1 Peter 2:24, [Christ] Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.
How is it that we think we can come before the cross of Christ, hold our works up to His mangled body, and say, “Look what I did for You!” Our works are pathetic affronts to God, for it is these works that put Him on the tree. To think we can “choose” or “accept” Christ is to render His suffering and sacrifice useless. If we could choose God, Christ would not have come. Rather, God chose us in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-10), whose Holy Spirit indwells us and gives us the capacity to confess, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Corinthians 12:3). Christ chose to lay our sins upon Himself—He alone chose to pour His blood over our sins, the very sins that murdered Him. By His scars, we are healed and justified before God. The Blameless One became the blamed, and we the blamed become blameless. Christ chose to take the wrath of God we justly deserve, God’s anger fully satisfied in Christ. All we can do is receive this mercy of God through His gift of faith He chooses to give us (Ephesians 2:8-9). Christ alone is the operator; we are the operations upon whom Christ operates His righteousness.
