Christian Theology Made Really Simple

According to the Law of the Bible, the penalty for sin is death. The law is what defines God's expectations, and falling short of that is defined as sin.

Jesus was executed by being nailed on a cross, known as crucifixion. The truth is that Jesus had committed no sin and so had no reason to be executed, particularly not in such a brutal fashion. But this means that his death is still legally available to pay the price for sin.

Suppose that a man goes into a store and buys everything in the store. But he does not take the goods with him, he leaves all of the merchandise on the store shelves. This would mean that legally, those goods are available to anyone who the man who bought the goods wishes to deed them to.

Likewise, Jesus has the right to deed his death to anyone he wishes to pay the price for their sin. In the New Testament, it is described that those who are given the legal right to use Jesus' death as payment for their sin are anyone who accepts Jesus as their savior (saviour).

There is no limit to how many people whose sin can be atoned for by the penalty that Jesus has paid. It was one man, Adam, who brought sin into the world so that everyone shares in that sin. So, it legally requires only one person to be executed without ever having broken God's Law to provide a solution for the problem of sin.

Being perfect means that God cannot accept anyone who is less than perfect, at least not without the substitutionary death of the Son that he sent to us.