I'm going to turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, please. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We're trying to get back to Colossians, but we started in Colossians and we got to verse 20. And I decided to come to this chapter in order to deal with reconciliation here. and dealing with it here to then go back to Colossians. In some ways, the Apostle Paul explained changes in his plans to the Corinthians, and I'm trying to explain my changes in my plans to you. So we're in 2 Corinthians chapter five, 2 Corinthians five. There's so much here, and I could entitle the message many different things, but I really want to focus on verse 21. Verse 21 in 2 Corinthians 5 is the gospel. It's the gospel. So it's imperative that we understand it. A lot of theological wrestling has occurred over this verse. And I suppose there are misconceptions that need to be cleared up. I don't know what they all are. And I don't claim to be able to unravel all of them. I just simply rejoice, as Brad was saying, from Psalm 103, what is said there. And so, if you want to understand this verse well, just do it this way. This is the way I find comfort, is take God's word as the way it is, even if you can't explain it. And with that, let's begin in 2 Corinthians chapter five. And I want to look at this. I want to point out first of all, as I said last time, this chapter, scripture at large, the entire book here, all these things are said in the context of the gospel. And if we understand that then, it shines immense light. It's the only light that unfolds to us what God has said in his word. When we read this chapter, and I have many times, in preparation for this sermon especially, what we see here is that the apostle, I don't know how else to say this, except that the apostle has determined to preach nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And so all that he says in this chapter in the opening of it and in the conclusion of it are about the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And if we see the very last part of verse 21 at the end, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, in Christ. This is the result. This is both the intention and the result of the gospel. This is what's proclaimed to us in the gospel. And so this is the work of God. This is the work of God. Verse 18 says this, all things are of God. So God himself has done this. He's made us the righteousness of God in Christ. That's the only hope we have. And I don't know if I can attribute it to this, but this past week, The sense of my own sinfulness seemed extremely strong. And I was very distressed by it. And I think that happens sometimes, frequently. But especially in preparation of the sermon, because the only hope I have is what God has said here in verse 21. God has made Christ sin for us. Christ who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. But in order to see the flow of the thought in the apostle's mind, I want you to see that this verse is what everything else leads up to. But what we read before this is actually spoken as the results of this verse too. So he's showing us the blessings that have been brought to us because of verse 21, in building up to verse 21, and then he shows us the foundation of it all. And so we start with the gospel, we end with the gospel. And because of Christ's work, everything is given to us. Look at verse 1 of chapter 5, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 1. He says, and I'm gonna read the first five verses, for we know And this was said after he had been talking about all the afflictions that he suffered and labors that he expended for the sake of the Corinthians. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle, he means our body, were dissolved, if our body dies, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So this body is going to die, but if it does dissolve, we have another body, a body that's a building of God, a house that wasn't made with hands, a house that is eternal, a house that is in the heavens. That's our new body. Verse two, for in this we groan, in anticipation of this, in our present condition, in this body, in this world. with all of the persecutions and the sufferings and the labors and the sense of our own sin. In this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven, that new body. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. So unless we receive this body the Lord has prepared for us, we won't be at all comforted, we won't be clothed, we'll be naked. For we that are in this tabernacle, this earthly body, do groan, being burdened, not for that we should be unclothed, not just to die, but clothed upon. Here's the summary of those verses. This is what these first four verses are saying. This is of our desire, that mortality, this body, this life in this world, subject to death, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. that the life of Christ would so overcome would be the victory, the triumph, that that consummation of his life for us and our life in heaven that God has prepared for us, that that victory, that triumph would swallow up this life. That's our goal. What God has done in glory, His will in heaven would be done in us. Now, verse five. He that hath wrought us for the self, same thing as God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. So the word wrought means God has worked it. He has performed it. He has made us fully fit for this body which is in heaven. That's what it means. And he has prepared this body in heaven for us. He that has fully prepared us, has fashioned us for this, for what we hope for, is the self, same thing, is God. And He has given us His Spirit as the down payment, as the earnest of it. And the Spirit of God has enabled us to see Christ by faith. So the faith we have is by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God given to us is because God has made us fully fit and prepared us for the new body in heaven. And He's prepared that body for us and given us His Spirit both to know the certainty of it the truth of it and expect it and wait for it. As Galatians chapter five, verse five says, he says in Galatians 5.5, I'm going to read that to you. For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. There you go, through the spirit, We both hope and we have faith, and we wait for the hope of righteousness, the full consummation of the reward of Christ's righteousness. That's what we look for in looking to Christ. You see how he's starting here in our present state. looking for future glory according to God's promises on the basis of verse 21, that God has made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. But he goes on in verse six because he's talking to the Corinthians and he's following up with the first letter he sent to them with this letter now in order to encourage them because he had told them about so many things that were wrong. and he's exhorting them to do something. And the end of that exhortation is verse 21, to look to Christ.

But here he says in verse six, therefore we are always confident. Notice his confidence, knowing. So confidence brings a certainty of knowledge with it, doesn't it? Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. We're not physically in his presence. But we're confident.

For we walk by faith, not by sight. We don't live the way we used to live, by sight. We don't look outwardly at ourselves or others. That's a theme he's really driving home here. But we not only don't look outwardly upon ourselves and others, we see by the promise of God, by the gospel revealed to us concerning what God has done in Christ has therefore fully fashioned us, has fully made us ready now to receive the body which is in heaven.

So we don't look at one another with just eyes that we used to do. We take the law, how do you measure up? Obviously, you don't measure up. So we criticize. And we can't judge ourselves because that would be too painful. We can't be honest about ourselves unless someone says, you did this. Oh yeah, well I did that because that admits then that at least we're openly honest. But inwardly, we're dishonest. We can't be honest until the gospel comes to us and shows us by faith, God has dealt with our sin in Christ.

So we don't walk according to the law by sight. We don't take outward demands for our own obedience and try to fulfill them. We don't take our own performance and try to defend ourselves with it. We've abandoned all hope in that. In fact, we have come to the strong persuasion that we are so corrupt in nature and we can't do anything about it. and we're guilty before God, we've sinned against God, and the record of our sins stands permanently there before God. We're persuaded of that, unless God does something.

By his wisdom, according to the perfections of his nature, in all of his holiness and wisdom, he finds a way to deal with our sin. We walk by faith, not by sight, not trusting the law, but by the gospel declaring to us what God has done in Christ. That's the way we walk. That's why we're confident. This is the basis of our confidence, the basis of our assurance of what God has said about what Christ has done.

Verse 8, we are confident, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. We have right now this present desire to be with Christ. We know that it's better for us to be with the Lord, and yet He's given us something now, which is what? To live by faith on Christ. To live upon Christ by faith in this life, as in the wilderness, in the body of this death. It doesn't seem to be redeemed, does it? It doesn't seem to change. I was thinking about things I thought and did when I was much younger, and it grieved me terribly to realize that those same seeds of sin are still with me. And it troubled me greatly. And yet he says, we're confident and willing rather to be absent from the body to be present with the Lord.

He says in verse nine, wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. And the word accepted means to be pleasing. We wanna please our Savior, don't we? Everything we do now is because of what he did. We didn't love Him first. We don't love Him in order for Him to love us. We don't perform in order for Him to accept us. We don't live by that sight. We live by faith in Christ's finished work. And therefore we walk in everything we labor to be pleasing to the Lord. He's gonna expand on that in a minute. Verse 10, before we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether good or bad. For the unbeliever who stands before Christ in judgment, he will receive the things done in his body, whether good or bad, and it will be all bad. For the believer, when he stands before the judgment seat of Christ, it will be revealed that by the evidence that the Spirit of God gave that child of God faith, that that one and the deeds done in his body were actually the deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ done in his body. And so we saw the last couple weeks that it's him that doeth the will of the Father, which is looking to Christ, it's seeing Christ and believing on Him, taking His work and His blood as all my hope to God. And by doing so, we're honoring the law, aren't we? And if we try to do anything else, we don't just show a dishonor to the law, we show a disregard for it. We show hostility towards Christ. For if righteousness come by the law, This is the conclusion. If righteousness come by what we do, then Christ died in vain for nothing. You see how serious it is? That's hostility. To try to hold to my own performance in order to acquire God's acceptance or to retain God's acceptance or to obtain blessings from God through my own performance, That's hostility in our minds towards God, towards Christ. So he says here, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. To what? What comes up in verse 21. We persuade men, but we are made manifest to God. We're already known of God. He knows. The foundation of God stands sure. He knows those that are His. And He knows His people. And He says, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences. What we say to you is not as those who put up a smoke screen or who pretend with a new resume or repeated resumes to commend themselves to you, to make themselves to be something. No. We preach Christ and Him crucified. Therefore, we preach ourselves as nothing but your servants for Christ's sake. It says in verse 12, we commend not ourselves again to you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf. You see, when the gospel comes to us, our relationship to one another changes. To believers, it changes, doesn't it? We don't view one another according to the way we used to, measuring ourselves by our performance, measuring others by their outward appearance. We don't do that anymore, do we? We listen to what they say about Christ. We judge them according to the grace of God. Here's a brother who expresses, or a sister who expresses that they're a sinner and Christ is all their hope. Well, what am I gonna do then? I'm gonna take out the law, measure them by it, beat them over the head with it, and prove myself to be superior to them. No, no. No, I'm not gonna, in fact, when I hear accusations against them, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna come to their defense. I'm gonna say, who is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. It's God who justifies. Who are you that accuses? And so he says here, That we say what we say, not to commend ourselves, but to give you something to glory in appearance to those who only glory in appearance. If you want to defend us as the apostles, we're going to give you the ammunition to do that. But we're not doing this in order to make ourselves great in your eyes. If you can show by these things that we are truly sent by Christ with his gospel, bearing His message to you as His ambassadors for His glory and for your salvation. We take off all the need for commending ourselves, don't we? We're just simply saying, hear this message, hear the one who sent us. Don't look at outward appearances. He says in verse 13, for whether we be beside ourselves, it's to God. People think we're crazy, that we've abandoned all reason when we say Christ is our only hope and our all-sufficient hope. And even though in ourselves we have no basis for anything, not the evidences or anything, we see that God has accepted Christ and accepted his people in Christ by the sacrifice of Christ. And so he says, if we're beside ourselves in the opinion of these false prophets and these unbelievers, Know this, we are what we are and behave as we do towards God. And then he goes on, he says, or whether we be sober when we come to you and we speak so solemnly of our own weaknesses and sins and of Christ's glory with the most solemn entreaty to you as sinners to believe him. It's for your sake. So whatever we do, it's either towards God or it's towards God for your sake. If we suffer, it's for the Lord's sake. And if we labor, it's for your sake. Everything's for your sake by the will of God. So he takes off the need for commendation. It's towards God and it's for you. You see, that's what verse 13 is saying. And then he gives the motive. Why? Why would he have this way of thinking? Verse 14, for the love of Christ constrains us. And we want nothing more than that to constrain us, do we? Hosea chapter 11, verse 4, he says, I have drawn you with the cords of love. With the cords of love. not with the thrashing and the fierce terror of the law, but with the cords of love. The love of Christ constrains us, doesn't it? Because this is what we judge about ourselves and about you, that if one died for all, then we're all dead. All for whom Christ died, died with Christ and are justified from sin and therefore freed from sin and death. They're freed from those things and made children of God by Jesus Christ. Verse 15. And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him which died for them and rose again. You see, those for whom Christ died being justified from sin are raised with Christ and live to God. And the life they live is the life of Christ in them. And that life of Christ in them gives them faith in Christ for them. And they have this compelling, constraining love of Christ towards them that compels and constrains them to do what they do towards God and for His people. That's what faith does. Faith works by love. They which live. You see, these people are not just every person. Who are those who which live? Those for whom Christ died and rose with Him. Those who believe on Him. Those are the ones who are living. If anyone hears my word, Jesus says, and believes on him who sent me, he has already passed from death to life. He has eternal life, everlasting life. He shall not come into condemnation. Verse 16, verse 16, wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh. We don't look at one another through the eyes of our flesh. We don't judge one another on the basis of what we see, not on the basis of the law. We judge on the basis of the gospel. Christ is gonna judge, and the last day, he's gonna judge the secrets of men according to my gospel, Paul said. It's on the basis of the gospel, not according to the flesh. So when we're meeting with God's people and dealing with them in all of our interactions and our prayers, it's always, Lord, for Christ's sake, forgive them, forgive me for Christ's sake. He says, henceforth know we no man after the flesh, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more, or know we no more. The word him is in italics. We don't know Christ in the way we used to know him, do we? We used to look at his appearance when he was on earth, and it seemed like he wasn't approved of God. He hung on the cross. How could God be for him? We don't see him that way anymore. We see him raised by faith. By faith, we see him raised and justified and exalted and honored in glory, and having accomplished the salvation of his people. We don't see him as trying to accomplish it, but having accomplished it. We don't walk by sight. We don't walk by the flesh. We don't see as we used to see. We don't know as we used to know. Now we see by faith in Christ through the gospel, the light, the new covenant, not the old. You see, this is all bringing everything previously discussed in this book to a point here. Therefore, notice, these who died with Christ live with Christ. And he says in verse 17, if any man be in Christ, He's a new creature, a new creation. God did this, didn't he? Where does creation come from? It comes from God. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. And don't you know that even in your awareness of your sinful corruptions, something is there that wasn't there before. What is it? It's the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It's the realization that something else besides my own guilt and condemnation and my utter helplessness to deliver myself from those things or to fulfill God's law, all those things have been, something else has been brought in now. of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God has honored Himself in the death of His Son, in the obedience of His Son to the salvation of His people. If any man's in Christ, he's a new creation. Why? Because Christ died for him. Because Christ lives in him. Everything is new now. He's been created by God in Christ Jesus, according to Ephesians 2. You who were dead in sins and walked according to the course of this world, and your minds were alienated, yet God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, quickened and made us alive together with Christ Jesus, raised us up and sat us together with Christ Jesus in the heavenlies, for by grace are you saved. And He has created us in Christ Jesus. We are His workmanship. That's what it said back over in verse 5. We're His workmanship. He wrought us. He performed the work fully. He made us fully suitable for this body which is in heaven. Again, verse 21 tells us how. But He's building up to that now. We're new creations. We're in Christ. We live because we rose with Him, we're justified because we died with Him. That's what verses 14 through 17 are saying here. This new life we live is Christ in us, and the way we know we have life from God is that we look to Christ for us. Anything else is hostility towards God, but this is honoring towards God, because this is how God honors Himself. He that honors the Son honors the Father that sent Him. Whoever believes His word, that's honoring Christ.

Now notice in verse 18, as we would expect from creation, all things are of God. And that includes everything necessary to create us as new creatures in Christ. Everything preceding it and leading up to it and the accomplishment of it. All things are of God. What a wonderful relief to the heavy, laden, burdened sinner to hear these words from heaven. Yes, you are a sinner. Yes, God's judgment against you is just and it's all your fault. And yes, you are helpless to deliver yourself. You're helpless to perform what God requires of you. And there you stand, naked and undone and guilty and deserving of hell. But all things are of God. What's impossible for you is possible with God.

All things are of God, and this is what he did. He has reconciled us. Notice these words. It's a past tense. He has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. He's removed our offenses that separated us between him and us. We did it. We created the divide. His law entered in to amplify it and make our sin that was there but latent obvious and patent. And so he says, God has reconciled us to himself. God was in Christ, God the Father, in God the Son, and God the Son, in Christ the man, the fullness of the Godhead in him bodily. God was in Christ. God was doing this. It was God's will. God's work. And God accomplished it. How could it fail? Yeah, it has to be holy, doesn't it? It has to be perfect. Because it's God's own work. That's why it's called the righteousness of God.

God was in Christ. Reconciling the world to himself. The world of those who died with Christ, the world of those who live with Christ, the world of those who are in Christ and created by God, and whom God reconciled to Himself. That world, the world of God's elect, chosen in Him, redeemed by Him. The world, according to Ephesians 3.21, that has no end, that world. That's the only world that God cares about. The world of God's elect, the remnant that Christ redeemed. The remnant, he didn't redeem everyone, he redeemed his remnant. That's what he's saying here.

Notice, he was in Christ, reconciling these, the world to himself, called the world here. Because out of the world, out of this world, God has created another world. It's the new world, the new creation. He says, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Not imputing their trespasses unto them. There's a couple of things we need to establish with that statement. What does it mean to impute? And what does it mean that God did not impute their trespasses? How could God do that? And what's the basis of it? How did God do this?

Well, first thing to be clear on is what does it mean to impute? And I don't like illustrations, but I'm going to give you an illustration to help our thinking here. When the bank looks at what you've spent and they look at what you've deposited, then they can add those things up. They take the credits and they subtract the debits and they come to a balance. And they look at that balance and they impute to your account that balance. That's all they know about. You might have an outstanding debit that hasn't come in yet. You know about it. You just wrote a check for $10,000. The bank doesn't know. They say, you've got $2,000 in your account. They don't know what's coming. It's going to overdraw. But here the bank makes an accounting. Imputation is an accounting. Accounting. It says that Abraham believed God and God accounted it to him. That's what accounting is. So imputation is based on facts. It's based on what is true. It's not making things happen, it's a conclusion of what is true. And so that's the first thing to understand here. I'll take you to some verses to show you that.

The second thing I want to point out here, and we've looked at this in the past sermons, but another thing, he's not imputing their trespasses unto them. How can God not impute, how can he not make an accounting? I mean, how can God make an accounting and not come to a conclusion that there we have a deficit? A deficit in the form of our sins, our offenses against his justice, against his law. Something is yet unfulfilled. Our obedience. Something is demanding his wrath, our sin. How can God come to this conclusion that we have no sins and it be true and factual? How can that be? Because imputation is accounting for the way things are. It's based on facts. It's based on the truth.

Okay, so if imputation is drawing the conclusion of the way things are, and we know that we're sinners, God himself even said, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and the wages of sin is death. How can then God say he's not imputing their trespasses to them? How can that be? That he reconciled the world to himself, not imputing. First of all, we know that if he didn't impute them, then they aren't there. If it's true that imputation is the accounting and the accounting of God says no sin, then we have to know that there's no sin. The reason God doesn't impute trespasses to us is because there's none to impute. And that's what I want to first show you. I first want to show you that the result of God not imputing our trespasses to us is that they are not there. The second thing I want to show you is that imputation means coming to the accounting decision, the reckoning, the conclusion of truth. This is the way it is. This is the facts. And it's not making it so. And then I want to show you why God would not impute our trespasses to us. Why? On what basis did he say not imputing? And that's the way we're going to get to the meaning of verse 21. Okay? So the first thing I want to look at is that since God doesn't impute our trespasses to us, it's because they're not there.

Look at this verse with me in Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 50. I know you probably even know which verse I'm turning to when I mention that chapter. Jeremiah chapter 50. This may be the only verse in the book of Jeremiah you've ever known. That's okay. Look at Jeremiah chapter 50 and verse 20. He's talking about in those days. He's talking about those who are left over In verse 19, I will bring again, I will bring Israel again. A lot of them died in the wilderness. A lot of them died in Babylon. And yet he says, in those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, verse 50, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for and there shall be none. and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found. For I will pardon them whom I reserve." You see that? God pardons the remnant. God does not impute sin to the remnant, to the reserved. And what does it mean? It means that when God himself looks, he doesn't find sin. Now how can that be? Because there is none. But how was there, how could we go from being sinners to not being sinners? Look at Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 44. It's essential that we get these things understood. He says in verse 21 of Isaiah 44, remember these, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant, I have formed thee. Remember? Created all things new. God has fully fashioned us and made us fit for our home in heaven. I have formed thee. Thou art my servant, O Israel. Thou shalt not be forgotten of me.

God does not forget. He knows his people. Those who depart at judgment, he never knew. This is different here. A distinguishing group. A group distinguished by God. Verse 22. I, this is the Lord speaking, God who cannot lie, God's word which cannot be broken, God who says the truth, I, have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins return to me, for I have redeemed thee." Our sins are not there. God says, he looked, they're not there. How? God blotted them out. He blotted them out. The reason he doesn't impute sin to us is because there's no sin to impute because he blotted them out. That's wonderful, isn't it? Amen.

Look at Psalm 103. In verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, I don't know how to describe that. It's impossible to get them together. They're opposites. As far as the east is from the west, as far as sin is from righteousness, as far as life is from death, as far as heaven is above the earth, as far as God's thoughts are above our thoughts, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. That's the result. That's the result of what God has done. And that's why God doesn't impute it to us.

Look at Leviticus chapter seven. Leviticus chapter seven. He says in Leviticus chapter seven, in verse 15, and this is about what imputation means. This is showing us from scripture what imputation means. It shows us that imputation is the accounting of God and the conclusion of what is true in the eyes of God. He says, the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings, verse 15, and the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for Thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered. He shall not leave any of it until the morning. When the sacrifice was offered for his peace offerings and for his Thanksgiving, he had to eat it that day. Don't leave it.

But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offered his sacrifice, and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten. So as much as one day. You can understand why, can't you, from a standpoint of physics? Because after that, it's going to get rotten. But that's not the point here. But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire. And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten at all on the third day, notice this, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed to him that offers it. It shall be an abomination and the soul that eats of it shall bear his iniquity.

Now, the sacrifice was clearly offered in order for peace and in thanksgiving. But if he didn't eat it within the designated time before that sacrifice had begun to decay, if he ate it too late, then it was not imputed because the sacrifice was of no value. What God is saying here is that the sacrifice was accepted only if eaten before the third day. The first day was the day it was offered. The second day, the day after, that was okay. But the third day, no. If he eats it the third day, it's an abomination. It will not be accepted. So imputation, the ground of it, is the truth and the truth of the acceptance, the one reason for it is the accepted sacrifice. If the sacrifice is accepted by God, then the man who eats it is saying, this is my acceptance before God. If the man who eats it finds his acceptance in that sacrifice, then he eats it before it decays. He eats it because God has accepted it. On the third day, what happened on the third day after Christ died? He rose. Peter preached he could not see corruption. God would not allow his Holy One to see corruption. Why was he raised on the third day? Because God accepted the sacrifice. And faith sees God's acceptance of Christ in His resurrection. Faith's only ground is God's acceptance of Christ proved by His resurrection. Faith only is valid if faith rests on the acceptance of Christ in his death, proved by God in his resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is the proof of our justification in the death of Christ. And it's only because God accepted the sacrifice that the imputation of that sacrifice as accepted by God is given to the man. The only ground of the facts and the truth of our sins being put away is that God accepted the sacrifice. Imputation is God accounting for the way things are. He himself has blotted out our iniquities. He cannot find them because they're not there because he removed them from us as far as the east is from the west in the sacrifice of his son and the proof of it is his resurrection. Okay, do you understand that? We can look at many other scriptures. Look at one more in Leviticus 17. He says this in verse three, He says in verse 3, what man soever there is or be of the house of Israel that kills an ox or lamb or goat in the camp or that kills it out of the camp and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation to offer an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people." Why was blood imputed to the man? Because he killed a sacrifice and didn't bring it to the Lord. He's guilty of shedding blood and not offering it to the Lord. But the point in this text of scripture, like the other one, is imputation is based on what is. The facts, the truth, what God has done, what's true about the man. And there's many other cases. I don't want to belabor that point, but now let's turn back to 2 Corinthians 5. Hold your place there in 2 Corinthians 5 and turn to Romans 4. How is it that God could not impute our sin to us? Well, we already said because he blotted it out. But how is this? How is this non-imputation of sin? If God didn't impute it, then there must be a reason for that. And Romans chapter 4 tells us, verse 3, what saith the scripture? This is unbreakable truth, right? This is God speaking. It cannot lie, the scripture. What saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Look at verse five. To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly. So God must do something now, and he comes to the conclusion, and he justifies them on the basis of that inclusion, even justifying the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness, the one he believes, the one who justifies the ungodly. Now, in verse six, he says, of Romans four, even as David also describes, notice, the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, not his own works, and yet righteousness which is works. Whose works? God's works. And this is what David said, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Because it's not there. Why? Because of God's righteousness. What is that righteousness? Now we go back to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. God doesn't impute sin to his people because there is no sin. Imputation is the way things are by God's accounting. Because it's true. It's holy. And by God's accounting, He doesn't impute sin because He has imputed righteousness. And what is that righteousness? Now look at verse 21. God has made Him, Christ, sin for us. Christ who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. The righteousness of God in Christ is why God doesn't impute our sin to us, because in His righteousness, God's work done by Christ, when God was in Christ, God has blotted out our sins and raised Him from the dead in the proof of it. Remember what Romans 4.25 says? He was delivered, why? Because of our offenses. And he was raised again because of our justification. There was a because of. There was a basis. There was a reason. Why was Christ crucified? Why did he suffer the curse of God's law? Because of our offenses. And what was the righteousness of God then? It was taking those sins as his own, confessing them on himself, on his own head, and transferring them to himself. And then bearing those sins before God as the sinner and receiving from God the just deserts of the sinner by the wrath of God against sin. What's the basis of this? How did God do this? What law allows for this? Well, this is the wonder of it all. The words are here, the righteousness of God in him. You see, we were in Adam, therefore when Adam transgressed, we transgressed in him. And God imputed sin to us because we committed that sin in Adam. God made Adam our representative head. Now God chose his people in Christ before the foundation of the world, before there was anything created, before we were created, before the world was created, before angels were created, God chose us in him. And not only did He choose us in Him, but in that Christ engaged with His Father, He approached to His Father, and He made Himself the surety for our sins, for us. He became surety to His Father for His people, to bring His people back. It was on the basis of God choosing us in Him. God the Father, by His sovereign will and His eternal love in Christ, chose us in Him that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. And in that same agreement, that covenant, that two-way covenant between God the Father and God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ agreed and engaged His heart, knowing, having the mind of God and the will of God in His heart, He approached His Father on behalf of His people and He said, I will be surety for Him, for them, to bring Him to you again. And when he stood before God's justice as Judah stood before Joseph on behalf of Benjamin, he says, I became surety for them. Now, let me abide a bondman to my Lord forever and let the lad go up free with his brethren to his father again. You see the basis here? God's eternal election of us in Christ. Christ willingly taking our obligations before God to bring us to God again, no matter what it cost Him. And right then, in that eternal covenant, that agreement between the Father and the Son, Christ then was offered to God. The Lamb of God, made to be the Lamb of God. that he might deliver us from the death we deserve, the sins. God blotted out our sins, all of our transgressions, he removed them from us as far as the east from the west, and the obedience of Christ in that is the righteousness of God, and that is imputed to us because Christ, our surety, gave himself to justice. Take me and let the lad go free to his father again. You see, this transaction between the Father and the Son is our redemption. And redemption brings us free as children of God. The basis of it is God adopted us in Christ to be His children before the foundation of the world and predestinated us to be made accepted in Him by His redeeming blood, Ephesians 1, verse 5 through 7. And here we have the declaration of it. And this is the basis. This is our faith. This is not our sight. This is our faith. This is how we defend one another. This is how we look at one another. This is how we come to God. This is everything. This is our righteousness. This is the blotting away of our sins. Taking them away. Removing of them from us. This is the ministry God has put in our hearts. And we, as Paul to the Corinthians, we beseech you on behalf of God, be reconciled to God. Look to Christ only, always. And be ye saved, the Lord Jesus said. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. I am God, there is none else. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the gospel. How delightful, how sobering, how joyful, and how comforting, how assuring, how emboldening it makes us to come to you by the blood of Jesus. Like the publican of old, God be propitious, look upon the sacrifice to me, the sinner, and the Lord Jesus, said, that man went down to his house justified. What a blessing this is that you would do all. All things are of God. Our creation, our sins removal, our righteousness, everything is in Christ. What a blessing. Help us never to leave this. Help us to always hold these things true and dear to our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.