When a store has an item for a certain price and you use a coupon to buy the item for a lower price, the store doesn't lose money. The price paid for the item is what the store would have sold it for without the coupon, it's just the manufacturer of the coupon pays the price stated on the coupon to the store.
I use to think that when I got saved my sins were just gone. But that's not how it works. Sin has a price that must be paid.
Romans 5:12- Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Sin entered this world through Adam and Eve and was passed on through their DNA to all who were born after them. It's literally in our genetic code!
God cannot allow sin into heaven. He is righteous and there's no place for wickedness in his presence. But, God is also love. And, He's not willing that any should perish because of sin. So what can be done?
Romans 6:23- For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God created the first ever coupon. When you come to the realization that you are a sinner and that your sins have to be paid by blood, then you can cash in this coupon and have the debt paid through Christ's offering of Himself on Calvary in your place.
Romans 8:3- For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
God doesn't go against the Law. He follows it to the letter. But, there is a substitution clause in the Law that allows both justice and righteous judgment to be fulfilled while also allowing God to grant grace and mercy to each of us.
Romans 4:8- Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
The sin isn't imputed (charged with a fault or crime) to us, it's imputed to Christ when He was on the cross.
II Corinthians 5:21- 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.
God required a perfect (sinless) sacrifice as well as an eternal High Priest to offer the sacrifice. There was a protocol to offering this sacrifice, and a protocol to presenting it before God. If you read through the Old Testament, you'll find that the Levitical priests had to perform things in an exact order and in a very specific manner.
Hebrews 5:1- For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins:
Hebrews 7:24-27- But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.
When Christ was on the cross, there were some behind-the-scenes stuff going on that no human realized was happening. And many people get messed up because they don't understand the transaction that took place (how the coupon came to be, and how it works).
Romans 6:3-4- 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. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
The baptism that this is referring to is not a water baptism, it's a spiritual one. Our sin is submerged into Christ on the cross at His crucifixion so that the required wages of sin gets paid. And, when Christ raises from the dead there is no more need for payment to be made. We are forgiven because the debt was paid in full, not because God erased it.
Hebrews 9:22, 27, 28- And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Christ paid the blood sacrifice required by God and that payment was imputed to my account when I acknowledge that I was a sinner deserving of the punishment of hell for my sins and I confessed that to God and told Him that I knew the coupon existed where Christ paid the wages for my sin and I believe that His Sacrifice is the only way that I could get forgiveness for my sin.
My sin was not erased. It was completely paid in full.
Christ hung on the cross and the sin of the world was baptized into His body, and at that moment God poured out His wrath onto Christ as He hung on the cross. That's why He asked God, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" It was the only time and will be the only time in history where anyone paid the sin debt before their soul leaves their body.
John 19:30- When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
Christ said, "It is finished." To what was He referring? The sin debt. He paid the debt in full. And to those who accept His coupon and in faith come to God and acknowledge their sinful condition and understand the payment required by righteous judgment and confess that they believe that the Lord Jesus Christ paid the price and they would like for God to apply that payment to their debt, they will become debt free, paid in full in the eyes of Almighty God.
Hebrews 9:12- Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
Ephesians 1:7- In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
What an amazing deal! Don't miss out on it!
