“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus is a historical figure. He lived in the region of Israel from about 1 to 33 AD. He had a three year public ministry in which he traveled around the country teaching, healing and performing miracles. He made the religious authorities of his day very angry, angry enough to bring charges against him during the rule of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. And he died by crucifixion on a Roman cross in Jerusalem. None of this historical data can be disputed so the goal of our core belief about Jesus is not to prove his existence but to help us live our lives because he exists. Also, our core belief about Jesus will help us to understand who he was, who he is, and who he always will be.
Let us start in the beginning. When sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden death became a reality for the very first time. The penalty for sin is death. Death is the debt that must be paid because of our sins. Sin causes separation between us and God, not only because our sinful actions break our relationship with God but also because God cannot dwell in the presence of sin. Thus, if we are going to be in a reconciled relationship, a right relationship with God ever again the debt for sin had to be paid once and for all. Sin had to be removed from the equation if we are ever going to be able to have the relationship with God that God has always intended.
This is where Jesus comes in. Jesus, being God in bodily form, is the only one who could have paid the price for everyone. No mere human could have died on the cross and washed away all the sins of the world. If someone could have, someone would have. Only God can take away the sins of the world. God made Jesus, who had no sin, become sin for us all. God did this in order that we might be reconciled, through a life lived in Jesus, following Jesus, being a disciple of Jesus. God did this in order that “we might become the righteousness of God”. We obviously will mess things up if left to our own devices, so God stepped in as Jesus and paid the price for sin, conquered death, and reconciled us to Himself all in one shot.
In our verse for this week we read that “God made him”, this is not simply an act of creation but also an act of reconciliation for God made Jesus “to be sin for us”. God made Jesus to take our place and pay the price for sin. Next we read that we are invited to live “in him”. This is the life of a Christian, to live in Jesus, to be clothed with Christ, to surrender and be submitted to the lordship of Jesus. Jesus is not just our Savior, he is also our Lord. Next we read that “we might become” which is an indication that what God has done through Jesus is open to everyone but only those who make the choice to live in Jesus will receive the benefits. “Might” demonstrates the freedom of will that God gives us, even if it means that we say “No thank you” to God. And finally we have “the righteousness of God”. To be righteous is to be moral, just, upright and virtuous, all of which we cannot accomplish on our own but all of which describe the nature, the very essence of God. By living in Jesus, God in bodily form, we become that which we are not naturally – righteous.
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