“The Lord Jesus both took sin and took it away.
Dwell for a minute on the first fact, that sin was actually laid on Christ. I saw the other day, amongst the abominations of the Stygian Bog, across which I have been compelled to gaze of late, such a foul teaching as this— that the transference of sin is immoral.
Yet is not Scripture full of it? “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Sin was borne by Christ; yes, actually borne by Him; “He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”
They may make what they like of it. I am not going to explain or apologize, but I say without hesitation that the sin of the world was laid upon Christ, and He bore it, and bore it away.
The heaviest thing in the universe is sin, the earth has been known to open beneath the unbearable load of it. Neither angels nor men can stand under the load of sin, it sinks them lower than the lowest hell.
When sin was laid upon the Lamb of God, He bore it; but He sweat as it were great drops of blood, and He was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. To have borne up the weight of the world would have been nothing compared with bearing the sin of the world.
The best of all is, however, that our Lord did not only bear the load, but He took it away. “He taketh away the sin of the world.”
The sin which was laid upon Christ did not remain there, He took it away— it remains no more.
We read in Scripture many things about sin, as that God forgives it, blots it out, forgets it, casts it into the sea, puts it behind His back, and a great many other expressive figures, but this is in some respects the best of them— He takes it away.
Blessed be His name!
My hearer, if thou believest in Jesus thou needest not to ask, “Where is my sin?” Jesus took it away. By bearing it He bore it away.
It is gone, gone forever— it is utterly abolished. “The day cometh when the sins of Jacob shall be sought for, and they shall not be found; yea they shall not be, saith the Lord.”
Our glory is that by the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross sin was made an end of. He finished transgressions, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness.
This is a gospel worth believing, worth living for, worth dying for. Let all teaching be accursed that cometh in opposition to it.
This is heaven to a soul whose sins are dragging it down to hell: sin can be forgiven, for Jesus is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, “‘Behold the Lamb of God,’” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 33 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1887), 33: 572.
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