I don't know about your experience, but mine is usually when I hear the word substitute, I think, "Ahhh, not as good as the original!" I can remember in high school, I will make this confession, that we had a good time with substitutes. Because we knew that a substitute didn't know all of the ropes, and we would get away with things we would never get away with our teacher. Or think, you've bought ridiculously expensive Broadway tickets, and you open your Playbill only to realize that the main actor you came to see won't be appearing that night, a stand-in will. You never say, "Yeah!" You say, "Ahh, I can't believe it!" The one night I'm here on Broadway and I get a substitute?
Well, God has a substitute plan that is not like that at all. Let me read 1 Peter 1:20.
He (Jesus) was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
God looked at His fallen creatures and realized that there's nothing we could ever do to make ourselves acceptable to Him. There's nothing that we could ever do to bridge the sin gap. And so, from the foundation of the world, hear these words-this is so amazing, God devised a substitute plan to provide for us a substitute in His Son. This time, the substitute is infinitely better than we would have ever been.
The only way to bridge that huge gap, the separation that sin made between us and God, was for Jesus to stand in our place. What does He do? Well, we've talked about this multiple times already in this wonderful chapter of 1 Peter. He lived as we could not live. Don't ever discount the important contribution of the life Jesus lived before the cross.
Often when we talk about salvation, we want to run to the cross. But every moment of His life, every word He spoke, every choice He made, every righteous thing He did, was done for us. He's standing in our place. Then He died in our place; that sacrifice was substitutionary. It was Jesus taking on Himself the penalty that we deserved. And then He rises on our behalf, doing what we would never be able to do. He has the power to conquer the power of death. It is an amazing story of God's grace, this plan to provide for us a substitute.
I like what it says, "...who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God." He showered glory upon His Son, and that glory now gets showered down on us by grace. It is the most beautiful plan you could ever consider. That substitute plan wasn't a last-minute jerk-reaction-God said, "Oh, these people are worse than what I thought they were going to be; I better do something."
Peter says, "...before the foundation the world." God said the only thing that will ultimately end with what I want eternity to be like, is a sinner substitute. I'll send My Son and He will stand in every way in your place. He will reach my standards. He will satisfy the demands of My anger, and He will pour His glory down on My children. Now that's a plan!
