Introduction
In Acts 3:15, Peter boldly declared to the crowd: “You killed the Author of life!” These words struck like a hammer blow, piercing straight to the conscience of his listeners. Yet today, when we read these words, a question may naturally arise in our minds: What does this have to do with me? That happened two thousand years ago — it was the priests, the scribes, and the Jewish crowd who did it. What does it have to do with those of us living in the present day?
To say that our sin killed Jesus — what could that possibly mean?
To answer this question, we must first return to the scene and understand clearly how the rejection of Jesus actually unfolded. Then we must ask ourselves: could the same thing happen to you and me?
Part One: Who Killed Jesus?
In Luke 9:22, long before the crucifixion, Jesus already prophesied: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Notice the word he chose — not “killed by the Romans,” but rejected. And who rejected him? The leaders of God’s own chosen people: the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. These were men appointed by God to instruct the people and draw them near to him. And yet it was precisely these men who drove Jesus to the cross, step by step.
How did it happen?
When Jesus cleansed the temple and rebuked them for turning God’s house into “a den of robbers” (Luke 19:45–47), these leaders did not reflect or repent. Instead, they immediately began looking for a way to kill him — because Jesus had touched their authority and their interests.
When Pilate sought to release Jesus, the chief priests pressured him with political threats, crying out, “Take him away! Crucify him!” (John 19:15). And when Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your king?” the chief priests answered: “We have no king but Caesar.”
What a staggering lie. God was the king of Israel. Yet in that moment, the chief priests fully revealed who their true king really was — themselves.
Part Two: The Root of Their Failure — The Self Enthroned in God’s Place
How did the chief priests and teachers of the law arrive at this point? On the surface, they wore the robes of religion, held the Law of God in their hands, and served in the temple day after day. But the Gospel of John had already given the diagnosis: “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19–20)
Their core problem was not ignorance. It was ungodliness — they did not want God to reign over them. They were unwilling to submit their lives to his lordship. They had turned the temple into a marketplace for personal profit, and transformed their spiritual office into a tool for maintaining personal status. They had placed themselves on the throne that rightfully belonged to God alone.
So when the true King — Jesus Christ — arrived, what they felt was not joy, but threat. His coming meant that everything they had built, every kingdom they had constructed for themselves, would be overturned. And so they rejected him. They killed him.
The opposite of rejection is welcome. They did not welcome Jesus — because long before they rejected Jesus, they had already rejected God in their hearts.
Part Three: What Does This Have to Do with Us?
And so we return to the question: why does Peter say that Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the cross”? (1 Peter 2:24) Was it only the sin of those people two thousand years ago?
Peter’s answer is: No. “Our” does not refer only to the chief priests and scribes of that era. “Our” includes every person who has lived in sin — including you today, and me today.
Why? Because the sin that killed Jesus was not some unique, time-bound transgression belonging only to that generation. It is the shared essence of human sin: self-centeredness — pushing God out of our hearts and placing ourselves on the throne of our own lives.
Have you ever covered your ears, unwilling to hear what God was saying, because it would disturb the comfortable life you had built for yourself?
Have you ever been like those chief priests — outwardly devout, yet at the deepest level of your being, using your own interests and your own glory as the ultimate measure of every decision?
Have you ever said to God, in some moment: “I don’t need you to tell me how to live. I’ll decide that for myself”?
If so, then the sin you have committed is the very same sin. It is not a sin from two thousand years ago. It is a sin happening right now, right here, in your heart.
Romans 1 tells us that the most fundamental human sin is not any particular outward act of wrongdoing. It is ungodliness— the refusal to let God be God, the refusal to acknowledge him as King. Romans 2 goes further, showing that even those who possess the Law and participate in religious life can be trapped in this same sin. That was the portrait of the chief priests — and it may be a portrait of you and me as well.
This is precisely why the cross Jesus bore was not only for the sins of those people long ago. He bore the sin of every person who has ever placed themselves in God’s rightful place — our common sin, the universal sin of humanity.
Part Four: How Then Should We Respond Before the Cross?
Immediately after speaking of his coming rejection and death in Luke 9:22, Jesus followed with these piercing words in verse 24: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
Jesus knew the road ahead. He knew he would be rejected. He knew he would be killed. And still he chose to walk that road. Why? Because it was precisely through this path that he bore in his own body the judgment our self-centered sin deserved — and through his resurrection, he opened for us a new way of living: no longer reigning over our own lives, but letting God reign.
And so, whenever we meditate on the suffering of Jesus during this season of Lent, we are not simply observing a historical event from two thousand years ago. We are looking into a mirror. That mirror shows us: it was my sin that caused his wounds. It was I who pushed God out of my heart. It was I who chose to be my own king — and so it was I who needed him to die in my place.
When we see ourselves this clearly, repentance is no longer a religious ritual. It becomes a genuine turning of the heart — from self-centeredness toward God-centeredness; from reigning over ourselves toward letting Christ reign over us.
Conclusion
Peter said: “You killed the Author of life.” Two thousand years later, these words still speak to us — because the sin within our hearts, the sin of placing ourselves in God’s place, has not faded with the passing of time.
But thanks be to God, Peter did not stop there. He continued: “But God raised him from the dead.” (Acts 3:15)
The cross is the end of our sin, and the beginning of our new life. Jesus bore our sin through his death, and through his resurrection he gives life to all who come to him. Today, he still extends the same invitation to every one of us: lay down your crown, and follow him.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” — 1 Peter 2:24