Christmas 2023
GOD AND SINNERS RECONCILED
2 Corinthians 5:21
Great Commission Church
Intro: The Christmas carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” inspired this year’s Christmas teaching series, with the following lyrics: God and Sinners Reconciled, Hail the Incarnate Deity, Glory to the New Born King.
The need for reconciliation assumes there are ruptured relationships, that there is alienation from God. But is the problem with God? Is He some kind of cruel taskmaster that humans need to break away from? Of course not!
Human sinfulness created the problem, and this sinful condition had to be dealt with before there could be any reconciliation.
Sin incurs God’s holy wrath, so it could not be treated lightly or swept under the rug. God can never be reconciled to sin, but He does not turn away from sinners in disgust and leave us to our just desserts.
Instead, while humans were still in open revolt, God acted in love to bring the hostility to an end and to bring about peace.
2 Cor 5:19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
2 Cor 5:20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
2 Cor 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Let’s make a distinction between two Bible words: justified, reconciled.
To be “justified” is a judicial term used in the courts. A judge may acquit an accused person without ever entering into any personal relationship with him or her. He just announces the verdict, “not guilty.”
Does the accused expect to be invited over for dinner by the judge? No! He probably hopes that he will never see the judge again.
To be “reconciled” is a relationship term. We enjoy the company of those to whom we have been reconciled.
When God reconciles with sinners, He is the judge who enters into a personal relationship with the accused!
Why is this necessary? Because the judge is the one who has been sinned against. He is the focus of personal hostility.
God does not simply make a bookkeeping alteration by dropping the charges against us. God gives Himself to us in friendship.
WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR GOD AND SINNERS TO BE RECONCILED?
(a) Christ not charging us for our sins (19)
“not imputing their trespasses to them”
God’s act of reconciliation requires a human response.
There is no reconciliation when one side is willing to put the past behind them and the other side merely takes advantage of it.
Reconciling requires both sides to acknowledge the wrong, and for the injured party to let go of the pain.
God has confronted us with our transgressions but has taken the initiative in Christ to resolve the problem our sins have created.
God has let go of the pain of our willful rebellion. He does not count our trespasses against us.
But it remains for us to admit that we have done wrong, to repent of it, and to receive God’s offer of friendship.
(b) Other humans entreating us to believe (20)
“we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God”
The ministry of reconciliation involves more than simply explaining to others what God has done in Christ. It requires that we become active reconcilers ourselves.
Paul identifies himself as an ambassador of Christ.
Our modern perception of an ambassador as an official of the highest rank chosen and certified by one government to represent it before another helps us appreciate the magnitude of Paul’s claim.
He is Christ’s spokesman. He does not act on his own authority but under the auspices of a greater power and authority who sent him. Paul therefore understands himself to be divinely authorized to announce to the world God’s terms for peace.
Ambassadors:
1. They were never to be mistreated by virtue of agreed upon laws between the nations. (Yet, Paul was “an ambassador in chains” Eph 6:20; appropriate for a representative of Christ who was put to death by worldly powers).
2. Surviving documents show that ambassadors and their envoys travel as signs of friendship and goodwill, usually to put an end to hostilities and establish peace.
(c) An extraordinarily unfair exchange (21)
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”
John 8:46 Which of you convicts Me of sin?
Galatians 3:13 offers an important parallel.
Gal 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us
This statement matches what he says here: Christ became sin in order that others might become the righteousness of God.
Christ experienced the consequences for human sin. The one who lived a sinless life died a sinner’s death, estranged from God and the object of His wrath. He was treated as a sinner on the cross.
So closely did Christ identify with the plight of humanity that their sin became His sin.
Christ does not become human in order to stand in solidarity with humanity but to stand in its place and to participate in a twofold imputation: he receives the burden of humanity’s sin while humanity receives God’s righteousness.
A real transfer of sin and curse to Christ was essential. Christ must truly become polluted.… A real death was necessary to put real distance between saved Christians and the power of sin.
God provided Jesus to stand in for sinful humanity. Even though Jesus was sinless, God deals with him as though he were a sinner by letting him die an accursed death.
We do not simply have righteousness from God, we become righteous as a result of being in Christ.
Rom 5:10 For if when 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.
Application:
