When Connie and I were in Oxford, England, several years ago, I found myself in conversation with student from Japan. We were walking the streets among the 43 colleges that make up the university. I called his attention to the spires that rose above the medieval chapels, many of which were topped with crosses.
I asked him if he understood the significance of the crosses. He said that he did not. I asked him if he would like for me to explain the meaning of the crosses. He agreed to that, so we entered a deli, and over sandwiches, I talked with him about Jesus and his death on the cross for our sins. He was attentive and appreciative.
Any discussion of the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross should emphasize substitution. Jesus died in our place. This is the essence of the gospel. This is clearly the teaching of 2 Corinthians 5:21 — “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might be made the righteousness of God.”
John Stott summarized 2 Corinthians 5:21. “For our sakes God actually made the sinless Christ to be sin with our sins. The God who refused to reckon our sins to us reckoned them to Christ instead.”
In my conversation with the young man in Oxford, I talked about who it was who died on the cross. He was without sin. Just as in the Hebrew Bible the lamb that was sacrificed on Passover had to be unblemished, so Jesus was the Lamb of God “without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19}. The New Testament emphasizes the perfection of Jesus. He was “the holy and righteous one,” God’s “holy servant.” Jesus asked his enemies, “Can any of you prove me guilty of any sin?” (John 8:46). Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Jesus “had no sin.”
Our conversation centered on what happened on the cross. “God made him . . . to be sin for us.” We cannot fully understand the depth of meaning in this statement. The morally perfect Son of God was treated as if he were guilty, so that we could be treated as if we were righteous.
Did you ever think about what it must have been like for the holy nature of the Son of God to live among sinners who were selfish, profane, hypocritical, rebellious, deceitful blasphemers? And how terrible it would have been for him to take their sins upon himself?
But this is exactly what the Bible says he did. “This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” ( 1 Peter 3:18). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Galatians 3:13).
When did this happen? It was when our Lord felt the weight of our sin in the garden of Gethsemane, when darkness shrouded the land as he was dying, and when he cried with a loud voice from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” It was when God the Father made him to be sin for us.
In this we are made to see God’s sovereignty, his justice, and his grace. He made eternal life possible for all who would believe this message. Jesus was rejected so that we could be accepted. He bore the law’s penalty so that we could be declared “not guilty.” He died so that we could live.
Why did Jesus die on that cross? It was “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This tells us that righteousness is given to those who are “in him.” We receive the gift of righteousness by faith in Christ. “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness which is by faith from first to last” (Romans 1:17). “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Christ to all who believe” (Romans 3:22).
This is the essence of the gospel. That is what we talked about in that deli in Oxford.
Pastor Randy Faulkner