Untitled Sermon

My Utmost for His Highest October 29th—Substitution

That Christ died for me, therefore I go scot free, is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that “He died for all” (not—He died my death), and that by identification with His death I can be freed from sin, and have imparted to me His very righteousness

John 3:16–17 NET

For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.

Galatians 3:27 NET

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Luke 9:23–25 NET

Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but loses or forfeits himself?

2 Corinthians 5:21 NET

God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.

Romans 6:2–4 NET

Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.

What an incredible promise! The Substitution that God made through Jesus on the cross was not only a simple exchange of punishment, but an exchange of identity. It is an offer, held out to all for as long as each lives; a promise of new life as the righteousness of God that can be accepted or refused.

So how do we take hold of the promise? By faith—an assurance that directly results in will and action—not mere belief. That is, by allowing our identity as self to die on the cross (there is nothing there worth saving) and taking up a new identity found only in the Son of God.

But this is not automatic—it must be cultivated by allowing the Spirit of God to clean house—but it is necessary and good! Father, we give you our selves, we ask that you crucify them with Christ and quicken the transformation of new life in us. Amen.