THE GREAT EXCHANGE

Sir,

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

In the aforementioned text we have the heart of the gospel. It is the gospel in one verse. Everything we need to know about salvation is found in these 23 words.
The verse begins with the fact that Christ ‘had no sin’. When Jesus walked on earth, He was perfectly righteous. He was without fault, without sin and without evil. He never did anything wrong, never broke any commandment and never deviated from the path of God’s will. This is crucial because if Christ had sinned, He could not be our Saviour.

Even Christ’s adversaries testified of his being without sin. Pontius Pilate declared; “I find no fault in him,” John 19:4.
When Herod and the Jewish leaders put him on trial, they could find no witnesses against him so they rounded up false witnesses who lied under oath (Matthew 26:59-60). When Christ hung on the Cross, a Roman centurion cried out; “Truly this was the Son of God,” Matthew 27:54.

He lived in a sinful world, but the stain of sin never tarnished his character. He faced temptation head on and all that the devil could throw at him, but having felt its full weight, he never gave in, never flinched and never even came close to sinning. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, became sin for us. This does not suggest that Christ literally became a sinner. God treated his Son as if he were a sinner. He so identified with sinners that he was numbered among the transgressors (Isaiah 53:12). He not only died between two sinners, he was numbered with them and died as they died.

When Christ died on the Cross, he took my place and yours. His nails were meant for us, the crown of thorns should have been on our heads, the spear should have pierced our side, and the cheers and insults were meant for us. It should have been us hanging on the cross but it wasn’t. He died in our place. Jesus became the sinless sin-bearer. He paid the price we owed to God, the debt we could never pay. His death satisfied God’s righteous decree that sin must always be punished.

Isaiah 53:6 says “the Lord has laid on him (that is, on Christ) the iniquity of us all.” He removed our sins from us ‘as far as the east is from the west’ (Psalm 103:12). God in Christ made himself sin for man, and man in Christ is now made the righteousness of God. He was condemned that we might be justified. He bore our sin that we might be set free. He died that we might live. He suffered that we might be redeemed. He was made sin, that we might be made righteous.

Dearly beloved, when we trust Christ our sin is credited to Christ’s account and his righteousness is credited to our account. He takes our debt and we get his credit. He paid what we owed (and could never pay) and he gives us what he has (and we could never earn).

Bopoto Gwinyai (7663 8191)

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