What Happened at the Cross - 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2
INTRODUCTION:
In the beginning, God created everything and the jewel of His creation was man and woman created in His image. In love He placed them in a garden and showered them with His goodness, they had everything that they needed or desired, they had nothing to fear, and God communed with them every day in the cool of the evening. Out of all of His goodness, out of all that He had given them for their enjoyment in the garden, out of the varieties of fruit trees that they had to eat from, God only had one tree in the garden that they were told not to eat from, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told the man if they ate of that one tree they would surely die. The day came when they were tempted by Satan to eat of the forbidden tree, he told them they would not die, but they would become like God. They listened to Satan’s voice and believed him instead of believing the One who had created them in His image, the One who had given them everything for their enjoyment, and they disobeyed their Creator and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the result was death. They immediately died spiritually and tried to hide from God, they began to age and eventually they died physically, and without God they would die eternally separated from God and all His goodness. They passed this death onto the rest of the human race along with the sin nature that they had acquired when they disobeyed God. Thus all mankind is born with sin and with a tendency to sin and is at enmity with God and the penalty of sin is death.
But God loved man and throughout the rest of the Old Testament God gives us pictures and words of how He planned to save us and restore our relationship with Him. He shows us over and over in the Old Testament that blood had to be shed, something had to die in your place, had to be your substitute for your sin to be forgiven, for you to be reconciled to God. All of these Old Testament sacrifices pointed to the cross and the death of Jesus Christ as the substitute to reconcile us to God. This evening as we remember Jesus’ death for us I want to look at what happened on the cross.
--LET’S PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
If you have a Bible with you and would like to follow along, please turn to 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2. Please stand for the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read.
2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2,
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain— for He says, ‘At the acceptable time I listened to you, And on the day of salvation I helped you.’ Behold, now is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, now is ‘the day of salvation’—” (2 Corinthians 5:17–6:2, NASB95)[1]
RECONCILIATION (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)
Verse 17 is the culmination of all that the apostle Paul has been saying since chapter 1 of 2 Corinthians, he has been defending his authority and calling as an apostle and in chapter 5 he declares the driving force behind his calling to preach the Gospel is his reverential fear of God and the compelling love of Christ for him and for mankind. In verse 17 he speaks of what happens when someone responds to the Gospel message in repentance and belief in Christ. He says at that moment that we are in Christ, we become a new creation, our life changes and the old things have passed away, what defined our old way of life is gone and new things have come, our life is now defined by our being in Christ. But how do we get to this point? What did it take to make this possible?
Paul goes on to tell us that all these things are from God, it is nothing that we have done, God is the One who draws us to Christ, even our faith is a gift from God. Paul goes onto say that God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ. What does this mean? It is important that we understand what it means to be reconciled, this word and the word reconciliation are used multiple times in these verses, so it is imperative that we understand what they mean. In my introduction, I said that because of our sin we are at enmity with God, in other words, we are enemies of God. The word reconciliation signifies restored favor, goodwill, and friendly relations between two parties formerly at odds with one another. We, as sinners, are at odds with God because of our sin and the guilt that is ours because of our sin which is an offense to God. For favor and goodwill and a relationship to be restored between man and God then the guilt of sin must be dealt with and removed, because that is the cause of the sinner’s alienation from God. Because of God’s righteousness and the honor of His holy law, a real transaction involving actual punishment had to take place. Unless sin was dealt with, God could not in His righteousness overlook the trespasses of guilty sinners no matter how much He loved us. The wages of sin is death, the death penalty had to be administered. God’s holy nature required that His wrath against sin had to be fully satisfied. When that happened then God could reconcile us to Himself.
THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The price that was required to satisfy the wrath of a holy God against sin, no mere mortal man could ever pay that price for himself. An eternity in hell is not enough for a sinner to erase his or her own debt. God knew this and therefore the infinitely holy Son of God voluntarily took the place of sinners and paid that infinite price on their behalf.
In verse 21 Paul gives us the details of what happened on the cross. His description of the transaction that took place is absolutely shocking. Listen to Paul’s words, “He [God] made Him [Jesus Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NASB95)[2] This was the exchange that brought reconciliation with God for all believers. Christ traded His righteousness for our sin.
At first glance, this is not any easy statement to understand. What does it mean that God made His sinless Son to be sin? First and foremost, it cannot mean that Christ was made sinful or even tainted in any way with personal guilt. God would never make His beloved Son into a sinner. Remember, Jesus Christ is God, as God He cannot sin. He did not give up His deity in order to become human. He was very God and very man. Scripture clearly teaches that God cannot sin, he is perfectly holy set apart from sin. It is also perfectly clear that He did not sin. In Hebrews 7:26 and 9:24 we are told that He offered Himself to God without spot, that He was undefiled. This verse that we are looking at states that Jesus knew no sin. This means that He knew nothing of sin through personal experience. He without a doubt knew all about sin. He lived His earthly life in a world cursed because of sin. But throughout His life on earth He remained perfectly sinless, and nothing that took place on the cross changed that fact.
Therefore, this can only mean that Christ was “made…to be sin” by imputation. That our sin was charged to Him. In verse 19 of this chapter Paul stated that God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. In other words, not counting their sin against them. We know that God does not simply look the other way or wink at evil. Understanding this, Paul’s meaning then becomes clear, the legal obligation coming from sin’s guilt was transferred to Christ, and He bore its full penalty. Jesus Christ by imputation took on Himself all the guilt of all the sins of all people. He bore it all, not only what we would described as minor or accidental sins, but also our grossest, most deliberate sins. John MacArthur writes, “Christ stood as proxy for His people at the bar of divine justice—before ‘God, the Judge of all’ (Heb. 12:23). He answered every charge against them, pleaded guilty, and bore the full penalty of their sin.”[3] Isaiah describes it this way in Isaiah 53:5, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5, NASB95)[4] Jesus Christ became “sin for us” as our Substitute. Jesus Christ took the full penalty, the full punishment for your sin and mine. That is what happened on the cross.
Paul’s purpose in this passage is to explain how God has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. Christ and God are mentioned in every verse of this passage either by name or by pronoun. The entire passage is God-centered, not man-centered, it is about what God has done and that should always be the case when we talk about the Gospel. The Gospel is a declaration about the atoning work of Christ. Going back to verse 21 we find that everything that Christ did, He did on our behalf. He became sin for us. People from every tongue, tribe, and nation constitute “the world” of verse 19 whom Christ has reconciled to God. Why did He do this for us, He certainly did it out of love, but more importantly He did it for His glory; “so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Just as our sins were imputed to Jesus Christ, His righteousness is imputed to us who believe. We become the righteousness of God by imputation, through our union with Christ. The phrase “in Him” at the end of verse 21 takes us back to verse 17: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature;” (2 Corinthians 5:17a, NASB95)[5] This statement speaks of the spiritual union that occurs at salvation, when the Holy Spirit immediately indwells the believer and makes us spiritually one with Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul describes what happened at the cross and what the outcome of that is; he describes a double imputation: Our sins are imputed to Christ, and He pays the full penalty for our sin, thus satisfying the wrath of Holy God against sin. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to all those who believe in Him, and we are justified before God. Our Lord’s perfect righteousness is like a glorious mantle that covers all His peoples’ imperfections and gives them a right standing before God. To put it another way, God treated Jesus Christ as if He had sinned all the sins of everyone who would be His people, so that He could treat them as if they had lived Christ’s perfect life.
In all this we see God’s sovereignty. God is the offended Deity. But reconciliation for sinners comes at His instigation, through an atonement for sin that He sovereignly applies.
Paul says that those who have been reconciled to God in Christ have a responsibility to be sharing this message of reconciliation with everyone. Paul describes us as ambassadors for Christ, God uses us to make His appeal, we are to beg people to be reconciled to God through Christ. Paul goes on in chapter six by making that appeal, letting us know the urgency of sharing the Gospel. He says, working with God, we urge you to not receive the grace of God in vain. Paul says not to ignore or make light of what has been offered to you by God, He has made a way for you to restore your relationship with Him and have a right standing before Him in the righteousness of His Son who was your Substitute and paid the full penalty for your sin. Then Paul quotes from Isaiah 49:8, in this chapter of Isaiah God declares that salvation is not just for Israel, but will be available to all people. Paul quotes, “for He says, ‘At the acceptable time I listened to you, And on the day of salvation I helped you.’” (2 Corinthians 6:2a, NASB95)[6] Then he applies it to the present time and he says, “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.” Paul wants us to understand that the opportunity to be reconciled to God will not always be available, but right now it is available, it may be too late tomorrow, it may be too late later today. Now is the time to put your faith in Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION:
If you are here this evening it is not an accident, God divinely appointed you to be here tonight. This is the night we remember Christ death on the cross, an act of love when He became sin for you and me, He became your substitute and paid the full penalty for your sin. God’s holy nature required that His wrath against sin had to be fully satisfied and it was fully satisfied in the death of His infinitely holy Son who died in your place. God desires to reconcile you to Himself through His Son. If you understand that you are a sinner in need of God’s grace, then believe that Christ died for you, was buried and rose from the dead and you will be wrapped in the mantle of Christ’s righteousness and you will be reconciled to God. You will be a new creation in Christ, old things passed away, new things have come. You can do this in the quietness of your own heart, if you accept God’s forgiveness offered through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, I urge you not to keep that to yourself, tell someone that you were reconciled to God through Christ this evening. I would love for you to tell me that I might rejoice with you, please seek me out and let me know that you made this decision tonight.
For you who are reconciled to God already, you have a responsibility to share the message of reconciliation with those with whom you have contact. You are an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ and God desires to make an appeal through you as you urge and beg people to be reconciled to God. We do not know how much time is left, we must be about the work now during the acceptable time, now during the day of salvation.
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[3]MacArthur, John, The Gospel according to Paul: embracing the good news at the heart of Paul’s teachings. Nashville, TN : Nelson Books, 2017
[4]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[5]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[6]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995