Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
Now today, if you'd like to follow along in your Bibles, I'll be
preaching from the book of 2 Corinthians 5, and my text is verse 21. I'll deal with some other verses
in that passage to give you the context, but 2 Corinthians 5,
21. The title of the message is Sin and Righteousness. Sin and Righteousness. 2 Corinthians
5.21. And again, let me take this opportunity
to invite any of you who are listeners of this program and
who live close enough to visit our worship services at Eager
Avenue Grace Church. We have a 10 o'clock Bible study
on Sunday morning and an 11 o'clock main worship service on Sunday
morning. And we invite you to come and visit us, Eager Avenue
Grace Church at 1102 Eager Drive in Albany, Georgia, where I pastor.
So we invite you, and then we also invite those of you who
don't live close enough, if you don't have a church to go to,
if you got a computer, not only can you watch this program as
you're doing now, but also you can watch our services on live
streaming at the 10 o'clock hour and the 11 o'clock hour on Sunday
morning, live streaming on the internet. You can go to our website
at www.robgrace.com and connect to those services as they are
going on. So we invite you to do that.
Let us hear from you, and we'd love to just get to know you. But that's my invitation to you. Now, in 2 Corinthians 5.21, this
verse is a very controversial verse as to its meaning. But
what I want us to do, it's a verse that, in one verse, it kind of
states the heart of the gospel. And it says in verse 21 of 2
Corinthians 5, it says, for he, now the he there is God the Father. He hath made him. The him there
is Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate. God the Father hath
made him. to be sin. Now you might notice
if you have the authorized King James Version that the to be
is in italics. What that means is that the King
James translators added those words and sometimes and most
the time they did a great job as they were providentially guided
in their translation. There's some things that I think
need to be changed but What that means is they tried to do it
to make sense of the language so that as you read it in English
But some people read it this way for he hath made him sin
God the Father actually made Jesus Christ sin and He says
he did it for us now the us there has to do with his people believers
and This is not teaching that God made Christ sin for everybody
without exception, as some people would say today. And the reason
that's important now is we need to understand what makes the
difference in salvation. What makes the difference between
saved and lost? And we need to understand, it's
not us, it's not me or you who makes the difference. It's Christ
who makes the difference. Now, there's a difference in
this sense. There are unbelievers and there
are believers. Unbelievers are those who are
left in their natural state. Believers are those who have
been given the gift of faith to believe in Christ. and they
evidence that he died for them. You say, well, that doesn't seem
to be fair. Now, listen to me, we can talk about matters of
that from the scripture, but the Bible deals with that in
several passages, especially Romans chapter nine. What we
have to understand is that all of us by nature, if we are left
to ourselves and our own desires and our own will, we would never
come to God. We would never believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And if you think you would, you
don't understand these issues of sin and righteousness. But
he says this, he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin. Now, who knew no sin doesn't
refer to us, it refers to Christ. Christ was made sin, but Christ
himself knew no sin. Well, does that mean that he
doesn't know what sin is and what it's about? No, he knows
exactly what sin is. But this word know, the word
knew and know in the New Testament many times and in the Old Testament,
it refers to an intimate experiential knowledge of someone or something. For example, back in the Old
Testament, it talks about how Adam knew his wife. Now that means more than he just
knew her name or knew who she was or had some kind of a mental
knowledge of her. It means that he loved her. It
means that he was intimate with her. And yes, it does involve
even in that relationship, because it's between a man and a woman,
the sexual relationship. He knew his wife. In the Bible,
in 2 Timothy chapter 2, I believe it is, it talks about how God
knows his people. And that's more than just God
knows who they are. A lot of people try to describe
God as somebody who looks down through a telescope of time and
he sees what will be. That is not the God of the Bible,
folks. God knows his people. How does
he know them? He knows them in love. He loves
his people with that divine electing love. He chose them before the
foundation of the world. He knows them. He has an intimate
relationship with them spiritually in their salvation. They are
his children. You know your children. That
means more than you just know their names. That means you love
them, you care for them, you provide for them. That's the
way God knows His people. The Lord knoweth them that are
His. So, what it's saying here in
2 Corinthians 5.21 is Christ never had an intimate experiential
knowledge of sin. He was never a sinner. He never
was made sin in some other way that would cause him to be contaminated
or corrupted. He never had a sinful thought,
a sinful desire. He never had a sinful motive
or goal. He, in all of his experience
as God-man, even in his human nature, He never knew sin. Now it says in verse 21, for
God hath made him sin for us, Christ who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. The we there has
to do with those who are made the righteousness of God in him.
So that's not referring to everyone without exception. If it were,
then you'd have to say, you'd have to say that everyone without
exception is made the righteousness of God in him. What does that
mean? Well, let's talk about sin and let's talk about righteousness. What is sin? Do you understand
what the Bible teaches about sin? Well, the Bible uses different
words to describe the issue of sin. In the Old Testament, the
Hebrew word, and in the New Testament, the Greek word for sin, the main
two words in the Old Testament and the New Testament have to
do with this, sin is missing the mark, missing the standard,
falling short. We all quote the verse in Romans
3 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,
falling short of the glory of God. And of course, what is the
glory of God? Well, the glory of God is the
person and work of Christ. In other words, we don't measure
up to Christ. We don't measure up to the standard
of righteousness, therefore it's sin. And that's the most common
word in many forms having to do with sin, sinning, being a
sinner. That's the word here in 2 Corinthians
5.21. He hath made him sin, that's
missing the mark. falling short, Christ who knew
no sin, Christ who never missed the mark. You could say it that
way. Now there are other words for
sin in the Bible. You could talk about the word
transgression. Transgression means breaking
the law. All sin is transgression of the
law, breaking the law of God. That's why there is no salvation
for any sinner by deeds of the law. Because we're all lawbreakers. We fell into sin and death in
Adam, ruined by the fall. And that's why there's only one
way of salvation, that's to be redeemed by the blood of Christ.
Christ's blood is what pays the debt. That's another word for
sin, it's a debt. In other words, whenever we sin,
it's like running up a debt to God's law and justice. We know
that in our human courts, our human legal society, because
whenever somebody commits a crime and they're sentenced to prison,
we say when they finish their sentence, what do we say? They've
paid their debt to society. Well, as sinners, you see, we
run up a debt to God's justice. And what is the debt? How can
the debt be paid? Well, the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. That's what the scripture says.
You see, good intentions and good works will not pay for sin.
I've heard people say, well, when I get to judgment, God's
gonna weigh my good works against my bad works. And if my good
works outweigh my bad, I'll be okay. No, the wages of sin is
death. And plus the fact too, that the
Bible says that because we're sinners, we have no good works
in God's sight. Now that doesn't mean we can't
be moral. It doesn't mean we can't be religious
and dedicated, but we still miss the mark. You say, well, I heard
a man tell me one time, he said, I just love everybody. And I
told him, I said, well, first of all, you don't even know everybody.
But let me ask you, let me say this. If you think you love everybody,
do you think you love everybody all the time, 100%, 24 seven,
perfectly? without any thought of hate,
without any thought of revenge, without any thought of harm to
your worst enemy. I don't think many of you would
say, oh yeah, that's me. No, no, we all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. I'm gonna tell you something
right now. If you love everybody perfectly, you're not a sinner.
You don't have to worry about what I'm saying. In fact, go
watch something else. You don't need this program.
Now you know. You know that I know better than
that and you know better than that. I had a man tell me one
time, he said, well, he said, I just don't believe we're always
bad as you say we are. Well, I'm not, I'm just telling
you what God says, what the word of God says. Sin is missing the
mark. Sin is breaking the law. Sin
is crossing the line. You've heard the word trespass. You go out in the field and you
come upon a sign that says, no trespassing. It means you can't
cross that line. Well, trespassers, we've crossed
the line. God drew the line in the sand.
He said, Adam, in the day that you eat thereof, in that day,
dying thou shalt die. Adam crossed the line, we crossed
it with him. And that's what sin is. You've
heard the word iniquity. Iniquity comes from the word
equity, means equals out, equity. If something is equitable, it
equals out. Iniquity or inequity means it
doesn't balance. In other words, we're imbalanced.
Nothing we do measures up or balances out to the righteousness
that God demands. And that's what sin is. Now,
my point is this, sin is not a substance. I've heard people
say, well, you've got sin pulsing through your veins. No, I've
got blood pulsing through my veins. Now, sometimes the Bible
describes sin with a metaphor. Now, you know what a metaphor
is, that symbolic language. And I'll show you an example
of that back in the book of Genesis, chapter four and verse seven.
This is where the Lord is talking to Cain who had brought the Works
of his hands to God to be accepted and he told Cain in verse 7 of
Genesis 4 He says if thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted
and if thou doest not well sin lieth at the door and Unto thee
shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him Now God told
Cain if thou if you do well, you'll be accepted. What was
it to do? Well, I What was to do like Abel did? Bring the blood
of the Lamb. You see, doing well is established
there. As far as salvation goes, how
do we do well before God for salvation? We plead Christ. We
believe in Him. We rest in Him. We plead His
blood. not our works, not our wills,
not even our faith. We plead Christ. We plead his
righteousness. We're submitted to his righteousness,
imputed, charged, accounted as our only ground of salvation.
And he said, if you don't do well, sin lieth at the door. Now, does he literally mean there's
a bunch of sin out there at your door piled up? No. What he's
doing, he's using a metaphor, and the metaphor there is like
a roaring lion ready to devour you. In other words, if you don't
have Christ, sin's gonna devour you, and it'll be for your desire,
and you'll have to conquer it. That's what he's telling, okay?
Which is an impossibility. My friend, I'm telling you right
now, you don't have it in you to conquer sin. Only Christ can
conquer sin. But that's what sin is, and sin
is a debt. Now go back to 2 Corinthians
5, 21. It says, for he hath made him
to be sin for us who knew no sin. How was Christ made sin?
Now this is where we get into the debates. We get into so much
that it's so off the wall. Well, the apostle Paul here in
2 Corinthians 5, he's talking about the judgment. He started
out this whole chapter talking about how believers will eventually
appear before God at the judgment. We'll put off this earthly tabernacle,
this physical body, and we'll put on a new body. That's the
new body in the resurrection body. And then he says over in
2 Corinthians 5.10, He says, 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
it be good or bad. Now that's not judgment based
on our works, or judgment by our works, it's the judgment
of our works. The works that a believer does,
are they good or bad? Well, in Christ, They are washed
in the blood of Christ. They are accepted of God in him. And he says in verse 11, knowing
therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we're made
manifest unto God. And I trust also are made manifest
in your consciences. What he's saying there is this,
we know the terror of the Lord. Now, what is the terror of the
Lord? The terror of the Lord is this, my friend, it is standing
before God at judgment on your own, pleading your own works. Because you know why that's a
terror? That's death, that's damnation. The terror of the
Lord is standing before God at judgment without Christ. You
see, our only hope of being declared, and that's what this is, this
judgment doesn't determine anything, that's already been determined.
This judgment is a declarative judgment. The only way that I
can be declared before everybody righteous in God's sight is as
I stand in Christ by the grace of God washed in His blood and
clothed in His righteousness. No other way. And the works that I do are the
fruit, not the cause, not the ground, but the fruit of His
grace. They evidence my standing in
Christ. That's why they can be called
good. You see, God's not gonna save me, justify me, or reward
me based upon how many good works I've done. That's not what the
scripture teaches. But an unbeliever who stands
before God without Christ, he will be judged as unrighteous,
as bad, and his works will all be bad, and he'll be damned. So that's the issue. And so then
he begins to talk about how Christ died for his people, to accomplish
this, what was he accomplishing? Righteousness. Remember down
in 2 Corinthians 5.21, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. What is righteousness? Righteousness,
like sin is not a substance, it's missing the mark, righteousness
is the mark. Righteousness is perfect satisfaction
to God's law and God's justice. And what is the measure of righteousness? Where can righteousness be found?
Well, he says, you're made the righteousness of God, and these
two words, in Him, in Christ. You see, Christ is the standard
of righteousness. And if I'm righteous in God's
sight, it's only by Christ. the merits of Christ, imputed
to me. So what's 2 Corinthians 5.21
teaching? It's teaching that sin was imputed
to Christ, the sins of God's elect. For us, he says, the sins
of his people, the sins of his sheep. What does that mean, imputed
to him? It means that all the demerit and debt of sin was charged,
imputed, accounted to Christ. That's what it means that Christ
is the surety of his people. He stands surety to pay their
debt. Put it on his account. And so
the debt that I ran up in my fallen Adam and in my sinning
on my life was charged to Christ. He wasn't contaminated with sin. He wasn't corrupted by my sin. He never had a thought of sin,
but he was made guilty. He was made a curse for us. He was brought under the wrath
of God justly for the sins of his people charged, imputed to
him. And in the same way, on the other
side, His people are made the righteousness of God in Him.
It's the righteousness of God imputed to them. In other words,
the demerit, the debt of their sins was charged to Christ. The
merit of His righteousness is charged to them. That's what
this verse is teaching. And it's the righteousness of
God. It's not the righteousness of man. Because Christ is the
God man. You see, that's what we need
to be saved. We don't need the righteousness of men or man.
That righteousness, even when Adam had it before the fall,
was changeable. He lost it. But having been justified
based on the righteousness of Christ, imputed, charged, accounted
to me, that righteousness can never be taken away. It can never
be contaminated. It can never be corrupted. It's
the perfect righteousness of God in Him. I stand in Christ. Paul wrote it this way in Philippians
3, that I may know Him and be found in Him, not having mine
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, even the righteousness of God, which is
by faith. Righteousness is not a substance. It's measuring up
to the perfect standard of God's law. And how can I, who am a
sinner, measure up? Only as I stand in Christ. And therefore I believe in Him. I rest in Him and His finished
work. I plead His blood for the forgiveness
of all my sins. I plead his righteousness, and
I can sing my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood
and righteousness. And I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Christ is the Lord
my righteousness, my only hope. And I hope that this message
has helped you to understand, study this in the scripture.
Go to other verses. This is what the Bible's talking
about in the great exchange. Sin imputed to Christ, righteousness
imputed to his people. For God made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. That's the heart of the gospel. The ground of
salvation, and Paul talks about it there. He says that's how
we preach in evangelism. to beseech sinners, come to Christ. You have no hope anywhere else.
There's no hope in your works. There's no hope in your religion.
There's no hope in your confession, your profession, your baptism,
your aisle walking. No hope in those things. There's
only hope in Christ and Him alone. forsake all others, repent of
ever thinking that anything you thought, did, or tried to do
would save you, wash away your sins, or make you righteous before
God? There's no other way. What can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my hope and peace. This is all my righteousness.
We sing those songs. They mean something. Look into
the word of God. Look at the scriptures to understand
and pray that God will give you an understanding. Like that Ethiopian
in the desert that Philip went to preach to. He's reading Isaiah
53 and Philip asked him, do you understand what you're reading?
He said, how can I except some man show me? And Philip began
at that same scripture and preached unto him, Jesus, God, our salvation. Well, here's how the salvation
works out. This is how Christ, this is what
Isaiah 53 is all about. In God's servant, Jesus Christ,
shall the many be made righteous in him. And there's no other
way. Christ taking the place of his
people as their surety and substitute, and them receiving the benefit
of what he accomplished on Calvary in finishing the work. And so
we look to Jesus Christ as the author and the finisher of our
faith. The author and the finisher of
our forgiveness. The author and the finisher of
our righteousness. No other way. This is the only
gospel that saves. This is the gospel which is the
power of God unto salvation. This is the gospel, the only
gospel, that deals with sin as it really is and righteousness
as it really is. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive. Albany, Georgia, 31707. Contact
us by phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website
at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.