Thank you, Chris, for such a kind and generous
introduction. It is always a delight and a privilege to
participate in a Ligonier conference, even if you’re the second string. I apologize for John Piper not being here,
but I was more than thrilled and more than happy to step into the huge gap that is left
by his absence, and we’re trusting the Lord for divine purposes to be accomplished with
the sabbatical that he’s taking over these particular months. I delight in being a part of this conference
for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to hang out with R.C. for a little
bit. We don’t get as much time as we did the
last couple of days. We went out on the golf course, and I am sufficiently
humbled to be able to preach. I’ll put it that way. I’m glad that’s not how I make my living. He could make his living doing that. He’s amazing, as is Dr. Lawson. But we had a wonderful time of fellowship,
just a great time to be together, and I celebrate with all my heart the ministry of R.C. Sproul and its extensiveness. You look around today and see the fruitfulness
of this man’s life. It is extended through the people that surround
him in ministry. It is extended beyond that to all of the supporters
of the Ligonier Ministries and to all the people who are touched by it, including all
of you and others around the world. And I am thrilled to just be a little part
of that and to be able to call him my friend because we, as Chris said, stand together
on so many critical issues I know the two of us would die for, and that binds our hearts
together in a very, very unique way. This is a wonderful theme to deal with because
this is at the heart and soul of Reformed theology, the doctrine of substitutionary
atonement, imputed righteousness. This is a great theme. In many ways, it has been covered again and
again, but it is something that must be addressed over and over until we come to a full and
rich understanding of it. I don’t intend perhaps to add anything to
the things that you have heard, have already become familiar with, and grown to love and
cherish as precious to you, but perhaps we can look at it in a fresh way that will reignite
the fires of your own gratitude and praise to God for the gift of righteousness granted
to you through grace and the provision of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of my favorite events as I look back over
my life happened a few years ago, and I’ve… I’ve… I’ve told this story a few times because
it’s a highlight of my life. It just… it’s been a useful experience
the Lord gave me. I was flying from Los Angeles to El Paso,
Texas, and I was going to El Paso because I had been invited to come to a men’s conference
at the civics center in El Paso sponsored by Calvary Chapels and to speak for a day
there. I sat down on Southwest Airlines and in the
middle seat, the dreaded middle seat, and there I was in the middle seat on Southwest
progressing toward El Paso. We were in the air about a half an hour. I had become very aware that the man by the
window was a Muslim from the Middle East. He was dressed that way and distinguished
himself in that way by his presence… by his demeanor in every way. About a half an hour in, he looked over at
me. I had my New Testament out. I was writing a few notes. And he said, “Excuse me, sir, may I ask
you a question?” I said, “Sure.” He said, “Is that a Bible?” And I said, “It is a Bible.” “Oh,” he said, “sir, can I ask you then
another question?” And I said, “Of course.” And this was his question, “Can you tell
me, sir, the difference between a Catholic, a Protestant, and a Baptist?” That was his question. So I… I knew the answer, so I told him the difference
between a Catholic and a Protestant, and I put the Baptists where they belong in the
Protestant category sort of. And… and so this was perfect, and I said
to him, “Sir, may I ask you a question?” And he said, “Of course, of course.” I said, and I knew the answer, I said, “Do
Muslims sin?” He said, “Oh, we have many, many sins.” I said, “Well, do you do them all the time…
all the time?” And then he got very honest. He said, “In fact, I am flying to El Paso
to do some sins.” I said, “Really?” He said, “Yes.” He said, “I’m a new immigrant. I have just immigrated into the U.S. I came
to the El Paso immigration center. I met a girl there, and we have arranged to
meet this weekend to do some sins.” Wow, that’s pretty honest stuff. I said, “May I ask you another question.” And he said, “Yes.” I said, “How does Allah feel about your
sins?” “Vigad al Ilah.” He said, “Uh, it’s very bad. I could go to hell forever.” “Really? Why don’t you stop doing those sins?” “I can’t stop.” I said, “Do you have any hope that in spite
of your sins, you might escape hell?” And I’ll never forget what he said. He said, “I pray Allah will forgive me.” And I said, “Well, why would he do that?” He said, “I don’t know. I just pray he will.” And I said, “Well, let me tell you something. I know God personally, and I can promise you,
He won’t.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “You know God personally and you’re in
the middle seat on Southwest? You’ve got to be kidding me.” I said, “I know Him personally, and He cannot
overlook your sin, the true God.” But I said, “I have some good news for you. There’s forgiveness available. There is reconciliation available with God.” And I went on to present the gospel to him,
followed it up with a letter, sent him some material, never heard from him. That’s what I do. That’s what all of us as believers do. We tell people God will forgive their sins,
don’t we? Isn’t that what we do? Sometimes I actually say that, sitting next
to somebody on a plane when they say, “What do you do?” And I say, “I tell people God will forgive
all their sins, are you interested?” It’s like cutting to the chase, right? I had a guy on a flight one night from New
York to California get up and leave the seat and never come back. I knew he was in trouble because he was pierced
every where you could possibly be pierced. And I knew he was a million miles from thinking
about those kinds of things. Turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians, chapter
5, and I want to talk about this responsibility that we as believers have to proclaim the
message of forgiveness, the word of reconciliation. And that’s the word we’re going to look
at as we consider this text, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 18 to 21. I’m reading from the NAS. It’s pretty similar to whatever one you
happen to be looking at, and I want you to follow it closely, starting in verse 18. 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, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Five times in the verses that I read, you
see the word reconcile in some form. The message of the gospel is the message of
reconciliation. The alienated sinner can be reconciled to
God. Reconciliation with God is possible. That’s what we proclaim. That’s what we pray. That’s what we teach. That’s what we live for. And that perhaps is what some even die for. It is the unparalleled message of reconciliation
with God. That’s the message that I gave the Muslim
on the plane that day. You can be reconciled to God. And then I explained to him how that has been
made possible through the work of Christ. Now you notice that we have been given the
ministry of reconciliation, end of verse 18. That defines what we do. In a sense, that’s simply a phrase to describe
the Great Commission, going into all the world, preaching the gospel to every creature, making
disciples, baptizing, teaching them to observe all things that Christ has commanded, essentially
is the ministry of reconciliation, that the sinner can be reconciled to God. Now, in order to carry out the ministry of
reconciliation we have been given, the end of verse 19, the word of reconciliation, the
word. That’s logos as opposed to muthos. That’s truth as opposed to myth. That’s the true word as opposed to the false. So we have been given the logos concerning
reconciliation in order to carry out the ministry of reconciliation. This is the good news to the world. From the human side reconciliation would be
impossible. Man left to himself could never bring about
a reconciliation. Reconciliation has to be initiated by the
offended part. And as David makes clear in Psalm 51, when
he looks at his sin, he sees it as a sin against God. “Against You only have I sinned.” All sin is an offence against God. That is its primary heinous characteristic. Only if the offended party determines that
reconciliation can be made possible, will it occur. From the human side, hell is inevitable. Damnation will occur. Men, as hopeless sinners, dead, unable, unwilling
to awaken themselves from dead, to strip off their blindness, to love what they naturally
hate, to hate what they naturally love, will end inevitably in eternal punishment. They have no powers within themselves, morally
or religiously to effect a reconciliation. The good news is that the offended party,
who is God, has determined that He desires to be reconciled to sinners, and He has made
us the agents who proclaim the availability of that reconciliation. The term we’re familiar with is ambassadors
for Christ, dropping us down into verse 20, presbeumen, actually connected to presbuteros,
which we know as bishops or elders, refers to those who are the representatives, those
who have the responsibility. So here we are as ambassadors in the ministry
of reconciliation with the word of reconciliation to sinners that they can be reconciled to
God. That sets up the text so that we can understand
it. Now the question to be asked is, if we have
this responsibility and we do, and we’re going to carry this out as God would want
us to carry it out, we need to understand the features of this message. What in fact, is involved in the word of reconciliation? What are the elements? What are the components? What are the features? What are the essentials that constitute the
word of reconciliation? One of the disappointments in my life and
ministry, as I’ve been around and traveled around through the decades past, is to see
how few people who profess to be Christians could give a detailed, cogent presentation
of the word concerning reconciliation. Because this is the reason you’re here,
and you understand that I think. You do understand that, don’t you? That the only reason we are left in the world
is for evangelistic purposes to the glory of God. Yes, we’re saved to worship, but God tolerates
our imperfect worship to leave us here to do evangelism. Yes, we’re saved to be sanctified, but God
tolerates our inadequate, incomplete sanctification to leave us here to do evangelism. Yes, we are to have fellowship with Him, but
He tolerates that interrupted fellowship to leave us here to do evangelism. This is why we are here to be ambassadors
with the word of reconciliation. I just want to give you the four essentials
that are in this text, four of them, and they are critically important. Number one, reconciliation is by the will
of God. Reconciliation is by the will of God. Please notice, please notice verse 18, “All
these things are from…,” whom? God. What things? The things that accompany regeneration. Verse 17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is
a new creature. The old things passed away, behold new things
have come.” All that is new in regeneration, all that
is new in the new birth, all that is new in conversion, all that is new in salvation comes
from God. All these things come from God. That’s not the only time this is stated. Verse 19 says, “It is God in Christ reconciling.” Verse 20 says, “It is God making the appeal
through us, begging people to be reconciled.” It’s always God. If you go to the Roman Catholic Church as
some of you have in the past, you’d be familiar with this. One of the interesting things that I’ve
tried to do to help the people in our church because in Los Angeles there’s such a massive
amount of Hispanic people coming out of Roman Catholicism, is to understand the difference
between that and the truth of the gospel. And one of the things that distresses me no
end is this notion that if you want to get anything done spiritually in your life you
really need to go to Mary. Why do they advocate that? Why do they press that issue? Well, it basically comes down to this, maybe
a bit of an oversimplification. God is kind of harsh. God is tough. And God is distracted. And God is really transcendent, and He might
not pay much attention to you. So you don’t go to Him. Now, you could go to Jesus, but Jesus can
be pretty tough as well, so really the best thing to do is go to Mary because Jesus can’t
resist His mother. If you can get Mary on your side, Mary will
go to Jesus, and Jesus will always cave into Mary, and now you’re really on your way
to God. God is a tough guy. Jesus may be a little more compassionate but
equally judgmental. Mary is a soft sell. Go to Mary. That is why Mary dominates the Roman system. That is a blasphemous attack on the very nature
of God who by nature is a Savior. If you look at the religions of the world,
you study the history of religion, you do not find a Savior in any false religion. Scripture even says that. That’s not how they design gods when men
design gods. It’s not how they design gods when demons
design gods. They go on a spectrum from indifference to
severe hostility and everything in between. If you were worshipping the gods who were
enamored… who enamored the Israelites, you might first of all start with Baal. And your problem with Baal was He didn’t
pay attention to you, so you could cut yourself up and scream and go through histrionics. You remember that, don’t you, with the priests
of Baal and the confrontation with Elijah. And what did Elijah say about him? “Well, maybe he’s asleep. Or maybe he’s on vacation.” This is a… This is a deity of demonic invention, a god
of absolute indifference who has to be awakened to the plight of his worshippers. On the other hand, you had Moloch. Moloch was anything but indifferent. What did Moloch want? Your baby on the fire. Burn your baby to get my attention. Burn your baby to get me off your back. Well, you have all of these kinds of gods,
this panoply of deities, none of which by nature is a Savior. So distinct from that is the true and living
God. If you could read just the little epistle
of Titus, a couple of times in chapter 1, “God our Savior,” a couple of times in
chapter 2, “God our Savior,” a couple of times in chapter 3, “God our Savior.” God is by nature a Savior. That’s where all of this reconciliation
starts. We don’t have to convince God to accept
the sinner. We only have to beg the sinner to be reconciled
to God. God is a Savior by nature. He is not reluctant to save. I think there’s a passage of Scripture,
1 Timothy 4:10, that says it as concisely as any, “God who is the Savior of all men,
especially,” that’s the little adverb, malista, “believers.” What does that mean? “God who is the Savior of all men, especially
believers.” In what sense is God the Savior of all men? Now some of my thoughts here will intersect,
R.C., with… with what you helped us with in all your work on holiness. Because when you look at the Old Testament,
people, critics, skeptics, liberals ask the question, “What kind of God kills all those
people?” And that’s not the question. The question is not, why does God send bears
out of the woods to rip up a bunch of boys who yell “bald head” at a prophet? The question is not, why does the ground open
up and swallow people whole for violating Old Testament law? The question is not, why does God destroy
the Canaanites? The question is not, why does God destroy
the globe and leave only eight people alive? That question is easy to answer. The answer is because the wages of sin is
what? Is death. The harder question to answer is, why are
you here and why am I here? And why does anybody live? And why does anybody survive? Because God by nature is a Savior. He makes the rain to fall on the just and
the unjust. The unregenerate fall in love and have a baby
and have a home and go on a vacation and eat wonderful food and enjoy the blessings and
the fullness of life, when in fact they ought to be in hell because God by nature is a Savior. And that’s what essentially He’s saying
in 1 Timothy 4. He’s the Savior of all men in this sense,
physically and temporally on a generic front, or a general level. You see the saving nature of God manifest
in the fact that sinners live and sinners love and sinners prosper and sinners laugh
and sinners are fulfilled and satisfied with things in life. It’s very much like Romans 2 where Paul
says this is the kindness and forbearance of God, which is intended to lead them to
repentance. God by nature is a Savior, and He even demonstrates
His saving nature in a physical, temporal way to non-believers, and He’s done it through
history. He does it now. But that little adverb especially is He a
Savior to those who believe, and not in a physical, temporal way, but in a spiritual
and eternal way. God is by nature a Savior. The greatest New Testament parable, I think,
is the parable of the prodigal. Really the hero of the parable is certainly
not the prodigal, certainly not the Pharisaical older brother. The hero of the parable is the father. And the most dramatic moment in that parable
is when the father is looking off for that wretched, rotten, prodigal son who has gone
into the Gentile land if you will, wasted his money on prostitutes, money which was
the family estate, garnered over generations and generations, now wasted by this young
profligate. The father keeps looking and looking for him
to come back. And the parable Jesus tells in Luke 15. He sees him afar away, and what does the father
do? The father runs. It’s a stunning reality, an absolutely amazing
thing. Middle Eastern gentlemen don’t run. They glide, even today, even today. There is literature, Middle Eastern literature,
even among the Jews that says it’s a shame for a man to show his legs. You don’t pull up your robe and run if you’re
a Middle Eastern nobleman. But this man pulls up his robe and runs, and
the Greek word for run is sprint. This is a man sprinting toward the prodigal. That’s the nature of God. And when he gets there, the Pharisees to whom
Jesus is telling the story would expect… they would be shocked by him running because
now he’s taking shame on himself. It’s a shameful thing to do that. He’s taking shame on himself, and when he
gets to the son, they would have expected that he might ceremonially slap him across
the face to indicate his distain for what he had done, that he might refuse to give
him a place in the house, that he might make him sit with ashes all over him for a week
in the middle of the village and take the scorn that the village would heap on him for
such an embarrassment. That’s what the Pharisees would have expected. That’s not what happened. He threw his arms around him, you remember,
kissed him all over his pig stinking head, embraced him, full reconciliation, full restoration
to sonship, put a ring on his finger, put his robe on him, sandals on his feet and had
a party. That’s the joy of heaven over the repentance
of one sinner, right? Like the joy over the sheep found earlier
in the chapter or the coin found, God finds His joy in the reconciliation of sinners. So I just want to start there because that’s
where you have to start. Reconciliation is by the will of God. Secondly, it is by the act of forgiveness. It is by the act of forgiveness. The only way reconciliation can occur is if
the one who has been offended is willing to forgive, and that’s what verse 19 says,
“God was in Christ reconciling the world,” meaning humanity, “to Himself,” how?,
“by not counting their trespasses against them, by not counting their trespasses against
them.” That is the only way that reconciliation can
take place if the barrier, the offence, the sin is removed. That’s it. Reconciling the world, that’s not universalism. That simply means humanity without distinction,
humanity without distinction. Here we see that the only way that reconciliation
can take place is by the forgiveness of sin. That’s why Psalm 32:2 and Romans 4:8 repeats
this great statement, “How blest is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity.” And again this is true to the nature of God. Listen to Micah 7:18, “Who is a God like
you who pardons iniquity, passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession,
delights in loving kindness?” The only way reconciliation can happen is
if God wipes out the sin issue, obliterates the offence. And that is the message that we preach in
the word of reconciliation. God will forgive all your sins. God offers you reconciliation with Him through
the forgiveness of all your sins. That is the glorious gospel message. It’s about sin. It’s about forgiveness. It’s not about being a better person. It’s not about living your best life now. It’s not about being a better father, having
a better marriage, getting bumped up a few notches on the success scale. It’s about forgiveness, which means that
you have to talk about sin. Third point, reconciliation is by the will
of God, it is by the act of forgiveness, and it is by the obedience of faith. It is by the obedience of faith. Where’s that? Well, it’s implied in verse 20, “God making
an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Isn’t that fascinating? This is all of God, all of God. All these things are from God. It is God doing the reconciling. That’s divine sovereignty. And yet here we are begging people to be reconciled
to the God who is the Reconciler, which is to say, what we’re going to say a little
later tonight, you can never disconnect faith from election. We beg people, “Be reconciled to God.” God is actually the beggar. It says He makes the appeal through us. The divine sovereign work of reconciliation
is not apart from the faith of the sinner, and we are beggars. I can’t get past this point, honestly I
can’t because my… my heart I think is stopping me maybe more than my head. Fifty years ago I played football. Fifty years ago I had a coach that I, man
to man, really cared for. He was… He was the best coach I ever had, high school
or college days. His name was Jim Brownfield. He’s a legend in southern California, an
absolute legend. He coached at every level of football, high
school, junior college, small college. He coached with John McKay at USC, great coach,
genius, ahead of his time. I played for him 50 years ago. We’d implemented Chicago Bears offence. We were way ahead. We were a… We were a West Coast pass offence, completely
out of our time. He was innovative. He was creative. And I cared about him. I remember, we were flying up to San Francisco
to play football against the University of San Francisco, and I was sitting next to him
on the plane, and I took that opportunity to communicate the gospel with all my heart
to him, and I was close to the coach because I was, you know, calling the plays and all
of that, and we had a great affection for each other. But he rejected the gospel. That’s 50 years ago. Through the years, I had opportunity to be
with him here and there, maybe at a golf tournament or some kind of function, and he watched my
ministry. He watched my life. And he used to tell people that he coached
me. But every time I was with him, I tried to
talk to him about the Lord. He’d say, “I respect that. I respect you. I’m not interested.” And I felt like I was always begging him,
“Coach, this is the most important thing you’ll ever do.” He never married because he wanted to live
his life his way, and he did. He ingratiated himself to so many athletes
and so many people as a coach. Well, it was last summer, I got a phone call. No, I take it back, last April I got a phone
call. “You better go visit your coach. He’s dying in the hospital.” This is 50 years later. “He’s had heart problems. They’ve tried to do surgery to save him. He wants to see you.” He wants to see me? So I went to the hospital, stood in the hall. He’s wired. He’s got 15 things going in. The nurse says to me, “He hasn’t moved
for three days. We haven’t seen any motion, so I can’t
promise anything.” So I walk in the room. I reach out my hand. I take hold of his hand. He’s got a board on it to hold all the needles. I just took a hold of his hand, and I said,
“Hey, coach, it’s Johnny Mac.” He opened his eyes and smiled. I said, “Coach, one more time, one more
time, can I beg you to be reconciled to God? Coach, you are the thief on the cross. You have no future. This has to be your time, has to be your time. Will you open your heart to Christ?” His head went like up and down, and he grabbed
my hand, started to squeeze it, and he reached his other arm over and grabbed my other hand. So he’s got me in a lock grip. The nurse comes in and says, “Sir, you’ll
have to let go of him.” I said, “I’m not holding on to him. He is holding on to me.” I was a beggar all those years, begged down
to the last hour. Well, while we were praying, while I was praying
the Lord would save him, and the Lord saved him in a wonderful way. The evidence was clear. His brother walked in the room, was a Christian,
broke into tears and fell on his bed and embraced him, and I told him what happened. And he got better. I came back to see him in a week, he’s sitting
in a wheelchair with a trach in, and he’s got issues, but he writes me a note, got a
little letter board, and he starts spelling out, “What can I do for my Savior?” I said, “Coach, you can’t do anything
for Him. He’s done everything for you. He doesn’t need your help. He’ll be okay. This is your time for Him to do for you.” Well, Friday I’m going to do his funeral. He had one request. He wanted all the coaches, all the athletes
that ever played for him to come to Brookside Golf Course in LA. He wants them all to get together in the ballroom,
and he wants me to come and tell the testimony that he could never give of what Christ did
in his life and to make sure everybody gets the gospel. You know, look, I’m so glad I went that
day down to the hospital. I’m so glad one last time I begged him. Don’t ever let your theology of the sovereignty
of God move you away from the fact that the sinner has responsibility to respond, and
we need to beg sinners. It’s by the obedience of faith, and that’s
hard for sinners, right? It’s hard to believe. I think I wrote a book about that. I wrote so many I don’t remember, but I
think I did. It’s hard to believe. Why? Hate yourself, hate your mother, hate your
father, hate your own life, right? Take up your cross. Follow Me. Refuse to associate with the person you’ve
been. Turn from your sin. That’s hard. I’m not surprised that when Jesus went to
Nazareth in Luke 4 and preached one sermon, one sermon to His own community of people
that He grew up with and went to the synagogue with every Sabbath, and went to Sabbath school,
right in Nazareth, which was a small, dinky town, went back one time in that synagogue,
one Sabbath, preached one sermon, and they tried to throw Him off a cliff. What? That’s a hard message. He essentially said to them, “You’re the
poor prisoners, blind and oppressed, and you don’t know it. And you’re never going to be reconciled
to God unless you see yourself as the poor prisoners, blind and oppressed and repent. You’re no better than your forefathers.” The Lord couldn’t heal a… a widow here…
or provide for a widow here because of unbelief. He couldn’t heal a leper here. So He had to go over to the town where they
worship Baal and had to heal a border terrorist because of your unbelief. And when they were exposed as self-righteous,
they tried to kill Him. Well, we have to understand that reconciliation
then is by the will of God, by the act of forgiveness, and by the obedience of faith. Now here’s the key question. You say, when are you going to get to the
question? Right now. How can God do this? How can God justify the ungodly and be just. Romans 4:5, “God justifies the ungodly.” That may be as important as any statement
in the book of Romans. God justifies the ungodly, not the godly. How can He be just and the Justifier of sinners
who have faith in Jesus? Let me give you a simple little analogy. If you’re the judge, and the guy comes into
your court, and he has been indicted for all kinds of crimes to which he has confessed. And he says to you, “I’m guilty, Your
Honor. I’ve done them all. I’m a mass murderer. I’ve killed 25 people. I’ve chopped them up. I’ve eaten a few of them, buried the rest
in my yard. I’m guilty of all of it, but I feel really
bad now, and I’m so sorry I did that, and I do want to repent. Would you please forgive me and let me go?” If the judge said, “Sure, I’m a nice guy. I’ve got a lot of mercy in my heart. You’re free to go,” he wouldn’t be a
judge anymore. What’s a judge’s responsibility? Uphold what? The law. That’s his responsibility. He can’t do that. You can’t just let that man go. That would be unjust. So how can God say, “Okay, you’re forgiven. Okay, I no longer impute your sins to you. Okay, they are as removed as far as the east
is from the west, buried in the depths of the sea, and I remember them no more. How can He do that and be just? And the answer comes in the fifteen Greek
words in verse 21. Here we get to the heart of the matter. How could He do this? “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on
our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” That, my dear friends, is a series, not just
a point in a message. There’s so much there. Let’s break it down, fifteen Greek words. He, God, made Him who knew no sin. Who’s that? Who’s that? Short list, one name. He made Him who knew no sin, as the writer
of Hebrews says, “the holy, harmless, undefiled one,” the one of whom even men said, “I
find no fault in Him,” the one of whom the Father said, “This is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased,” the sinless one, the spotless one. How is God going to be just and the Justifier
of sinners? He made Him who knew no sin, meaning Christ,
sin. What does that mean? Kenneth Copeland says, as well the other word
of faith teachers say, “It means that Jesus became a sinner.” I heard it again just a few weeks ago. “He became a sinner on the cross. On the cross, He became a sinner, and He had
to go to hell for three days to suffer for His sins, and after He had suffered for those
sins, He was released in the resurrection.” That’s blasphemous. He was a Lamb without what? Spot. He was a Lamb without blemish. Do you hear his words, “My God, My God…” What’s the next word? “Why…?” If He’s a sinner, there is no “why.” “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” This is alien to everything He has eternally
known. It doesn’t mean that He became a sinner. Understand it this way. It means that God treated Him as if He was
a sinner, though he wasn’t. I’ll say it another way. On the cross, God poured out the full fury
of His wrath against all the sins of all the people who would ever believe. Did you get that? On the cross, God poured out on His Son all
the wrath for all the sins of all the people who would ever believe. All the judgment for all the sins of all the
people who would ever believe was poured out on Christ. You say, “Wait a minute. As I analyze the cross, there really were
only three hours when this took place. All of that took place in three hours. How is it possible that the sinners of human
history will go to hell and be in hell for ever and ever and all of them in hell forever
will never pay the price for their sins, but Christ can pay the price in full for all the
sins of all who would ever believe in three hours?” And the only answer I can give you is because
He is an infinite person, He has an infinite capacity to absorb that judgment. That’s our message. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. By His stripes we are healed. “He was offered to bear the sins of many,”
Hebrews 9. 1 Peter 2, “And He Himself bore our sins
in His body.” Galatians 3, “He was made a curse for us.” God treated Jesus as if He had personally
committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe, though in reality
He committed none of them. He is a substitute. When you go out and preach the word of reconciliation,
which is why you’re left here in the world, this is what you want to tell people. On our behalf…, please, I wish I had more
time on this. On our behalf, He became sin on our behalf. That’s all who believe. It is a real atonement, not a potential atonement. It is an actual atonement. It is a particular redemption. He paid in full for all who would ever believe. There are people who think that He paid for
the sins of the whole world, of everybody. Really? So He did the same thing for all the people
in hell that he did for all the people in heaven. I don’t think so. It’s not a potential atonement actualized
by the sinner. It’s an actual atonement provided by the
Savior and embraced by the sinner. Some people say, “Aw, you’re talking about
an unlimited atonement.” Well, yeah, I think maybe you need to think
that through carefully because if you’ve got Jesus dying for the whole world and most
of them going to hell, then you’ve got a limited atonement. You’ve got a limited atonement. You’ve limited it in its power. You’ve limited it in its nature. You’ve limited it in its essence. You’ve limited it in its intent. That’s not where you want to limit it. Yes, the atonement is limited. We understand that. Not everybody that ever lives is going to
go to hell… going to go to heaven. We know that. It is limited in its extent by God, but it
is not limited in its intent, in its power, in its nature, as if it’s some potential
but not actual provision. That’s another subject. Now, I’m not finished. Here’s the good part. End of verse 21, “So that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him.” “So that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him.” Look, on the cross Jesus wasn’t the sinner. God treated Him as if He was. And now He grants to us the righteousness
of God in Him. Think of it this way. On the cross, God treated Jesus as a sinner,
though He wasn’t. Now He treats us as righteous, though we’re
not. Our sins imputed to Him. His righteous imputed to us. Now let me tell you another way to look at
it. Have you ever ask yourself why Jesus had to
live a life of 33 years? You know, if I had been God, I might have
said, “Here’s… Here’s the plan. I want You to go down on a Friday, and You
can die, and You can be back by Sunday.” “Oh.” “Yeah, just go down on Friday. We’ll arrange to get You on the cross. You’ll be there, and You’ll rise, and
redemption will be accomplished.” What’s the 33 years about? What’s that about? What’s 30 years of obscurity about? What’s that about? I think the writer of Hebrews says it so well. “He was in all points tempted like as we
are,” yet without what? Sin. At all points chronologically, at all points
through His entire life, He is without sin, without sin. He lived a complete sinless life that is credited
to your account. On the cross, God looked at Christ and saw
you. Now He looks at you and sees Christ. Your sin imputed to Him. His righteousness imputed to you. That is the message of reconciliation. Preach it. Father, thank You for our time, and we trust
these thoughts from this great text will find a place in our hearts and in our behavior. May we love them enough to live according
to them and to proclaim them. To the glory of our Savior in whose name we
pray. Amen.
