The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

Did Jesus, by shedding His blood for us, pay the penalty for our sins?  

I’ve heard preachers and theologians say this hundreds of times. So have you. But is it true?  

A key verse often cited is John 1:29 (see above). But does John 1:29 say anything about the penalty for our sins? No, it does not. Taking away the sin is not the same as taking away the penalty.  

Raymond Brown comments concerning the singular word, sin, “the singular refers to a sinful condition” whereas the plural word, sins, “refers to sinful acts” (John I-XII, p. 56).  

By His death on the cross, Jesus removed our sinful condition in the sense that He removed sin as a barrier between us and God (cf. 1 John 2:2).  

Of course, it is impossible to read the Bible and conclude that there is no penalty for our sins. The penalty for murder is death, whether you are a believer or unbeliever. We know that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). We die because we sin (see Genesis 5 and the expression “and he died”).  

Think of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10. The Lord took their lives because they offered up strange fire. Think of Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5. The Lord took their lives because they lied about the income they received from the sale of some land.  

Paul said in 1 Cor 11:30 that because the believers in Corinth treated the Lord’s Supper irreverently–some even getting drunk–some of the believers were sick, and some died.  

Read 2 Samuel. Chapters 1-10 talk about David’s ascent. Everything was getting better year by year. Then David committed adultery and murder. After being confronted by the prophet Nathan, he confessed his sins and God forgave him. God did not take his life as the law dictated. But there were plenty of penalties that followed. His first son with Bathsheba died. Absalom rebelled, then died. The last twelve chapters of 2 Samuel are about David’s decline.  

Many wrongly think that sin is what separates us from God. But the point of John 1:29 is that our sin no longer separates us from God. By His shed blood, the Lord Jesus removed the sin barrier.  

So, what separates us from God, if not our sins? 

We are spiritually dead apart from faith in Christ. We lack His life. What separates us from God is our spiritual deadness, not our sins. The issue in evangelism is not our sin. Our sins are no longer a barrier. The issue in evangelism is that we are dead, and we need life. See John 3:14-18; 5:24; 6:47; 11:25-27; 20:31; Eph 2:1-5 (“you who were dead…God made us alive together with Christ…”). 

The word penalty occurs only three times in the NKJV. Numbers 35:30 refers to the death penalty. Ezekiel 23:35 says, “Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your back, therefore you shall bear the penalty of your lewdness and your harlotry.’” Romans 1:27 talks about homosexual men who receive “the penalty of their error which was due.” 

The word paid occurs only four times in the NT and never refers to Jesus’ having paid for our sins (Matt 5:26; Luke 12:59; Heb 7:9; 12:9). The word pay occurs sixteen times in the NT and never refers to Jesus’ paying for our sins. All sixteen occurrences refer to people paying something (a debt, taxes, expenses). 

Why does this matter? Because we reap what we sow, both in this life and in the life to come (in terms of rewards at the Bema). If we wrongly think that we can sin with impunity, we will be doing great harm. Grace is not a license to sin. Sin pays wages. See Jas 1:15.  

Other than John 1:29, what Scriptures do people use to teach that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins? In part two, I will look at three other commonly cited texts and show why they also do not teach that Jesus took away the penalty for our sins.  

Keep grace in focus and you will long for Christ’s soon return and for Him to say, “Well done, good servant.”