# “It’s called substitution” by John Piper

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2010/12/17/its-called-substitution-by-john-piper/
- Published: 2010-12-17T23:22:14-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“Be sure you see this most wonderful and astonishing of all truths: God took the
record of all your sins that made you a debtor to wrath (sins are offenses against
God that bring down His wrath), and instead of holding them up in front of your 
face and using them as the warrant to send you to hell, God put them in the palm
of His Son’s hand and drove a spike through them into the cross.

It is a bold and graphic statement: He canceled the record of our debt… nailing 
it to the cross (Col. 2:14). Whose sins were nailed to the cross? Answer: _My sins_.
And Noël’s sins. My wife’s sins and my sins. The sins of all who despair of saving
themselves and who trust in Christ alone.

Whose hands were nailed to the cross? Jesus’ were. There is a beautiful name for
this. It’s called a _substitution_. God condemned _my _sin in _Christ’s_ flesh. ‘
Sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin
in the flesh’ (Rom. 8:3). Husbands and wives cannot believe this too strongly.”

–John Piper, _[This Momentary Marriage](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1433531119?tag=toletaupanre-20)_(
Wheaton: Crossway, 2009), 45.

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