Mercies of God
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I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out the changes that understanding creates in your heart.
Our salvation being a by product of “the mercies of God” enables us to obey the commands of verse 2 “do not conform” and “be transformed”. If we could be saved by our good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. However, if salvation is a by product of “the mercies of God” and I am a sinner saved by sheer grace, at God’s infinite cost, then there nothing he cannot ask of me.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The Bible makes it clear, first of all, that all people are sinners by nature and by action. In fact, all people are sinners from birth which means all people are born alienated from God— for He is holy, cannot look upon sin, cannot fellowship with sinners. Our alienation prevents us from knowing God. He is too perfectly holy to have anything to do with sinners except to reject them.
Now the result of that rejection, the result of that alienation is God-lessness which results in eternal hell. So this alienation is indeed a serious issue. It means that everybody lives their life without God and, if they die in that condition, will spend their eternity without God in torment.
We are completely infected with sin. We are completely alienated from God.
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—
remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,
and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
This is the good news, friends you don't have to live God-lessly in time and you don't have to live God-lessly in eternity. You don't need to suffer through this life without God and to suffer eternal torment without God in the life to come. Reconciliation is possible.
How can that be? How can such a reconciliation take place? How can an absolutely and utterly holy God who is infinitely pure and perfect ever be reconciled to sinners? How can he do that who is too pure to look on sin or to fellowship with transgressors? How can God end the hostility and how can he take sinners into his holy heaven to live with him forever in intimate communion? How? How can both justice and grace be satisfied? How can love towards sinners and righteousness come together? To put it in Paul's words: "How can God be just and a justifier of sinners?"
Today’s text carefully defines and perfectly balances the mystery of reconciliation. Our text shows us the essence of the atonement.
Now what did it take? It took death. Because, as it says in the Old Testament in
The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
As it says in
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The requirement is death, and God made that abundantly clear throughout the whole Old Testament economy, because the Jews spent most of their life, of course, either coming from or going to a sacrifice. They had to continually massacre animals, millions and millions and millions of them, to deal with sin, to show the people how wicked they were and how sin required death. Those sacrificial animals did not and could not take away sin. They were a vivid reminder that the wages of sin is death.
God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver.... From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can "just forgive" the perpetrator.... But when you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt. You bear it yourself. All forgiveness, then, is costly.”
This sacrificial system served to remind them that God's law can only be satisfied through death. This system was also designed to make them long for the promised final substitute. John the Baptist correctly identified Jesus as this final sacrifice, our substitute, when said
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
How do we identify our substitute? "He made him who knew no sin." Who is the one who knew no sin? See, no sinful person could be a substitute. No sinner could die for another sinner, because he'd have to pay the penalty for his own sin. There had to be a sinless offering, and it had to be a human being because it had to be man who dies for man. So it had to be a sinless man.
Well, the only way to have a sinless man was to have a man who was God, because God alone is sinless. So if you're going to have a sinless man you have to have a man who is God. And that's exactly what God designed—that the second member of the Trinity, sinless and perfect, equally holy with the other two members of the Trinity, would come into the world in the form of a man.
History and the pagan world affirms this truth about Christ. Hear cynical, vicious, cruel, ungodly, pagan, idolatrous Pilate on three different occasions in Luke 23 affirms Christ sinless testimony.
Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.”
and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him.
A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.”
Listen to the thief on the cross:
And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”
Listen to the testimony of the centurion who watched it all.
Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!”
It wasn't just unbelieving people who saw his perfection. How about the apostles? John, who was with him day and night for three years; John who followed his every footstep and heard his every word and saw his every act and maybe felt his every breath as he leaned on his breast as often as he could; it was John who said in his epistle
You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
And John said we were eyewitnesses of it. The writer of Hebrews who affirms the very same reality when he says in
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
And in chapter seven the writer of Hebrews says,
For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
And then there was Peter who said of Christ
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
Now the testimony of unbelieving men was of his sinlessness; the testimony of those who knew him best was of his sinlessness. However, there's another who gave testimony, and that testimony is indeed powerful. It was none other than God the Father himself.
At his baptism
and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
At his transfiguration
He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
You see, the Father was totally satisfied with the Son. There was nothing in the Son that dissatisfied the Father. He was perfect, sinless and maybe the greatest testimony of his sinlessness was the unbroken fellowship he had with God. He says that in
I and the Father are one.”
He says it again and again in John 17:11, 21, 22, and 23 "We're one." "We're one." "We're one." "We're one." "We're united." "We're united." That was the greatest testimony of his sinlessness—that he had absolutely unbroken communion with God.
Now had he not been man he couldn't be the substitute. Had he not been sinless he couldn't be the substitute. So he had to be man and he had to be God.
Notice our text again. "God made him who knew no sin"—here is the remarkable statement "—to be sin." You see, he had to punish sin but if he punished the sinner the sinner would be destroyed in hell eternally. So he had to take the Substitute and put him in the place of the sinner and punish the Substitute instead. He had to be sin. What does it mean that he was made sin?
First of all, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It does not mean that Christ became a sinner. It does not mean that he committed a sin. It does not mean that he broke God's law. The Scriptures I've just read to you indicate that he had no capacity to sin. Theologians call lack of capacity the impeccability of Christ. He had no possibility to sin. He could not sin. He was sinless God while fully man.
What does it mean that he was made sin? Isaiah 53 introduces it to us.
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
God treated Christ as if he were a sinner by making him pay the penalty for sin though he was innocent. More than that, God treated him as if he sinned all the sins of all who would ever believe. This is what Scripture is saying when it says Christ was made sin. He was made sin by imputation. Sin was imputed to him. It was charged to him, making him pay the penalty. The guilt of every sinner who would ever be saved was imputed to Jesus Christ, credited to him as if he were guilty of all of it.
And then just as soon as God had credited it to him, God poured out the full fury of all his wrath against all that sin and all those sinners, and Jesus experienced all that. Is it any wonder at that moment he was alienated from God and said, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me"? He was treated as a sinner. He was treated as a sinner deserves to be treated, with all the fury of just punishment
He was personally pure; he was officially guilty. He was personally holy; he was forensically guilty.
Look at
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
You want to try to earn your way to heaven? You want to try to reconcile yourself? You want to keep certain works, do certain religious duties, subscribe to some moral law or ceremonial law? You want to achieve your own righteousness? You've got a problem. All of you who try to reconcile to God through works, through what you do, are cursed. Why? Because it says in Deuteronomy, "Cursed is everyone who doesn't abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them." You know why that curses you, that approach curses you? Because the first time you violate one law, you're damned. It just takes one. "Cursed is everyone who doesn't keep all that is written in the book of the law." So if you're going to try to reconcile yourself to God through human effort, every time you try to do that you put yourself under a curse, because it only takes one violation. So the whole human race is cursed, and everybody in every religion on the face of the earth trying to achieve reconciliation by their own efforts is cursed.
All this curse of iniquity has to be paid for. There has to be a penalty for this curse.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
He became a curse for us. He took the full fury of God's wrath on our behalf. God placed Christ in the path of the curse and trampled him with exhaustive judgment.
Imputation is crucial to understanding reconciliation. God puts our sin to Christ's credit and puts Christ's righteousness to our credit. He is made sin because God credits our sin to him; we're made righteous because God credits his righteousness to us. The righteousness that we are given is the very righteousness of Christ.
Listen to what Paul said in
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Not some righteousness derived from keeping the law, but a righteousness through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God. It's imputed to us. He's holy; God imputed sin to him. We're sinful; God imputes holiness to us. The very righteousness which God requires to accept the sinner is the very righteousness which God provides. When God looks at you he sees you covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
You say, Well, what about the sins I commit after I'm a Christian? Well, he died for those too, because you weren't even born when he died. They were all future. In fact, he is the Lamb slain from before what? The foundation of the world. Before even the creation the plan was for him to die for all the sins of all who will ever believe.
This is the righteousness that Romans 3 talks about. It's the righteousness of God, verse 21, "apart from the law." Verse 22: It's the "righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe."
How do you get in on this? Believe that you're a sinner. Believe you're in a desperate situation. You are desperately alienated from God. Believe that you have no hope of reconciliation and you will in this life live godlessly and in the next life you will suffer eternal torment. Believe all of that and then believe that God sent his Son into the world in the form of man to die as your substitute and take your place, and that he took the full fury of the wrath of God upon him. Believe God's justice was satisfied was when He raised Christ from the dead.
This is the Gospel. Believe it by faith and God in his mercy will take the righteousness of Jesus Christ and impute it to you because your sins were imputed to Christ when he died on the cross. It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.
God made you to love him supremely, but he lost you. He returned to get you back, but it took the cross to do it. He absorbed your darkness so that one day you can finally and brilliantly become your true self and take your seat at his eternal feast. You are more wicked than ever dared believe and yet, you are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than you ever dared hope.
Christian, you say you believe in Jesus, but it doesn't affect the way you live, the answer is not add hard work to your faith so much as you haven't truly understood or believed in Jesus at all.
September 11th, 2001 just past 9:00am, Stanley Praimnath, Vice President for Fuji Bank, was in his office in the South Tower at WTC when his phone rang. “Are you watching the news?’ asked a woman in the Chicago office. “Are you alright?” “I’m fine” he said wondering why she had called. Just then he turned to gaze out the window at the Statue of Liberty, as had been his routine. The surreal sight of a low-flying commercial jet, heading straight for his tower disrupted his view. He dropped the phone in mid-sentence and dove to the floor. Curling under his desk he began praying to God, “Lord, help me” he prayed desperately as the aircraft smashed into the tower. The smell of jet fuel in the air, equipment scattered all around, rubble covering the floor, dust in the air, he began clawing across mound of debris. “Lord, I have to go home to my family,” he wheezed. “I have to see my daughters.” Just then he saw a light. “I am here to help you.” He thought, “This is my guardian angel! The Lord sent somebody to help me!” Praimnath’s guardian angel was Brian Clark, a Christian who was an executive 3 floors below. The two miraculously climbed out of the rubble to safety. Praimnath stated, “My Lord has some unfinished tasks for me.” “I took the tattered clothes I was wearing that day, put them in a box, and wrote DELIVERANCE all over it. I told my wife, ‘if I ever get spiritually cold, I want you to bring this box to me, open it up, and show me what the Lord brought me from.”