Becoming the Righteousness of God

“In 1347, a Mogul army besieged a trading post in Crimea, which is modern-day Ukraine. In a gruesome display of what could be called the first recorded instance of biological warfare, the catapulted the corpses of bubonic plague victims over the town’s walls. The terrified townspeople, some of whom now carrying the deadly bacteria, evacuated the town and fled to Italy. Between the people and the animals and fleas that traveled with them, the plague was spread. Over the next three years, the massive outbreak known as the Black Death covered Europe, with as many as one-third to one-half of the population being wiped out.”

“The Black Death is the most infamous epidemic in human history, but it wasn’t the only one. Bubonic plague continued to have outbreaks for many decades and even centuries until the development of antibiotics in the twentieth century. A particular strain of the flu claimed between 30 and 50 million people in 1918-19. A typhus outbreak in Europe claimed several million more lives at about the same time. Malaria and Yellow Fever have had multiple severe outbreaks. And in more modern times, the AIDS epidemic took countless lives. And we still have hundreds of thousands of lives lost every year to whatever strain of the flu is going around the world.” (Mostly from MacArthur’s commentary)

In Bible times, there were even provisions in the Law of Moses to deal with handling infectious diseases. So, whether natural, man-made, or the result of biological warfare, plagues and epidemics that are a danger to physical health and life itself have always been with us and will always be part of the human condition.

Puritan author, Ralph Venning has pointed out in one of his books that there is a “plague of plagues” that is more widespread and more deadly than all others combined. It effects every person who has ever lived, and it is 100% fatal. But unlike any other plague or disease, which only can potentially cause physical death, this plague causes spiritual and eternal death. And I am obviously speaking about the plague of sin.

The Book of Romans explains in vivid detail how the sin of Adam plunged the entire human race into this plague of sin (5:12-21). David rightly wrote in Psalm 51:5, “in sin my mother conceived me.” David was not meaning that he was conceived outside of wedlock, but that he was infected with the plague of sin at conception – before he was even born, he carried the sin plague.

And not only are all of us sinners by our very nature we are sinners by our thoughts and words and actions. Again, in the Book of Romans, “There is none righteous, not even one” (3:10). And “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). Even in the Old Testament, King Solomon states in his prayer of dedication for the temple, “for there is no man who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46).

The outcome of sin in every person’s life is also clearly stated in Scripture – “the person who sins will die” according to Ezekiel 18:20, and “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), among many other passages.

But God.

Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Let’s pray.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said something to the effect of, “We all should be eternally grateful for all of the ‘buts’ in the Bible.” Time after time, when Scripture teaches us about the depravity of sin and the eternal punishment and fate of sinners, there is a “But God” plainly stated or a “But God” plainly implied and insinuated.

Verses like:

· Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

· Romans 5:15, “But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.”

· Ephesians 2:13, “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

· Galatians 4:4-5, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”

· Hebrews 10:12, “but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.”

· James 4:6, “But He gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble’.”

· 1 Peter 2:9-10, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

That was just from my memory and a very quick scan of a few Books in the New Testament.

In our verse of study this morning, it does not specifically use the words, “But God”, but it is undoubtedly implied in the context of the passage.

2 Corinthians 5:21

If you recall from the last two sermons, the redeemed of the Lord, the justified, the converted, the saved, those who have repented of their sins, confessed Jesus as their Lord, and by faith have believed that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, because of this transformation we are new creatures or new creations in Christ Jesus. The old things have passed away and new things have come.

And we learned that a major part of the reason for this transformation that salvation caused within us, is so that we could be God’s ministers of reconciliation. Every believer now has the duty and responsibility to spread the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to play a role in seeing others reconciled to God.

In this present verse, we are reminded of how God reconciles sinners, like us, to Himself. I opened this sermon with talk of physical plagues and epidemics before pointing us to the plague of plaguesas Venning calls it, the plague of sin. We can be grateful and praise God for the “but” in this verse because it reveals the cure for sinners who are infected with the deadly epidemic of sin, which as has been stated, includes every person to have ever lived – at conception before we even have a conscious thought.

The cure for sin raises some questions that we have wrestled with in this passage over the last few weeks:

· How can an absolutely and infinitely holy God be reconciled to sinners?

· How can His just and holy law, which demands the condemnation and punishment of all who violate it, be satisfied?

· How can those who deserve no mercy receive it?

· How can God uphold true righteousness and give grace?

· How can the demands of both justice and love be met?

· How can God be both “just and the justifier” (Romans 3:26) of sinners?

Our verse answers all of these questions. It contains only 15 words in the Greek text, and 24 words in the English translation that I am using. Yet in that concise sentence, we have the solution that God has provided for all who would be saved. Kistemaker writes that this verse “discloses the meaning of the word reconciliation, a word that until now Paul has not fully explained.”

Paul explains in this verse, that God took His sinless Son and made Him the sin-bearer in our place. God ordained for Jesus to pay the death penalty for our sins, so that we might be set free and declared righteous in His sight. Christ willingly redeemed us because of His deep love for us, by taking upon Himself the inescapable curse that rested on each of us.

So first, it says that “He made”, meaning God the Father, or Yahweh, from the context of the passage and from the grammar of the previous verse. God made, or God provided, or God supplied, the solution to the dilemma of how unrighteous sinners could ever possibly be reconciled to a holy and righteous God.

Reconciliation to God is not something that any of us can accomplish through our own righteousness, or our own good deeds, or our own efforts or merit. Before Christ, the Bible says, “you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), which undeniably indicates to us that even if we had any inherent righteousness within us, we were incapable of displaying such righteousness because of our state of being spiritually dead. Dead men and dead women can do nothing on their own.

The condemning and damning lie of false religion, not just cults but mainline denominations that teach such heresy, is that human beings can somehow reconcile themselves to God by their efforts and good works, that they can somehow even purchase their way into God’s good graces by offerings to the church or supporting charitable causes with their time and money. It’s a lie from the pits of hell, we can do nothing – absolutely nothing to earn salvation. “He made”, God made it possible without any input from us.

And this truth continues after salvation. Yes, God saved us to engage in good deeds, to engage in being ministers of reconciliation, but even the good deeds originate in Him. Anything that you or I accomplish for the kingdom of God is through His power and by the leading of the Holy Spirit and in complete harmony with the Word of God.

So, not only is there an abundance of false teaching about salvation out there on the airwaves and in so-called Christian books, but there is also a ton of false teaching on what we are to be engaged in after salvation. Just because someone has a TV ministry or has authored a book or books does not legitimize what they have to say. It only takes a charismatic personality and a bunch of money to have a TV “ministry” and to have a best-selling book. Do not be deceived. Make sure that anything that you are being taught, including what comes from my lips or my writings, is in total and comprehensive agreement with Scripture in its full and proper context.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin”. It is impossible for us to fully grasp the heaviness, the gravitas, the profound nature of this statement. How was it possible for Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin, to be made sin? I already used the term that Jesus was our sin-bearer, but that is not sufficient to describe what took place at the cross.

Jesus did not just bear our sin, or we would just now be bearing righteousness if you can understand where I’m going with this. The teaching of this verse and the teaching of Scripture is that believers are declared to be and comprehensively transformed to be the total and complete righteousness of Jesus Christ. Because Christ did not simply bear our sin, we are not simply bearing His righteousness. Righteousness is not just a cloak that we are now wearing or a covering that hides our sin, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ is now not only ours, but it is who we are – we are now the righteousness of Jesus Christ in the eyes of God the Father. God the Father made us 100% righteous by making Christ 100% the sin that separated us from Him.

I know that this is a massively weighty principle that is difficult to wrap our minds around, but this verse is one of the deepest in the Bible by the truth that it communicates. Jesus Christ knew no sin, meaning that He never sinned in word, in thought, or in deed, yet He was made sin so that we, who knew no righteousness in the sense of God’s righteousness, could be made righteousness.

This truth is beyond profound, beyond magnificent, beyond what we can fully comprehend, beyond amazing, beyond our wildest dreams, and most assuredly beyond anything that we could even come close to deserving.

And He did this on our behalf and on our behalf alone. By this unmerited gift, we have been transformed into new creations in Christ, all of the old has passed away, all new things have come, all these things are from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, He has given us the ministry of reconciliation to somehow play a vital role in God reconciling the world to Himself through Christ, and somehow not counting our sins and transgressions and trespasses against us, He has committed us (not that we have committed ourselves, but He has committed us) to the word of reconciliation, that He has made us His ambassadors to the world to appeal to unbelievers to be reconciled to god in salvation, and to appeal to believers to be fully reconciled to God in sanctification.

All of this and so much more, on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

I don’t know that we have the capacity and the wherewithal to drink all of that in. Primarily, I don’t think that we can absorb all of this to the extent of what it truly represents because we do not fully understand the depravity of our sin, and we do not fully understand the holiness of God, the holiness of Jesus, and the holiness of the Holy Spirit.

No matter how cognizant you are of what sin is, of how much sin had infected you and infiltrated every aspect of your life, and of what such sin meant for your eternal state of being, you likely have only scratched the surface of the magnitude of it all. And no matter how much you have studied and think that you comprehend the holiness of God in all three Persons of the Trinity, you have no ability to even come close to understanding what holiness truly is.

And with this limited capacity to grasp and know either end of the spectrum of sin and holiness, we are utterly incapable of seeing the blessing and glory and infinite love and mercy and grace that has been lavished all over us, all through us, and how this impacts our present existence and our incredible indescribable future.

But even in our ultra-limited understanding of these truths, if we would just take a step back, if we would briefly pause from focusing on ourselves and our troubles, if we would fix our eyes on Jesus for just a few moments each day, if we would allow this reality to wash over us every morning and every time that we struggle with anything, what an amazing difference it would make in our lives.

Being a new creation in Christ Jesus, a minister of reconciliation for the Father, and an ambassador for Christ would overwhelm us with gratefulness in the tremendous privilege of it all. How could we not be impacted and affected and excited and bursting with praise, if we could only grasp these truths and accept these truths and apply these truths?

Beloved, this is amazing grace!

Let’s pray.