Now, turn with me in your Bibles
to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Now, I realize that I've spent
a lot of time in this chapter, going through it verse by verse,
and I really just have two more messages out of this chapter,
today's message, which is entitled, Gospel Reconciliation. Gospel Reconciliation. And I
want to deal here in 2 Corinthians 5, my text this morning are verses
18 and 19. Verse 18 says, all things are
of God. We'll get to that in just a moment.
And then next week, I'm going to do the last two verses, especially
verse 21, which speaks of the substitutionary work of Christ
for his people, for he hath made him to be sin. for us who knew
no sin that we might be made the righteousness of god in him
there seems to be so much controversy raised on that verse these days
and i think it's all pretty much useless and then uh... unnecessary
but you know people do go astray and i think we need to keep it
in its context but the reason i've spent so much time on this
is it's important that we as a as a community of believers,
a gospel church, that we really understand and know for certain
what a gospel ministry is. That's what this is about. And
it's a ministry of reconciliation. Paul called it that over in other
passages. And that's why I call this message
this morning entitled Gospel Reconciliation. And the reason
that we need to be certain about that from God's Word, especially
today, is in these last days, you have to know that Satan is
out there sowing his tares, you know? The parable of the wheat
and the tares. And the wheat, that's the people
of God. Sown by the Spirit of God through Christ, by the Word
of God. And then there are the tares.
And the tares, you know, that word literally is darnel. and
admit it's it's a it's something it looks like we but it's not
and so what he's talking about there is false christianity and
as we uh... drawn night to the last of the
last days uh... those are going to be more and
we need to know the difference what is a true gospel ministry
that's what this is about Paul has given us by inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. He's given us so many areas there
that we We can we we have no excuse we can know these things
without fail Now last week I dealt mainly with verse 17 look look
at verse 17 He says therefore if any man be in Christ, that's
that's our goal to be in Christ. That's our reality right now
It's not just something future for a believer. I You know, if
you're a believer, you've been in Christ from eternity. And
I'll show you that in just a moment. You're in Christ right now. And
you will always be in Christ. Be in Him as our... He's your
representative. He's your substitute. He's your...
He's your high priest, your advocate. You're in Him by faith. That's...
We weren't always in Him by faith because we're born into this
world dead in trespasses and sins. enemies of God in our minds
by wicked works but in time God the Holy Spirit in the new birth
brings us under the preaching of the gospel and he unites us
to Christ by faith and we believe in him and we repent of dead
works and idolatry and we live in him we're never outside of
him in that sense and Paul wrote in Philippians chapter three
that his desire and I believe he's speaking mainly of judgment
here that he wants to be found in Christ not having his own
righteousness which is of the law but that which is through
the faith of Jesus Christ the righteousness of God which is
by faith and there's no such thing as being in Christ one
day and out of Christ the next day you know people today who
claim that you can be saved one day and lost the next, they don't
understand the grace of God. Somebody may think I'm being
too mean or too hard on that, but it's just the truth. You
wouldn't want somebody to lie to you about your physical health,
would you? Well, I certainly am not going
to stand up here and lie to you about your spiritual health or
mine. We're all in this together. He
says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.
That's what that literally means, a new creature. And then he says,
old things are passed away, and I dealt with that. And behold,
all things are become new. Now, here's the reality of reconciliation. Now, first of all, you know what
reconciliation is. You've got, let's say you've
got two people who are at odds, even literally at war. And in
order for them to come together, a mediator, an objective mediator,
a mediator who tells the truth must come between those two parties
who are at odds and on some common ground bring them together, reconcile
them. You know, a lot of people get
divorced today and one of the things they bring up are irreconcilable
differences. They cannot come together on
some common ground. and then they split well to be
reconciled to God is God Almighty a holy God and his people his
elect his church being brought together on some common ground
all right and when he says here all things are become new listen
to verse 18 he says and all things are of God who hath reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ. Now there's a simplicity about
that. First of all, the all things that have to do with the new
creation. This is the reality of reconciliation
now. The all things. He said all things
are become new and then he says and all things are of God. The
all things of the new creation, the all things of salvation,
the all things of reconciliation, the all things of blessing and
eternal blessing are of God. That's simple. They're not of
you. They're not of me. It's all of God. God's the source
and originator of salvation. Our election from eternity is
of God. It's the election of grace, the
scripture says, in Christ Jesus. You didn't choose yourself, God
chose you. And God didn't do it. Listen,
God didn't choose you based upon what he foresaw you would do.
He's not a crystal ball gazer. He's not a genie in a bottle.
God doesn't act upon the future just simply because he views
the future. God determines the future. I
believe that. I tell you, you say, well, I
don't believe it. Well, you just don't believe
that part of the Bible. Rip that part out of your Bible. You know
better than that. You say, I can't understand all
that. Well, join the club. That's not the issue. Whether
or not you can understand it all. You can't put God in a box. You can't wrap your mind around
God. He's God. And we're the creature. But our
election is of God. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God. And then our adoption is of God. It's the adoption
of grace, the scripture says in Ephesians 1 and verse 5. In
Christ Jesus again. God chose you and adopted you
into his family, if you're one of his. And he's the initiator
of it. He's the first cause of it. He's
the instigator of it. Salvation is of the Lord, isn't
it? Not conditioned on you or me.
If you want to see the results of a conditional salvation, look
at Israel under the old covenant. Failure, failure, failure. And
I'm not picking on Israel because I'd have been a failure too if
I'd have been there. How about you? That's the result of a conditional
salvation. Conditioned on the sinner is
what I'm talking about. Now conditional salvation. Salvation
is conditioned but all the conditions are on Christ. And he's no failure. You see what I'm saying? If it's
conditioned on me, it means failure. You say, well, you don't think
too much of yourself. Not in that way I don't. You see, salvation conditioned
on the sinner is failure. Salvation conditioned on Christ
is victory. And that's what grace is all
about. That's the difference between grace and works. Our
justification is of God. We're justified by the blood
of Christ, by the grace of God in Christ. What is it to be justified? It's to be reconciled to God.
It's to be made right before God. It's to be not guilty. I'm
going to talk about that tonight in Job 25. Not guilty. Think about that. Standing before
a holy God who sees all and knows all, who knows our thoughts and
our motives, and to have Him say, not guilty. And actually,
it's even more than that. It means to be righteous before
Him. That's what verse 21 is about. Christ was made sin that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. sin imputed, charged
to him, that righteousness is charged to us who believe. Our
redemption is of God. The redemption price is not anything
we do. It's not anything we try to do.
It's not anything we promise to do. Redemption is by one thing
and one thing alone, the blood of the Lamb. If you're redeemed, which means
bought back, and I will show you a verse on that later on,
If you're redeemed, you're redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. And that's the full payment price.
You're not redeemed by baptism in waters. You're not redeemed
by tears of remorse and repentance. You're not redeemed by promises
to do better. You're redeemed by the blood.
That's of God. That's the new creation. See, we're a redeemed
people. We're a purchased people. Our regeneration is of God. It's not by the will of man,
nor by the... It's not of blood, nor the will
of man, nor the will of men, but of God. John chapter 1 verses
12 through 13. Born again by the Spirit. Regeneration
is not the result of your cooperation or my cooperation. Oh, we do
cooperate but our cooperation is the result of regeneration.
You see, religion today has the cart before the horse. And you
know why they put that cart before the horse? Because man made the
cart, he didn't make the horse. And if he make it, you can boast
in it. Man wants a little bragging rights. He wants to say he's
had a little part that distinguishes him from the rest of these old
sinners who won't cooperate. That's not the way it is. Salvation's
of the Lord. Regeneration, the new birth,
is of God. Of the will of God, of the power
of God. He makes us willing in the day
of His power. That's part of the new creation.
Our preservation is of God. God preserves us. God keeps us.
Paul said, I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that
He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against
that day. What have I committed unto Him? Everything in salvation.
Everything is committed to Christ. He's able to save to the uttermost
them that come unto the Father by Him. seeing he ever lives
to make intercession for us. He saves us. He keeps us. He's
the author and the finisher. The word finisher there means
completer of our faith. And then our perseverance is
of God. If we continue in the faith.
Joe read it there in Colossians chapter 1. If you continue in
the faith, grounded and settled. That's not a conditional if.
That's an evidential if. In other words, if you continue,
it's evidence that God's keeping you. by His power and by His
grace. Over in Philippians 2, He talks
about it. He says, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Don't stop there. Read the next verse. For it is
God which worketh in you to do His good will. Our perseverance is of God. And
then our glorification is of God. He's able to bring us unto
glory. And we're not able to get there
on our own or even with His help. He's able to bring us unto glory.
That's the new creation. It's all of God. That's what
He says here in verse 18. All things are of God. Now, what
is the basis of the new creation? What is the ground? God's the
first cause of it all. God's the originator of it all.
He's the source of it all. Not man now, but God. Well, here
is the ground of it. Who hath reconciled us to Himself. How? Look at it. By Jesus Christ. There's the ground of the new
creation. That's the reality of it. God
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. Reconciled to God. You see, God is a holy God. And in order to have peace established
between God who is holy and sinful people who deserve damnation
and eternal death, these people must be reconciled to God. Now
how is that going to be? Turn over to Hebrews chapter
2 with me. And I'm going to refer to this
one next week when I get down to 2 Corinthians 5.21. Because
there's some very important information that we need to understand about
this. Look at verse 14 of Hebrews chapter
2. Now he's talking about how Christ,
who is the captain of our salvation, who was made perfect through
his sufferings, that means he completed The work, the redemptive
work, redemption by his sufferings unto death. How he did all that,
and it says in verse 14, now listen, he says, for as much
then as the children. Now who's the children there?
The children of God. He's talking about God's elect
there, the church. Children of promise, they're
called in the book of Galatians. The children of promise, and
in the book of Romans. And who are the children of the promise?
Those whom God promises to save and those who believe the promise.
What's the promise? Salvation by the grace of God
in Christ. And they're partakers of flesh
and blood. You see, we're partners with
flesh and blood. That's what we are. We have this
physical body and by the grace of God in the new birth, we're
spiritual people. We're spiritual human beings.
You see, when we're born again, we're still human beings. We're
not divine now. You can't become divine. I've
heard people say, well, when you're born again, God creates
in you a divine nature. Divine divinity cannot be created
in anybody. It's the nature of divinity that
has no beginning and no end. Christ said, I'm the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end. He's infinite. You can't create divinity. You
can't turn a person into God or a God. But you see, we're spiritual
human beings, but we're still flesh and blood. And look at
verse 14, it says, He also Himself, Christ, the second person of
the Trinity, God, the Son, likewise, in the same way, took part of
the same, that is, flesh and blood. That is, He is God in
human flesh. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He's the God-man. Now, the first
thing in establishing the ground of the new creation and reconciling
sinners to God is that there's got to be one who is appointed
of God, who is qualified, and who is willing to do the work,
to meet the conditions, to fulfill the stipulations and the requirements.
Well, who is that? Who's the only one appointed?
The Lord Jesus Christ. God didn't appoint anybody else
to be our Savior. God appointed Christ, the second
person of the Trinity. Before the foundation of the
world, He chose a people and gave them to Christ. And then
Christ has to be qualified. How is He qualified? He has to
be... He has to have connections, vital connections in His nature. with God himself that means he
must be God himself and then he must have a vital connection
by nature to those whom he's going to reconcile to God his
people flesh and blood he had to be man and that's why all
through the scriptures he's identified that way from the very beginning
he's identified as the seed of woman in Genesis 3 15 He's identified
as the child who is born and the son who is given. He's God
man. The angel said, you shall call
his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. That's
reconcile his people under God. And the way he's going to, his
name shall be called Emmanuel, which had been interpreted God
with us. He's the word made flesh and tabernacled among us. So
he's qualified. And the Bible says he's willing.
John 13, 1, for example, he loved his own until the end, his own
people. He loved them to finish the work.
He's willing to save us. He said, come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you, I'm willing
to give you rest. He'll never turn any of them
away. And so for as much then as the children are partakers
of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same,
verse 14, that through death he might destroy him that had
the power of death, that is the devil. Now God cannot die, but
this person who is God did die and that's to be attributed to
his humanity. He continually said this is his
body which is broken for you, his blood that was shed for you.
And He did that that He might die. What is the ground of the
new creation? What does it take to reconcile
sinners unto God? It takes the death of the God-man. That's what He says. The blood
of Christ cleanses us from all sin. The blood of Christ declares
forth God's righteousness. His death equals righteousness
for me and for you who know Him. And he destroyed the power of
death, that is, the devil. What is he talking about? He's
talking about Satan's power to accuse and have those charges
stick. You know, Satan is the accuser
of the brethren. He'll look you straight in the
eye and he'll say this to you. He'll say, you're a sinner and
you deserve death. Now, my friend, if you don't
have Christ, those charges stick. Am I right? And what's the sentence?
The wages of sin is death. But if you have Christ, the charges
don't stick. Let me show you that. This is
interesting. Turn to Revelation 12. Hold your
finger there at Hebrews 2 and look at Revelation 12. You say,
where did you get that? Well, I got it from the Bible.
What I tell you, I get from the Bible. I know other people say
they get their things from the Bible too. I know that. But you
read these things in context. Look at verse 9 of Revelation
12. He said, and the great dragon
was cast out. Now that's talking about Satan.
He said, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, Revelation
12, 9, which deceiveth the whole world. Incidentally, that word
whole world there doesn't mean everybody without exception.
It means the whole unbelieving world. That's what it's talking
about. You say, why'd you say that?
Well, I'll show you in just a minute back here in 2 Corinthians 5.
But he says, he was cast out into the earth and his angels
were cast out with him. And I'll tell you when that happened.
That happened at the cross. But let's go on, verse 10. And
I heard a loud voice saying to him, now has come salvation and
strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren
is cast down. That's Satan. The accuser of
our brethren, which accused them before our God day and night.
And look at verse 11. They overcame him by the blood
of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. What is the
word of their testimony? Christ! And they loved not their
lives unto death. How do you turn back Satan's
accusations? How do you turn back anybody's
accusations? By the blood of the lamb. Now, you can stand
before Satan and you can say, well, now look, Satan, I'm not
such a bad guy. I've done a lot of good things.
But that won't turn him back. You can say, well, I made a profession
of faith when I was 12 and got baptized. That won't turn him
back. You can say, well, I've never
missed a day of church. Every time the doors open, I'm
there. That won't turn him back. You can say you've preached in
his name. You can even say you've cast out demons. You can say
you've done many wonderful works. You can say you fast twice a
week. You give tithes of everything you have. You can say you're
not an extortioner or a blasphemer or an adulterer like that old
publican. But that won't turn him back. There's only one thing
that will. The blood of the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb. And the
blood of the Lamb and the righteousness of the Lamb are the same thing.
The righteousness of Christ. Now go back to Hebrews 2. He
says in verse 15, now this is the method of reconciliation
and we'll talk more about it here in a minute. Verse 15, and
deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime
subject to bondage. That bondage there is legalism.
That bondage there is unbelief and darkness and deception. It's
like a person who's trying to alleviate the fear of death by
their works instead of looking to Christ. That's that bondage. You see what I'm saying? A person
who's religious without Christ, what's he trying to do? He's
trying to alleviate the consequences of death. Isn't he? Trying to get by death. He knows
he's going to die. I want to be in heaven. I want
to live forever. But if you're trying to do that
by your works, you're in bondage, you see. And it's a burden. That's
why Christ said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, I'll give you rest. Where's that rest? In Christ,
who did all the work. That alleviates death. Conquers
death. All right? Now, he says in verse
16, For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but
he took on him the seed of Abraham. Who's the seed of Abraham? That's
believers. That's the elect of God. That's
spiritual Israel made up of God's people out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation who rest in Christ by the power of God. Now look at verse 17. Wherefore
in all things it behooved him. What does that behoove mean?
Well, that word behoove there is the Greek word for debt. You
know what it is to owe a debt, don't you? That means you legally
owe money. Right? You legally owe money. Well, there's a debt. What is
that debt? Well, it's the debt that sinners
owe to God's law and justice for sin. The law of God demands
justice where sin is found. The payment is death. Now what
it's saying here is that Christ took that debt on Himself. Now how is that? That's what
the doctrine of imputation is about, you see. That debt of
His people, of His sheep, of His church was imputed, charged,
accounted to Him. It was taken off their account
and put on His account. When did that happen? Before
the foundation of the world. That's why he's called our surety.
Now, if you become a surety for a person on a debt, what you're
saying is this. You're saying, if they cannot
pay it, then I'll pay it. But that's not the way Christ
became a surety. He didn't say to the Father,
if they can't pay it, I'll do it. Because there never has been
a time in eternity past or eternity present or eternity future that
we have been able to pay it. That's right. That's why Christ is the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. The debt's always
been His. In reality, for His people. But it behooved Him. He was obligated
to do it. Why? Because He owed a debt.
How did that debt come? Through Adam's fall and through
our sins. He didn't run up the debt. We
did. He didn't sin. He knew no sin. But because of his love for his
people and his love for his father. He said put that debt on my account.
There's a beautiful whole book of the scripture that illustrates
that. It's called the book of Philemon. The runaway slave Onesimus. He owed Philemon a debt. And
he ran away, and he ran to Paul. And in the process of time, God
was gracious to save that old rotten slave and make him a child
of God. Paul wrote to Philemon. He said,
Philemon, if he owes you anything, put it on my account. I'll pay
it. And that's what Christ said to
the father. If they owe you anything, put it on my account. And we
do. So it behooved him. Now look at verse 17. It behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren. In order to pay the
debt, he had to be God in human flesh, because he had to die,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest. Now remember
the high priest, what he did, he represented the people of
Israel. He brought the blood of the animal into the Holy of
Holies. That's a picture of Christ, the high priest of his people.
in all things pertaining to God." Now, what did 2 Corinthians 5.18
say? God reconciling us to himself. It's all pertaining to God. You
see, Christ's sacrifice was unto the Father. He sacrificed himself to the
Father. It pleased the Father. It pleased God to bruise him. And then he says, to make what?
Reconciliation. That word reconciliation there
is the same word that sometimes is translated propitiation. to
make satisfaction for the sins of his people. Now go back to
2 Corinthians 5. Now in order to do all that,
sin had to be charged to Christ. Had to be imputed in. He had
to take the debt. He had to be a sin offering.
Look at it again, verse 18. All things are of God who hath
reconciled us unto himself, how? By Jesus Christ. That glorious
person, that God-man, who took my place on Calvary's cross,
took my debt, took my death, took my hell, and died to pay
that debt in full. And then it says, hath given
us the ministry of reconciliation. This is what our ministry is
all about, right here. Now let me tell you something,
and listen to me very carefully. I believe that we, and I from
this pulpit, we're to promote positive thinking in a lot of
ways, good marriages, good workers, all of these things, morality
and all that. But listen, what's this ministry
all about? It's the ministry of reconciliation.
That's what it's all about. And I'm going to tell you something,
you get off on other things, you'll make a lot of people happy.
But it won't be a ministry of reconciliation. That's the reality of it. As
God made Christ experienced a real and actual encounter with sin
even more than we do. And I'm going to talk about that
next week. You know, Christ did no sin, knew no sin, but he himself
experienced a real and actual encounter with sin even more
than we as sinners do. I'll show you what I mean. Because
in that, all the sins of God's elect were made to meet on Him.
He became responsible for the whole debt of the whole election
of grace. And that's what sets the truth
and the tone and the methods of a gospel ministry. Well, look
at verse 19. Now, here's the way of reconciliation. I've already talked about it,
but listen, this kind of breaks it down. And he says, to wit,
that means namely, or it means this is the way it is. I'm going
to explain it to you now. He says, first of all, God was
in Christ. Well, how was that possible?
Well, God engaged himself in the person of Christ, the God-man.
Joe read it in Colossians 1, 19. It pleased the Father that
in Him, Christ, the God-man, should all fullness dwell. And
in Colossians 2 and verse 9 it says, In him dwelleth all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily. That's the fullness of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the person of Christ. You
want to know anything about God? The fullness of God, the greatness
of God, the majesty of God, the glory of God, the mercy of God,
the justice of God? Look to Christ. He said, All
things are delivered unto me by my Father. And no man knoweth
the Son, save the Father. And no man knoweth the Father,
save the Son. And he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal. He told Phil, Phil, if you've seen me, you've seen
the Father. And what is the work of the Holy
Spirit but to drive us to Christ, to see His fullness. Secondly,
God engaged His glory. You know, the honor of God, the
glory of God, The, how would you say, the credibility of God
is totally wrapped up in the person and finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know that if God failed
to save one sinner for whom Christ died, he would lose all his honor,
all his glory, all his credibility? You see, God's reputation was
on the line there. Now, there was never any doubt
that Christ was going to do the work and complete it and accomplish
it. But this is God's glory. This
is His Shekinah glory. That's the greatest manifestation
of God's glory that can be found in Christ. 2 Corinthians 4, 6,
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God. Where? in the face of Jesus Christ,
in the identity and distinction and glory of Jesus Christ. And
then thirdly, God engaged His promises in Christ. Look over at Hebrews chapter
6. This is one of my favorite passages when it comes to preaching
on assurance. And you know, a lot of people
are looking for assurance of salvation. I am. I want assurance, don't
you? I want a sure foundation. And
why can't we have assurance? Because Christ is called our
surety. You know, a lot of people don't think we can or should
have assurance. They think any assurance is presumption. They
think you ought to walk around trembling all the time. Well,
let me tell you something. If you're not looking to Christ
for all of salvation, if your hope is not in Him and Him alone,
you should be walking around trembling. But if your hope is
in Him, whom to know is life eternal, built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness, we should have peace and joy
and assurance, confidence in Him. Look at Hebrews chapter
6 and verse 16. He's talking about Abraham here. And he says, for men verily swear
by the greater. In other words, when men swear
an oath, they swear by something greater than themselves. And
he says, and an oath of confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
There's an oath, they swear an oath, and if they're people of
their word, that's an end of all argument, an end of all debate.
Well, verse 17, wherein God, willing more abundantly to show
the heirs of promise, That's the people of God. That's the
people who believe the promise of salvation by God's grace in
Christ, the immutability of his counsel, the unchangeability.
God cannot change his mind. Why would he have to? He's all
wise and all knowing. And he confirmed it by an oath.
He swore an oath. That's the covenant. and he says
that by two immutable things, two unchangeable things what
is it? God's promise and God's oath in which it was impossible
for God to lie we might have a strong consolation, a strong
assurance, a strong comfort who have fled for refuge to lay hold
upon the hope set before us here's what he's saying God made a promise
and he swore an oath And because there's nothing greater than
God, He's not like men. You see, when men swear an oath,
they swear by something greater than themselves. Well, there's
nothing greater than God. So what did God do? He swore by
Himself. He engaged Himself. He put Himself into this promise. That's His oath. He cannot go
back on it. He cannot change His mind. His
reputation is on the line. His glory is on the line. God
swore an oath. And who did He swear that oath
to? To everyone who have fled for
refuge to the hope set before them. Now what hope has God set
before His people? Salvation in Christ. He's not setting... Now listen,
a preacher can set other hopes in front of you. A preacher can
stand before you and say, now if you'll get baptized, God will
wash away your sins. Now God didn't set that hope
before you. Some false preacher did. But
God sets this hope before us. Christ and Him crucified. The
blood and righteousness of Christ. His grace in Christ. You flee
for refuge to Christ. Now God's engaged His oath behind
that promise and He can't go back on it. He'll save every
and any sinner who comes to Him for salvation in the true Christ. God was in Christ. Look at verse
18 back in chapter 5 again. He says, Verse 19, God was in
Christ reconciling the world unto himself. God reconciled
the world unto himself. Now the world there is not everybody
without exception. How do you know that? Two things.
Number one, not everybody, everybody without exception is not reconciled
to God. Whoever he's talking about, God's
been reconciled to them. They've been reconciled to God,
rather. And God has reconciled to them in Christ on that common
ground, the blood and righteousness of Christ. But here's who He's
talking about. Look at verse 19. God reconciled
the world unto Him. What He's talking about there,
He's talking about His people all over the world, His people
out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. That's His
point. Not, listen to it, not imputing,
not charging their trespasses unto them. Whoever he's talking
about it's a people to whom God does not charge with their sins
We were studying in Revelation chapter 20 this morning about
the great white throne judgment And he says those who don't those
who die without Christ They're going to be judged out of the
books of And what those books represent is God's record in
His mind of all the sins of all sinners who die in unbelief.
And that books, they're recorded in the books that, in other words,
God has them in mind. He will charge them with their
sins. That's not who He's talking about
here, because whoever He's talking about here, He doesn't charge
them with their sins. Not impute. You see, God cannot send any
sinner to hell to whom He does not charge sin. If He doesn't
charge you with sin, what does that mean? That means salvation.
That's reconciliation. That's glory. Not imputing. Not charging. Now, I want to
show you something, a little exercise in interpretation, and
then I'll close. But I want you to go to Psalm
32. Go back to Psalm 32. Now he's talking about the non-imputation
of sin. Not charging me with the debt
of sin. Now I'm a sinner. And I've run
up a big debt. Bigger than I even know. You
ever had a debt you didn't know about and you find out about
it and you find out it's a lot bigger than what you thought?
Kind of takes the wind out of your sails, doesn't it? Well,
the debt of sin that we've run up, each individual here, including
this preacher, it's bigger than really we know. I'm serious. But it's not charged to us who
know Christ, who believe in Him, who rest in Him. It's charged
to him. Now, that's the non-imputation
of sin. Now, the non-imputation of sin
means this. If God doesn't charge me with
my sin, what does He do with them? He doesn't just blow them
out there in the air. He doesn't just say, let's forget
about it, fellas. It never happened. Let's play
like it never happened. No, He doesn't do that. God cannot
do that. What does He do with them? He charged them to somebody
else who's able and qualified and appointed and willing to
deal with them. And that's Christ. He charged
them to Christ. You can't talk about the non-imputation of sins
in the Bible without talking about the imputation of sin to
Christ. And there's the context of 2
Corinthians 5.21. all right and then the non-imputation of sins
in the Bible now you know somebody could come up if you had a debt
at a bank and somebody came along and paid that debt you'd be thankful
what but they could pay that debt and leave your account at
zero you still have nothing you just wouldn't know you wouldn't
be in the you wouldn't be in the red but you wouldn't be any
better office as far as having anything to spend you'd be at
zero But in the Bible, that's not the way God works in this
reconciliation. In the Bible, and listen, this
is the teaching from Genesis all the way to Revelation. The
non-imputation of sins means automatically the imputation
of righteousness. Not only does Christ pay the
debt of our sins, He gives us His righteousness. So our sins
imputed, charged to Him, means His righteousness charged, imputed
to us. You can't have one without the
other. Not in the Bible now. Not the way God does it. So it'd
be like somebody paying that debt for you and then giving
you a million dollars to the good. That'd be good. You'd really
be thankful then, wouldn't you? They paid your debt and then
gave you the million dollars. Well look here, Psalm 32. This is
David, verse 1. He said, Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is what? Covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no guile. Now David's talking about the
non-imputation of sin based upon an atonement, a covering. Somebody
took care of those sins by way of satisfaction. Now, look over
at Romans chapter 4. What did David mean by all that?
Now listen to this. First of all, what's he talking
about in Romans 4? He's talking about how God justifies sinners.
How He makes them right. How He declares them righteous.
Look at verse 6 of Romans 4. He said, even as David, also
describe it, the blessedness of the man unto whom the God
imputeth righteousness without works. Now, when you read that
over in Psalm 32, did David state it that way? Did David say, blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without
works? Did he say it that way? No. But you know what? That's
what he meant. How do you know that? Look at
verse 7. saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,
whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. How do I know that's what David
meant? That's what God says he meant. That's what God says David
had in mind. David didn't even mention the
word righteousness, but that's what he meant. And I'll tell
you what, David mentioned the word righteousness a whole lot
in other Psalms, didn't he? That's what he's talking about.
Look back at 2 Corinthians 5. Not imputing their trespasses
unto them. That's our hope. To have our
sins charged to Christ and His righteousness imputed. That's
what reconciles us to God. That's the method. And then he
says, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now that's the gospel. And we'll pick up there. I'll
show you that next week as we conclude this chapter on the
word of reconciliation.