Tag Archives: glory of God

The Great Exchange

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“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
(2 Cor. 5:21)

Talk about a great deal.

Suppose you had a car that didn’t work.  It’s not that it just had problems you couldn’t afford to fix, costly repairs that needed to be made – imagine you were still making payments on the vehicle.  The car is dead in your garage, and you are stuck with it.

Then one day someone pulls up in a brand new _________ (insert your ideal here, Lincoln, Cadillac, Mercedes).  Without even kicking the tires on your old jalopy, they offer you an even exchange.  No, the new car isn’t stolen, the Title is free and clear.  All you have to give in exchange for a new car is the old junker that doesn’t work and has been your source of grief and hardship for years.

It’s a poor analogy, but it does make the point.  Consider the great exchange, the unbelievable deal that is offered in the heart of the Gospel.  On the one hand you have Christ, the sinless one, who lived in perfect righteousness before God.  Jesus lived in complete obedience to the will of the Father.  But for our sake, God made him to be sin…

Notice what isn’t said.  God did not make him to be a sin offering, though Jesus was the Atoning Sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Neither does Paul say that God made Jesus a sinner.  No, God made him “sin”.  One writer put it this way, “God treated Christ as if he were sin… that is, the very personification of sin.  Christ came to stand in that relation with God which normally is the result of sin, estranged from God and the object of his wrath.”  God looked upon Jesus as if He were sin itself, as if all the sins of all the world were there in one man, and poured out His wrath upon Him for our sake.

On the other hand you have us.  God considered Jesus sin for our sake, poured out His wrath upon Him for our sake.  We are the recipients of God’s favor, of God’s mercy, of God’s righteous plan.  He took our sin and placed it upon the sinless one, so that we might become “the righteousness of God.”

Did you catch that?  God didn’t call His Son “sin” so that we can now do righteous things.  Nor do we now possess, or own, a righteousness all to ourselves.  Rather, God called His righteous Son “sin” on our behalf, so that He could now call us, who are “sin,” the “righteousness of God.”

Charles Hodge put it this way, “He was made sin, that we might be made righteous.  He was condemned, that we might be justified.  He bore our sins; we are clothed in his righteousness.  In other words, our sins were imputed to Christ, and his righteousness is imputed to us.”

And this is all for the glory of God.  This passage begins just like the book of Genesis, “In the beginning, God…”  When you read the creation account, you know the clear teaching of Scripture is that all of creation has its source in God, and all things were created for His glory.  Here in 2 Corinthians we see it again, “For our sake, he made…”  God did this all for us, it is His work, revealing the grace, the love, the power, the wisdom, yes, the glory of God.

What an amazing exchange.  What an amazing Savior.  What an amazing God.

How to be Great

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“whoever would be great among you must be your servant…”
(Matthew 20:26)

As I was deleting the junk email that made it into my inbox this morning, I came upon another “Get Rich Quick” scheme.  Usually, I delete these without a second thought, but for some reason I thought I’d watch this one to see just what they were selling.

Did you know that it is possible to turn on $50 investment into $13 million?  Well, apparently it is (and if the fed would only use these tactics, we’d erase the debt forever).  A simple, low risk investment in certain “high-flying stocks” are guaranteed to double overnight.  Soon you could find yourself driving that expensive Italian Sports Car, taking that luxury vacation you’ve always dreamed of, and even securing your children’s education.  Though the advertisement never gave any details on the investments, it’s billed as a “safe, easy way to get rich.”

For those of you in the know, what was being advertised is something called a “Penny Stock:” securities that trade below $5 per share and are not listed on a national exchange.  These stocks don’t cost much money and promise big profits, but they are also a good way to lose money.  This particular email sounded a lot like a “pump and dump,” where promoters first purchase large quantities of stock, artificially inflating the share price through false and misleading positive statements, then dumping the stock when more people start buying in, walking away with all the profit, leaving the stock worthless.

Leaving the finance lesson aside, I thought the email was particularly interested when considered in the light of Jesus’ teaching on attaining true greatness in Matthew 20:26-28.  On the one hand, we hear the world say, for a mere $50 you could finally have the power, wealth, and success that you’ve always wanted; while in Scripture we hear Jesus say, if you really want to be great in this world, become a servant to others.

At first glance, what Jesus says doesn’t seem to play out.  If you really want to help others, to be a great leader, don’t you have to have the resources, the wealth, the ability to help?  Think of all the good you could do if you just invested now and acquired a “reasonable” sense of financial security.  Once you’ve got your first million in the bank, then you can really help those in need.  Right?

Wrong.  For Jesus, it is precisely the other way around.  If you want to be great, be a servant.  If you want to be first, be the slave.  This life, the life of discipleship, the life of obedience, the life of following Christ is not a climb up the ladder of success.  It is not the coming together of the powerful, the successful, the beautiful, and the highly talented who have something to offer the world.  No.  The life of faith begins when we trust the word of God that tells us that we are dead in our sins and have nothing to offer God or the world, but, in His grace and mercy, God brings us to life and fills us with His treasure “to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4:7).

Jesus gave himself as an example of the transforming power of this kind of service, saying, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Here are just a couple of ways how:

His service revealed the God’s redeeming and saving love.

Romans 5:8 “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Ephesians 2:4–5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved”

In His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus revealed for the world the saving power of God’s love to deliver His people from death to life, from wrath to blessing, from sin to glory in the strength of His Spirit.

His service demonstrated the joy of obedience.

John 15:10-11 “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Jesus lived in perfect obedience to the will of God, loving God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving His neighbor as Himself.  And yet this obedience, and “obedience even to the point of death on a cross,” was not a burden, but a joy for Jesus.  The Psalmist says, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).  Jesus’ greatest delighted in, rejoiced in, the will of His Father, and His desire to glorify the Father was fulfilled.

His service revealed God’s glory.

John 12:27–28 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

John 17:4 “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.”

2 Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The completed work of Christ, His atoning sacrifice and glorious resurrection to create a people set apart for God, and the way the Christ continues to equip and empower His church by His Spirit, reveals the glory of God.

If you want to be great – that is, if you want to offer something to the world that will really transform the world – serve in the love of Christ in a way that will reveal the glory of God; for when God is glorified, our hearts are satisfied.