What does it mean that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3)?

He died for our sins. Having suffered the judgment due to them, He gave up the life in which He bore them, and with the giving up of that life the sins of all who believe the Gospel are gone out of existence. Our sins that would have come up against us in the day of judgment are gone as completely as is the life of flesh and blood in which Christ bore them. Our sins can no more be found than can a Christ in flesh and blood be found.

If Paul was an apostle, and delivered to them especially the glad tidings, it was what he too received; he pretended to no more than a faithful discharge of the trust the Lord had reposed in him as a witness concerning Himself. He received it, as we are told elsewhere, immediately from Christ. There was no intermediate channel, but a direct revelation and a personal charge. And what is the foundation laid? "That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures." (Ver 3.) Not for ourselves merely, not at all for our good ways, but for our bad, "for our sins." Who could have said or thought it but God? And He has said it, not only now in the gospel, but from of old in the scriptures. From Genesis to Malachi all was a preparing the way for Christ to die for our sins. The law witnessed to it in the sacrifices; the Psalms declared that the sacrifices were but temporary, and that the Messiah must, and would, do the will of God; and the prophets showed that He would do it by suffering and death when Jehovah should lay on Him the iniquities of His people. Without the death of Christ for our sins, not only has the gospel no foundation, but the Old Testament has no adequate meaning or worthy end.

(Vv. 3, 4). Immediately he sums up the glad tidings under three heads. First, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”. This brings before us the great propitiatory work of Christ for all the world, foretold in all the Scriptures, for the law sets it forth in figure, the Psalms present it experimentally, and the prophets announce it prophetically. Secondly, Christ was buried, the complete evidence of His death and the solemn fact that all His links with man after the flesh are severed. Thirdly, “He was raised the third day, according to the Scriptures”, the everlasting witness that the power of death is broken, the devil defeated, and God is glorified.

The Apostle carefully remarks that the gospel he preached, he had “received”, as we know from another epistle, “by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12). To reject his gospel is, therefore, to question the revelation of Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture.

What, then, is the gospel? In presenting it the Apostle Paul wrote, “I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ DIED for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). It is the meaning and the results of the death of Christ that constitute the gospel.

And further, when Jesus was bearing our sins on the tree, we know that there was unsparingly poured out upon Him all that justice could inflict in the condemnation of sin; as He said, The Son of man must be lifted up. Yes, it must be, because the righteous claims of God demanded just punishment for our sins. On this account, He was numbered with the transgressors, and bare our sins in His own body on the tree. Hence He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. He was oppressed, afflicted, stricken; above all, it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, to put Him to grief, to forsake Him; so that He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" What all these atoning sufferings were, and the travail of soul that He passed through, no creature can comprehend, no tongue can tell. We know that His soul was made an offering for sin, and that "He poured out His soul unto death." Oh, the untold depths of agony and suffering which that blessed One so lovingly and willingly endured for us! Let us ponder what God has revealed of "the death of the cross" till our souls are melted, and peace fills every corner of our hearts! How loudly the atoning death of Jesus speaks to us of the righteousness of God! Though He was the righteous One, yet He endured all the righteous vengeance due to sin in His own self on the cross, and completely drained the cup of wrath, so that He could say, "It is finished." Thus in His death the wages of sin were fully dealt out, for He "died for our sins according to the Scriptures." He died unto sin once. All the demands of righteousness were fully met, and peace was made. There righteousness and peace kissed each other. How then was it possible that He should be holden of death? The debt having been justly cancelled, how could the prisoner be longer detained?

The apostle Paul tells us that the gospel which he preached was that which he also received, "how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor. 15:3-4) Every sacrifice which was offered set forth figuratively the death of Jesus. From Abel's offering downward, the Lamb of God was typically portrayed. In those types and shadows, God declared what He would do, when the time fully came for it, in the death and blood-shedding of His beloved Son. The very kind of death He would undergo in being hanged on a tree was also pointed out in Scripture. In the twenty-second Psalm we hear Him saying, "They pierced my hands and my feet;" and the prophet Zechariah declares that the Jews will yet look on Him whom they pierced, and shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, etc. Moses also refers to it, by informing us that being hanged on a tree was connected with being made a curse, "for he that is hanged is accursed of God." When an inspired apostle comments on this he tells us, first, that "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Thus he proves all under the law to be justly exposed to the curse of God. Then he insists on the precious truth that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law." How? By "being made a curse for us;" and refers to Scripture for authority, saying, "For it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." And more; for those who thus came under the curse were to be buried. It was ordered that the body was to be taken down and buried that day. "His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God.)" (Deut. 21:23.) Thus we see that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried." But it may be inquired, Where, in the Old Testament scriptures, to which we presume the apostle here referred, are we taught that Christ would rise again from the dead on the third day?

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." Paul told them "that Christ died for our sins" before they were saved: in fact this was the means of their salvation. It is therefore right to tell the whole world, "Christ died for our sins." 2 Corinthians 5:15 insists, "He died for all," and the reason this was necessary is because of' the sins of all.

So also, if we appeal to the First Epistle to the Corinthians, we read in chap. 15 how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3). Now this is a great truth to lay before an anxious or truly enquiring soul. But you cannot apply it save in a vague and general manner to an unbeliever. You can freely say that He tasted death for every one (perhaps indeed every "thing"), Heb. 2:9. If He had not died as a sacrifice for sin, if He had not shed His blood as propitiation, there could have been no gospel to a guilty world. But it is when the soul believes God as to the efficacy of Christ's death, that the burden of guilt is taken away; for this has the surest warrant of God to every one that believes. Where faith is, we cannot exaggerate the assurance He gives to the soul.

In declaring the reason of Christ's death, the apostle expresses himself according to the acknowledged standing of those to whom he speaks. He does not say that Christ died "for sin," or "to sin," in general terms, but distinctively "for our sins." He thus again rehearses to his brethren what he had himself received, when bidden by Ananias to arise and wash away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord.9 But if Christ died for our sins, it was "according to the Scriptures." We may perceive in his language here an anxiety to recall their minds from speculative wanderings to an implicit subjection to the inspired word. The fact of the Lord's burial is insisted on, not only for the sake of its obvious connection with the controverted doctrine, and as a necessary part of the gospel when considered in its relation to anterior prophecy,1 but on account also of its important doctrinal significance to the believer.2 Lastly, and with such a change in his form of speech as serves to distinguish a final and permanent achievement from the necessary steps which lead to it,3 he asserts His resurrection on the third day, and this also "according to the Scriptures."

Moreover, when the apostle is reminding the Corinthians of the gospel which he had preached to them, he says it was "that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3). But he could not preach as gospel that Christ died for other people's sins: "ours" is there plainly general, as in the epistle of John it is distinctive.