“That He Might Bring Us to God”: The Gospel in 1 Peter 3:18

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was an amazing act of divine intervention to save sinners. In the cross, God imported all the wrath of the judgment day into a moment of time, dying in the place of those who believe, bearing their punishment, settling the score, and crediting them with a righteousness they didn’t earn so that they can live with Him forever.

The Gospel, in other words, is a message of alienation answered by reconciliation and resulting in the promise that there will be no condemnation—a message that the apostle Peter summed up in a few words in his first letter: “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). If we grasp the significance of these words, we will have grasped the message of the Gospel.

The Problem: Alienation

Why did Christ have to “bring us to God”? Because we are separated from God. The problem that faces every woman and man is the problem of alienation.

It’s not difficult to find material on alienation in sociological textbooks and psychological literature. Many are the commentators who mention the problem of loneliness in our culture. Yet behind and beneath peoples’ alienation from one another is something more fundamental: their alienation from their good Creator and His design for their life.

We are separated from God because of sin. With our thoughts and our actions, through passive indifference and active disobedience, we have turned our backs on God. We have rejected our created purpose, and we continually spoil God’s good world. And the result is that we are rightly subject to God’s wrath, which He will one day bring against all who live in rebellion against Him.

Behind and beneath peoples’ alienation from one another is something more fundamental: their alienation from their good Creator and His design for their life.

The Solution: Reconciliation

But the good news—the Gospel message—is that Christ died to bring us out of our state of alienation, to “bring us to God.” Through the cross, Jesus Christ has provided us with reconciliation.

How does the cross do this? It gives us reconciliation through another -ion word: propitiation. What that means is that on the cross, Jesus sacrificially died to pay the wages for our sin, taking on Himself the wrath of God that sin deserves. As the apostle John put it, “In this is love, not that we have loved God”—because we didn’t love Him—“but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Although we were alienated from God, He reached out to us and made a way, at great cost to Himself, to satisfy the just penalty against sin. 

Some object that this is a horrendous process—a Father sacrificing His Son. And in some regards, they are absolutely right to note the weightiness of such a sacrifice. But we need to remember that God in Trinity is not three parties in a conflict, trying to work things out, but one God in three persons, agreeing completely from eternity. The Father sent the Son, and the Son went willingly. In the person of the embodied Son, it was God Himself who experienced death on the cross in His human nature.

Although we were alienated from God, He reached out to us and made a way, at great cost to Himself, to satisfy the just penalty against sin.

And, of course, Jesus Christ did not stay dead, because it was impossible for death to hold the Author of life (Acts 2:24; 3:15). And now alive again, it is Christ who actively reconciles us with the Father. It is as if He takes us by the arm and says, “There is someone I want you to meet.” He leads us into a room marked “Private,” where we had no right to go on our own. He brings us to God.

We can accept this gift of reconciliation through faith. Christ is extending His hand to lead us to the Father; faith is the means by which we reach out and take His hand. We can say to Him, “Lord Jesus, I know that my sin has separated me from God. I believe that You can reconcile me through the blood of Your cross. Please forgive me and bring me into Your family.”

The Effect: No Condemnation

Finally, the result is that that there is “now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). In other words, Jesus brings us there, and He keeps us there.

“Christ … suffered once for sins”; He did it “once for all” (Heb. 10:10). This is vitally important to understand. Some who come to know Christ through faith know that it is God who reconciled us but think that it’s all up to us to stay in God’s good graces.

But on what basis did God reconcile us to Himself? Not based on our goodness! “Christ … suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous.” We were unrighteous; even so, God has accepted us for Jesus’ sake. He knew what we were before He ever began the process, and there’s no discovery of our sin that will suddenly change His mind.

The verdict God has passed is final, and the case is never going to be retried. What is true about us is not our feelings and moods, our ebbs and flows, our ups and downs. What’s true of us is what Jesus says is true. He holds no charge against those whom He has accepted on the basis of the cross.

Many Christians are miserable. “Ah!” they say. “I have sinned. So how can I say that I am God’s child? How can I claim that He has forgiven me?” Again, we may do it through faith. We can listen to what God has said about us, and we can take Him at His word, even when our feelings point us in a different direction.

God holds no charge against those whom He has accepted on the basis of the cross.

What’s the problem? Alienation. What’s the solution? Reconciliation. What’s the effect? No condemnation. If we trust in anything other than the fact that “Christ … suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,” then we trust in a false hope—and we remain hopeless! But by leaning on Christ, we may know that the record is settled.

This article was adapted from the sermon “Alienation, Reconciliation” by Alistair Begg.