Christ Our Righteousness

The Lordship of Christ and the Local Church

To the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy.

Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. My name is Allen Nelson. I am the host, one of the pastors, at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. ProvidenceBaptistAR .com. And you're listening to our Summer Sermon Series, where we are featuring various sermons.

And each week, I'll just kind of give a little lead-in to what the sermon is. This sermon is preached by Gunnar Madewell. Gunnar, no stranger to the Ruled Church Podcast. He leads music here at Providence.

And this is maybe his, around his third or fourth time to preach at our church, from 2 Corinthians 5, 21, Christ, our righteousness. I realize as I'm putting these together that we've had a lot of messages over this summer from 2 Corinthians 5.

But you'll be encouraged by this message and the hope that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're grateful for Gunnar and his work at this church. And may the Lord bless him and give fruit even today through the preaching of the word in this sermon.

The Gospel Call to Reconciliation

Christ, our righteousness.

Good evening. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to preach tonight. I would say this before we officially start the sermon. I would repeat what 2 Corinthians 5, 20 says. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Where are you with Christ tonight? Are you in right relationship with God tonight? Because we had a dear brother die and we don't know when our last breath is. Are you in Christ? You don't know the last breath of your child.

You don't know the last breath of your spouse. And you don't know your last breath. Are you in Christ? Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 5, 21. And let's stand and let's read the text. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. It's a short text.

Let's read one verse. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, would you work tonight? Would you be with us?

And would you use your words to convict and to bring dead hearts to life? And would you encourage the saints here? We are relying on you. We are depending upon you. We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated. So this text was given to me and the title, Glorious Exchange. This text is about the doctrine of imputation. If you don't know what that is, it simply means this. The doctrine that you have to be given righteousness.

The righteousness that a person needs to be in heaven, to see the kingdom, cannot be earned, but has to be given. This doctrine of imputation, as we celebrate Reformation Month, we turn to this text of scripture, this doctrine that would spark something in Martin Luther that would lead him to fight against indulgences, that would lead him to fight against this idea that we have to have the gospel plus something.

This doctrine that would embolden many to die and to suffer in defense of the gospel. And this doctrine that has shaped the Christian world that we live in today. This is the doctrine of imputation, that Christ will take our sins upon himself and give us his righteousness for our justification.

This doctrine is the pillar and the foundation and the cornerstone of the gospel. Without this, we have no gospel at all. If you do not understand the doctrine of imputation, and I don't mean if you just get all the words right and you're just theologically astute and you're just smart, I don't mean that.

If you don't understand that you must be given righteousness that you cannot achieve it, you don't understand the gospel. This verse, in shorthand, is the gospel. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the gospel. If we had one verse in all of Scripture, this verse would be enough, that God made Christ to be sin for us so that in him, we might become righteousness in him. This biblical gospel, however, cannot be understood without the fundamental truth that we are all sinners.

The Seriousness and Universality of Sin

There is, I believe, no greater ignorance, no greater misunderstanding in our society and among professing Christians is that live happily and unconcerned in their sin, unconcerned about their sin. Where are the men today that would hate sin?

Where are the men today that would seek to cut it off at all costs? If we knew how serious sin was and our proclivity to it, we would be spending the early mornings with our faces in our Bibles and in the carpet, that praying that God would keep us from temptation.

We do not understand sin. We have preachers who have fallen today because they did not understand the gripping power and the seriousness and the deadliness of sin. Do you understand sin? Children, do you understand sin?

Adults, do you understand sin and that you are sinners? For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. Jesus Christ was made sin. The Lord of heaven and earth was made sin and many don't even know what that means.

The Christ that we worship was made sin and most of us don't understand the seriousness of sin, but is essential to the gospel. Jesus Christ was made sin. God the Father made the Son to be sin. Now, what is sin?

Sin is disobedience to God's law. 1 John 3, 4 says this, sin is lawlessness, no law. It is absence of God's law. You take this text and you take the righteousness at the end that we might become the righteousness of God.

What is sin? It's the opposite of that. This text, it takes sin and righteousness and puts them on opposite ends. What is sin? It's unrighteousness. And there's a problem, you're a sinner and you are unrighteous.

Adam, let's think back, Adam plunged the world into darkness and misery by his first sin and sin spread to all mankind and all are tainted with sin. This is Genesis 2, 17. But I wanna bring out this first point that I have.

I don't only have set points, but this one big break. Jesus Christ knew no sin. Isn't this amazing? Can we even fully fathom this? That someone walked this earth that never was guilty of sin. They never sinned, never experienced the sin in the way that we experience.

He had not inherited a sinful nature from Adam. He was not born in iniquity. He never thought a bad thought or said a bad word or was harsh or did anything that was not in perfect obedience to God. Anything besides that is deserving of hell.

Do you understand that? Sin that we take so lightly. Jesus Christ did not know sin and yet he became sin. There was never a moment. There is never a moment. Think about this. There is never one single moment in your life that you are not tainted and you do not see through a lens of sin.

Not one single moment. And there was never one single moment when Christ did that. He was sinless. He was more than that. He was righteous and he was righteous altogether. Every moment that he lived was in perfect obedience and you and I will not experience that, this side of glory.

We cannot fathom that fully because our minds and our hearts are affected by sin, every part of us. The confession says every facet of our body is stained and is affected by sin. Jesus Christ was not like that.

We cannot escape this reality of sin while on this earth. God made Christ to be a lawbreaker. God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin. On the cross of Calvary, God treated his only son as a lawless, unrighteous sinner.

This is what sin is. Sin is repugnant to God. Sin is what makes God angry. He hates it. This text that we're memorizing, a poor what is evil, that's what God does for sin. He abhors it. He doesn't just dislike it.

His posture towards sin isn't just like neutral. He abhors it. That's what he made his only son to be. God made Christ to be treated as a liar. God made Christ to be the fornicator, the one who is abusive, the hater of God, the corrupt, the murderer, the adulterer, the drug addict, the drunkard, the cheater, the cowardly, the effeminate.

And Jesus Christ was not a single one of those things. Jesus Christ was never a coward. Jesus Christ was never effeminate. Jesus Christ never lied, but he was treated as those things for us. Just as we were imputed the righteousness of Christ on the cross, Jesus Christ was imputed with our sin.

You see, Jesus Christ never sinned. He had to be made a sinner. That's why he went for our sake. He didn't go for his sake. He went for our sake. Jesus Christ was treated as the sinner who disobeys God's law and scoffs at his good blessings.

And God, Jesus Christ loved God. And he was separated from him and he was treated as a sinner. How serious is this? Well, Matthew 5, 29 and 30 said it is better. It is so serious that we are called to cut off a body part if it causes us to sin.

The Bible tells us that it would be better to walk through the earth with no eyes, with no ears, with no arms or legs than to be guilty of sin. That's how the Bible paints the seriousness of sin. Why?

Because you go to hell if you're a sinner. We don't understand that. If you have sinned once, you are worthy to go to hell. Hell is the wrath of God for all eternity being poured out upon the lawbreakers for their sins.

Sin has separated us from God. That's how serious sin is. Separated us from his favor and his blessings. We are out of right relationship with God. Because of sin, we are God's enemy. We are hopeless and helpless because of sin.

Heaven cannot be entered and the kingdom cannot even be seen. And we will die because we are in our sins. Jesus was treated as God's enemy. And the son was made an enemy with the father, his only son.

Why? For our sake. For our sake, this text tells us. The dictionary defines this as for the purpose of or for the benefit of or out of consideration of someone else. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin.

Why did God make the sinless Christ to be sin for us, for believers? Because we have sinned, not him. Not for the sake of Christ, because he never sinned. He did not need any benefit. Jesus Christ was righteous and he had everything that he needed.

He needs nothing else, but he did it for us. I'm not gonna apologize for preaching that God loves you. There is a, there is like this push because we have this false gospel of just God is love. We go to the opposite end and we never preach of God's love.

And we just preach about that God is just, although that's true, amen. God is just and God will have his vengeance upon sin and God does not clear the guilty. However, this Bible that we hold preaches that God is love.

Why would Jesus Christ become sin? Because he loves us. There is no other reason why Jesus came to the cross, but it was for our sake, because he loves us. How does this benefit us? How does the benefit?

Why does Christ going to the cross becoming sin for us? How does that benefit us? We are reconciled. The relationship that we are in apart from God separated, we are now made right because Jesus Christ took our sins upon himself.

Without Jesus Christ becoming a sin offering, without Jesus Christ becoming sin, we are never to escape our sin and we are hopeless and we are helpless and we're gonna go to hell. And there's not a reason why we should be even meeting here today.

If Jesus Christ did not go to the cross to become sin for us, we are to be pitied. You're telling me that this God who says in Numbers 14 .8, he says in 14 .8, that he will not clear the guilty, but he forgives iniquity.

He forgives iniquity, but he will not clear the guilty. You're telling me with this God, I can be put back in right relationship. You think there's no way. In light of my sin, in light of what I've done, in light of my sinfulness and the standard of God's righteousness, I could be made right with the Holy God and I could be reconciled to him.

Yes, yes, you can. Tonight you can. You take this text in Numbers and you say that he loves you and he will forgive you, but he will not clear the guilty. You think, well, I don't believe that Bible. There's a contradiction.

How does the God of love forgive me and yet not clear the guilty? You're guilty. You are guilty and you cannot be forgiven. How can I be saved? You ask yourself, how can I be saved? And you're tempted to think, well, the spirit of God has to come and he has to convict you and then he has to effectually like stop.

You're overthinking it. How must I be saved? Look to Christ. Have faith in Christ. This text is not a text to wear you down and to make you think so hard and just think salvation's impossible. This is what this text is saying.

You can have righteousness, but it's only because of Christ. You cannot get it on your own. You are a sinner. Do you not get it? The Bible's picture of you is not painted that you're innocent. The Bible's picture of you is not that you are just good on the inside.

You are dead and you are wicked and you need a savior and you have no righteousness and all you have to offer to God is your sin. But you can be reconciled to God. How? Christ. Christ. That's all you have is Christ.

And it's all that's needed is Christ. See, Christ goes to the cross and he takes the wrath that we deserve. Christ takes on himself the sins that we have committed and the wrath that those sins deserve.

The full weight and the anger and justice of God is laid upon Christ, but there's good news. He can handle it. You cannot handle it. The wrath that is waiting for you, if you are not in Christ, you cannot handle.

But Jesus Christ can handle it and he did handle it because he said it is finished on the cross. God raised him up from the dead. It is done. You can't handle that wrath. You will not handle it and you will face it for all eternity if you are not in Christ.

If you do not have the imputed righteousness of Christ, this is the easy way. I want even the children to understand this. How do I get to heaven? Stop trying to work for it. Put all of your faith in Christ.

That's what you must do. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, in Luke 22, Jesus sweats drops of blood praying before the cross. Not because, and I'm just telling you, we preach, there's so many preachers out there who have preached a cross about the torture of God and about the crown of thorns and about the piercing his side and how he suffocated and the weight of the cross crushed him.

That's not why Jesus was sweating drops of blood. That is not why. The torture that he faced, I'm just telling you, was nothing compared to the wrath that he was gonna face. That's what happens on the cross.

This invisible aspect of the cross is the wrath of God was poured out upon him. That's how we are reconciled, not by the crown of thorns upon his head. Jesus, I don't, Jesus Christ could be beaten. Jesus Christ could be scoffed at.

That's not what saves us. What saves us is the wrath of God being poured out on him and the wrath satisfying sacrifice appealing to the justice of God. I don't wanna sound irreverent, but I'm just telling you, dying doesn't save anyone.

You could go out to the road right now and say, I'll die for you, and it does nothing for you. The wrath of God must be appeased, but that is only in Christ. That cannot be done by you. You cannot do it.

There is nothing in you. You are not strong enough to do that, but Christ is strong enough. The sins that we have done must be punished because God will not clear the guilty. There must be a payment for sins.

Jesus said in Matthew 26, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me, was the wrath of God. But how does this wrath forgive? How does this wrath that Jesus Christ takes forgive? Jesus has paid the payment for our sins by his substitutionary death.

Jesus pays it all. Every sin that you have committed, every evil deed that you have done, Jesus Christ has paid it all on the cross. I am now forgiven because of the work of Christ and him taking the wrath that I deserve.

He did not die as an example. Jesus Christ, I'm tired of this. Jesus Christ is the greatest example. Yes, there is truth in that. Jesus Christ did not die as an example. Jesus Christ did not die merely as a representative.

Jesus Christ died as a substitution. You should have been on the cross, but your death would have done nothing. Jesus Christ had to die for you. Jesus Christ had to atone for your sins. Jesus Christ had to die as a substitution for you.

If you do not have substitution, you are not a Christian and you're going to hell. But glory be to God that we can be reconciled by the substitutionary death of the cross and you are not called to pray a prayer.

You are called to trust in Christ. You can have him, you can be reconciled, but it's through Christ. He took our sins and our punishment and we get reconciled and forgiveness. I did not come up with this illustration, Paul Washer did, but imagine.

This is, I think, a great illustration about what happens on the cross. Imagine you're a man and you're in this village and you're below a dam, right? And this dam, it breaks and you've got a wave coming to you and it's 10 ,000 miles high and it's 10 ,000 miles long and it's coming for you and you can do nothing.

Where are you gonna go? Are you gonna hide in the house? It's too big. And then Jesus Christ comes and he steps in the way and not a drop of that water touches your pants. That's what happens on the cross.

Jesus Christ takes the wrath for you and not a drop of wrath touches you. This is how sufficient Christ is. Not even a drop of this wrath touches you, but we still have a problem. Yes, Jesus Christ died on the cross.

Jesus Christ has forgiven you. Jesus Christ has died in your place, but you have a problem. And Matthew 5 in verse 20 says, "'For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'".

Christ's Perfect Righteousness Imputed to Believers

Forgiveness is just not enough. Pardon is not enough. You need to be righteous. But the problem is you're not and you can never get like that. You can never be righteous on your own. No work you can do, no gift you can give.

Nothing can make you righteous before a holy God because you have never done what God has required of you. Just take one commandment. Let's just take one commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

Not one of you in here has done that. Therefore, you are unrighteous. You are a sinner and you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You cannot enter the kingdom of God. I'm hopeless. I cannot do it. Even the strongest man in here, you can't do it.

And the best of men, their righteousness, you know what the Bible says, they're filthy rags. How could you consider your good works and try to give them to God and say, I just get to do enough. I'm gonna try just my hardest and I'm gonna trust in the end, God will do right by me.

I'm just gonna try to live my best life. And in the end, I hope I make it. That's a hopeless struggle. That's a hopeless life that you have. You need righteousness. Christ lived a perfect life of righteousness for us.

That's what we need. We need Christ so that his righteousness could be imputed to us. If we talk about, if the gospel is only just secluded to his death on the cross and not his life, we don't have enough.

We need the life of Christ. And that part of the gospel is almost never preached. We make so much of the death of Christ, amen. We cannot ever minimize the death of Christ and what happened on the cross, never.

But if we do not have his life, we are hopeless. We must preach, we must understand that we must have not only the death of Christ, but his life. We skip that. We just pass over that. For 33 years, he lived a righteous life.

His life was too not just an example. And his life was a substitution. His life of righteousness is a necessity. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

The text is not meaning that the Lord Jesus died and now you have qualities and abilities to be righteous. No, no. But the meaning here is imputation. Jesus never sinned, but he was made sin for us. Where are you in all of this?

Where am I? Like we wanna read ourselves into the Bible. I'll give you a perfect place to read yourself in the Bible. Here you are, point blank, easy for you to read. Where am I in this text? You're the sinner.

You're the for our sake. You contribute nothing to the gospel, but your own sin. And you have never lived righteously, but we are made righteous because of Christ. Jesus Christ never sinned, but he was made a sinner.

You never live righteously. You're always a sinner, but you are made righteous. That's imputation. How can you see this text in him, in him, in him, and think, I can do it. I've got enough. It's in him.

It's all about Christ. Condemnation and hell is what's waiting for you, if not for this righteousness. This text doesn't just point to the fact that you're a sinner. I just wanna be more clear. It points to the fact in how vile and wretched you are, and how Christ had to reach in to the depths of the ocean to pull you out.

You can do nothing. You're dead. You're dead. But this passage is about Christ. It's not about you. It's about Christ. All the glory goes to him. We have nothing we can give God or work we can do to achieve heaven.

You're deaf, and you're blind, and you're dumb, and you don't know where you're going, and you're confused, and your heart is sick, and you can't even discern what's right and what's wrong. But Christ gave you life in him, if you're a believer this evening.

How could you think yourself worthy? You're unworthy. You are unworthy, but Christ is worthy, and Christ is enough, and it's the righteousness that we have that's in him. It's not in ourselves. This is why Christ has come.

This is why Christ came. He did not come as an example. Jesus Christ did not come just as, look at him. Looking at Christ will do nothing. Christ came as a substitution, because you cannot do it. We have total dependence upon Christ for all our righteousness.

The Bible paints a picture of that. You just cut off your arms, and your legs, and your limbs. It'd be better to walk through this world like that than to be guilty of sin. But cutting off your arms and legs, as we know, and plucking out your eyes won't get rid of the sin problem that we have.

It won't reconcile us. We need to be righteous, but we have none, and we need the righteousness of another, and it can't be your parents. Kids, you can't have the righteousness of your parents, and you might look at your parents.

I don't know how you see me, really, but you might look at me and your mom and think we just got it all together, and you other kids might look at your parents and just say, like, I just follow them. They've got it all figured out, but I'm just telling you, their righteousness will not help you.

The righteousness of your pastor will not help you. You need the total and perfect righteousness of Christ, and no other righteousness will do. No other righteousness will do. In fact, except from Christ, there is nothing that is good enough, nothing.

Not just your parents, not just your pastors. There is nothing and no one on this earth right now that is good enough. We need the perfect righteousness. We don't just need good righteousness. We need perfect righteousness.

And by faith alone and Christ alone, you can be justified. See what happens? In justification, like, this is, I have this analogy that I hope is not embarrassing Alex, but this is what happened when you put your faith in Christ.

Alex, I know, took a long time to get his citizenship, right, you have it now. Okay, you still don't have it, even longer. It took such a long time to get your citizenship. You want your citizenship to be in heaven?

Put your faith in Christ, and you're justified forever. From that moment, you put your faith in Christ, there's no waiting. There's not like, okay, if you meet this, if you just prove me right, I will justify you.

You put your faith in Christ, and you're justified forever, and there will never, there's not a moment in the future that God will love you more than when he loves you when you put your faith in him. All that you need is given to you when you put your faith in Christ.

Why are you waiting? Why are you waiting? You don't have what you need. You don't have what it takes, but Christ is offered to you. Christ is given to you. I have all the righteousness that you need. I have all the righteousness that's required.

Why would you not put your faith in him? The Bible does not say, if you just have this Bible memorized, you can go to heaven. The Bible does not say, okay, if you just jump to the moon, you can be justified.

Call upon the name of the Lord, and you'll be saved. You'll be justified. Trust him. Trust him. You know, Bob just died, and I just think about how this text is comforting. I hope it's comforting for Tony, and it's comforting me.

Bob, at the moment of his death, because he was justified, began with life in Christ. He breathed his last breath, and his next breath was with Christ because he's justified. He does no waiting. You put your faith in Christ, you die the next second, you're with Christ.

The Great Exchange and the Legal Declaration of Righteousness

I want to point to a story in the Old Testament, in Genesis 3, 17. The text we memorize talks about Adam being naked, and how he hid from God. Genesis 3, 7 talks about Adam and Eve sowing fig leaves for themselves to hide.

Genesis 3, 21, God made them garments from the skins of an animal. God clothed the lawbreakers with a robe of flesh. But hear the illustration here in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. Jesus Christ was made naked.

He was clothed in the robes of sin. And in exchange for his obedience, we in our sin, our nakedness, our shame, and our trying to hide from God, are clothed not in the robes of an animal, but in the righteous robes of Christ.

We are declared righteous before God. This is a legal declaration. Imagine a courtroom, right? And you're in a courtroom, and God's the judge, and you're on trial. And God proclaims you guilty. And it's irrefutable.

There's no way that you can get out of it. But Jesus steps in, and he takes the punishment for us. And we are declared not just forgiven, but you're righteous. It's not that you're just innocent. You are declared righteous, as if you have always obeyed the law of God.

You are declared as Christ is declared. When God looks at you, he sees not your filthy, wicked, wretched robes of sin. He sees the righteous and perfect, obedient robes of Christ. He takes his, imagine this, Jesus Christ takes off his coat, and he puts it on us.

That's what he does, when he imputes his righteousness to us. It's not that he says, okay, you're righteous. He gives us his righteousness. We are declared righteous. But not only that, we are treated as righteous.

Just as Christ was treated as a sinner for us, we are treated as righteous. I'm gonna wind down. I know it's late. I wanna point to one last thing, and then one application. This might in this text, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This might is not meaning maybe. And it doesn't mean a possibility but a sure reality. You will become the righteousness of God. Because Christ has imputed his righteousness to us by perfect life and a sacrificial death, you are now not just declared righteous, but you are treated as righteous, and you're treated like Christ.

Resting in Christ Rather Than Self-Righteous Effort

For our sake, we will be granted entrance into heaven and given life because of the glory exchange of Christ on the cross. This is the application. Christians, you know sometimes what we do is we read the word of God and we pray and sometimes we don't do it as well as we ought to.

And we think, you know, I didn't do that, and so today I'm not gonna make up for it. That's not what the Bible tells you to do. It says rest in Christ. You're righteous. You've been justified. Stop trying to make up for the things that you've done.

Trust the righteousness of Christ. Even as a Christian, you cannot work enough to get the favor of God. That's not how salvation works. That's not how justification works. It's anti-gospel. If our motivation is that God will love us, again, because of our efforts, that's not how justification works.

That moment you have faith in Christ, you're justified for all eternity. God loves you fully and totally like he does his son. When you are in Christ, you're treated like Christ. You cannot be loved more by God on certain days than others.

Be in awe of this gospel, this application. Be in awe of this gospel. All you can do. This text is not calling you to be something. Okay, just be righteous. It's not what it's calling you to be. It's calling you to trust in Christ.

It's calling you to be in awe of the gospel. The gospel is not, okay, what can you do? You cannot live the gospel. This is what the gospel is. Christ has lived, and he's lived perfectly and righteously in your place.

You can do nothing. Have faith in Christ. Unbeliever, you don't know when your last breath is gonna be. I don't care if you're a child or if you're 50 or 100. You don't know when your last breath is gonna be.

Why wait? Christ has offered to you, and he has enough righteousness for 10 ,000 worlds. You can trust him. Amen.

Amen. Please stand and turn in your hymnals to page 239.

Responding to the Gospel in the Church

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?