WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 Good morning Church. 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:03.000 Good morning. 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:14.000 Today the reading is from 2 Corinthians 5 from verse 16 to chapter 6 verse 2. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:20.000 ! So from now on we regarded no one from a worldly point of view. 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.000 Though once we regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:33.000 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:43.000 All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:51.000 That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:57.000 And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:07.000 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:12.000 We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:22.000 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:28.000 As God's fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:37.000 For he says, in the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:41.000 I tell you, now is the time of God's favour. 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:44.000 Now is the day of salvation. Amen. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:47.000 Thank you so much Gloria. 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.000 Welcome to you again. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:53.000 We're going to be looking at just verse 21 of chapter 5. 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:57.000 So you want to keep your Bible open and we'll look at that together. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.000 Let me pray for us as we do say. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:07.000 Father, we do thank you that we come together to listen to you and what you say in your words. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:17.000 We do want to pray that you would give us open ears and tender hearts to hear you, to listen, to submit. 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:23.000 Lord, we pray that you might take away distractions, that you might help me to speak faithfully and clearly. 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:31.000 And that you would do us all good this morning, by your spirit, in Jesus name. Amen. 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:45.000 If you're new this morning or you've only been coming for a few weeks, let me just explain to you that our normal pattern of things at this point in our service is for us just to open a chunk of the Bible and work our way through it together. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:51.000 That's been our normal practice and we have been working our way through the book of Mark this year. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.000 But this morning is a little bit different. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:03:10.000 So in the build up to Easter in these two Sundays before Easter Sunday, I want us to slow down and take a more detailed look at why Jesus died on the cross and see just how the Bible explains what is happening there. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:17.000 And this morning, like you've probably picked up, we are going to be looking at 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:18.000 Look down at it. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:28.000 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:41.000 Now I hope what is obvious, and it should be obvious if you were at least listening while we were talking to the children, is that the whole idea in that verse is the idea of substitution. 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:47.000 Jesus, the righteous one, substitutes himself in for us, the sinful ones. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:52.000 What was ours becomes his, what was his becomes ours. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000 He becomes sin, sacrifices himself on the cross. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:01.000 We become righteous, receiving resurrection life with the Father. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:06.000 Now, I don't think actually that substitution like that is a very complicated idea. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:17.000 I do hope if you brought children with you this morning that when you go home you are able to explain that idea to them and that they might have understood that through the children's talk. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:29.000 We talk, don't we, regularly about substitution in sport, clearly not in basketball in the way I thought, but we have substitute teachers as well at school, don't we? 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:32.000 That we talk about subbing in for one another on church rotors. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:34.000 It's a familiar idea. 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:43.000 And even this idea that Jesus dying in our place is a really helpful and common summary of the gospel. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:49.000 Even if we've not really heard the gospel before, we might even have heard simple ideas and explanations like that. 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:51.000 No, Jesus died in our place. 00:04:51.000 --> 00:05:00.000 But what I want to show you this morning is that this really simple idea of Jesus dying in our place holds great riches for us as Christians. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:14.000 And I don't doubt that for all of us here this morning that thinking in more detail about what it actually means for Christ to be our substitute is going to be a real spiritual blessing for us this morning. 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:25.000 And if you're not a Christian, it will be really helpful to you as well because you will get to get a glimpse of what Christians believe Christ is doing on the cross and why that's so important to us. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:31.000 So I want to show you four facts about substitution from 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21. 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:32.000 The first is this. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:36.000 The first is it is God who makes the substitution. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 God is the one who makes the substitution. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.000 This is, of course, how the verse starts, isn't it? 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000 God made him who had no sin to be sin. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:49.000 In other words, when it comes to substitution, this is something that God is responsible for. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:51.000 Again, that's not particularly complicated, is it? 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:53.000 But it does make a big difference. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:06:02.000 Paul's claim here is that God himself is the initiator, the provider, the rescuer in salvation. 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.000 Salvation was God's idea. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:07.000 It was not my idea or your idea. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:22.000 So that at its heart and at its start, salvation is about our rescue from sin, not because of our faith or our work or our desire to know God, but rather about God and his plan, his purposes. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:29.000 His sovereignty, his authority, his work, not ours. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:38.000 Now, you probably don't need me to tell you that that is a very different version of what's going on in history to the version that we hear every day. 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:43.000 We like to think of ourselves as the main character in the story, don't we? 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:47.000 I believe the term is main character syndrome. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.000 My kids sometimes talk about that at school. 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:52.000 Oh, yeah, they've got main character syndrome. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:53.000 It's not a compliment. 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:54.000 It's an insult, isn't it? 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:58.000 This idea that we think we're at the center of what's going on in the world. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.000 But we don't just think about that in a selfish way, do we? 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000 We also think about it in a kind of humanity way. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:07.000 We think that humanity is the center of the story, don't we? 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:12.000 Or maybe even creation is at the center of the story or the environment or the planet. 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:14.000 The story is the story of this world. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:20.000 But no, actually, what we find is that history is really God's story. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:25.000 The story of what God is doing in our world in history. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:33.000 And so salvation, the rescue of a kingdom of people to live with God in the glories of a remade world, that is something God does. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:43.000 It's his action in history, seeking the lost, saving them from sin, adopting them into his family, promising them eternity with him. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:47.000 And to do that, God rules over all that he has made. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.000 So he knows that without a doubt, his plan will happen. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.000 God made substitution. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:00.000 That's not just those two words at the beginning of verse 21 that declare this. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:05.000 If you have a look up the rest of the section, verse 18, all this is from God, we're told. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:09.000 Verse 19, God was reconciling the world to himself. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:12.000 And you get to see the Trinity at work here. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:13.000 Look at verse 18 again. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:21.000 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:30.000 God here is God the Father, reconciling us to himself through his son Christ, then sending us out to proclaim that message in the power of the Spirit to the world. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:38.000 The plan of the Father in the work of the Son to bring people to himself through the preaching of the Spirit. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.000 And the point is that all of this is God's idea. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.000 It's not your idea or my idea. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:52.000 When it comes to talking about substitution, when it comes to talking about the gospel, we haven't yet mentioned us because we're still talking about him. 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:55.000 Imagine it like this for a moment. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.000 Imagine you're on a beach and you're building a sandcastle. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:02.000 There it is. It's a very pathetic little sandcastle that you're making. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:05.000 And the sand is a little dry and it keeps falling down. 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:13.000 And then you look across the beach and you see someone else is building something remarkable and marvelous. 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:17.000 It's not so much a sandcastle as it is like a sand planet. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:21.000 It's got turrets and moats and underground rooms and bridges to walk over. 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:24.000 Now, in that scenario, what would you rather, right? 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:30.000 What would you rather that the builder of the sand planet came over and said to you and looked at your little pathetic sandcastle and said, 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:35.000 don't worry, I'll help you. Yeah, build your little sandcastle, make it a little bit better. 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:41.000 Or would you rather they said, hey, come, come join me in planet sand. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:47.000 Yeah, come come to the underground rooms, come run over the bridges, come play in my sandcastle. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:50.000 Of course, that second one is way better, isn't it? 00:09:50.000 --> 00:10:01.000 Because what you realize when you see that great sand planet creation, you see that your plans, your castle, your efforts are really rather miserable, rather small and rather pathetic. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:04.000 And you want to be part of something bigger and greater. 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:07.000 Now, Paul says that's the story of salvation. 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:14.000 In the story of salvation, God is not coming to kind of finish off and bless the plans that you have for your life. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:17.000 He's not saying, oh, yes, I can see what you're doing there. 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:19.000 Let me just help you a little bit. No, not at all. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.000 God says, come join in what I am doing. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:29.000 I have a great plan, a plan to substitute my son to save a people for himself. 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:31.000 Come and join it. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:33.000 Come and be part of it. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:38.000 Leave behind your little sandcastle and come join what I am doing. 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:41.000 God makes the substitution. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:44.000 Secondly, notice that substitution has been made. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:45.000 Substitution has been made. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:47.000 Now here, we're getting really simple. 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:50.000 All I want you to notice is that made is in the past tense. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.000 In other words, the work required for salvation has been completed. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:58.000 It has been done by Christ past tense. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:05.000 So while we experience salvation in the present day, today is the day of salvation for us. 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.000 This now is the era of people being saved from their sins for glory. 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:13.000 If you look down at chapter 6, verse 2, you'll see it says that, don't you? 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:15.000 In the time of my favour, I heard you. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:18.000 And in the day of salvation, I helped you. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.000 I tell you, now is the time of God's favour. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:22.000 Now is the day of salvation. 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:24.000 That's the present tense bit, right? 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:26.000 The day of salvation is today. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.000 Not because today is the day that the work has been done, 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:34.000 but today is the day when people are hearing that the work has been done. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:39.000 And it is through hearing that the work has been done that we get to be part of it. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:45.000 So much so that if you're not a Christian this morning, today is the day to become one, right? 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:51.000 Today is the, this is the time, this is the era when the gospel message is being proclaimed. 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:54.000 And today is the day to put your trust in Christ. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:56.000 There is a day when it will be too late. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:00.000 The day that you die or the day when Christ returns. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:03.000 But today is the present day of salvation. 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:08.000 Even though the work of substitution is in the past tense. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.000 God made him. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.000 The work of substitution has been completed. 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:15.000 Now think about what that means for a moment. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:17.000 And here I'm going to stretch your minds a little bit. 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:20.000 So nudge the person next to you if you feel like they're dropping off, right? 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:27.000 If substitution has happened, if Jesus has already taken my place and completed the work, 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:32.000 if Jesus has ascended to his father and is sat down at the right hand of God, 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:38.000 then, then God is not waiting for you and I to finish off the work of salvation. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:42.000 He's not waiting for us to add its final flourishes. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.000 He's not waiting for us even to activate it. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:50.000 No, Jesus went to the cross and died as our substitute in our place. 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:51.000 It has been done. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:52.000 It is finished. 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:53.000 It is completed. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:58.000 Now just think about the difference that that makes. 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:03.000 If God the father substituted the son in your place in an action that has now been completed 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:08.000 so that he can say, it is finished, ascend to the father and seated his right hand. 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:11.000 What does that mean for your salvation? 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:20.000 Well, it means that your salvation was along with all the plans of God planned in eternity past. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:21.000 Yeah. 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:26.000 How does an eternal non time bound God make his plans? 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:31.000 He makes them in the eternal councils of eternity, doesn't he? 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:32.000 He does. 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:33.000 He does. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:34.000 He's not muddling along on the fly, right? 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.000 Oh, I might do that today. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:38.000 Oh, I thought about maybe doing this today. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.000 No, that's not how God works, is it? 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:42.000 God is in eternity. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:46.000 He makes all of his plans in eternity. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.000 It is who he is. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:51.000 This is what Paul says in Ephesians chapter one, verse four, when he says, 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:59.000 for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:03.000 And those plans are then worked out and accomplished in history by the son. 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:11.000 As God, the eternal son clothes himself with humanity, lives in perfect relationship with his father in absolute obedience 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:18.000 before giving his life on the cross in your place or before you or I were even born. 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:25.000 In other words, salvation was accomplished before you or I even had a thought that we might need it. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.000 It's mind blowing, isn't it? 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:36.000 What Paul is saying here is that God's plan in Christ is not just somehow to make salvation theoretically possible. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:40.000 You know, for you and I to be saved if we kind of perhaps want to be. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:47.000 No, rather God's plan in Christ accomplished in history was to send Jesus as a substitute for you on the cross. 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:54.000 And that has been done, completed, eternally planned, historically accomplished, 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:59.000 coming to light in the preaching of the gospel in the day of salvation, which is today. 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:06.000 Now, I know this is perhaps profound. I have a sermon read through on a Friday afternoon. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:10.000 And I get to kind of read my sermon through with a small group of people. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:13.000 If you'd like to be involved, come and speak to me. I'd love to have you. 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:19.000 And they get to feed back to me. And when we'd fed back there was sort of like a look of bamboozlement on some of their faces. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:22.000 Like, oh, what have you been? This is just like mind blowing. 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:29.000 And this idea that God accomplishes our salvation in history past is mind blowing, isn't it? 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:36.000 But let me just show you that this makes a world of difference to you and I today and how we live the Christian life and how we think about it. 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:44.000 If you're a Christian this morning, you know that Jesus died to save you. 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:54.000 You. He hung there as your substitute, paying for your sin. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:16:01.000 Now, as the hymn goes in my place, condemned, he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:08.000 Now, this isn't somehow to sort of limit the saving power of God or the value of the cross or to narrow it in any way. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:12.000 Now, you can't put a value on the infinitely valuable work of Christ. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:20.000 Rather, the point is that the infinitely valuable work of Christ in history is powerfully aimed at the salvation of his people. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:26.000 And that work has been done even while we wait for its full achievements to be seen. 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.000 Perhaps I can try and illustrate it for us for a moment. 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:36.000 For us living today in the UK, we owe our lives to a lot of people who have given their lives for us. 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:45.000 Right. There are soldiers to whom we owe a lot who fought fascism and Nazi Germany, and we owe our lives to them. 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:47.000 They laid down their lives for us. 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:53.000 For the Christian, we owe a lot to Tyndale, who translated the scriptures into English at the cost of his life. 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:55.000 They even dug him up and burned him again. 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.000 They were that mad with him. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:01.000 Or the reformers who burned in Oxford for their affirmation of Bible truth. 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:10.000 You know, if you're a Baptist Christian this morning, there were men and women in this country who gave their lives for the freedom to worship God outside the confines of the state church. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.000 So we can say, can't we, in a general sense, those people died for us. 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:22.000 Tyndale died so that you and I could read the scriptures in our own language, not rely on corrupt priests fumbling over Latin text. 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:29.000 D-Day soldiers gave their lives for our freedom and our democracy so that we could vote our leaders in and vote them out. 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:33.000 And maybe that's sometimes how we begin to think about Jesus' death on the cross. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:38.000 Like, he died in the past to kind of make it possible that we might become Christians if we wanted to. 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:42.000 But that's not how Paul describes it here. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:46.000 Jesus died for us. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:48.000 It was planned. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:49.000 Jesus did it. 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:50.000 It's been done. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:51.000 Christ died as my substitute. 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:55.000 So this isn't really like a World War II soldier or Tyndale or Latimer. 00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:04.000 Instead, this is more like someone jumping into water into which you're drowning, grabbing you by the neck and pulling you out, even as they themselves drown. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:06.000 It's that personal. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:09.000 Jesus was my substitute. 00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:14.000 He has taken past tense what was mine and paid for it on the cross. 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:19.000 Thirdly, then, substitution made Jesus sin. 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:22.000 Substitution made Jesus sin. 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:27.000 It's common, isn't it, for us to illustrate the cross in all sorts of different ways. 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:28.000 One of them goes a bit like this. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:30.000 Perhaps you've heard this. 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.000 Now, imagine for a moment that you're stood in front of a judge, right? 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.000 The judge is passing sentence on your crimes. 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:38.000 The evidence is damning. 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:39.000 You know that. 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:40.000 You know that you're guilty. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:43.000 It's been proved beyond reasonable doubt. 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:48.000 And as the sentence is passed by the judge, in walks the innocent son. 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:54.000 And the innocent son takes the judgment for you and they are sent down instead of you. 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:55.000 Right? 00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:56.000 That's the illustration. 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:59.000 It's meant to capture the drama of salvation. 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:04.000 God the judge, us the sinner, Jesus the innocent son who takes the punishment in our place. 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:08.000 But if you think about it, that makes absolutely no sense, doesn't it? 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:09.000 Right? 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:14.000 You know, how can the son take punishment for crimes he obviously didn't commit? 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:19.000 Now, if that happened in a court of law, there would be a huge scandal, wouldn't there? 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:21.000 You know, you can imagine the headlines. 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:26.000 You know, unjust judge takes out punishment on his innocent son. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:30.000 Guilty criminal goes free in absurd injustice. 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:36.000 You know, the innocent receiving punishment is by definition unjust. 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:40.000 And the idea that that is the story of the cross is not really quite right. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.000 And that's why 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 is so important to us. 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:50.000 Because it is the transfer of our sin onto Jesus which secures the justice of the cross. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:51.000 Notice what Paul says. 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:57.000 He made him who had no sin to be sin for us. 00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:01.000 Just think about Paul's assumptions here. 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:03.000 Notice the innocence of Jesus. 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:04.000 Jesus had no sin. 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:07.000 Literally in the Greek there, he knew no sin. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:13.000 Not as in Jesus was some kind of naive five year old who knew nothing about wickedness, never heard the word. 00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:17.000 No, Jesus knew more about sin and wickedness than any of us in the room. 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:18.000 He was not naive. 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:21.000 No, the point is that he had no connection to it. 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:23.000 He had no experience of it. 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:25.000 Jesus was morally perfect. 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:32.000 So that while he was fully man clothed with the same weak, frail, mortal flesh that you and I are. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:36.000 Flesh that ages, that gets tired, that wakes up hungry in the morning. 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:39.000 Still, Jesus had no sinful nature. 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:40.000 He was pure. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.000 He was without sin. 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.000 He knew no sin. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:48.000 You just need to be really clear about this, don't we? 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:51.000 Jesus wasn't just like us, but a little bit better behaved. 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:54.000 No, he knew no sin. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:56.000 He had no desire to sin. 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:59.000 He had no inclination to put himself first. 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:04.000 He had no desire to ruin the reputation of others, to lust after others for his own self-satisfaction. 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.000 You know, temptation for Jesus was not because he wanted to sin but knew he really shouldn't. 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:16.000 No, temptation for Jesus was to use his divinity to compromise his humanity and disobey the plan of the Father. 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:18.000 To turn stones into bread and eat them. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:22.000 To gain the world without going through the suffering of the cross. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:28.000 Jesus was morally perfect, pure in nature. 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:37.000 And yet, still, the wonder of this verse is that God made him to be sin for us. 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:41.000 And of course, the implication here is that sin is ours. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:44.000 It has nowhere else to come from. 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:46.000 You want to know what you contributed to salvation? 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:47.000 This is it right here. 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:48.000 Sin. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.000 Because Jesus had none of his own. 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:52.000 Sin. 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.000 And the implication is not that we do a few things wrong, is it? 00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:01.000 It's not, notice, God made him who knew no sin to take on your minor misdemeanors. 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:04.000 No, he made him to be sin. 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:12.000 In other words, Paul is suggesting that you and I hold our sinfulness in a parallel way to that Jesus holds his perfections. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:16.000 So Jesus had no experience of sinning. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.000 You and I have no experience of not sinning. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:21.000 Right? 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:26.000 Our corruption means that it is in our very nature to put ourselves at the center. 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:28.000 To ignore the one that we were made for. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:31.000 Sinful desire is natural to us. 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:34.000 Not to say that we're incapable of doing anything good. 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:36.000 I'm sure you've done many good things. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:39.000 Rather, the problem is that we are incapable of moral perfection. 00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:47.000 So much so that even the good things that we attempt to do are tainted by this desire for our own glory. 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:50.000 Did you notice how good I was? 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:51.000 Did you notice what I did? 00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:52.000 Did you see it? 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:57.000 Let me hand over this giant check so you know how generous I am. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:58.000 So, sinful selfishness. 00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:00.000 So, sinful selfishness. 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:13.000 And the point is here that at the heart of the cross in the finished work of salvation, in planned in the mind of God in eternity past is the transfer of our sin onto Christ Jesus. 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:18.000 Even as his perfections are then transferred onto us. 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:25.000 So that the cross is not a great act of injustice, but a great action of justice. 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:28.000 As Jesus died a sinner's death. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 Because in that moment, he is a sinner. 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:37.000 Not with his own sin, but with your sin. 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:38.000 My sin. 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:42.000 Theologians have used a word to describe this. 00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:44.000 It is the word imputation. 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:50.000 The father imputes our sin onto Christ, even as he imputes his righteousness onto us. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:53.000 I grant you that imputation is a funny word. 00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:55.000 It sounds, doesn't it, like amputation. 00:23:55.000 --> 00:24:00.000 Amputation is when you chop something off that is there like an arm or a leg. 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:03.000 Imputation really, in one sense, is the opposite, isn't it? 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:05.000 When you add something or credit something that's not there. 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:15.000 If you were to impute the money from your bank account into my account so that I could spend it, that would mean that you were transferring your money into my name. 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:18.000 Now, that's what's happening with our sin here, isn't it? 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:20.000 Really, it's a debt rather than a credit. 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:32.000 Our debt of sin is being imputed to Christ, counted against him, even as his great righteous credit is being imputed into us, counted over as ours. 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:35.000 Now, think about the implications of this. 00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.000 I don't think there's a person in this room. 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:45.000 I talk to people all the time, and I know that there's not a person in this room who doesn't at some point feel guilty. 00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:52.000 Whether you call yourself a Christian or not, I'm sure that you can think this morning of reasons to feel guilty. 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.000 Maybe it's something that you said, and you know you shouldn't have said it. 00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:01.000 Perhaps it's something that you've done, or somewhere you've been, or something you've thought, something you've dabbled in. 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:03.000 No one else knows. 00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:07.000 Even your loved one who sat next to you, they don't know it. 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:08.000 But you know it. 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:10.000 And you know God knows it. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.000 And when you think of it, guilt sort of rises in your guts. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:18.000 Now, let me tell you, the world has absolutely no solution to offer you. 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:19.000 You know that, don't you? 00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:20.000 Yeah? 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:23.000 The world will tell you, just ignore that feeling. 00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:25.000 Just distract yourself. 00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:28.000 Scroll a bit more, it will say. 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.000 Religion has no answer to it either, does it? 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:33.000 It will tell you to try and cover it with good work. 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.000 But you know that doesn't work, don't you? 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.000 Because we've already seen that even the good works that we do are tainted by this kind of selfish desire. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:48.000 And if I think that I'm covering over my sin by my good works, I'm by definition doing my good works for my own ends, which is sin. 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:53.000 So all we have is this instinctive sense that before the God who made us, we're damned. 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:54.000 We're lost. 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:56.000 We're guilty. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:58.000 And this floods back to us. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.000 And let me say to you, if you're a young person in the room, this just gets worse as you get older. 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:10.000 I have sat by the bedside of many people as they have passed away. 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.000 And there are very few who do that courageously. 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:23.000 And they want someone like me there because they want to know that they're not going to be confirmed as guilty before the God who made them. 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:29.000 But here is the solution to that guilt in the cross of Jesus Christ. 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:32.000 And it's not to underplay the wickedness, is it? 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:34.000 It's not as, oh, don't worry, it doesn't really matter. 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:36.000 It's not that at all. 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:44.000 The cross shows you the deep horror of sin, but it shows you that while at the same time it shows to you that it is being punished. 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:49.000 It has been punished in Christ on the cross. 00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:58.000 So that when I stand before God as my judge, I don't hope that he will forget my sin, or that he'll turn a blind eye, or that he might just not have noticed. 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:05.000 No, I stand before God and I know that my sin has been punished already in Christ on the cross. 00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:13.000 And I know that God is unable to punish that sin again because that would make him unjust. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:18.000 Let me say to you, that is great news. 00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:23.000 There is no other news that's as good as that. 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:31.000 That you and I, before a holy God, can stand because our sin has already been punished. 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.000 No guilt in life. 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:36.000 No fear in death. 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:38.000 That is the hope of Christ in me. 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:43.000 And if you don't have it, it's here on offer in the preaching of the gospel. 00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:48.000 Finally then, this is perhaps the most incredible part. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:52.000 Substitution makes me righteous. 00:27:52.000 --> 00:28:00.000 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:07.000 Here then is this idea that in the substitution of the son, we are made righteous. 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.000 Righteousness of God is ours in Christ. 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.000 Again, let me just tease this out for you because it's really, really important. 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:21.000 If salvation was by any other means other than substitution, where Jesus takes my sin and I take his perfection, 00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:25.000 then I could never hope for the gospel to bring me the righteousness of God. 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:26.000 You know that, right? 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.000 You know, think about it. 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:36.000 If salvation were by you and I doing certain works, then we could never, ever hope that salvation would make me as righteous as God. 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:42.000 We might hope against hope that we could do enough works, perhaps, for God to let us into glory. 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:46.000 I mean, we know we couldn't, but we might hope that that would be it. 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.000 But we would never dare to imagine that our works would make us as righteous as God himself, could we? 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:54.000 We wouldn't dare to talk like that. 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:59.000 But Paul talks like that here. 00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:02.000 We never dream of putting ourselves at the top of the class. 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:09.000 But if Jesus is my substitute, then I am as righteous as the divine son in human flesh. 00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:15.000 You know, put it another way, if salvation were just sort of made possible by the cross, 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:21.000 you know, if the cross is just opening some kind of theoretical door to salvation for you to go through it, 00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:26.000 if you really perhaps want to, but not actually achieving salvation for his people, 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:30.000 then perhaps you might hope that you've walked through the door, right? 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.000 You might hope that you'd repented hard enough, that you'd believed earnestly enough. 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:42.000 But if salvation is by substitution, then what was Christ is now mine, just as what was mine is now his. 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:47.000 So I am as righteous as Jesus, as safe in him. 00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:53.000 And that means that my assurance, the question that I'm asking about whether I'm really safe before God, 00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.000 is not the question, have I believed hard enough? 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:58.000 Or have I repented earnestly enough? 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:01.000 Or have I felt enough emotion? 00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:08.000 No, the question is this, for my assurance, would God the Father abandon the righteousness of his son? 00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:09.000 Would he? 00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:11.000 Of course not. 00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:12.000 He could not. 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:15.000 Would God reject his own perfections? 00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:21.000 Would God turn up his nose at the son who loved him and lived for him in the perfection of a sinless nature? 00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:23.000 Of course he wouldn't. 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:26.000 But substitution means all that is mine. 00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.000 That's how God sees me. 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:30.000 Those perfections are mine. 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.000 And just as my sin has already been judged, so the perfect works of Christ have already been done. 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:37.000 They are mine in Christ. 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.000 Let me just try and land this personally as a pastor, if I can. 00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:51.000 There are Christians in this room, maybe you're one of them, who live anxiously, wondering whether they'll be okay. 00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:54.000 Will Jesus save me in the end? 00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:57.000 I think I'm probably the worst Christian in the room. 00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:00.000 My faith wobbles at the first sign of trouble. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.000 I don't know my Bible very well. 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:09.000 I get the questions wrong in the quizzes at youth club. 00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:13.000 Well, listen, if that's you this morning, we're all a bit like that. 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:14.000 Can I say to you? 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:18.000 There's a Christian who loves Jesus and delights in Jesus. 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:21.000 You're just looking in the wrong place for your assurance. 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:26.000 You will never settle the worries of your heart by looking into the mess of your own life. 00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:28.000 Instead, look to Jesus. 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:30.000 Look at his moral perfections. 00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.000 See there the one who is tested in the extreme and stood firm. 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:36.000 The one who had zero experience of sinning. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:38.000 He never thought of doing it. 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:42.000 The one who obeyed the father even to the laying down of his own life. 00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:45.000 And think, would God save someone like that? 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:49.000 Would that kind of perfection be enough? 00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:51.000 Of course it would. 00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:54.000 And Christian, those perfections are yours. 00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:58.000 Imputed to you by Christ's substitution on the cross. 00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:06.000 For God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:09.000 Let me pray for us. 00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:33.000 Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you sent Jesus to die as our substitute. 00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:45.000 Thank you that that means that all the guilt and shame, the punishment that our sin deserves, has been paid in full by Christ on the cross for us. 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.000 Thank you now that his righteousness belongs to us. 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:59.000 And we pray, please, that you just might help us to delight in Christ and to trust in him as we pray in his name. 00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:00.000 Amen. 00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:05.000 Amen.