Death Row Jesus and Wrong Conceptions of Jesus Being a Sinner

New thing coming you should be aware of: Death Row Jesus.

From the creators of Tattoo Jesus (I could have sworn I did a thing on Tattoo Jesus but I can’t find it) comes Death Row Jesus.

“When people think about Jesus, they don’t think about him being on death row, but if you think about what he did when he was on earth, that’s really the experience he had,” Miller said.

Miller said he hopes that message is clearly portrayed through this new video campaign.

“We communicate very directly that Christ became the worst criminal in history when he took our mistakes on himself. The second message is we are all equally undeserving of God’s grace,” Miller said.

I have heard such stuff before, that Jesus became a sinner, or “the worst criminal in history.”

This isn’t true. He was the spotless, blameless sacrifice for us. Yes, God “made him to be sin for us,” but that does not mean He was made a sinner. He became a sin-bearer–He bore our sins in His own body, but that doesn’t make Him a sinner or a criminal.

Even the criminal crucified next to Him knew “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

Furthermore, the Bible differentiates between the sacrifice and the sinner. Jesus was not a sinner; He was a sin-bearer.

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

Saying that Jesus became a horrible, rotten sinner is a misunderstanding of what’s going on. When the lamb of the OT sacrifice was offered, the lamb didn’t become a sinner, the lamb was a representative of the sinner and bore the sin for the sinner.

If Jesus became a sinner, then He got what He deserved. The Gospel is about love and grace, a sacrifice of a sinless, righteous man laying down His life for unrighteous people, not about judging a sinner.

If that’s not true, then the Gospel ceases to be Gospely.

2 thoughts on “Death Row Jesus and Wrong Conceptions of Jesus Being a Sinner”

  1. So our sins cannot change the eternal character of a God, of course; Jesus didn’t incorporate sin into Himself? therefore Jesus stood in for us when it came to be punished? I know you say He died to take the Law away. All this is very confusing. Would you do one more summary?

  2. Christ bore our sins to the extent that he “became sin for us.” This does not imply, however, that He was a sinner. He never sinned, He took our sin, but He was still the spotless, blameless lamb. He wasn’t the sinner; we were.

    The idea of Jesus taking our punishment is still a question in my mind. I don’t see that terminology in Scripture either.

    I am thinking on this subject and plan on doing something with it at some point, but you’ll probably have to wait!

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