The Message of Reconciliation: The Gospel

The history of the church some
years ago, I preached this passage just one time, one week deal. I found it to be a rich text.
And as you know, when I look to the 10 year anniversary of
the church, I began to trace back what was the source of this
whole discussion about ministry. And if you’ve been with us, you
know that we trace that back all the way to chapter two, verse
12. But there is a wrap up section, if you will, in which we find
ourselves that began in chapter five, verse 11, and will culminate
in chapter six, verse 10, which section we would entitle the
Ministry of Reconciliation. That’s the section that we find
ourselves in in verses 11 through 15, if you’re looking. We saw
there the soundness of the source, Paul there arguing for integrity,
the integrity of his own ministry and urging us, as it were, to
cultivate genuineness in ministry. In verses 16 and 17, we looked
at the condition of the converts, the glorious state of the saved,
the glorious condition that those in Christ now find themselves
to be. We are to look at men and women
in a new way in Christ. Ever since we find ourselves
in Christ, ever since we are saved, we look at others in a
different way because we look at Christ in a new way. He is
now a fully spiritual and perfect creature developing the same
in his converts. The principle there stated in
verse 17 is simple. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creature. And we rejoice at the news of
that. In verses 18, we saw the mobilization of the peacemakers.
The goal of making more of those converts, more of those kind
of people. That is our great goal, is the
goal of reconciliation. Reconciling others to Christ. In verse 20, We were presented
with the drive, if you will, of the peacemakers, the nature
and the work of what is a heavenly peacemaker. And in our service
to God and his kingdom, we saw that we are to speak as those
who bear a king’s message. We are ambassadors. We don’t
come with our own message. We don’t take the world, the
message of so much self-help. We take the king’s message. But
secondly, we plead as representatives of Him who made a Savior’s sacrifice. Look again at verse 20, where
Paul says, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Reconciliation is the great overarching
theme of this whole section. It is reconciliation. But it
would be absolutely incomplete without the message of verse
21, which is the message of reconciliation, the gospel. We have the motives. We have the changed lives. We
have the impetus to go and to share. But we don’t have the message,
at least not yet. If you would, I want to take
us all the way back to verse 18 and we’ll take a running start
at verse 21. If you would, please. 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 trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the
word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us.
We beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. He made him who knew no sin to
be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness
of God in him. Many of us, many of us in this
room are concerned about our legacies. We’ve already begin
to acknowledge our own mortality, that we won’t be here forever.
We’ve already begun to consider what will others remember us
by. Perhaps it’s our athletic achievements,
how fast, how strong, how many trophies on the wall. Perhaps
it’s heroism, battlefield exploits, daring rescues and the like. Perhaps it’s our academic contributions
to the world. science, mathematic discoveries
and the like, or perhaps it’s even business conquests that
we would find ourselves like a Trump or a Carnegie. The world
often sees the legacy in much different eyes than the Christian.
The word here was often used to describe the lasting impression
that you leave. And as I said, the world looks
at it from completely different eyes than the Christian. But
for the Christian, we do long to leave a legacy. We long to
leave things for which we are most remembered and prayerfully,
those are solid and spiritual things, spiritual influence on
our nature, pardon me, on our not just our own nature, but
on our nation, on our local communities. not the least on our families.
The word literally means a gift by will, and we immediately think
of the last will that we write. Perhaps even the word inheritance
comes to mind, something that we receive from an ancestor,
and if it is a good legacy, it is a good gift. When it’s considered
in light of this fact, There is no legacy that we can conceive
that can compare to the legacy left behind by Jesus Christ.
And we’ve already sung, we’ve already read about it today.
But I want to consider the legacy of Christ from this brief passage,
2 Corinthians 5.21. This passage has been called
the heart of the gospel. Another one said that it is one
of the most tremendous statements ever written. by the Apostle
Paul’s pen. Yet another in more lengthy fashion
said this. In these few words, the Apostle
sets forth the gospel of reconciliation in all its mystery and wonder. There is no sentence more profound
in the whole of Scripture. For this verse embraces the whole
ground of the sinner’s reconciliation to God. and declares the incontestable
reason why he should respond to the ambassador’s treaty.”
Do you remember what I said? That in essence, our ministry
is incomplete without this message. Without the message of the Gospel,
we can go and plead and beg all we want. And yet, the sinner
is not obligated. The sinner is not even motivated. to respond to our plea, to be
reconciled to God. He goes on and says, it is not
good news unless our message is accompanied by the declaration
of the ground on which reconciliation has been effected and is available. And that’s exactly the message
of 2 Corinthians 5.21. I’ve entitled it, The Legacy
of the Sin Bearer. It isn’t just the lasting memory
that we have of Christ, but the inheritance gift that Christ
secured by His death on the cross. This is the full report of Christ’s
redemption, what God has done in the justification of men. If you would go to that passage
once again, 2 Corinthians 5.21, consider first of all this morning,
especially for you technicians in the Word, those of you who
are developing an understanding of digging deeper into God’s
Word in the Institute. Well, I want to look first of
all at the simple sentence. That’s where we always begin.
What is the simple sentence? And the simple sentence simply
is this, He made him to be sin. If you want me to unfold that
a little bit, He, that is God the Father, given the context,
made him, that is, Jesus Christ, to be sin. And note, first of
all, that this doing is God’s. It is God’s doing. This is part
of God’s divine plan of redemption. It wasn’t accidental. They didn’t
just seize hold of Christ. This wasn’t a contingency, a
crisis event that God had to work through. Reconciliation,
as one said, is his plan. It could not occur unless he
initiated and applied it. Sinners cannot devise their own
religious approach to God. Because they are dead. The lie
of false religion is that man can reconcile himself to God
by his own effort, but all attempts to do so are futile. This wasn’t
accidental. The Apostle Peter, in his first
sermon that he ever preached, said that it was due to the predetermined
plan and foreknowledge of God. God mapped this all out. Others
seized hold of Christ. It is true. And from an earthly
and human perspective, it seemed to us inopportune. It seems sudden
and rash and excessive. But God the Father made him to
be sin. That little phrase is best understood
in light of the Jewish ritual of the Day of Atonement, when
the priest was directed to place the sins of the people by placing
his hand on the scapegoat. Leviticus 16.21 records this,
Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the
live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons
of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins.
And he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it
away into the wilderness by the hand of man who stands in readiness. In the Old Testament economy,
God required animal sacrifices to symbolize the great need to
atone for sin by the death of an innocent substitute. And such
was Christ. God made him to be sin in that
sense. The New Testament presents Christ
as that perfect sacrifice. Romans, which passage we’ve looked
at in ten different ways in the last month or so, Romans five
says this, why we were still helpless at the right time. Christ
died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a
righteous man, though perhaps for a good man, some someone
would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own
love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Hebrews 9 echoes these thoughts. Christ also, having been offered
once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for
salvation without reference to sin. Christ bore all the sin. Christ suffered once for sins,
not for His own, because Christ committed no sins. Christ suffered
for the sins of His people in order to obtain that remission
of sin that was so desperately needed. We could not approach
God. We could not be one with God.
We could not commune with God. And so, God sent His Son to be
that payment for sin, to take away that sin that stood in the
way of the greater relationship. God appointed Jesus Christ to
be the representative of sin and sinners. He treated Him as
sin and sinners are treated. That’s quite simply the facts
of the matter. How is it that Christ was made
sin? It’s not that He was made into
a sinner. That would totally wipe out the
effectiveness of His offering. The only sense which we can understand
that Christ was made sin is that He bore the guilt of sin. He
took it all upon Himself. One pastor said it this way,
Christ was not made a sinner, nor was He punished for any of
His own sin He had none. Instead, the Father treated him
as if he were a sinner by charging to his account the sins of everyone
who would ever believe. All those sins were charged against
him as if he had personally committed them. And he was punished with
the full penalty of them on the cross, experiencing the full
fury of God’s wrath unleashed against them all. The only sense
in which Jesus was made sin was by imputation. That great word, imputation,
where Christ was made the representative of sin. It was placed on Him. Another said it this way. One
Puritan added that He was made sin itself by imputation. The
sins of all His people were transferred unto Him, laid upon Him, placed
into His account. What an interesting thought. The atonement then was the payment
for sin, the propitiation for sin. God laid the sin of the
world completely and collectively on the Lord Jesus Christ. No
wonder John, upon first seeing Him there in those verses that
we’ll read in just a mere few weeks, John 1.29, where he first
saw Him, John the Baptist cried out, Behold the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. That perfect spotless lamb, this
was the testimony of the prophets. This is exactly the one that
they looked to and pointed to. And so many had missed. Isaiah
53 echoes it, and it’s such an absolutely beautiful passage.
I want you to all just take a minute and turn. I know we’re pressed
for time. Isaiah 53. If this won’t prepare you for
the Lord’s table, nothing will. Isaiah 53, who has believed our
message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For
he grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched
ground. He has no stately form or majesty
that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should
be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like
one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we
did not esteem him. Surely, our griefs he himself
bore, and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him
stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.” Look at verse 6. All of us, like sheep, have gone
astray. Each of us has turned his own
way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall
on Him. It is Jesus Christ whose great legacy
is the sin bearer for humanity. But what is His legacy in its
fullness? Look again at the passage. 2
Corinthians 5.21, what is his legacy? First of all, this sin
bearer was sinless. He that is God the Father made
him that is Jesus Christ who knew no sin. It’s an interesting statement. Who is it that could possibly
fit this bill other than Jesus Christ? It’s absolutely, unmistakably
directed at the Lord Jesus Christ. The only possible sacrifice for
sin. Any human that ever lived on
the face of the earth except Christ, Paul records, are sinners. Thoroughgoing sinners. All have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The perfect sacrifice for sin
As God would design, it would have to be a human being to pay
for the sins of men. Yet he would have to be God in
his perfection because only God is sinless. And that narrows,
as one said, the field down to one, the God man, none other
than the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s who is in focus, but how
and in what sense can it be said that he knew no sin? It’s an
interesting statement. It’s an odd statement. It doesn’t
square with our understanding of the use of language to know
sin, because Jesus knew the nature of sin being God himself. He knew that the nature of sin
was a transgression of God’s holy law. So in that sense, Jesus
knew sin. He knew the origin of sin, the
corrupt heart of man. He knew that Adam and Eve had
fallen in the garden. Christ knew sin in that sense. Christ knows that the punishment,
that the sad consequences of sin are death. So, Jesus knew sin in that regard. But in what sense can it be said
that Jesus knew no sin? When Jesus was arrested, taken
by the Jews before the authorities, there began to be this refrain
about the nature and the character of the man before them. In chapter
23, verse 4, Pilate first said to the chief priests, I find
no guilt in this man. In verse 14 of the same chapter,
again, I find no guilt in this man regarding the charges which
you are making against him. In verse 22 of the same chapter,
the third time he said, why? What evil has this man done?
I have find I find no guilt demanding death. And in verse 47, after
the crucifixion, one of the Roman soldiers echoed that same thought
when he said, certainly this man was innocent. They had no
idea. They had no idea how innocent
He was. They had no idea that not only
were these trumped-up, phony charges false, but there could
be no charge. There could be no just indictment. There could be no thought of
sin leveled at the Lord Jesus Christ. He was absolutely and
perfectly sinless. Isaiah 53 again echoes this thought
when it says, He was with the rich man in his death because
he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth.
Now, even if you just limited our own sinfulness to the sins
of the tongue, to claim that this man was perfect, we know
that it began to touch every other area of his life. And we
begin to open our eyes and to see that absolutely he was sinless. Because we see that the tongue
is the most difficult to control, don’t we? that if Christ had
perfect maintenance of the use of His mouth so that no sin ever
came off of His tongue, we know that His heart was pure.
Hebrews 4.15 says that we don’t have a high priest who cannot
sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted
in all things, yet as we are, yet without sin. Without sin. There is a lengthy comparison
in the book of Hebrews to our high priest, to other human priests,
culminating there in 726 when it says, it was fitting for us
to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated
from sinners and exalted in the heavens. Jesus Christ is sinless. When Christ was led into the
desert and confronted with Satan, he was found to be sinless. And
echoing from there over and over again throughout the Scriptures,
a more difficult temptation faced
Christ than the desert and being tempted by the devil because
it was the cross that was the ultimate test. And yet during
his arrest and crucifixion, it was said of Christ, that he did
not. He did not answer back. He did
not sin with his tongue during the whole course of that sordid
event. First Peter. 119 records of Christ that he
was a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 221 of Peter
says that Christ suffered for you who committed no sin, nor
was any deceit found in his mouth. 1 Peter 3.18, Christ also suffered
and died once for all the just, the sinless one for the unjust. As one said, the sinlessness
of which these passages speak refers to our Lord’s incarnate
life. That as God, He is without sin,
goes without saying. But what is of vital importance
for us in our reconciliation is that as man He is in His incarnate
state, Christ knew no sin. And it is only on that ground
that He is qualified to effect an atonement as man for man. So how is it then that it can
be said that God made Him to be sin? And it is absolutely
crucial to notice the wording here that it doesn’t say that
God made him a sinner. If we conceived of Christ as
sinful, it would immediately obliterate his offering on the
cross. But he was imputed, reckoned,
counted a sinner. Christ didn’t become a sinner,
but he was considered as a sinner. God the Father made this innocent
incarnate son the object of his wrath. as the object of sin. As one summarized. If Christ
had not been free from sin. If he had not taken the place
of sinners. There would have been no forgiveness. First of all, the sin bearer
was sinless. But secondly, the sin bearer was our substitute
and how thankful we are He that is God made him that is Jesus
Christ who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. What kind of suitable substitute
could there ever be for sinners? What would God take in return
for the sinful lot of humanity? What could pay the sin of the
world, His own Son, the sinless Christ, and nothing else. Absolutely nothing else. Thomas
Watson summarized it effectively when he said, we by our sins
had infinitely wronged God. And could we have shed rivers
of tears and offered up millions of holocausts of burnt offerings,
we could have never pacified an angry deity Therefore, Christ
must die. Our sinfulness left us deserving
God’s judgment. And as I recorded a moment ago
in 1 Peter, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross. 1 Peter 2.24 Paul in Galatians
echoed the same thought when he said, Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. It is the substitutionary atonement
that is the sinner’s hope. Because if we died, we merit
nothing, our death merits nothing. But if Christ died and he did,
it merits everything. We being sinful deserve the penalty
of sin, Christ did not. Our confession is so accurate
here and so, so effective in describing the nature. Of substitutionary
atonement, listen carefully, the office of the mediator, the
Lord Jesus did most willingly undertake and underwent the punishment,
do us which we should have borne and suffered. Being made a sin
and a curse for us, enduring the most grievous sorrows in
his soul and the most painful sufferings in his body, he was
crucified and died. Jesus did this willingly. Thomas Watson, again, the Puritan,
effectively painted the image well when he said Jesus leaped
into the sea of his father’s wrath. to save his spouse from
drowning. And it was absolutely effective.
Isaiah 53, 6, again, all of us like sheep have gone astray.
Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused
the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He is our substitute. Charles Spurgeon knew it well
when he said, in one word, the great fact on which the Christian
hope rests is substitution. the vicarious sacrifice of Christ
for the sinner, Christ’s suffering for the sinner, Christ being
made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him, Christ’s offering up a true and proper substitutionary
sacrifice in the place of as many as the Father gave Him who
are recognized by their trusting in Him. This is the cardinal
fact of the gospel. Jesus Christ stepped in in our
place. We were doomed. We were doomed
to suffer the same fate death, perhaps not death on a cross,
but we were doomed to die. Our sin demanded it. And Jesus
Christ cut in, stepped in, in our place. Another Puritan. Another Puritan
characterized it in these terms. Alas, it is an infinite righteousness
that must satisfy for sins, for it is an infinite God that is
offended by us. If ever your sin be pardoned,
it is infinite mercy that must pardon it. If ever you be reconciled
to God, it is infinite merit that must do it. If ever your
heart be changed and your soul renewed, it is infinite power
that must affect it. And if ever your soul escape
hell and be saved at last, it is infinite grace that must save
it. It is the Gospel that Jesus Christ, as our substitute, came
and took our place. It wasn’t just a death for death’s
sake. It was a death for life’s sake. Thirdly, the sin bearer
was not only sinless, And not only was He a substitute, thirdly,
He was a Savior. It did something. It accomplished
something. It accomplished that which we
so desperately needed. It accomplished salvation. Look again at the passage. We
come to the purpose clause of the whole sentence. He that is
God the Father made Him that is Jesus Christ who knew no sin
to be sin on our behalf that so that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him.” Now, let’s pause for a minute, because righteousness,
we know, is the divine moral excellence. That is the standard. There is no higher. But if you note that not only
does Paul not say that Christ was made sinful, He also doesn’t say that we are
made righteous. As though, you know, from now
on, as soon as you come to Christ, you no longer have to worry about
sin and sinful tendencies. We prepare to come to the Lord’s
table, which is by God’s design, the very means that we have to
come and to take spiritual inventory of our lives and to examine and
to confess and to cry out for grace, to live and walk in newness
of life. There should be no need for argument
that we don’t currently possess, regardless of our faith, regardless
of how long we’ve walked with Christ. There should be no need
for any argument that you have not attained some righteous perfection,
that when you came to Christ, you were made righteous. That
would be nonsense. What Paul is talking about here
is the righteousness of God. It is complete. It is perfect. And it is the sinner’s justification. Our trespasses here are reckoned
to Christ. The absolute and spotless perfection
of His righteousness is placed on us. It’s God’s righteousness, not
ours. It’s the righteousness that characterizes God, which
He imparts by His grace to us. And it doesn’t obliterate sanctification. The simple formula is this justification
plus sanctification equals glorification. We’ll get there. But we’re not there yet. Justification,
that great thought that is the declaration that the sinner has been restored to a state
of state of righteousness in God’s sight. And you and I know
ourselves to be thoroughgoing sinners. And so it’s somewhat
shocking to our senses to think that we can ever be said of us
that we might become the righteousness of God. I don’t need to illustrate,
as I said, or prove our sinfulness, our own consciences bear witness
to the fact. I’m sure that many, as we walked
in this morning and saw that it is the day that we celebrate
the Lord’s table, were reminded of our need for confession. I will try to provide that for
you momentarily. But that justification, as the
Bible presents it, if you remember, is absolutely instantaneous. We don’t wait around for it.
We don’t receive it in heaven. We are immediately justified
before God. We are immediately seen in the
righteousness of Christ. As one said, the one who believes
immediately passes from spiritual death to an eternal life because
that person is instantaneously justified. Not only is it instantaneous,
it is a declared righteousness. As I said, it’s not actual. We
don’t actually possess it. It’s not something that we can
take and maintain and sell on the open market. One characterized
it in these simple terms. We are righteous with the righteousness
of God, not with our own, which is but a filthy rag, but with
that which he has provided and which consists in infinitely
meritorious righteousness of his own dear son. We have the
righteousness of Christ. Whereas our sin was given over
to Christ, now Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. The great reformer
said it this way, Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness. I am
your sin. You have taken upon yourself
what is mine and given to me what is yours. You have become
what you were not so that I may become what I am not. There was
no delusion that he was righteous in and of himself. So that righteousness
is reckoned or credited, it is placed into our accounts, as
it were, to use that same imagery. And given that condition, we
now stand justified before God, not because of our own righteousness
or our deeds or our family life or our history or denomination.
Nothing. Nothing but Christ. One Puritan said it this way,
how are we righteous in the sight of God? Assuredly, in the same
respect with which Christ was made to be sin. that he might
be dealt with as a sinner, not for his own offenses, but for
those of others. It is in the same manner, assuredly, that
we are now the righteousness in him because we are judged
in connection with Christ’s righteousness, which we have put on by faith. We are justified by faith. This
is the echo of Scripture. Romans 1, I’m not ashamed of
the gospel. It’s the power of God to salvation
to everyone who believes, the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith. That’s what we are before God. If we are in Christ, we possess
the righteousness of Christ. We are seen, as one said, as
the very son of God himself. Let it be counted folly or frenzy
or fury or whatever. It is our wisdom and our comfort.
We care for no knowledge in the world that this, that man has
sinned and God has suffered. The God has made himself the
sin of men and that men are made the righteousness of God. You say, maybe I can make it
on my own. impossible. You say that maybe
it’s good enough just to be in a Christian family. Useless. Every person. Every soul needs
to interface, interact with God himself through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Every one of you young people,
every one of you older people, every one of us needs to come
individually face to face with God himself. Stephen Sharnock detailed it
very clearly when he said, God, apart from Christ, is an angry,
offended king, sovereign. Unless we behold Him in and through
Christ, the mediator, the terrors of His majesty should overwhelm
us. We dare not approach the Father
except in Christ because of our sins. We first fasten our eyes
upon Christ and then upon the Father. If Christ does not bear
our guilt and reconcile us to God, we perish. Before any man
can think to stand before the face of God’s justice or be admitted
to the secret chamber of God’s mercy or partake of the secret
riches of His grace, he must look to the mediator, Christ
Jesus. And old friend or young person,
there is no other mediator. There is one mediator between
God and man. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. There is one means of securing
forgiveness. It is through the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you bow with me as we begin
to prepare our hearts for the Lord’s table? Our merciful God, we humble ourselves
in your midst. And we thank you and praise you,
those of us who, by your good grace, have been privileged to
walk with Christ and serve Christ. Know our forgiveness of our sins
because of what you accomplished on the cross. And Father, we
are reminded again the great price that was paid on our behalf
when a sinless Savior came in our place and suffered the cruel
death on the cross. Father, we know that this table
is for us to bow our hearts and our heads
to examine our lives before you by your spirit given for that
very purpose. But Lord, we know also that just
as Paul urged upon those believers, the ministry of reconciliation,
we know that this message and even the testimony of this table.
Is for those who are not yet in Christ. For those who have not yet placed
their faith in Christ alone. And Lord, it is for those that
we pause and pray now that if there are any here that are trusting
in anything outside of or in addition to the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, would you bring them
to repentance? All of those young people that
have yet to make public testimony of Christ,
all of those in our midst who perhaps even wonder in the deep,
dark recesses of their own heart whether they are truly saved.
Father, we pray that you would work in each heart and that this
might be the very day of salvation for some in our very midst. Lord, for us who come to this
table to proclaim Christ, we pray that you would so work in
our hearts that we would be said and found to have done it worthily. as unto you. God grant us this
blessing. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray,
Amen.