Giving of oneself & financially is proof of our love - Part 2
2 Cor: 8:8-15 · Unknown · Jul 9, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 32
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261722394924

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we're going to cover actually verses 19 through 21. I kind of moved them around a little bit. So could someone read, actually Tom last week you read really well, would you like to read again? Well we'll give it a shot. Okay I'd like you to read a little bit more than what I have up here. Could you go back to verse 14? Ready. And 514 through 21. Here we go.

For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then we are all dead. And that he died for all, and that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for him, and rose again.

Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, for which God was in Christ. Reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sinned for us, who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. Great. Thanks, Tom. Okay. So we're going to continue on with the remaining three verses. We started in verse 18 talking about God's reconciliation.

Does someone remember the definition of reconciliation? There's a Macaulay one out there. If you like Macaulay and listen to Macaulay, he usually gives good definitions. I didn't copy the one down for reconciliation that he has. Last week I kind of gave a definition, a basic one, behind some others. Short synopsis on what reconciliation is. Resumption of fellowship by God's grace.

Okay, alright. Any other ones? That's good, that's part of it, certainly. Well, let me ask this. What part does man play in that? Can he reconcile himself to God? No. Okay, that's key. You had something to share with me? Oh, I was just thinking here. That's okay. You're allowed to think in here. I can't remember what March had. Yeah, actually, I was going to mention that. You know, you ladies that have studied March Bank on Tuesdays, you know, there's a list of... Actually, I never gave a definition.

Okay, what I had before is to change from enmity to friendship with regard to the relationship between God and man, It shows primarily reconciliation is what God has accomplished, not man. So God has accomplished it. And that's part of the problem, you have to be careful with it. And there's actually a verse today, we're going to see verse 20, the end part of this, Paul says, we beg of you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. So, boy, you look at that verse and you say, well, wait, that sounds like he's telling me to get out there and do something and reconcile myself. So we'll be careful about when we go through that section, but that's that's a one that you have to kind of think about and think through and look at the rest of scripture because you take that by itself and you're going to be out there trying to reconcile yourself and you're going to be, you know, have a hard time.

In fact, impossible time to reconcile yourself. And that's what man and a lot of men outside Christ think, you know, I can, I love a good life. They want to show that somehow they can change their whatever and be acceptable to God. It's an impossible situation.

Just to mention, reconciliation is one of many wonderful doctrines of salvation. The March Bank has ones like regeneration, redemption, justification, forgiveness, propitiation, adoption, sanctification, election. There's like this jewel of salvation, God's accomplishment in saving man. It just doesn't take one word, it takes just a multitude of words to express what He accomplished on our behalf. So we're going to look at just one of those words today, along with verse 21, which is kind of the culmination.

God's goal in that we might become the righteousness of God in Him is the end goal of reconciliation. that we might be righteous before a holy God, which seems impossible. But God has accomplished it through Christ. The first verse. Namely, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against him, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Namely, or that is, That is, he's kind of explaining the previous verse. The previous verse was talking about that we have this ministry of reconciliation.

And now he's going to kind of define some of the details of that. That God was in Christ. And some have, I've kind of picked this up from a colleague, some kind of have a problem with that structure, that God was in Christ. Sounds kind of awkward maybe. Well, that's actually the order of the original language. It goes, that God was in Christ.

But you could just as easily flip it around and say, in Christ was God. I mean, they're one, right? They're one in essence. Their essence is God. So however you phrase it, that God was in Christ, or in Christ was God, it's the same idea. And actually, the verb is what kind of ties it together. His was is this really cool verb called ami. the stage in which someone or something continuously exists. So Christ exists continuously as God. I have a dear relative that struggles with Christ being God. You may find that hard to believe, but he struggles with that. He doesn't see Christ is God. But boy, Scripture is just abundant with that teaching.

And one of the verses that we see about that is in John 1.1.

So, can someone read John 1.1?

Actually, it has this verb amy three times there in John 1.1. If someone could read that for us.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Okay, so it starts off, it makes three statements about, and of course in this context we realize that the capital W-O-R-D, Logos, is the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So it makes a statement, if you flip it around the first part it says, the word, Christ, was in the beginning. Okay, he was in the beginning, and then the second part, and the word was with God, he was He was separate from God, he was with God, and the last part says what I have right here, the word was God. All those three verbs there, in John 1, the same one here, Christ exists continuously as God. He exists continuously as separate from God, and he was in the beginning with God. So there's never a time when God the Father and God the Son were separated except when he went to the cross.

And we kind of see the significance of that occurrence. So God was in Christ. In here is this preposition that denotes a fixed position. He's fixed in The son is fixed in the father and the father is fixed in the son, if you will. So it speaks again of the unity of the father and the son. And then there's a verse in Colossians.

Could someone read Colossians 2.9? It talks about this word called fullness, which we'll see here. It kind of explains it a little bit.

For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Right, cool. Some have deity for Godhead, kind of the same idea. So all of God, all his fullness dwells in bodily form. So we have the God-man. That's a verse that gives us indication of this God-man concept, which is very difficult for us to grasp. But it's this fullness, all the fullness of God exists in our Savior. Okay, so that's the first part of this. Namely, or that is, that God was in Christ. And so what was Christ doing?

Reconciling the world to himself. So we saw that just in the previous verse 18, he reconciled us to himself. So we kind of have a We have two ideas that are kind of going on here. We have an idea from the previous verse, from verse 18, that he was reconciling us, speaking of individuals. Then it talks about the fact that he's reconciling the world. So we want to kind of distinguish between what's going on here.

So in terms of reconciling us, I didn't actually present this verse last week, but this is a really cool verse that talks about Christ reconciling we or us. For if while we were enemies, We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only this, but we exalt in God through our Lord Jesus, through whom we have now been reconciled.

We have now received reconciliation. So the key part here, reconciliation is something we receive. We don't We see reconciliation based upon Christ's work. So that's kind of key. But the other idea here that we see here, he says he's reconciling the world. So we see that in John. He doesn't use the word reconciliation, but I think the idea is there, what God has done in terms of the world. And you probably can quote that, or you can read it if you like.

First John 2.2.

He was in the beginning with God. Oh, I'm sorry. First John. Sorry, Cheryl. First John 2 2. Oh, first John. Anybody can read it if you want. And the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. OK. First John chapter 2 verse 2. I'm sorry. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the whole world. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Third time is the charm. That's okay. No, that's just fine. It's just fine. Okay.

So basically, verse 2 says that he himself, Christ, is this five dollar word, propitiation or satisfaction for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. So what we see here is that God desires to reconcile us personally, but he's also reconciled in the sense that the sins of man have been paid for. Christ has paid for all sin, past, present, and future. And that applies to the entire world. like the last part says, but also for those of the whole world, not for ours only. This is John writing here, he says, not for ours, speaking of white believers, but for also the sins of the entire world. So in that sense, God has reconciled all of mankind by paying for their sins, right?

But they aren't saved at that point. Their sins have been paid for. And their part is to accept that payment. To accept what Christ has done. So we have the two parts here. God is reconciling us to himself. And he has reconciled the world to himself. Or he is reconciling the world to himself. Because of the payment for their sins by Christ on the cross.

So there's kind of two ideas going on here. OK. So is that OK? All right, so now we're going to move on to the next part. So based upon that, not counting their trespasses against them. Okay, so let's just stop here for a second. So what do you think about when you think about, if I say to If I say to Cheryl, I'm not going to count something. We agreed to get together and Cheryl didn't show up. I said, Cheryl, no problem, I'm just not going to count that. So I say, it doesn't matter. I'm a gracious person, it doesn't matter. We're still good Cheryl.

Is that the way Is that the way God approaches our trespasses? Is that the way He treats our trespasses? Not at all. He is totally dead serious about every trespass and every sin. So that's kind of important to keep in mind. So this word counting, I don't think, even though in the definition I use the word count, but reckoning is better. He doesn't put that to our account. He doesn't apply that to us. He's going to apply it to someone else. And we know where we're headed here, probably.

But reckoning is this word, loginsumai. I think that's how it's pronounced. They count something to somebody. means to reckon to someone, to a person, to put into his account either in favor or for what must be answerable. So that word is used in a bunch of places. I don't think we have to read all of those, but a couple of those.

Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. So in this case, this is a different picture here, but God reckoned righteousness to Abraham based upon his faith, right? He said, Abraham, if you have faith in what I do, I will reckon to your account, I'll place into your account righteousness.

What we're going to see here is that he's not going to put into our account our trespasses because of Christ, basically. That's where we're headed here. He's not going to put into our account our trespasses based upon Christ, and what Christ has done. It doesn't mean he overlooks them. I don't say, well, no problem. It's all good.

He says, no, Cheryl, every single trespass, every single sin is important. And because it's so important, it's going to take my son's death to reconcile that. And trespass, it's a very similar word to sin. In fact, the definition is basically a false step, a blunder, a lapse of uprightness, a sin, a moral trespass.

And probably the best verse that kind of captures that, if someone could read Ephesians 2.1, chapter 2, Ephesians verse 1. And you are dead in your sins and trespasses. Okay, right. So you notice there, it's like he repeats, he says trespasses and sins. It's like he's saying it twice, if you will, because trespasses, as you see is the definition, has as definition the idea of sin.

And there's other verses that talk about trespasses, like in Galatians 6.1, it talks about if anyone is caught in a trespass, and it kind of goes on. So trespasses is a synonym of sin and used to describe man's sinful actions in scripture. I think of that as like trespassing as being some place that you're not supposed to be. And I'm not quite I need somebody to take that a little further for me.

I mean, I understand what trespass is, but I'm just trying to understand it very literally. No trespassing, you know. No, I understand. And right, exactly. We use it exactly in that situation. But we use it in a sense of being when somebody else is profiting. But I think that if you look at the Greek word, peraptima, It's a blunder. Or a blunder. You might do it without knowing it. We sin knowingly and unknowingly.

That's why in 1 John 1.9 it says he forgives us all our sins. That's a clean up verse. I may have forgotten some sins. forgive me for whatever, but when I do that, he cleanses me of all unrighteousness. So I thought, wow, that's really cool. Thank you, Lord. I don't have to remember.

I don't want to remember all my blunders or false steps or whatever. It's a lapse. And it is kind of something that you didn't pay attention to detail. You may offend a brother or sister. I feel overwhelmed sometimes. I offend people, but I didn't want to do that, but I do. And I say, why did I do that? Why did I offend that brother or sister? On that path, maybe I had to prove my point.

I've got to be right. You've just got to be right. Guys have got to be right. That's just in their DNA. you know so anyway especially with your wife that's that's a crucible of that of that that go ahead going back to counting okay I had a little footnote okay go ahead sure So, in my version it says reconciling. He reconciled the world to himself.

The death of Christ changed the meaning of reconcile, the position of all people, not only the elect, from being enemies, Romans 5.10. To be unsavable through actual salvation does not come until one believes.

Right, right. That's great. That actually captures all what we talked about, right? I mean, every man, because of Christ's death, every man is savable. But they have to trust in Christ. If they don't do that, they can't be saved. God has done everything he can, and he's made it available to man. And he asks them, do you believe what I've done? Do you trust in what my son has done? That's the simple question. But that question, as we know in talking to people in our lives, that is a stomach. People just get upset. They get angry with you. They tell you a hundred things, a hundred Rabbit trails. They don't want to go off a hundred different ways.

I was there too. I tried to change the topic. Thankfully at one point I didn't change the topic. I said, yes Lord, you're right. That's great, that's good Gary. So does it help out in the trespasses? I think you're absolutely right. It's something that you do. You probably didn't intend to do it, but you still do it. And maybe, you know, anyway, okay, good, good enough. I'll stop with that. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Okay. And this is kind of just, okay. And then, so this is just kind of the, so if he didn't, he didn't reckon it to us, who did he reckon it to? And I've already kind of answered this. He reckoned it to our savior. He, he put all, he put all our sins, intentional or unintentional, on Christ. He reckoned all the sins of the world on to Christ, all the trespasses and sins on to Christ. And that's why he can not count them against us.

This is just like with works. God, it talks in Ephesians about God who has created the works that we should walk in them. So here he is, he puts all our trespasses on Christ, and then he commits to us the Word of Reconciliation. Just prior to that he committed to us the ministry, now he gives us the Word of Reconciliation. And this is really cool what he does here. He's going to basically plant that Word within our very being, it says here, which is kind of amazing. And he has committed to us the Word of Reconciliation.

He, God the Father, committed is to place, lay, set, to put. That's the idea in a couple of these verses here. Did someone read 1 Corinthians 12, 18? Now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body just as he desired. Right, okay. So God has done that. So God is here.

He has committed or placed in us the word of reconciliation, which is pretty cool. Literally, he is having placed or deposited, this is really cool, it's like he put in our bank account, he says here's this wonderful word of reconciliation that man needs to know about, I'm going to deposit it in us. And the word of reconciliation is the small w word, The small w is the same Greek word, logos, but in this time it talks about an expression of intelligence, discourse, or literally a message. We have the message of reconciliation. I think some translations pick up on that rather than word. We have the message of reconciliation, and there's kind of a parallel verse to that. It doesn't say reconciliation.

Ephesians 1.13.

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Great, thanks Tom. So actually, my version has, after listening to the message, so where did yours have Tom? After which you believed. My head is listening to the message of the truth. It's the same Logos word here. So here we're listening to the message.

He's committed to us a message, a word of reconciliation. So we have two aspects then. in terms of reconciliation. We have a ministry, a God-given ministry of reconciliation, and then he's given us the details of that reconciliation, which is the message of reconciliation. All that Christ has done in terms of reconciliation for us.

So now, That makes us ambassadors. This is pretty cool stuff. We are ambassadors for Christ. Ambassadors usually have a certain time period. Like for the United States, they'll go to a foreign country for a time period. Well, this is for life for us. We're ambassadors for Christ for life. Continually, present tense, continually in action. Ambassadors for Him. And 620, Ephesians 620 says, Paul says, for which I am an ambassador in change. So Paul said he was an ambassador in change. Even in prison, he was an ambassador for Christ.

And it's for Christ, or on behalf of Christ. And we're going to see this pop up two more times after this. We're going to see something that happens on behalf of Christ. The word typically, many times, is for Christ, but there's actually a much richer meaning, huper, on behalf of Christ. So we're ambassadors on behalf of Christ. And there's this cool idea that comes across here. We not only represent our sovereign but we also act in his place which is pretty amazing.

There is a common connection here and this has a little less to do with the truth of scripture but more to do with helping out at the airport. When people come through that secure zone step out into the terminal. Some of them decide, gee, I forgot something and he turns around. You are supposed to let them know ahead of the guards that you need to keep coming through. This is a one-way exit.

Right, right. And you were called an ambassador right there at the airport? Yeah, hospitality ambassador. Okay, that's cool. That's cool. Okay. And you're trying to help people out. You're representing the... Keep people from getting crushed at them. And you represented the... the airport or whatever. You represented someone but you were trying to help them out.

So in this case we're representing our sovereign, the Lord Jesus Christ. So we represent him and we act on his behalf. And what's really neat here, I mentioned this several times, it's neat when you can see some of these definitions kind of come into play. So Weiss picks exactly up on this. He says, therefore, the Weiss translation of the New Testament says, therefore, on behalf of Christ, based upon the verb I had before, and in his place we act as ambassadors.

I get excited about this. I get excited when I can see how in the world did Mr. Weiss, Dr. Weiss, I don't know him that well. I read his work all the time. How did he come up with that? It's cool when you can say, wow, look at this. This is how he got that.

Therefore, on behalf of Christ and in his place, we act as ambassadors. So now, as though God were making an appeal through us. So this talks about God making an appeal through us. So we're just not static in this, we're active. God is making an appeal through us. or as if we're making an appeal, as I did, to call upon someone to do something, to exhort them. So we're making an appeal to people. And the last part is going to tell us the appeal we're going to make. But we're appealing to them on behalf and in place of Christ. Because Christ isn't talking to them, right? They can't dial up Christ and talk to him. They can't talk to him in any way. They can read his words, but they don't want to read his words.

So they'll only have you, or me. So they'll only have us. And so God says, well, I'm going to use you. And you're going to speak for me. And we know how to speak for him, because we have his word. I don't want to speak anything that doesn't come out of here, because then it might be messed up. So we're going to speak on behalf of him and for him.

So to make this appeal through us, the constable has this cool thing. This makes us God's ambassadors, one of the most exalted titles the Christian can claim. Ambassadors authoritatively announce the message to others and request, not demand, their acceptance.

I was kind of thinking about it. I was thinking about Cheryl when I was going through this this morning. I was thinking, well she's an ambassador to, what's her name again? Soon. But sometimes the ambassador is just quiet. And that's where Cheryl is right now. She's an ambassador, but sometimes being an ambassador for the Lord is just being quiet. Because you've already given out the information as much as they allow you to give out.

Now you're just there. Just like Tom was being about. You're just going to help them. Hey, I'm here. Over here, don't walk back. They're going to lock you up. You went back the wrong way in the line. You can't go back there. You violated security rules. Bells will ring and all kinds of things will go off.

I try to be quiet about it. So basically, God is making an appeal through us and now here's the appeal. We beg of you, notice that, we beg of you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. There I have to say a little more to the passenger if he or she just doesn't get the point.

I beg you on behalf of security, continue to exit right this way, please. Keep on going, don't go back. If you left something, hopefully someone else who's allowed to go back there can find it for you. Don't put yourself in a place where they'll think that you're a bad guy and lock you up and question you for hours and that kind of stuff. impacting for their life. We beg of you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. We beg of you is literally to ask. Beg of you actually has more impact, I think. Beseech, to pray, to request.

Someone read Galatians 4.12? Actually, there's a mistake in your handout. I had 4.2, I think. It's 4.12, actually.

Galatians 4.12. I beg of you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You have done me no wrong. Right. Paul's making a request, he's begging them, he's asking them, beseeching them, requesting them.

Yeah, when I'm there at that secure zone, I'm actually just outside it on the other side. You can't go back through. Yeah, I can't do that to convince the pastor to go back. You have to pull him through. Yeah, verbally pull him through without trying to be reachy-reachy. Okay, alright.

So here we have, on behalf of Christ again, the second time, be reconciled to God. at least has it be reconciled at once. So there's some urgency about this, right? I mean, you don't know what tomorrow will hold. Cheryl doesn't know what tomorrow will hold for her friend, for Soon. No one knows that. So her message is be reconciled to God. And if you just said that to Soon, she would probably maybe kind of scratch her head and say, well, what does that mean?

So you explain that, what that means, trusting in God. Okay, so basically I have two questions and I think we've kind of already spoken about this but you know the first thing you know if you're thinking about Theologically you say well man can't reconcile himself to God so you but I think that if you look kind of in through Paul's eyes, he's shown the intensity. So when you say, be reconciled to God, he doesn't say, don't try to reconcile yourself. He says, trust in what Christ has done.

So even though the words might lead you to think that you're to get up and get busy reconciling yourself, I think the rest of scripture supports the fact that Paul desires that they trust in Christ as their Savior, trust in what he's done on the cross.

So that's where you read it and you say, well, OK. And you'd be surprised. Look at all the commentary. They spend pages and pages about trying to explain, well, why did he say that? I think he said that because, personally, I think the intensity. Be reconciled to God. Don't mess around. It's urgent. At once, don't mess with this. It's not worth waiting a second longer. When you understand it, don't wait one second longer. Now we're going to go on to the last verse, which is a tremendous verse.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So this is the end goal of reconciliation, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So now he's going to talk about the Savior. And this section is not easy, but we'll start out. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. So I just want to look at the middle part, the part in parentheses. And actually, I put a comma in there. I put two commas in there. They weren't in the text.

I want to just focus on the fact that Christ knew no sin. Because some people have And this is back to Christ being God. Some people struggle with that. They kind of think, their thought process is, well, let's see, Christ was tested. He was tested as a man. Well, if he couldn't sin, then that testing was, that wasn't really a testing, that was just, it was a bogus deal. So they'll get off on a path where they're trying to think through Christ being tested, like when Satan took him up the mountain. They say, well, if he couldn't sin, then that's not, And I think that they get off the track, off the beaten path. And one answer for that is that the testing of Christ was to prove who he was, not to show that he was possible to fail. It was to show that he was who he says he was. He was God and he couldn't fail. So testing can be for different purposes. You don't test everything to make it fail.

You test to prove that it's going to run. I mean, you don't go out and try to burn the engine in your car up. When they test your car before, I hope they test our cars before they, They leave the factory. They test them. They want to make sure it works. They don't try to destroy the car. They try to prove that it will go 80 miles an hour or whatever it is. This fuel economy.

The test is to prove who it is. So I think that's where people can go astray. But right here, this verse and other verses focus upon the sinless nature of our Savior. Who knew no sin. This word knew is gnosko. It's the idea to be taking in knowledge, to come to know something. I like to say it's the know of experience in scripture.

Christ didn't know sin like we know sin. It didn't mean that that prevented him from being God. He didn't have the sin impact his life. That's pointed out in so many different ways. There's a bunch of verses I'd like to cover here. Let's look at Hebrews and talk about the sinless nature of our Savior. Three verses.

Tom, could you read Hebrews 4.15?

And Gary, could you read 2 Peter 2.22? 1 Peter. I'm sorry, thank you. I'm glad we have that there. 1 Peter.

David, could you read 1 John 3.5? Tom, why don't you go?

Hebrews 4.15?

For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted, like as we are, yet without sin. And Gary? Who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. And then David? You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

There's actually more than that. Christ is our sinless Savior. He can't be tempted by sin. He doesn't operate like we operate. We operate differently. We are tempted by sin. Even though we have the Holy Spirit within us, we are still tempted by sin because we have a sin nature.

And Christ didn't have a sin nature. But now what it's going to say is, This seems like the cruelest thing you could do. But God the Father, in his wisdom, said, my son's going to have to do something that seems anathema. Seems that it never should happen. He's going to have to be, that we have to be sin on our behalf. Seems, that doesn't make sense. But that's what was required to save us. So here's another way to look at it.

Christ had no interaction with sin, since he was not tempted by sin. And we kind of said that before a little bit, but it says in James 1.13, it says, God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone. So he can't be tempted. And the least has this, he who did not know sin in an experiential way, he never experienced sin like we experience.

OK, so that's the wonderful news. And then here's the part that's tough. He made him to be sin on our behalf. Made is this word, to make, to do, expressing action either as complete or continued. I look through, this word is used a tremendous number of times. I could not really find. I use Vines and I use Zodiates a lot. I couldn't either find Vines or Zodiates. They never actually referenced this verse and they tried to show what made was about there.

So I just take it as the definition says. God made Christ, and actually we're going to see it's actually to be, if you notice it's in italics. So it really reads, he made him sin on our behalf. So here's this mind-boggling thing. The Savior who knew no sin, never experienced sin, was made sin. It's just opposite end of the spectrum. So Mike Dore likes to say, Christ who made the thing, sin itself. And I think, you know, we don't have, it's hard, I look through different people's thoughts and, go ahead Tom. The clock doesn't tick on the sin's forgiveness until God turns His back on His Son.

That's a good point. This is a situation that had to be done. He made him sin on our behalf. Notice he doesn't say he made sin just for, it was on our behalf. It was for a purpose. So what does this mean? On our behalf? I think you need to take that statement in context.

It was done on our behalf, so God did on behalf of, for the sake of. He did what was needed to save us, and it required Christ to be made sin. So I can't explain what that means exactly, but I know it was what was sufficient. God wouldn't have done one thing more than what was needed. And this is the third time we see, on behalf of. On behalf of us, that's why he made him sin. Actually, that just talks about behalf, that's not super critical. So pretty amazing things, that he was made sin on our behalf.

We don't quite understand what that encompasses, but it was sufficient to save us. I want to go to the last part, which is just wonderful. The purpose of all this, but it's pretty amazing. So here's the purpose that Christ was made sin for us. might become, to come into a new state of being, this is something that we never were before, the righteousness of God in him. So we are righteous, not outside of Jesus Christ. We cannot be righteous. And you'll see that so many truths about the believer are in him. We came into this new state of being, the righteousness of God in him.

So I kind of picked up on that. Notice that in him is the same as in Christ, and we see that throughout scripture. There are some parallel verses that talk about that. I'll just read part of this Romans one. In Romans 3, 21 and 22 it says, The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. Could someone read 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30?

But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Thank you. That's a really cool verse. So once again, it's by his doing, by God the Father's doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. So we have been made the righteousness of God. So this says that we have all these other things too. We have righteousness, sanctification, redemption. So I borrowed a chart from Vern and just looking at the significance of in him.

And we kind of see it show up as in him, in Christ, in him, in the beloved, in whom. So we see that as a way of talking about the believer that shows our intimate union with our Savior, that we're in Christ, intimately connected with him, And in that place, we have all of what God has for us, all the blessings, all the power, all His love, and we're identified in His Son. Interesting point that Chad made, was what were the believers called back in the New Testament? Three times referred to as Christians, and several times as the way, But most often in Christ. That's good. In Christ is how we are identified. But to say as a Christian that put a negative connotation on the believers because then they were outside the realm of Judaism. Right. Which put more, they lost their protection under their own law. Right. That's good.

And actually we kind of saw that last week a little bit because Paul will refer to those in Christ. We saw it last week where he said, my brother's in Christ. He referred to them. And so that's an excellent point. That's a much more accurate way to describe the believer. A Christian is okay, but being in Christ tells you so much more about that relationship. And that's really cool. That's great, Gary.

Thanks for sharing that. Pretty amazing verses. And important verses too. Important verses to have in the back of your head when people say, well, and they get kind of off on the track and they somehow try to say, well, Christ didn't, as a man, didn't he have a little bit of sin? I mean, you've got to be a man. Every man has a little bit of sin. Well, no, he didn't have any. Zero.

So it's important that you get those points down in your mind so that when God's placed into us this word, the message of reconciliation, and we're his ambassadors. There's just so many cool things. He prepares the message, he gives us the ambassadorship, and we represent him. You think, wow, you've got a motley crew to represent you. You've got us. Couldn't you bring something flashing in the sky? You got me? My goodness. I make mistakes.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. Thank you that you've given us this wonderful message of reconciliation, Lord. Thank you that you became sin, which is mind-boggling. Understand that but we know that it's what was needed because you have accomplished that in our behalf father. Thank you for Your marvelous word. Thank you for a time today in Christ's name. Amen