Embracing the Gift of Christ's Righteousness

The death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ -- His sin-bearing, sin-atoning, wrath-quenching, God-glorifying, sinner-saving death -- is the central, foundational and climactic glory of the Christian faith. Paul was not only speaking for himself in Galatians 6 when he wrote, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." [00:03:00]

Because, you see, the cross of Christ is not simply a truth we confess; it is a truth we glory in. It is our only boast in this life and in the life which is to come. As Steve was speaking to us a little earlier, I was thinking of that great verse in one of Horatius Bonar's hymns, when he wrote: "Upon a life I did not live Upon a death I did not die; another's life, another's death I stake my whole eternity." [00:03:41]

"For our sake he" -- that is, the Father -- "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." I'd like to ask four questions of this 21st verse. Number one: why does Paul mention Jesus' sinlessness? Number two: how could God justly make His sinless Son to be sin for us? Number three: why did God make His sinless Son to be sin for us? And finally: how do we get into Christ that we might thereby "become the righteousness of God"? [00:13:06]

In this 21st verse, Paul is completing the message which with which the Christian ambassador has been entrusted. He has written, in verse 20, "We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God." "Be reconciled to God." Now, if Paul had stopped there, he would've been announcing the ultimate counsel of despair. [00:15:01]

But Paul does not stop at the end of verse 20, does he? "For our sake" -- and here, he is completing the message of reconciliation that the Christian ambassador has been commissioned to proclaim -- "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." This verse answers the question of all questions, does it not? [00:16:27]

It's striking, more in the Greek text than in the English text, that Paul begins actually with establishing and affirming the sinlessness of Christ. "Him who knew no sin" is how the Greek text begins in this 21st verse. And this, of course, is a truth that the New Testament is at pains, again, and again, and again, to affirm to us. [00:18:19]

And then, secondly, Paul goes on to tell us that He made Him to be sin for us. That He -- who is this "He"? It is God the Father. It is the heavenly Father who made His own Son sin for us. Maybe you know these words of Octavius Winslow: "Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Pilate for fear, not Judas for money, not the Jews for envy, but the Father for love." [00:21:07]

Now what does this actually mean? Well, I'm not sure. I've read many books on this, reflected on many commentaries. I'm not sure anyone really knows. There is language we can use, but what infinities, and depths, and unfathomablenesses there are in these words. We know what it does not mean. It does not mean that God made Christ a sinner. [00:23:59]

And perhaps something even more glorious than that is that, even as the Lord Jesus Christ finds the shadow of the cross beginning to penetrate His human soul as He makes His way to Calvary, and as He finds Himself in Gethsemane with the unimaginable horror of what yet lies before Him beginning to penetrate into the utmost depths of His human soul, He is nonetheless saying, "Not my will but yours be done." [00:28:52]

And if we were then to ask the question, thirdly, but why? Why did the Father make His own Son to be sin? The apostle tells us, "So that" -- a clause of glorious consequence -- "so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." Paul is describing here the sinner's justification. How can we ever be acceptable to God? How can we ever be reconciled to God? [00:30:38]

And the scandal of the gospel is this: by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. In no other way, by self-abandoning, self-denying casting of all that we are on the grace and sufficiency of all that Jesus Christ is, other refuge have we none, hangs our helpless souls on thee. By faith alone. What a glorious thing that is. [00:38:54]

Unceasing praise and thanksgiving should be our great, great response to what God has done for us in His Son in making Him who had no sin to be sin for us. I heard Sinclair Ferguson say this once: that "even as the Father was executing on His Son His righteous wrath that we deserved, even as the Father was pouring the eternal vials of His just judgment on His Son, He was surely singing, 'If ever I loved thee, my Jesus 'tis now.'" [00:42:25]