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When God created our first parents, He made them sinless and perfect. However, He did give them free will – the right to choose to remain in relationship with Him or to rebel.
In order to allow them the exercise of that will, He gave them a simple command. If they obeyed, their
relationship with Him would remain intact. If they disobeyed, they would lose that relationship. This would be spiritual death, which would in time lead to physical death, and after that to eternal death, eternal separation from God and punishment in hell.
The devil, who had himself already rebelled against God and been cast out of heaven, convinced them that by disobeying God they would gain greater power
and knowledge for themselves. They believed him,
disobeyed God, and became sinners cut off from
God’s presence. You can read all about this in the first three chapters of the Bible.
The dreadful effects of that sin have touched every one of their descendants. Every person born since has been born with a sin nature. This predisposition to sin is like a magnet or a gravitational force which pulls us inevitably into actual sin. Every person who has ever lived has succumbed to its force. The only exception is the Lord Jesus Christ.
God, who does not lie or change His mind (Numbers 23:19) had said that sin would bring death and cut man off from God forever. However, God loved
mankind, so He devised a way by which He could save us and bring us back into relationship with Himself.
Since the punishment for sin is death, God decided
He would bear that punishment Himself on our
behalf. Now God in His essence is eternal – He had no beginning and He can have no end. He cannot die.
So He had to become a man.
This He did by the second person of the Godhead
allowing Himself to be incarnated in the womb of a young Jewish girl named Mary. With no human
father, He took the human nature of His mother, whilst retaining His divine nature (though laying aside its prerogatives) (Phil 2:6-7).
As Jesus of Nazareth He lived a normal human
life, but without sin. At about the age of 30 He began to teach about the Kingdom of God and perform
miracles. Three years later, the Jewish and Roman authorities took Him and tried Him, beat Him, mocked Him and crucified Him.
It seemed like a terrible defeat, but it was really part of God’s plan. Read Isaiah chapter 53. That’s in the Old Testament, and was written more than 600 years
before Jesus was born, but it spells out God’s
purposes.
You see, Jesus’ life wasn’t taken from Him – He gave it freely. He was totally innocent of the charges brought against Him, but He took upon Himself your guilt and mine and paid the death-penalty for our sins.
Now, because the penalty has been paid, God is able to pardon us. He showed that the payment was complete by raising Jesus from the dead on the third day.