There is nothing in all the world
so tormenting as guilt. I do not doubt for a moment that
the fires of hell, unquenchable fires of torment, shall be forever
fueled by a constantly increasing keen awareness of guilt. The worm that never dies, forever
gnawing upon the damned in their consciences is guilt, guilt. But even in this world, there's
nothing more tormenting to a man or a woman than a sense of guilt. I'm not talking about just guilt
before men. That's easy enough to get rid
of. I'm talking about a consciousness of guilt in your soul before
God. Some of you, I have no question,
struggle with what I'm talking about right now. You do everything
you can to silence your screaming consciences. You read your Bible,
try to pray, go to church, maybe join the church, make a profession
of faith, reform your life. Day after day, week after week,
month after month, you keep trying to do better, but your conscience
still screams guilt death. When you lie on your bed in the
lonely watches of the night and try to rest, you find that your
bed is too short to stretch yourself upon it, and you're covering
too narrow to wrap yourself in it, because you have no righteousness
before God, and the guilt of sin is upon you. Your refuge
of lies is swept away in a moment. before the bar of God's justice
when the fierceness of his anger is made known, so that in your
very souls you quake and tremble and weep before God with an overwhelming
sense of guilt. You just can't rest, not in your
soul. You find your daily bitter experience
to be there is no peace to the wicked. And some of you who are
believers have similar struggles. I know sometimes preachers preach
like they don't think believers really have such struggles, but
we do have them. You know that Christ has redeemed
you from the curse of the law. You know that you are no longer
cursed before God. You know that he is made of God
unto you righteousness. You know that he has satisfied
the penalty of sin, that he's paid your debt. That He's the
Lord, your righteousness, and you're made the righteousness
of God in Him. And yet, you keenly sense the
guilt of your own inward lust and the iniquities of your soul. There's nothing that makes the
life of a poor sinner, a sinner saved by grace, whose heart and
soul is tender before God, nothing that makes us so painfully bitter
in our lives. has a sense of guilt because
of our sins. Satan, our accuser, knows that
about which we are most sensitive, and he accuses us constantly,
night and day. And he finds a ready ally in
our souls, saying, Amen. We're guilty. We're guilty. I
have a message to God, a message from God to you. To you, who
know Christ and to you who know Him not. I speak specifically
to you who carry the weight of sin in your souls. And if God
the Holy Spirit will enable me to deliver the message, I promise
you, it'll be worth more than a mountain of gold to your soul. You'll find it in the opening
words of 2 Corinthians 5.21. Here is a message so simple,
so clear, that it's stated in five short One-syllable words. And yet, in these five words,
God the Holy Spirit teaches us the single most important, and
the single most profound, most mysterious, and most soul-cheering
truth in all the universe. He hath made him sin. And that's my message. I have
been seeking a message from God on these words, for the better
part of 37 years, and I believe I've got it. He hath made him
sin. I read the text right. The words
to be are in italics. They were added by our translators. That's what the symbolism of
the italicized words in our English versions mean. That means that
they were inserted here by our translators to make the text
read more smoothly, to give it a clearer sense of meaning. In this case, the words to be
are a hindrance, not a help. He hath made him sin for us. Now in the context, Paul is issuing
an urgent call to sinners to be reconciled to God, telling
us that God was in Christ reconciling the world of his elect unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them. And he reconciled
us to himself by the sacrifice of his son at Calvary, and has
now given to us the ministry of reconciliation, this word
of grace, and the first word in the message of reconciliation,
the first word in the message of grace, the first word by which
He would persuade all who hear the gospel to lay down their
weapons of warfare, to quit fighting against God, to quit despising
Him, to cease from their rebellion and be reconciled to God as this,
He hath made Him sin for us. The entire message of this passage,
indeed the entire message of the Bible, hangs upon this one
thing. He hath made Him sin. We cannot be made new creatures
in Christ until Christ has been made sin. We cannot be reconciled
to God until God has made His Son to be sin. God cannot be
reconciled to us until He hath made Him sin. We cannot be made
the righteousness of God in Christ until He hath made Him sin. And we cannot receive grace until
he hath made him sin. Let's look at this text one more
time. We'll concentrate on these five words in the opening part
of the verse this morning, and the latter part tonight, the
Lord willing. For he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. If ever we find
rest, peace, and joy in our souls. If ever a sinner is made to be
of good cheer before God, having the blessed assurance of forgiveness
of all sin, it must be fetched from this blessed revelation,
a revelation made in Holy Scripture, and a revelation that must be
made by God in your soul. He hath made him sin. No sinner will ever find rest
for his soul, a bed on which he can stretch himself, coverings
broad enough in which to wrap himself, except this, he has
made him sin. Now, let me first show you what
this text does not say. And what the text does not say
in this case is almost as important as what it does say. It is not
stated, as is most commonly interpreted, it is not stated, as most commonly
it is suggested, that God the Father made His Son a sin offering. That is not what the Holy Spirit
tells us here. Yes, He did make His Son to be
our sin offering. The Lord Jesus Christ, our all-glorious
Redeemer, is our only sin offering. We have no offering for sin but
Him. But that's not what this text
says. Our text says, He hath made him sin. The Apostle doesn't
tell us here that the Lord Jesus was made a sacrifice for sin.
That too. Blessed, blessed, precious truth
of Holy Scripture. We have no sacrifice for sin
except Him. He is our only sin-atoning sacrifice. He alone has put away sin by
the sacrifice of Himself. But our text doesn't tell us
Christ was made a sacrifice for sin, but rather that he was made
sin. And the text doesn't say that
our Lord Jesus Christ was reckoned to be sin by his Father. That's
the way we would read the text if we read it as it is in our
translation. He hath made him to be sin. He was reckoned to
be sin. He has treated him as though
he were sin. But the text says he hath made him sin. Let me show you something else.
I found this shocking. I was surprised. I was very surprised
when I discovered this. Paul does not say here that the
Lord Jesus Christ was made to have sin imputed to him. In fact, in fact, and I looked
up every one of them, the word impute or imputation or one of
its derivatives is used eight times in Romans chapters four
and five, but it is never used neither in the book of Romans,
nor here, nor anywhere else in all the Scripture, the word imputation,
impute or imputed, laid to the account of, laid to the charge
of, is never used in reference to Christ being made sin. It
is used with regard to His righteousness being imputed to us. It is used
with regard to our being made sin by the sin and fault of our
father Adam. The word made in Romans 5, that
is used both with regard to all who are in Adam by creation and
all who are in Christ by the new creation of grace, both those
who are in Adam who were made sinners and those who are in
Christ who are made the righteousness of God in Him. The word made
in Romans chapter 5 is a legal term. It means they were legally
constituted, legally declared to be sinners. But that word
is never used with regard to Christ being made sinner. We
were legally declared the righteousness of God, but He was not in any
way said to be legally declared sin for us. So, Brother Dodd,
was sin not imputed to Him? Oh, yes. Sin was imputed to Him,
but it is never stated that way in Scripture because the Holy
Spirit would have us to understand that sin was imputed to Him,
Bobby, because He was made sin. It was justly imputed to Him.
It was rightly imputed to him. Now look at the text. He hath
made him sin. John Gill expressed it this way.
He was made sin itself. What a word. The sins of all
his people were transferred to him and laid upon him. He sustained
our persons. He bore our sins. Having our
sins upon him, being charged with our sins, and answerable
for our sins, because he was made sin. He was treated by the
justice of God as if he had not only been a sinner, but a mass
of sin, because he was made sin. Now, I'm fully aware that natural
reason opposes this. I can't tell you how long, for
how many years, I read this text and tried to get some grasp of
it. I read when I was just a boy,
just 18 or 19 years old, Martin Luther's comments. He was studying
this passage. He said, no man can understand
this. The words here are such that are totally contrary to
human reason. And most had endeavored to make
the word of God say something else. We are told, and I can
pull down commentary after commentary, sermon after sermon in my library,
and show you that people say he had sin charged to him, that
he had to bear the guilt of our sins, that he was charged with
the debt of our sins, that he became accountable for our sins.
They bore all the effects of our sins, that he was treated
as if he were sin. But that's not what this text
says. Hear the Holy Spirit. tells us that which is almost
universally denied by religious people, he hath made him sin. Now there it stands. How can
this be? What does this mean? One thing
got me studying this, Brother Todd Nyberg called me a few weeks
ago, two or three weeks ago, and he was confronted with a
question. He called me to discuss the answer. He said, do we say that Christ was made
safe? I know that's what the scriptures
say, but what does that mean? In human law and in human reason,
in all things among men, I fully acknowledge that guilt can never
be transferred on its effects. No man can take the guilt of
another man, only the consequences of guilt. Among the sons of men,
a third person may cancel my debts, But he can never cancel
my crimes. But I'm not talking to you about
men. I'm not talking to you about courts of law. Courts of law. And things pertaining to men
are used in the Bible to illustrate and communicate to us the truths
of the gospel. But when we come to speak of
God's work of grace and salvation in redeeming our souls by Jesus
Christ, we're talking about that which distinguishes God most
supremely from all creatures and from all imaginary gods.
Listen to this. Turn to Isaiah 45. Let me show
you. Isaiah 45, verse 21. affair of salvation, our great
God stands infinitely alone in this most glorious work of God. There is such a display of justice,
mercy, wisdom, power, and goodness as has never entered into the
heart of man to conceive. Consequently, there is no parallel
to it. Look at Isaiah 45, verse 21.
Who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that
time? Have not I the Lord? And look
what it says. And there is no God else beside
me. This is what distinguishes me.
Above all else, this is what distinguishes me from all the
notions men have about God. Above everything else, this is
the thing that distinguishes me from all the imaginary gods
of men. This is that which sets me apart
most gloriously. A just God and a Savior. Were our sins transferred to
Christ? Were they made His? Or was our
Savior simply treated as though He were guilty? What do the Scriptures
say? What do the Scriptures say? I
had apparently a young man, he wrote like a young man, cocky
and arrogant, but he seemed to have a little desire for some
communication things, and I wrote to him two or three times this
week. I kept referring to creeds and confessions. I finally wrote
to him and I said, it doesn't matter what any creed or any
confession or any preacher or any church or any group of preachers
or any group of churches had to say concerning things revealed
in this book. What does God say? Nothing else
matters. Nothing else matters. Nothing
else matters. Now, it's delightful to read
in the commentaries and in the confessions and in the creeds,
things that are reflective of a man's understanding of Scripture.
But we do not base our faith on what men say, or on traditions
and customs, but rather we bring our faith to the Word of God
and see what God has to say, and that's what we believe. In
this statement, He hath made him sin, this is worth writing
down. The Word made. It's not a legal
term, as I told you earlier, but it's a word that carries
with it the idea of create. Let me give you the meaning.
It means by one act, to gather together and cause to become. It is a passive verb. I'm sorry, an active verb in
the past tense. It is a verb that means this
was done at one time in the past. But in this great work of God
the Father making His darling Son to be sin, to become sin,
the Lord Jesus Christ is voluntarily and willingly engaged in the
work. The word made, as we'll see this
evening in the latter part of this chapter, where it says we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him, that word is a
present tense verb that's passive, and it means that we by Him being
made sin for us, are now continually being made to become the very
righteousness of God in Him without anything done by us. The Word
of God plainly teaches that Christ, our surety, was made sin for
us, that He bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that
the Lord God laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. Let me show
it to you, both in the Old Testament and in the New. First, let's
look at a couple of types. Turn back to Leviticus, and you
turn to chapter 16. I'll get there in just a minute.
You remember in Leviticus, chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, Moses is given
instruction about the various sin offerings, trespass offerings,
and peace offerings the children of Israel were to bring to the
Lord because of their sins. And in every case, the man who
brought the sacrifice was to lay his hands upon the head of
the innocent victim. And by laying his hands upon
his head, he was at that time to confess over the innocent
victim, about to be slaughtered, his sin, implying that there
was a transfer made of guilt from the sinner to the animal.
And when the animal was symbolically, ceremonially made sin, then the
animal was sacrificed upon the altar to the Lord God. When Aaron
and his sons were consecrated and brought the animal of consecration,
because the bullet bearing their sins was counted worthy of death,
the Lord commanded, Thou shalt kill the bullet before the Lord
by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Perhaps,
however, the clearest picture is given here in Leviticus 16.
Look at verse 20. This is the day of atonement.
Two goats are brought to the Lord. Aaron cast lots. One is
chosen as the Lord's goat, the other as the scapegoat. And here
in verse 20 we read about the scapegoat. When he hath made
an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of
the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat,
and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live
goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children
of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins, putting them
upon the head of the goat. You see that? putting them upon
the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of
a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited, and he
shall let the goat go into the wilderness." This is one of my
favorite types in all the Scriptures. Now notice what our Lord says
before us here. Here is the transfer of sin from the people to the
goat. From us to Christ, the Lamb of
God. Here's a transfer of the sins
of a particular people, distinctly named. They are the sins of the
children of Israel. Theirs, all theirs, and only
theirs. No one else's. Here's the transfer
of all their sins to this goat. And now they're taken away. Forever taken away. Taken away. As far as the east is from the
west. So far hath He removed our transgressions
from us. How far? How far? He cast them
into the depths of the sea of infinite forgetfulness. How far
are they removed from us? The scripture says, Our God has
cast them behind His back. Now you find God's back. Cast them behind His back, never
to be remembered against us again. because he's taken them away. He had by himself purged our
sins. Then he sat down with the right
hand of the majesty on high. You know that he was manifested
to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. Now, look back
in Leviticus chapter 4, verse 21. Let me show you something
about Israel's sin offering. And he shall carry forth the
bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first
bullock. It is a sin offering for the
congregation. Hold your hands here and turn
to Hosea chapter 4. Hold your hands here in Leviticus and turn
to Hosea 4. You remember the priests were to take the sin
offerings, whatever was left over, and that was to be their
sustenance. They were to feed themselves and their families
upon the sin offering. In Hosea chapter 4, the Lord
is upbraiding the priests of Israel for their abuse of their
office, and look what it says. Hosea chapter 4 and verse 8. the sin of my people and set
their heart on iniquity. There in Hosea 4.8, we have the
same word that is here in Leviticus 4.21 translated, sin offering,
sin. If the word were strictly translated,
the word sin offering is sin, sin. The Lord God Almighty says
that this bullock is the habitual sinfulness of the congregation,
the habitual sinfulness of the congregation. And this sin offering,
this one whom God told Moses to describe and set forth for
the children of Israel as a picture of Christ, when this sin offering
has the sins of Israel put upon Him, there the bullet is made,
the habitual sinfulness of the congregation, and that is what
Christ has been made for us. Turn to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. Here the prophet clearly declares
that Jesus Christ, our all-glorious substitute and Savior, was made
to bear our sins, not just the consequences of them, but our
sins themselves, when He was made an offering for sin for
us. Look at verse 6. All we like
sheep have gone astray, We've turned everyone to his own way.
The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all. The prophet here speaks as one
who is eyewitness, who was an eyewitness to something that
had already occurred. You say, but Brother Don, he's
speaking prophetically. No, not here he's not. Not here
he's not. He's speaking as an eyewitness
of that which had already taken place in the mind and purpose
of God from eternity. Well, he couldn't do that in
just a man. He spoke by the Spirit of God. Now, later in the passage,
here in Isaiah 53, he speaks prophetically of things. Look
at verse 8. He was taken from prison and judgment. Who shall
declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his
death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit
in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. Now, what's this? He hath put
him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for
sin. The very same word we saw back in Leviticus, when thou
hast made him the continual guiltiness, the continual iniquity. the continual sin of the people. He shall see his sea. He shall
prolong his days. The pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his head. He shall see the travail of his
soul and shall be satisfied, for by his knowledge, by his
knowledge of all that he has done, he shall, shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. And
he was numbered with the transgressors, and bare, received, accepted,
took, and carried. I told you when he was made sin,
it involved his work as well as the father's. He bare, received,
accepted, took, and carried the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors in these solemn transactions. Our Lord
stood as the surety of many. As the debts are transferred
from the debtor to the surety, so our sins were transferred
from us to Christ, our surety, our sinless, spotless, holy,
harmless, undefiled Redeemer. But they were not just charged
to Him. They were made His. Let's see. Turn to Psalm 40.
This psalm we know speaks of Christ. We know it Because God
the Holy Spirit tells us in Hebrews 10 that the language here is
the language of Jesus Christ, our Savior, who when he came
into this world cried, Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God. He
knew that being made sin for us would bring him into a horrible
pit. And that filled him with distress.
Yet His love for us was and is such great, intense love that
in verse 7 He declares His readiness to assume a body, to accomplish
His Father's will in the saving of His people, agreeably to the
ancient settlements of God's own eternal purpose. Lo, I come
to do Thy will, O my God. Now look what it says in verse
11. Here's our Savior. These are His words. Withhold
not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let thy lovingkindness
and thy truth continually preserve me. Four. Somehow you ought to
circle that, put a star or two beside it, and meditate on it
all the time. Here's the reason. Here's the
reason. He cried unto God and was heard,
and did he fear. Here's the reason. He prays like
he does in this song. For innumerable evils have come
past me, evils from every corner, from every side, throughout the
ages of time. Innumerable as the sands of the
sea and the stars in the sky. Innumerable evils have come past
me about, gathered around me. Now watch this. Mine iniquities,
mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I'm not able
to look up. They are more than the hairs
of my head, therefore my heart faileth me." Brother Don, surely
we can't take those words just as they stand. Surely we can't
take them any other way. This is exactly what our Master
said in John 12, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto
this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name. When
our Savior was brought into such great sorrow and grief, we cannot
help but to ask why. The answer is, He hath made Him
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Indeed, He could not have suffered. Now, He couldn't. Turn to Proverbs
17. I want you to see this. Hold your hands here in the Psalms.
We'll turn to Proverbs 17. Our Savior could not have suffered.
The painful, shameful, ignominious death of the cross as our substitute
under the wrath of God had he not been made sin for us. The justice of God would never
allow it. You remember what we read back
in Isaiah 45? He says, this is that which distinguishes
me above all creatures, above all gods. I am a just God and
the Savior. And look what it says in Proverbs
17, 15. he that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth
the just, even they both are an abomination to the Lord."
That means God Almighty cannot condemn His darling Son until
somehow His Son becomes that which is totally contrary to
His nature, until His Son becomes what we are, sin. And God Almighty
It cannot justify you and me until we are made to be that
which is totally contrary to our nature, that which we can
only be made to be altogether without our age, the very righteousness
of God in Him. Hear the Savior's word back here
in Psalm 40 and verse 12, and worship Him. For innumerable
evils have compassed me about, the blessed one of God, who knew
no sin, who did no sin, in whose heart there was no guile, whose
mouth never spoke deceit. The holy, heartless Lamb of God
says, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I'm not
able to look up. O my soul, what would my sins
have done to me eternally had the Son of God not taken my sin
and made it His sin. Oh, blessed Savior! Oh, amazing
love! Oh, wondrous grace! Oh, infinite
wisdom of God! The pains of God's holy fury
against sin fell on Him. His unmitigated wrath, unbending
justice, His holy fury, beyond calculation, is poured out upon
the Savior's soul and crushes him to death so that he is sore
amazed. And he cries out to his Father,
I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart, like wax, is melted
in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a potsherd. My tongue cleaveth to my jaws,
and Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. When our Savior
came to Gethsemane, as He anticipates being made sin for us, His holy
soul is crushed within Him until His heart broke before God. And His ruptured heart causes
blood to ooze from the pores of His skin until His sweat is
blood falling to the ground, not because He incurred the death
of sin, No debt, no matter how great, will crush a man's heart.
No debt. No debt. Not because he was considered
as though he were sin by men or by God. No such consideration,
when you know that it's not just, will crush a man's heart. But
he was made sin. And the anticipation of it is
expressed when he says, Father, if it be possible, let this cut
pass from me. He is not saying, Father, if
it is possible for me to escape death, let me do that. No. He
set His face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem to suffer
and die. He came here to redeem us. He came here to be made sin
for us. But this one man, who alone knows
what sin is, anticipates being made sin. We cannot begin to
imagine the thought. Sin is so common to us that we
don't even understand what it is. We drink iniquity like a
thirsty man drinks water and thinks it tastes good. Nothing
was so bitter to his holy soul as sin. And now he's about to
be made sin. When he comes to Golgotha and
he's made to be sin, because he's made sin, He is forsaken
of the Father. Look at Psalm 22. The Lord Jesus
speaks. Read this whole 22nd Psalm and
try to picture in your mind the Son of God hanging on the curse
tree as He speaks to the Father. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? Oh, my God, I cry in the daytime,
but thou hearest not. And in the night season, I am
not silent. We saw it this morning in Psalm
1. He meditates in the law of the Lord day and night. But now
he says, oh, my God, you hear me not. Oh, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? When he is at the apex of obedience
to his father's will, the father turns his back on his son. He
abandons his son. He forsakes his son. And here's
the reason. Thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest
the praises of Israel. David understood what he was
saying. He understood this is talking about our Savior. Look
back here in Psalm 40, verse 5. Many, O Lord my God, are thy
wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which
are to us. They cannot be reckoned up in
order unto thee. If I were to declare and speak
of them, they are more than can be numbered. If there is anything
in the book of God we ought to desire to understand, And to
be well acquainted with it is this, God the Father laid on
Christ the iniquity of us all and so fully did so that he hath
made him sin. He hath made him sin. Made him sin for us who knew
no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Now let me show you one passage
and I'll let you go home. Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews 9. In verse 26, we are told that
the Lord Jesus appeared once in the end of the world to put
away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. In verse 28, we are
told that to them that look for Him shall He appear a second
time, now watch this, without sin. Without sin. Once He had sin, was made sin. When He died, He put it away.