Ex Nihilo Again!

January 27, 2018

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). It’s quite an amazing statement, that the Father made the Son to be sin. This goes beyond even his sending his Son to die on our behalf, which is enough in itself. He actually became the putrefying, disgusting, vile and violent stuff we call sin. More than merely taking on a role or putting on the ugly mess of sin as one would put on a shirt, Jesus Christ was somehow transformed into that to which God had no other choice in his holiness but to turn his back. When on the crossJesus cried out in despair, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it was God cannot look upon evil, and at that moment, all our sins fell upon his shoulders, and he became the murderous, drunken, addicted, abuser of mankind, the Hitlers, Stalin’s, and Maos of all time, rolled into one.

All this so that we might not merely possess, but actually become the righteousness of God. It’s so hard to comprehend that were it not recorded in Scripture, we would never have imagined it. Jesus Christ not only traded places with us, not only traded his reward for our punishment, his life for our death, his holiness for our depravity; he is literally creating in us a reality that is otherwise nonexistent. Once more, our Creator and Redeeming God has brought forth something out of nothing, and it is good. We aren’t fully there yet, except in God’s imagination, but he has begun a good work in us which shall not cease in this life, but will continue into eternity.