Read John 3:14-18 and Romans 6:23. What do these verses teach that Christ’s death has accomplished for us?

 When Jesus arrived at the Jordan River to be baptized, John the Baptist had exclaimed, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, NKJV). This statement acknowledged Christ as the antitypical Lamb of God to whom all true sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed.

 But animal sacrifices could not take away sins by themselves (Heb. 10:4). They provided only conditional forgiveness dependent on the effectiveness of Christ’s future sacrifice on the cross. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NKJV).

 Read John 3:16, 17. What great hope can we take from these verses, especially when you rightly sense that you deserve to be condemned for something that you have done?

 Think what all this means. Jesus, the one who created the cosmos (John 1:1-3), offered Himself for each of us, a sacrifice for sins, all so that we don’t have to be condemned for what we could justly be condemned for. This is the great promise of the gospel.

 Jesus Christ declared that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” to die for us (John 3:16, NRSV). But we should never forget that Christ offered Himself voluntarily on our behalf (Heb. 9:14). Martin Luther referred to the cross as “the altar on which He [Christ], consumed by the fire of the boundless love which burned in His heart, presented the living and holy sacrifice of His body and blood to the Father with fervent intercession, loud cries, and hot, anxious tears (Heb. 5:7).” — Luther’s Works, vol. 13 (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), p. 319. Christ died once for all (Heb. 10:10) and once forever (Heb. 10:12), for His sacrifice is all-sufficient and never loses its power.

 And there’s more: “If but one soul would have accepted the gospel of His grace, Christ would, to save that one, have chosen His life of toil and humiliation and His death of shame.” — Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 135.