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“What does it mean that Christ died for our sins ‘in accordance with the scriptures’?”

The phrase “in accordance with the scriptures” comes from two verses in 1 Corinthians, a letter Paul wrote to a church he established during his second missionary journey. The year was probably AD55, making it likely the fifth book of our New Testament chronologically. When he wrote it, the word “scriptures” meant what we now call the Old Testament, no more. None of the gospels existed, so Paul certainly didn’t mean them.

Later, “the scriptures” would come to include the four gospels, many of Paul’s letters and a number from other pillars of the early church, as it does today.

Nothing New Under the Sun

So then, Christ died for our sins, Paul taught, exactly as the Old Testament predicted he would. He also mentions that he was buried and raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Old Testament predicted.

Paul wasn’t teaching anything new here. You may remember the words of the Lord Jesus to the two disciples he met after his resurrection on the road to Emmaus. “Was it not necessary,” he inquired of them, “that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Indeed it was. Luke goes on to add, “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” So then, what Paul taught about Christ and his death was not only consistent with the words of the Old Testament — and not just the obvious prophetic scriptures, but everything from Moses on, by which I believe he meant Genesis — but also with the teaching of the Lord Jesus about himself.

A Prime Example

Of course, we should probably list some examples. Where in the OT do we find it written that the Christ would die for our sins?

The most famous example is probably Isaiah 53. Isaiah wrote:

“He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

If there’s a more obvious way to declare that Jesus would die for the sins of the world, I can’t imagine what it might be. We know this is a correct understanding of Isaiah 53 because the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 was reading that very passage when Philip came along and explained to him that Jesus fulfilled it. If that were not enough, Peter also quotes it, bluntly declaring, “By his wounds you have been healed.”

Symbolic Prophecy

It’s not just the direct prophecies about Messiah that Jesus fulfilled, of course. The entire sacrificial system taught in the Law of Moses was designed to speak of Christ. The burnt offerings, sin offerings and peace offerings of Leviticus 4-6 all predicted his sacrifice on the cross in different ways. Again, we know this because the NT writers tell us plainly:

“Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”

and again:

“You were ransomed … with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

In fact, you could argue that the scriptures prophesy the Lord’s death for our sins as early as Genesis, where Abraham tells Isaac, “God will provide for himself the lamb.” What these words really signified was not revealed explicitly until well over a thousand years later when John the Baptist identified Jesus as the promised offering for sin with the words, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

So then, Christ died for our sins “in accordance with the scriptures”, just as Paul wrote.