Our Sin-Bearing Savior

Jesus serves as our example of how to endure unjust suffering in a godly manner (1 Peter 2:21). He is the only human being whose every suffering was wholly unjust, for He was not conceived in a condition of original sin, and He committed no sin of His own. The rest of humanity brought suffering into the world when we sinned in Adam, even if not all of our suffering is due to a specific sin that we have committed personally. Christ shows us that suffering unjustly in a holy way involves avoiding sin and deceit, not reviling or threatening those who cause us pain (vv. 22–23). We will never get to a point in this life at which we endure unjust suffering with perfect holiness (1 John 1:8–9). Nevertheless, we are responsible to aim at it throughout our lives.

We can follow the example of Christ in these ways when we suffer unjustly, but there are aspects of His suffering that we cannot imitate. Today’s verse gives us the chief way that our Lord’s suffering is inimitable. Peter writes that Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). Christ’s suffering and death have an atoning significance, but our suffering does not.

The Apostle Peter here alludes to Isaiah 53:4–5, 10–11, part of the great prophecy of the Suffering Servant who would take the place of His people on the cross and receive the wrath of God for their sins. Peter makes clear that the death of Jesus is a substitutionary sacrifice. Suffering and death are the curse that is due to sinners (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 6:23), but the Lord in His grace has ordained that He will allow an innocent man, a righteous man who is God in the flesh, to receive the curse in our place. Jesus did this when He hung on the tree, when He endured crucifixion on the wooden cross (1 Peter 2:24), for “a hanged man [on a tree] is cursed by God” (Deut. 21:22–23). On the cross, God put on Jesus all the sins of everyone who trusts in Christ alone for salvation, and Jesus bore the curse in their place so that they would receive eternal life. God is perfectly just, so He must punish sinners. Jesus took this punishment upon Himself so that we who trust in Him do not suffer it ourselves. John Calvin comments, “Christ’s death was a sacrifice for the [forgiveness] of our sins; for being fixed to the cross and offering himself a victim for us, he took on himself our sin and our punishment.”