2 Corinthians 5:18-21
Well, we now come to the preaching of the Word, and it’s our time in our worship service where his Word is opened, explained, and exhorted. So we’re going to do that from 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and we’ll be looking at verses 18 to 21.
There’s nothing like the delight and glow on someone’s face when giving them even a small or simple gift, when you’ve thought about that gift for a while and planned ahead of time how you’re going to give it to them, and it’s received better than you can imagine, it meant more to them than you thought it would. That’s satisfying, isn’t it? That’s pleasing.
Well, maybe the gift was not long thought about, but it was exactly what they needed, and it was exactly when they needed it. And so the relief and the reception of the gift showed that it meant so much to them. That’s pleasing to the giver. But our gifts are small. And even though small, the delight can be great.
But God’s gifts are infinite, but the delight sometimes can be harder to detect, and there can be all kinds of reasons for that. And I want us to see this morning the heart of God, see that he is the most gracious, generous gift-giver so that we would be helped in our delight in God and our thankfulness to him.
We need help in this area, not every now and then, but every day because our bodies are weak, our minds are forgetful, and our hearts are distracted and we’re prone to complaining. Or is that just me? Hopefully you can relate. And I pray that we see and are affected by the heart of God this morning, and we’re going to get to know him more, that he is a God who gives and who gives and who gives.
He is by nature a giving God. He has the ability to give. He has the authority to give, the autonomy to give. His giving is the key in one of the most known verses of all time, John 3:16, “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.’”
John says later everything we have is from God, John 3:27: “‘A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.’” James 1:17, “Every good thing given, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
And referring to our spiritual needs, and Paul says in Romans 8, you know it well, verse 31, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” Verse 32, “He who indeed did not spare his own Son, but delivered him over for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” If God would give of himself while we were enemies, how much more can we trust him as his children?
Consider where we’ve been in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. His gifts are everywhere if you have the right perspective. We see in verse 1 that we have the gift of a promised building, the gift of certainty of resurrection, the gift of good courage in verse 6, good courage because of his provision; the gift of satisfying ambition to please him, the gift of future rewards out of his generosity, the gift of the fear of the Lord in verse 11, which results in a clean conscience, which is priceless, and also the gift of caring more about what’s in the heart than what’s on the outside.
Also the gift of knowing the love of Christ so that we would not live for ourselves, which is unsatisfying, but live for him, which is all satisfying. Also the gift of new perception to graciously see one another as those clothed in righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. Also the gift in verse 17 of the of the new birth, essentially the new creation in Christ, positionally new, becoming renewed day by day.
Even in this short section, we have ample reasons to see God as the giver of good gifts, and return thanks to him. And we can agree with David in Psalm 23 that “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”
God is a gift-giving God. His gifts are exactly what we need, and they’re given exactly when we need them, and their value is unknowable. So have this characteristic of God in your mind as we read the text today. Let’s read 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 18 through 21.
“Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their transgressions against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
“So then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as God is pleading through us. But we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
There should be no surprise when I say today that we’ve come to a monumental text. Its truths span from eternity past to eternity future. And to place this text in the context, Paul has shown them why he does not lose heart in ministry and in suffering, verses 1 to 10, because he has a great hope of the future. And he has defended his ministry and integrity and what constrains him in verses 11 to 17.
And now he takes a moment to declare the call and content of his ministry, namely the call of God through him and the gift of God’s son to a lost and dying world. And we need to treasure these truths today and ponder them in our hearts, as we sung, “ponder anew.”
We need to ponder them in our hearts as gifts from God. He gives and gives and gives his best. He gives generously, lavishly and abundantly, and there is no stinginess in his giving. His giving is sacrificial and costly.
And this is Paul’s mission, to tell the world about God, who gives his great gift of gracious reconciliation in Christ Jesus. And so if you cut Paul, this is what is written in his DNA: the gospel that saved him and that he loves to tell the world about.
So this morning, if you’re taking notes, we’re going to see four gifts for God’s children to treasure, four gifts for God’s children to treasure, and so that we would not live for ourselves, but for him who died and rose again on our behalf. Four gifts for God’s children to treasure, four gifts for God’s people to ponder.
The first gift to treasure in your heart is reconciliation. So point one: Treasure the gift of reconciliation. You can see this gift of reconciliation really in every verse in this text. Each verse in this portion of Scripture declares and depicts an element of the gift of reconciliation.
Verse 18 says, “God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ.” Verse 19, “that God was in Christ reconciling,” and verse 20, “God is pleading through us.” Verse 21, “He, God, made Him who knew no sin to be sin.”
I want to focus on the phrases in verses 18 and 19. God reconciled us to himself through Christ, and God was in Christ reconciling. Here we see God in unified pursuit to seek and to save the lost, the father pursuing the lost through the son.
Jesus was not a mere method used to reconcile, not an ordinary instrument or a device to accomplish a goal. God is personally involved in reconciling the world to himself. “The fullness of deity dwells bodily in the man Christ Jesus,” Colossians 2:9.
And Jesus said in John 10:30, “‘I and the Father are one.’” And in verse 38 of that same chapter, “‘The Father is in me, and I in the Father.’” And John 6:38 says, “‘I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.’” And what is the father’s will? The next verse, verse 39 of chapter 6 of John, “‘that all that he has given me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.’”
The Holy Spirit is not absent in God’s reconciling work. He regenerates us, opens hearts, opens eyes. But in this text, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, the focus is God the Father and God the Son.
And so the gift we celebrate at Christmas, the incarnation, this is God drawing near in Christ Jesus. He’s drawing near to sinners who were far off, sinners who were lost, rejecting God, raised fists against God, resisting God in every way, refusing him.
But we see here God drawing near, and it’s illustrated in the most humbling way in Luke 15, when the father of the lost son gathers himself, and “while the lost son was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” This is the heart of the father who shows his grace in Christ Jesus. He draws near to reconcile.
And why did he have to draw near? Reconciliation is making things right between two opposing parties, and God is taking the initiative. What did the other party do? Why does God draw near? We have to go back to the beginning to understand just how bad our separation and alienation from God was so that we can appreciate how good and glorious this gift of reconciliation really is.
And so in Genesis, Adam and Eve were in paradise conditions. They were in paradise, and they rebelled against God. They had lush surroundings, abundance, everything taken care of. They lived out Psalm 23 verse 1, which says “Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want.” They were in want of nothing.
And it was in paradise that they rejected God. And this destroys the sometimes-heard excuse of, well, if my circumstances were better, I would have walked in God’s ways. Genesis 1 to 3, Adam and Eve proved that that is not so. In paradise, rather, they choose evil. They go their own way and reject God’s ways and are separated from him.
They’re like the sheep in New Zealand. I think I’ve told you how many sheep we have. It’s a lot. So they frequently come to mind, and they’re a called-upon example. Plus they’re in Scripture, so I’m in good company.
But Adam and Eve are like sheep, and if you’re in New Zealand, you’re driving along a country road, and you see sheep in the paddock, and rather than eat the grass that’s carefully, selectively provided by the farmer, constantly you see them jamming their heads through a small gap in the fence to eat whatever awful grass is growing on the other side between the fence and the road.
And so over here you had this abundance, beautiful green grass, rolling hills, wisely selected and provided by the farmer who cares for them. And they say, no, I’d rather have the garbage grass growing on the side of the road that I had to hurt my neck to get to.
That’s kind of like us. And that’s one way of looking at Adam and Eve: all this good food to freely eat, and they choose the one that disobeys God and separates them from him.
And so the whole human race is then plunged into perilous depths of sin and separation from God, and they have no way of getting back on account of themselves. They don’t want to reconcile; they want to hide.
And we can experience this, can’t we, on a relational level. When we sin against each other, we prevent harmony between each other, and that’s in a horizontal sense. But it’s far more severe and far more eternally devastating between God and man.
Isaiah 59, verse 2 says, “Your sins have separated you from your God.” Colossians 1:21, “You are alienated from God, enemies of him.” Romans 8:7, “We were at enmity with God, hostile toward God because of our sin.” “But God, being rich in mercy,” Ephesians 2:4; he “demonstrated his love toward us,” Romans 5:8, “and from heaven he came and sought us.” Luke 19:10: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
And so God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. He, God, the offended party, did not stand back with his arms folded. He didn’t stiff-arm us, or he didn’t stay away. He took the initiative and sent his son to reconcile us.
And so for Adam and Eve, like the father and the lost son, God comes after them in the garden. He doesn’t leave them lost, foolishly attempting to hide their sin and shame. He pursues them, and he seeks them out. He says, “‘Where are you?’”
And this is the character of God. He lovingly comes after you for your good. “The Son of God in all his glory emptied Himself,” Philippians 2, “of that glory. For our sake, He took on the form of a slave for you and for me, and God took on flesh and became a man, humbled Himself for us.” He was aligned with the father’s will and was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
He came and sought us and he did this, the Nicene Creed says, and I know there are some young students in here that know this, and you can say it with me, “He came,” the Nicene Creed says, “for us and for our salvation.”
The gift of reconciliation is that God took the initiative. He came near in Christ. He did all the work for lost sinners who were dead in their trespasses and had no spiritual pulse to pursue God, even though there was a physical pulse. And people make attempts to be good people and nice people, or not as expressly evil as the next guy.
But what do the Scriptures say? Our attempts at righteousness can be likened to a filthy rag, foul and unclean, Isaiah 64:6. They’re unacceptable in the sight of a holy God. And it seems impossible, then, that man in his hostility could be reconciled, to be in harmony with God.
And it is impossible for man. “‘With people this is impossible,’” Jesus said, “‘but with God all things are possible.’” Matthew 19:26, where he says, “‘It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” And so the disciples say, “‘Well, then, who can be saved?’” “‘With people it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God,’” Mark 10:27. Luke 1:37, “‘For nothing will be impossible with God.’”
And what they in the Gospels didn’t piece together at the time, was that the man standing in front of them, speaking to them, was none other than the Son of God himself, sent to the world by the Father by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God,” Acts 2:23, to initiate a reconciling work of salvation for sinners at enmity with God.
Reconciliation was God’s plan. It was his good pleasure to do this. He was not obligated. Ephesians 1:5, we read it earlier, “It was the good pleasure of his will.” And you see that in Isaiah 53:10, “But Yahweh was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If you would place his soul as a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in his hand.”
And so if you’re in Christ today, you are in him because of the good pleasure of God. The father was pleased to crush his Son, because in doing that it satisfied his justice and rendered a people for his own possession. There’s no other way except through his son that he sent.
When we sin against each other, we prevent harmony between each other, and that’s in a horizontal sense.” Reuben Pickering
God himself is coming after sinners, and we see that in verse 20, where God is pleading, “Come to me, receive my Son. In him you will find present and eternal rest for your soul.” And we see in verse 21 that God is working. It’s God who’s initiating in the phrase, “He made him.”
It was God the Father who caused the cross, and it was his plan, his initiative: “God made him.” God made his son our substitute so that we would be reconciled to God. This is the gracious, giving, generous heart of God. He lavishly gives his gift of reconciliation of his own initiative to those who, like us all, loved our own way.
The best sports captains, best coaches, best CEO’s, best managers, best lawyers are those who find a way. And this is what God did. He with all power and authority and wisdom, he made a way in Christ to reconcile us to himself. And so we can exclaim with Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.”
How did he reconcile us? Well, to begin answering that we need to look at a second gift, and this one is precious. The second gift to treasure in your heart is exoneration; number two, treasure the gift of exoneration.
This is the gift of forgiveness, “pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,” compassion, mercy, a cancellation of debt owed. He exonerated those in Christ by, verse 19, “not counting their sins against them.” “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their sins against them.”
Someone who is exonerated in the courtroom is someone who was previously convicted of a crime and then officially cleared of guilt, relieved of all consequences because new evidence proves their innocence.
And if you’re reconciled in Christ today, this is your reality. New evidence has been revealed. The blood of Christ, the words he uttered, “‘It is finished,’” his hands, his feet, his side, the empty tomb, the folded grave clothes, the father who then highly exalted him, this seat that he sits on at the right hand of God, it’s all new evidence for the previously guilty who embrace Christ and are now authoritatively declared forgiven.
How can God do this? He has to remove the problem of our separation from him. He has to remove our sin problem. God does not reckon or charge or count your sins against you. They are not accounted to your ledger. He has to remove the grounds for offense to him, and he has to take away the sin that angers him, the sin that cannot dwell in his presence.
To have fellowship with you, your name must be cleared of all charges of sin, and this is impossible with man, but God has made a way, and God has made it possible, and it cost the highest price, and it was his good pleasure to do so.
The only way to clear your name was for God to charge the guilt of all your sin to the account of the Son of God, the man Jesus Christ. And this is expressed in Psalm 1:30, which says, “If you should keep iniquities, O Yah, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” In verse 7 of Psalm 130, “For with Yahweh there is lovingkindness, and with him is abundant redemption.”
Our only hope is that somehow God would not count our sins against us. We have no way of paying for them ourselves. We have no way of clearing our name, no way of dealing with the guilt that is on our heads. For we are in Adam, separated from God, and we have lived in sin against him. And that was our old nature, which could do nothing else.
And so the psalmist says, “If you were to count our ways, our sins against us, who could stand before you?” And the answer is nobody. There is no one. No one can stand. We don’t even need his judgment pronounced, for we already know we are guilty before our holy God. We are utterly unholy, entirely self-centered, fixated on the fulfillment of our flesh. And you can feel the hopelessness of our state before him.
But with God and God only, there is forgiveness. There is relief, pardon, mercy, exoneration before a holy judge. And we need to steep our hearts in this glorious truth, our only hope. We need to treasure forgiveness with God.
We need to be floored by his grace, and how tragic it is when we all grow accustomed to the forgiveness of our sins, to the reality that he does not count our sins against us, charge them to our account. He remembers them no more. He removes them as far as the east is from the west. And Isaiah says, “You’ve cast all my sins behind your back.” They’re gone, dealt with, and you’ve been made clean, washed, able to stand before a holy God.
Once you had the position where God counts your sin against you, but God, in his pursuit to reconcile you and to bring you back into favor with him, he has taken it upon himself, taking it upon himself, to count your sin to his son and to execute eternal judgment on him for your sake and for mine.
John Bunyan writes that the weight of sin is described as a great and heavy burden strapped to a person’s back. And in his famous allegory, Christian bends and staggers under the insurmountable load. With every step he stumbles. It’s too much for him to bear.
And he talks about how terrifying is the weight: “It’s enough to sink me lower,” he said, “lower than the grave, and I shall fall into the depths of Hell.” The crushing pressure causes him to weep, and he is seen trembling and crying in deep distress until he finally reaches the cross, the cross at Calvary, when the burden loosens and is rolled away, when he looked to Christ, and the burden of his heart rolled away.
And brothers and sisters, it might have been some time since you were saved, since you were positionally relieved of your burden before God. But may it be today that you and I appreciate in a meaningful and fresh way just what it means for us to stand before God, forgiven, no sin charged to our account, no burden on our back. What was impossible with man was made possible with God. And Paul is exclaiming the ministry of reconciliation, here.
And can I recommend another ministry to you? I call it the ministry of rumination. This is not an emptying of the mind, but a mulling over the truths of Scripture. And this is time well-spent. Maybe take some time this afternoon even, to slow down and to think what it means for God to clear you of all charges, something you were hopeless to accomplish on your own, all charges of sin that would rightly condemn you to eternal punishment in the lake of fire.
Think of all he did for you, and don’t come away until the soil of your heart is well tilled and broken up, and you are overcome with gratitude and wonder. “What wonder of wonders, what love is this, that Christ would die for me, clear me of all my guilty burden.” “It will be my joy,” we sang, “through the ages to sing of his love for me.”
We sing that, but is it your joy today? Make him your joy today. Take time, pray, plead, ask God to make your heart soft and grateful. We can all drift into getting used to these truths, but this is one reason why we come together every week, to stir one another up to worship and to encourage one another to “a closer walk with Thee,” and to “stir one another up to love and good deeds.”
Psalm 32, verses 1 to 2, “How blessed is he,” it says, “how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!” And there’s an exclamation mark, there. He’s happy. “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man whose iniquity Yahweh will not take into account, and in whose Spirit there is no deceit.” May this be our status, blessed and happy, light and free, because our sins are forgiven.
And the important question, here, is, therefore, whose sin is not counted against them? And we’ve just studied in Colossians 3 recently that on account of sins committed, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. “In them you once walked when you were living in them.”
If you have not come to God through Christ to find forgiveness, sins like immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, greed are being counted up against you, and the wrath of God is coming upon you. For he must deal with sin. He must deal with your sin and my sin. One way or another, sin is dealt with, either in Christ’s body on the tree at Calvary or in your eternal body in Hell.
That’s a terrifying thought, and I can tell you, being aware of that reality and yet resisting God and heaping up sin for the wrath of God to be poured on, that’s an inescapable thought, meaning that you might try to escape it, but it is always there to weigh on your conscience. And it will crush you and might cause you to come to him, or it will sear your conscience so severely that you risk never being able to come. And this is nothing to play around with.
Come to Christ and have your burden of sin removed, let it roll off your back because you’ve embraced the Lord Jesus Christ, and your account will be cleared once and for all.
So Colossians 3 clearly states there were those whose sins will not be covered. Wrath is coming upon them, those whose sin is charged against their account.
By nature of the call to be reconciled, there must be those whose sins are not covered, who are not forgiven. The world that God is reconciling in 2 Corinthians 5:19, “the world,” there, is a distinct group of people in the world, namely those whose sins are not counted against them.
The Bible numbers these people for us. It says “they are few and the road is narrow, and few are there who find it.” It also says that there are many; Christ brings many sons to glory. In any given age, there are few who come to God on his terms compared to the many who reject.
Though when all are accounted for in glory, and you can read this in Revelation 7, it will be “a great multitude from every nation and every tribe and every people and every tongue” standing before the throne, before the Lamb, and you’re going to want to be there to worship him.
Who can treasure the gift of exoneration? Individuals from all over the world, but not all individuals, for these are not all in Christ. Not all are actually reconciled. Many die indifferent to God, which is enmity. Not all receive forgiveness of sin.
And the context helps; in verse 17, the forgiven are those who are in Christ, those who have been made new, new creations, the elect of God, Colossians says, chosen before the foundation of the world, who respond to the Spirit’s regenerating work by putting faith and trust in Christ alone. These are the forgiven.
And so we need to treasure and ponder our forgiveness in Christ, that he does not count these sins against you, but counted them against his son for your sake, and that he that says of the forgiven, “they are elect from every nation, yet won over all the earth.” And so it’s a glorious privilege, then, to send the call out to the world to reconcile sinners to God.
And so this is our next gift to treasure: participation. The third gift to treasure in your heart is participation; number three, treasure the gift of participation. This is the gift of being included in God’s reconciling work toward others, and personal participation in receiving God’s reconciling work.
So how do we enjoy the gift of participation? Verse 19, it says, “He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” Verse 20, “So then we are ambassadors for Christ. As God is pleading through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” All who are in Christ get to participate in the work of bringing sinners to come to know forgiveness from God through Christ by work of the Spirit.
But before you can participate in the work of reconciliation, take heed the call of Paul that you must have been a work of reconciliation. As God is pleading through the pen of Paul on the pages of Holy Scripture, “Be reconciled to God,” call out to him for mercy while there is still time. Give up living for self. Embrace Christ, submit to him and live for him. “Be reconciled,” it says. This is a prerequisite to participation in the work of reconciliation. “Be reconciled.”
The reconciliation we enjoy, this is a massive gift we have received. We want others to share in what we have received, and we get to see others be saved and to bring glory to our Lord and our savior. And in that sense, we treasure the gift of participation, participation in gospel ministry.
That being said, Paul’s ambassadorship is official and unique to him and his direct associates, delegates. Apostles and their delegates were authorized, authenticated, commissioned for their work. And Paul spoke with authority on behalf of Christ in a way we believers don’t, 2,000 years later.
So while we’re not apostolic ambassadors like Paul, his example does show us what a reconciled person does with what they’ve received. That is, they do not live for themselves; they live for him who died and rose for them. And they love to tell the story of Christ and his cross. They know they didn’t deserve it. They didn’t earn it. And so the free gift to them they want to freely share with others.
I can imagine God marked out Paul for his mission to bring the gospel to the world as an example to us all. If Paul, someone who viciously opposed Christ and his church, could be redeemed and made useful to God, and not just useful in a small way, but in a massive way, multinational, multi-millennial way, then, yes, God can cause me and you to be useful to him as well.
We’re not called to write apostolic letters to churches. That’s impossible. We’re not called to take the gospel to the Gentile world in a pioneering way, not the same way Paul was.
Are we called to suffer like Paul suffered for the gospel? No, not in the sense that we have his apostolic calling and therefore receive suffering under that same pressure and proximity to Christ’s ministry. And so we are different to Paul. We are different to Timothy and Titus and the Apostle John.
But what is certainly ours to apply is this: that as a reconciled, chosen child of God, you do represent him, and you represent him to all you know. You belong to a kingdom not of this world, to a King not of this world.
And so we are citizens of another kingdom, living in a foreign land, and our actions and speech should match the kingdom we belong to. And you should have this heartbeat as well, “to make known the riches of his grace, the Word of the gospel,” so that those in your sphere of influence might be reconciled to God as you are. That would express gratitude.
But we do not have the apostolic authority to say that “God through me is making an appeal to you” with the unique official status that Paul had. We can, we must, and we get to participate in the gospel call by leaning on the authority of God’s Word and calling sinners to repentance.
Your sphere of influence might be limited. This could be limited to even just your own home or extended family, or your workplace or your clients. Your sphere of influence might be large, like a city or even in a country. You could be a well-known personality, have a political influence, or a large online influence.
Whatever sphere of influence we have, we ought to be hungry and eager and diligent to call sinners to be reconciled to God, to make more true worshippers through the gospel. This is the most loving thing to do, and this is our privilege to participate in this work.
And if fruitful, it will be God working through his people, pleading for sinners to turn to him in repentance and faith. Facing a Task Unfinished is a great hymn. It reads, “O, Father, who sustained them; O Spirit, who inspired; Savior, whose love constrained them to toil and zeal, untired from cowardice, defend us from lethargy awake! Forth on Thine errands send us to labor for Thy sake.”
Some are called to go; many are called to stay and live godly lives right here, to lead a quiet life as Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4, attending to our own business, faithfully working with our hands, eagerly waiting a savior, working hard to put off sin and apply righteousness to represent our King well.
Scriptures say, Our attempts at righteousness can be likened to a filthy rag, foul and unclean. They’re unacceptable in the sight of a holy God. Reuben Pickering
This is an open door to perhaps an even greater work, to pray for all and for all kinds of needs as that song begins, “facing a task unfinished that drives us to our knees, a need that, undiminished, rebukes our slothful ease.”
No matter what stage in life, what capacity, what strength, what giftedness, how small or how large your influence may be, everyone is equipped by the Spirit of God to participate in the ministry of reconciling sinners to a holy God.
And don’t merely acknowledge this. Treasure this gift of participation, even if it’s just worked out in your own home, that you might have great joy in seeing the work of God among us. Anticipate the work. Look for the fruit.
And rejoice in it, rejoicing, rejoicing. That’s what happens when the lost are found. Luke 15, the lost sheep, when it was found, the man lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. He calls everyone in, friends, neighbors. “‘Rejoice with me,’” he says, “‘for I’ve found my sheep which was lost.’” And the joy in heaven is indescribable over sinners who repent. And maybe that’s your gift to the body. Be one that rejoices and delights in sinners being reconciled to God. And so treasure the gift of participation, and rejoice when you see the fruit.
We’re to treasure the gift of reconciliation, exoneration, participation, all because, finally, of the gift of substitution. The fourth gift to treasure in your heart is substitution. Treasure the gift of substitution.
Verse 21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” He who did not know sin, on our behalf, sin he was made to be so that we would come to be the righteousness of God in Christ. This is, as many know it, the verse of the great exchange, where Christ stood in the place of the elect of God and received the just punishment due them for their sin against a holy God.
And don’t understate this trading of places. It’s not as if you and I could take his place on the cross. Some people say things like, It should have been me nailed upon that tree, and I know what they’re meaning by that. But just to be clear, if you were nailed to the tree, and that was your attempt to appease God’s wrath, you would utterly fail.
Why? Because we would be a failed sacrifice for sin, for we are sinners. David said because of the fall of our head, Adam, “in sin, my mother conceived me.” And there was no one in existence worthy to be a satisfactory sacrifice for sin, for in Christ, God finally made a way and provided a sinless, spotless, without-blemish, blameless Lamb of God.
In the words “he made him,” we see that God provided a sacrifice, like when Abraham and Isaac were walking up the hill. Isaac says, “‘Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’” And Abraham replies, “‘God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,’” Genesis 22:8, “and God provided a ram ready for the sacrifice.”
And when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, and he was rightly announced by John, “‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,’” John 1:29.
How could he take away sin? Because he was the only worthy sacrifice, unblemished, spotless, 1 Peter 1:19; “sinless,” Hebrews 7:26. Hebrews 7 is a great passage because it highlights that Christ was not a high priest like the days of old. The Levitical priest would first make a sacrifice for their own sin and then for the sin of the people.
Instead, Jesus did not need a sacrifice for himself, so only one sacrifice was needed. Being the only sinless priest, “Christ offered up himself, a once-for-all sacrifice for sin,” Hebrews 7:27.
Jesus knew no sin. He never experienced sin. He experienced the effects of sin in a fallen world. He got tired, he was weak, he was surrounded by sickness, he experienced pain and suffering, but he never knew it in a personal way.
1 John 3:5, “In him there is no sin.” And God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin, not to be a sinner, but to be treated as a sinner, “the righteous for the unrighteous,” 1 Peter 3:18. “And he became a curse for us,” Galatians 3 says. “He gave his life as a ransom payment for us,” Mark 10:45. He stood in the place of sinners, therefore as a once-for-all substitute for sinners. And he could not be one of those for whom he substituted himself. He must be different.
As the sins of the people of Israel were laid upon the scapegoat to be carried away, so the sins of all believers were laid upon him, and he paid the iniquity for us all. He didn’t become a sinner. He was treated as one for our sake. Isaiah 53, “But he was pierced through for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our peace fell upon him.”
Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. Our sin was imputed to his account, counted to him so that his righteousness would be imputed to our accounts. God treated him as if he were me, a sinner, so that now God treats me as if I were him: righteous, double imputation, the great exchange.
The law required not only sins to be atoned for, but also a positive, righteous record in our account. Matthew 5:20, “‘Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’” Matthew 5:48, “‘You ought to be perfect,’” not neutral, “‘perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.’”
And so taking care of the payment for sin is half of what we need. We are so desperately in need of God, absolutely hopeless without him, that to just have our sins forgiven would not be enough to stand righteous before him. And John Murray explains this very well in Redemption Accomplished and Applied, that book, as do the writers and the editors of Biblical Doctrine.
But instead of quoting long quotes, there, perhaps to suffice for our time today, what we need to know is that you need a penalty to be paid and the provision of righteousness. In Christ, by grace through faith, your sins are not counted against you; they are counted against Christ on the cross, in Christ “by grace through faith.”
Your righteousness is not what you stand in, for that is not perfect righteousness. You stand in what is reckoned to you by faith in the Son of God. His righteous fulfillment of the law is yours in Christ.
Philippians 3:9, “that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ,” the righteousness which is from God upon faith, righteousness gifted from God to you in Christ.
Isaiah 61:10, “I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh. My soul will rejoice in my God, for he has clothed me with garments of salvation. He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.” Romans 5:19 says that “the many,” those in Christ, “will be appointed righteous.”
The many being appointed righteous is the point of the purpose clause in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “so that we might become the righteousness of God.” You can understand the purpose clause with the subjunctive mood as this: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf for the purpose of making us the righteousness of God in him.”
Well, for an everyday example, you could say I turned the keys in the ignition so that I might start the car. And to say that differently, I turned the keys in the ignition for the purpose of starting the car. It’s not expressing any uncertainty or potentiality; it’s expressing purposed outcome. The purposed outcome of Christ being charged with my sin on the cross is that then I would be credited with his righteousness.
Romans 5:18-19 are so good. We need to read that together. I’ll read it for you. “So then as through one transgression,” Adam, “there resulted condemnation to all men. Even so, through one act of righteousness,” Christ, “there resulted justification of life to all men.” Verse 19, “For as through the one man’s disobedience,” Adam, “the many were appointed sinners, and so through the obedience of the one,” Christ, “the many will be appointed righteous.”
And Piper says, “It’s important that Paul said in Adam we’re appointed as sinners and not merely guilty. The imputation of Adam’s sin is more than the imputation of a status. We are counted as having sinned in Adam, so when Paul says, “In Christ we’re appointed righteous,” Piper says he does not only mean that Christ’s status was imputed to us. Rather, in Christ we are counted as having done all the righteousness that God requires.
Imputation is not the conferring of a status without the ground of real, imputed moral righteousness. It is the counting of an alien, real, moral, perfect righteousness, namely Christ’s, as ours.
And so it’s not merely a calculation or a transaction. It’s, if you’re in Christ today, “you’re a new creation. The old things have passed away, and behold, new things have come” and will come. Past action of new creation brings ongoing results of new life in Christ.
But as you’re fumbling along in the paths of righteousness, and this is where I think the rubber meets the road for us, growing in an over-the-long-haul positive direction, but nevertheless failing miserably at times, in Christ you can put your head on the pillow at night knowing that God looks at you clothed in robes of righteousness.
But it’s not just an external, calculated status you have of righteousness. If we peek into your righteousness account, what do we see? Christ’s perfect record as if it were yours. We sinned in Adam. We are righteous in Christ. And the Father looked to Christ as if he was us, and he looks to us as if we are him. Thanks be to God. Amen?
Some of you, many of you, all of us need to meditate on this profound reality. What a gift our substitute is. He not only paid a debt we could never pay, but he gives and he gives and he gives.
He gives us a righteousness we could never reach or attain to. And it’s in your account. As sure as you were dead in sin, separated from God, it’s certain that you have been made alive to God, able to stand before him, clothed in a righteousness not your own. But Christ’s perfect keeping of the law of God is now yours.
And so cease striving in the sense of trying to earn God’s favor. Sometimes we can drift into that, thinking, as believers even, because that’s how the world works; it’s merit-based. But in Christ your merit was achieved for you and gifted to you.
Why? Not so that we would “sin all the more so that grace may abound” and take the foot off the gas, but so that we would live for him, not for ourselves. Strive with your goal to please him, but rest in his finished gift of righteousness credited to your account.
What a glorious substitute, what a Savior! You could never pay for your sin; it had to be done for you. You could never fulfill the law to be righteous; that righteousness had to be given to you.
When God stopped me in my tracks, when I called out for mercy, when God saved me, it was, let’s just say, a messy time. But when the dust settled, and I was able to comprehend things, I came across this verse and my heart was aligned with it immediately. And it’s in Psalm 116. It says, “What could I return to you, O Yahweh, for all your bountiful dealings with me?” And I find myself today asking the same question.
In light of what he is gifted to sinners like you and me, Grace Church, we could ask this as a body: “What can we return to you, our God, for all your bountiful dealings with us,” as Christ laid himself down for us for pardon, for sin, and for imputation of righteousness.
May we be a little bit more eager to love one another and to serve one another and to pray for one another, think the best about one another, forgive one another as we treasure Christ, the gift of all gifts. Suddenly there’s fuel for all that ministry toward one another.
The church in Corinth is like any other church. There were no doubt unbelievers in their midst. And so the call goes out in chapter 6 verses 1 and 2, “Do not receive the grace of God in vain. Be reconciled to God and receive the gift of his Son.”
Do not hear the message and do nothing. Do not receive the grace of God in the gospel call and not respond today. Do not harden your heart and then heap up cause for the wrath of God to be poured on you.
Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Call out to God to be merciful to you. And when you do that, you are asking the judge of the universe to look on himself, who charged your guilt to himself and paid your penalty of sin.
And in that, he is just. He doesn’t sweep sin under the rug. He paid for it himself, and he is justifier. He will pardon you and declare you righteous. And so believe on Christ by faith, by the faith that he gives us. Call out to him for mercy.
Treasuring the gift of our glorious substitute breathes a little more understanding into the verses, which I’ll close with here: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy; to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.” Let’s pray together.
Our Father in heaven, thank you for taking the initiative and for incurring the cost to reconcile us to yourself. We are in awe of what you have done for us: once your enemies, now given the right to be your children.
We ask, O God, that you would strengthen us to walk in your ways more faithfully because of our great salvation. It’s all our heart wants to do. Help us to treasure these gifts we’ve looked at today and to love you, the giver of these gifts. May we live not for ourselves, but to please and honor Christ, who died and rose again on our behalf. Empower us to that end, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.