It is good news that we are “a new creature”. Part of a new creation, old things having passed away! And, to us He (God) has, through the reconciliation He has made in Christ with us, given us the ministry of reconciliation. He has entrusted to us the word of reconciliation that we, as those who have been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of His Beloved Son (Colossians 1:3), might now act as ambassadors of that Kingdom begging, entreating, appealing to others to be reconciled to God through Jesus and manifesting the fullness of His love in Jesus….. for God Has made Him who knew no sin (Jesus) to be sin for, or in behalf of, us… and made the great exchange…..making it possible for us to become the righteousness of God in and through Jesus!
[2Corinthians 5:17-21 NASB95] 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, [he is] a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all [these] things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
This is one of the most compelling and deep passages of the epistles outlining God’s redemptive nature expressed in Jesus, and our holding the ministry and word of reconciliation to draw men to relationship with God. God did not create us out of some felt need, nor did He love us and reconcile us out of some need or loneliness He had. His relationship with His creation was not based in any need of His, but on His own kind intentions and purpose, His own good pleasure toward us. His plan was not to satisfy some felt need at His Son’s, Jesus’, expense. He reached to meet the need in us, through Jesus, at His own expense.
God’s purpose in the cross, was to make us righteous, those with whom He could be comfortable, just like the Son. We must comprehend how costly this great exchange was.
We somehow get the idea that the Father dispensed the wrath we deserved upon Jesus as some casual act and purpose in which He was uninvolved, and as a bystander or spectator of some kind. This is to misunderstand the relationship of the Father and the Son and God’s very nature. The Lord our God is ONE (echad).
Note in verse 19 that “God was in Christ” reconciling the world to Himself. He (God) was intimately involved. He (God) was participating, acting IN and through Jesus to reconcile and restore relationship in redeeming us.
I think there is a false paradigm that has been taught to us, that God cannot look on sin (Habakkuk 1:13) and in Jesus’ saying “why has thou forsaken me?” (Mt 27, Mk15), that makes us think the Father was not present at the cross as Jesus became sin for us.
God has, from the Garden forward, sought out man in sin. Adam.. where are you? (Genesis 3:9) God did not hide but sought man. It was man who hid, because we think and feel our shame separates us. God is omnipresent. [Psalm 139:8 KJV] 8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou [art] there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou [art there]. In Jesus’ cross, He came into the midst of our sin nature everyday. The cross proves that there was no place He would not go to gain us, to have/restore relationship with us. So, God not only looked full in the face of us in sin at the cross, it was there that He made Jesus to be Sin on our behalf.
In doing so, He did not just offer a covering for our sins, as with leaves with Adam and Eve. Or, a partial cure, as with sacrifices offered from what was ours, requiring us to be aware of every sin and live under the fear and control of sin in our lives and make sacrifices over and over. No, He dealt with the nature of sin, our sin nature, making Him to be sin, and making us righteous. And, not just to be righteous, but to be “the righteousness of God in Him/Jesus!”
Thanks be to God for the cross of Christ. The full weight of the judgment of God for sin was summed up and given full expression in Christ’s crucifixion, death burial, and resurrection. The world has been judged for sin, found/declared guilty, and full judgment has been poured out on Jesus the only Begotten.
Now, according to His love,… and beyond salvation/redemption, and reconciliation alone; He (God) now continues His eternal purpose by working in and through His obedient children; the saints, holy ones, who are sons like the first and only begotten, in Jesus.
Those that are submitted to the Lordship/will of Jesus, just as Jesus was submitted to the Father’s purpose and will. We are, in fact, God’s workmanship in Christ saved not just from sin and death but saved unto good works He has prepared for us to be about in Christ.
[Ephesians 2:10 NASB95] 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
He (God) needs no one, but has chosen to work through anyone that comes to Him responding to His love in Christ Jesus by faith. Will you, as Jesus, co-labor with the Father in reconciliation and “beg (others) on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God”, and other services that He may lead you into by His Spirit in Christ? Service that manifest the fullness of His love in Christ Jesus.
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
This is a sovereign act of God that did not require Jesus to sin in order that He might become sin. God made Him to become sin.
Someone has asked this powerful question: If He (God) is powerful enough to do that; is He not powerful enough to take you, and totally apart from your behavior, literally make you to be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus?
If that is the case; religion, religious behavior, and performance is never enough, will never be enough, and cannot be enough. Why do we want to identify with it (self justifying works or performance) and suggest to others they need to do so? The outward act never perfects the inward man. God is not looking for us to do anything for Him. After all He is Omnipotent Almighty God.
But, He has saved us to co labor with Him in His purpose. Only our submission to Jesus’ Lordship manifest our love for Him, others, and the world around us. So we encourage each other to function in love as His body and under Jesus as Our only Head. (see Ephesians 1:22-23.)
I have talked about living from the Tree of life rather than the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the past.
Genesis 1 and 2 and Revelation 21 and 22 are scripture that show us times without the curse, and without sin and a need for redemption. These chapters speak of some of the same things. There is a river and the Tree of life in them, and they both picture God dwelling in an intimate relationship with man on the earth.
These bookends in Genesis and Revelation significantly speak to the eternal nature and purpose of God in Christ Jesus. They imply that He has always had an eternal purpose that involved man as His creation, and summing up all creation IN Jesus the Son.