The greatest thing one could do is die for his brothers sin because he loves him that much!
Uh, okay, I mean…
Read Isaiah 53 and the Pauline epistles. All 13 of them. No offense intended.
Goodnight.
J.
One doesn’t.
As Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. That means we can only pay by dying for our sins as we go to hell.
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What is wrong with the statement is that it subtly but decisively transfers the unique redemptive act of Christ to an ordinary human moral category, turning the atonement into an example of love rather than a once for all saving act grounded in divine authority, sinlessness, and covenantal substitution, and Scripture nowhere allows that shift.
Biblically, it is true that love may express itself in self sacrifice, but Scripture strictly limits the meaning and effect of that sacrifice when it comes to sin, because no sinner can die for another sinner’s sin in a redemptive sense, since all stand under the same condemnation and lack the righteousness required to bear another’s guilt ~Romans 3:10 to ~Romans 3:23, “As it has been written, There is none righteous, not even one… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Your statement, brother, fails exegetically because you ignore the difference between dying because of sin and dying for sin, a distinction Scripture carefully preserves, as ~Ezekiel 18:20 declares, “The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear the iniquity of the son,” establishing that guilt is not transferable among sinners by love or intention.
When Jesus says in ~John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends,” He is not teaching that any person can die for another’s sin, but that His own impending death uniquely fulfills this statement, because only He has authority over His life and death ~John 10:17 to ~John 10:18, and only He is without sin ~John 8:46, making Him categorically different from all other would be self sacrificing humans.
Scripture explicitly restricts sin bearing to Christ alone, as ~1 Peter 2:24 states, “Who Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that having died to sins, we might live to righteousness,” where bore is aorist active indicative, pointing to a completed historical act performed by Him and by no one else, and the object is our sins, not suffering in general or love in principle.
Paul reinforces this exclusivity in ~2 Corinthians 5:21, “The One having known no sin, He made sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God,” where the participle having known no sin is the theological boundary line, because only the sinless One can be made sin for others, meaning your statement collapses if applied to any brother, however loving.
The cross is also juridical, not merely emotional, as ~Galatians 3:13 teaches, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us,” and nowhere does Scripture say a believer can redeem another believer from the Law’s curse, because redemption requires covenantal authority and divine initiative, not affection or moral resolve.
Even martyrdom, which Scripture honors, is never described as sin atoning, as ~Revelation 12:11 praises the saints who “did not love their lives even unto death,” yet their deaths testify, they do not atone, because atonement is grounded in blood offered by God Himself ~Hebrews 9:22 and fulfilled once for all by Christ ~Hebrews 10:10 to ~Hebrews 10:14.
Therefore the correct biblical formulation is this, the greatest thing one could do is love one’s brothers even unto death, but only Christ can die for his brothers’ sins, because only Christ is sinless, only Christ bears divine authority, only Christ fulfills the Law, and only Christ’s death is substitutionary, efficacious, and once for all ~Romans 5:6 to ~Romans 5:9, and to blur that distinction is not poetic exaggeration but theological error that diminishes the uniqueness of the cross.
I know, I know, I’m a “pain”
Signing off here.
Shalom brother.
J.
Done Paul’s stuff is what got me into the Bible. Actually I could understand his thoughts. And where he was coming from. His message was clear. To the point, deep yet shallow. Dig deeper. Is my advice! Paul has answers.
53 is definitely of interest who has believed our report. I would like to say me. you told me and I believed!
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Now, do a deep dive into this wonderful passage @Hungry
J.
Yeah I was thinking that he was misunderstanding this. Beat me to it.
Peter
Only one person died for the sins of another, Jesus. However, it might have been possible for Adam to have died for Eve before he sinned.
I like the way you let it be from my study. pretty cool. though if you could have provided the scriptures it would have made it easier. So I’ll study and get back with you.