Joel M Bradshaw

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.—2 Corinthians 5

How does a sinner become reconciled to the holy God? Adam and Eve sinned and were kicked out of the Garden. Sin cannot be by the holy anymore.

Read verse 21 again. Things are being transferred there. Our sin is transferred by God to the sinless Christ. And his righteousness is tranferred to us.

We are thus saved from the wrath due our sin. Jesus cashed the horrible ’paycheck’ each of us has earned. The only one who never sinned got our sin. And we who don’t deserve it get Jesus’ righteousness. This is the heart of the Gospel. The best possible news.

It is the most cosmically unfair matter in history. But without Jesus our substitute, without this complete act of grace, we are never saved. For our sins would not be truly dealt with. Let’s close with a foreshadowing moment from Leviticus 4.

They are to lay their hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering…and the priest shall burn it on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the Lord. In this way the priest will make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven. (Leviticus 4:29, 31b)

Thank you Jesus for dying in my place, bearing my sin, and reconciling me to God.—JMB