In the absence of what the preposition “for” tells us about the death of Jesus, we have no hope. Delete what “for” implies and we have no gospel, no good news to share with a dying world. No other preposition conveys what “for” does. Not “to” or “with” or “beside” or “through” or “behind” or “about” or “in” or “on” or any other preposition conveys the notion that when Jesus the righteous suffered because of the sins of the unrighteous, he did it “for” them….

The good news that constitutes what we call the Christian “gospel” is nowhere better summarized than in 1 Peter 3:18. There the apostle tells us that “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”

There is so much worthy of our consideration in this text, but I want to draw your attention to only one word: “for”. Jesus, who was perfectly and altogether righteous, suffered FOR you and me, we who are profoundly unrighteous.

Peter’s point is that when Jesus suffered for sins it was in the place of sinners: it was for them, as a substitute.

We speak often of the sacrifice of Christ as substitutionary. Jesus didn’t simply love us from a distance. He didn’t merely speak of his mercy or his grace. That would have been of no benefit to us. What we needed first and foremost and above all else was the sinless Son of God to become one of us, a human being, and as the God-man to live a life for us that we could not live, in complete and perfect obedience to the law of God, and to die a death that we should have died to satisfy the wrath of God that we alone deserved.

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