he takes it as if he himself committed it. Then one understands why there's an eternal hell that will burn for millions and billions and trillions and tens of millions of years.

Tens of trillions of years, if you deny such great grace, those were sufferings, which you cannot imagine that he identified himself with your sin to the point where he said, I have committed that iniquity.

That's how he suffered physically, emotionally. He went through all that just for you. He went through all that just for you. And he did all that because of you. When the son realized and the father, they're all going to church and keeping all those things in their hearts.

All those traditions in the church. And he said, that's not helping anymore. And the son said, father, I will go. And he says, it's all those iniquities that have surrounded me taken hold of me. It's not his sin iniquity.

It's yours. And the lamb of God did not open his mouth. He was prepared to be slain because of you. And he says, Oh God, my iniquities have surrounded me, caught up with me. Imagine God saying, taking your sins and, and owning them and saying that I have sinned.

He hasn't sinned. He's innocent. He's the Holy God. Yet he clothed himself in your, with your filth, your bloodstained clothes. He put on. He took it upon himself and he carried it and made it. He owned it for you.

The Cost of Rejecting Grace

And if your heart is hard and cold, then I say to you who are heading for hell, cry to God now, lest you cry one day when you really are in hell. And he speaks here of the iniquities that they are more than the hairs of my head.

Therefore, my heart fails me. What? And he carried the sins of the whole world. And even though it made him sweat, that his sweat drops were like drops of blood. Yet he said, Father, if I must drink this cup, then let it not pass from me.

Then I will drink it for I have agreed that I will do your will. He doesn't say, oh, it's the sin of the world. It's the other people's sin that I'm carrying. No, he owns it. He says, it's my sin. They are more than the hairs of my head.

And when he was carrying all those sins, he says, I cannot look up anymore. I cannot see anymore. It is black before my eyes. You were cursed because of your sin. And he took that curse upon himself. You are the sinner, yet he became sin for your sake and because of your sin.

Do you see the love of the son? Let me stop. If you don't see it, then you have reason to fast to the end of your life until maybe somehow your eyes will be opened. And you say, oh, sin is so enjoyable, the lusts of the flesh.

It's so attractive to you. You enjoy it. And Jesus, who took your sin upon himself and owned them and said, they are mine. Remember, he is coming again and he will come as judge. And then you know where you will end.

A Call to Repentance and Decision

Let us bow our heads. I cry to you, Lord, with all my heart and I pray and say, Lord, may you're coming to this earth. You're dying and you're taking our sins upon yourself and owning them. Oh Lord, may not the end reign.

And Lord, may everyone, whether he's here or at home, even if he's intoxicated, may this message get through to him that he will realize what it is about. That this will be the moment when he will make that decision.

That he will make that decision once and for all for God. And that he will return home. Amen.