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The Gospel og Reconciliation
John McArthur
On the cross, God treated Jesus as if He had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe. Though, in fact, He committed none of them. [...]
( Excerpt from sermon: "How can we preach the gospel, when we don't know what the gospel is?", by John McArthur. This sermon was preached on March 18th 1998 at TBC)God alone can change our relationship and that’s the good news. God so loved
the world He made a way of reconciliation. He desired to reconcile sinners.
He desired to make them His friends, His children. This is not foreign to His
holy nature. This is a very important point. As if He had to be reluctantly
appeased like some whimsical deity created by man. Now this is really astonishing
stuff in Paul’s day. Brilliant any day. Because nobody knew a god who was by nature
a loving reconciler. All the gods of the nations had to be appeased, cajoled,
somehow their anger had to be ameliorated by some sacrifice. In some cases taking
your little baby and putting your baby on a fire and burning that baby to a crisp
as the Canaanites did for centuries in the land of Palestine to pacify the god Molok. God the reconciler People in the world didn’t know God as a reconciler. They didn’t know a god who was
a reconciler. They knew gods that were, at best, indifferent, at worse, aggressively
hostile and in the middle whimsical. Seemingly doing inconsistent things at their
own discretion. But whoever heard of a god who was a loving god. Whoever heard, where
are you going to find that in the history ofethnology? You can search. See if you can
find in the religions of the world a loving, kind, gracious, merciful, tenderhearted,
compassionate god who sought to reconcile sinners. You won’t find one. It was a stark,
shocking realization when the Gospel penetrated the Roman World with that message.
But our God is a reconciling God. Titus chapter 1, it says, “Paul a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ
for the faith of those chosen of God.” God is a God who chose to save sinners. God
can’t lie. God promised before time began that He would save sinners. It was his
plan. At the end of verse 2, “He promised long ages ago.” Actually in the Greek,
“before time began.” From the very outset, before time began, that means before
Creation, that means before Man ever existed God predetermined to save sinful Man.
It’s nothing we’ve done. It was all bound up in who He was, who He is. Titus 2:10
identifies God as “God our Savior. God our Savior. By the way, verse 3 of chapter 1,
the same thing: God our Savior”. God is mentioned once after the introduction in
verse 1, that’s in verse 3 He’s called, “God our Savior”. He’s mentioned once in
chapter 2, verse 10, He’s called, “God our Savior”. He’s mentioned once in chapter 3,
verse 4 and He’s called, “God our Savior”. Jesus Christ is mentioned after the
introduction once in chapter 1, verse 4, “Christ Jesus our Savior”. Once in chapter 2,
verse 13, “Our great God and Savior Christ Jesus”. Once in chapter 3, “Jesus Christ
our Savior” in verse 6. God by nature is a saving God. That’s a tremendously
important issue. God is a Savior. In fact, He demonstrates that. Look at 1 Timothy 4:10. In 1 Timothy 4:10 there’s a
most remarkable and somewhat disconcerting verse when you first read it because it’s
kind of hard to figure out. But it says in 1 Timothy 4:10…..Boy, that has really
created havoc in the minds of people. What do you mean God is the Savior of all men?
In what way is God the savior of all men? Well, we know this, we know He’s not the
Savior of all men spiritually and eternally, don’t we? We know that because people
go to Hell, right? Jesus makes that clear when you find a rich man in torment. That’s
a glimpse into that place. So we know He is not the Savior of all men spiritually and
eternally. In what way is He the Savior of all men? Listen carefully. Physically and temporally.
Physically and temporally. You say, “How does that work?” Well, He doesn’t give the
sinner what the sinner deserves the moment he deserves it. The fact that you’re still
here, you’re still breathing, you’re still alive is evidence that God is a saving God.
He has temporally and physically delivered you from the wrath which should have felled
the first time you violated His law. He’s already demonstrated that He’s a saving God.
You’ve already seen His mercy. You’ve already seen that. Romans 2 said that forbearance of God, that patience of God by which He overlooks the
transgression and waits and gives space for repentance should have led you to repentance,
Romans 2: 4-5. God is a saving God and He’s demonstrated it across the globe through all
of the history of humanity because He’s delivered men temporally and physically from
what they deserve which was the instantaneous explosion of His just and righteous wrath.
The world has had plenty of illustrations of how much a saving God He is. Then He adds,
“especially of believers.” And He saves believers spiritually and eternally. Okay? But
even when you look at the world as it is today, you see sinners running rampant all
through the world that’s evidence of God’s saving character. God said to Adam in the
Garden, “You eat that fruit, you’re gonna die.” He ate, guess what? He lived. He lived.
He didn’t die the day he ate. The seeds of death were planted but God showed Himself a
saving God, didn’t He? And immediately put in place the saving plan, didn’t He? Right
in the same chapter when they have the Fall in verse 15, God promises there’s gonna
come a seed that’s gonna bruise the serpent’s head. Redemption is on the way. God, by
nature, is a saving God. You find Him in the Garden. He’s not off somewhere having Adam wandering around the
Garden saying, “Where are you God? Where are you God?” No, it’s God wandering around
in the Garden saying, “Where are you Adam? Where are you Adam?” The Son of Man has come
to what? Seek and save. God does the seeking. From Genesis 3:8-9 on, God has been seeking the lost. Ezekiel 34:16…..Man is lost and
not seeking. God is seeking. No man seeks after God. Luke 15, three parables, lost sheep,
lost coin, lost sons. In every case, there’s a search and what was lost was found all of
Heaven rejoices. Why does all of Heaven rejoice? Because they know how precious that is
to the heart of God. Right? The lost coin is like a sinner that repents.
The lost sheep is like a sinner that repents.
The lost son is like a sinner that repents.
And it causes a party in Heaven because it’s so dear to the heart of God. God is a saving
God by nature. We’re not trying to appease Him. He’s a saving God by nature. And you see it in the demonstration where the guy finally got up in the middle sty eating
the pig slop and says, “I’ll go home.” And runs and what happens? He gets near his house
and his father who is an old man runs, runs when he sees him coming. Throws his arms around
him, kisses him and calls for a robe to be put on and the most beautiful ring, a feast and
that’s God. That father is God. That’s the saving nature of God. Running to the repentant
sinner. Throwing His arms around that sinner and lavishing blessings on that sinner. It’s
His nature, it’s his nature. And this is what he said to the sinner, “All that I have is
yours.” He seeks the reprobate. He seeks the wicked. He seeks the outcast as well as the
respectable and the outwardly religious. So God is the reconciler. Go back to the text. God is the reconciler. In case you forgot what the text is, it’s
2 Cor. 5. Reconciliation is the divine provision by which God’s holy displeasure can be
appeased. The hostility removed and sinners restored to Him. Let me just give you something
to think about. Man never makes reconciliation. We don’t make reconciliation with God. It’s
not what we do it’s simply what we embrace. God has provided the reconciliation, we can only
embrace it. To put it another way, reconciliation with God is not something we accomplish
when westop deciding to reject Him, but something He accomplished when he stopped deciding
to reject us. God is the source of reconciliation. The act of justification So we’re not looking for some religious leaders to invent the plan, okay? We don’t need a
meeting to come up with this. All we need is a revelation from God. True? So we go here.
So, first of all, reconciliation is by the will of God. Two, second point, it is by the act of justification. It is by the act of justification.
Verse 19, God was reconciling the World to Himself. God was reconciling the World to Himself.
I wish I had more time to talk about all of that. The world here is not the world of
Universalism. It doesn’t mean everybody’s going to be saved, John 1:29…..John 3:16…..
1John 2:2…..Heb2:9…..This is not Universalism, it simply means mankind in general, very
simple. Mankind in general. Titus 3:4, God’s love for mankind. The world of humanity.
Obviously not every individual will be saved. But the world indicates the sphere, the kind
of being, the class of being toward which God seeks reconciliation. And God who was in Christ,
verse 19, reconciling the world to Himself, did it this way. Verse 19, by not counting their
what? Trespasses against them. That’s how he did it. So that’s justification. He declared them
righteous. Justification means to be just or to be right. The only way that God could reconcile sinners
would be if they were not sinners anymore. If they were made righteous. If they became
righteous. So, you’ve got a problem if you say, “Well, God’s going to reconcile sinners.
He’s just going to do it by saying, ‘Ah, it’s not big deal to me. You’re all forgiven, come
on in.’” Then you’ve got a problem with God’s justice, right? God’s holiness, God’s integrity
is at stake. So, if we’re gonna have forgiveness, we have to have justification. It’s by the
will of God by it’s by the act of justification. Somehow God has to declare us just. And how
does He do it? By not counting their trespasses against them. It doesn’t say He doesn’t know about them, He does.
It doesn’t say they aren’t there, they are. It just says He doesn’t hold them against us anymore.
In fact, that’s another way to present it. Say, “You know, I’m happy to tell you I know a truth
that can allow God never again to hold any sin you ever commit against you.” That’s the good news
folks. That’s the good news. So, it is by the act of justification, “blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute
iniquity,” Psalm 32:2. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account,”
Romans 4 says. So, the only way that God can do this, His plan, is if He forgives you and never
holds your sins against you. None of them, past, present, future. Absolutely none of them. Fully
forgiven and you’re declared to be righteous. That’s the only way it could ever happen. [...] What happened on the cross? Substitution Isaiah 53:4 and 6 says, “He was wounded, not for His transgressions but for our transgressions.”
He was bruised not for His iniquities but for --- and it was the chastisement for our peace that
was put on Him. Boy that is a terrible thing to say. God has caused the iniquity of us all to fall
on Him. Let me tell you something. You have to understand this. Here’s how to understand it. On
the cross, God treated Jesus as if He had committed every sin ever committed by every person who
would ever believe. Though, in fact, He committed none of them. Did you get that? God treated Him
as if He committed, personally, every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe
though the fact is He committed none of them. That’s the great doctrine of substitution. And that’s
the first side of imputation. God imputed our sins to Him. He was guilty of none of them. God
treated Him as if He committed all of them. And He just unloaded His fury for all the sins of all
the people who would ever believe in Him in the history of the world. He unloaded all His fury
against all their sins on Christ.To borrow the language of Leviticus 16, Jesus became the
“scapegoat”. Scapegoat was guilty of nothing. But the High Priest, as it were, laid all the sins
of the people on the scapegoat and sent him away. He was without sin. But sin was credited to His
account as if He had personally committed it and then God punished Him though the fact is He never
committed any of it. That’s imputation. That’s imputation. That’s the first step. So the only sense
in which Christ was made sin was in the sense that our sins were imputed to Him. God treated Him as
if He was guilty but He wasn’t. You were. You were. And then God just exploded His wrath on the
innocent Christ who was in our place as our substitute. Galatians 3:13…..that was it. Now, go back to the verse. Here comes the rest of this incredible truth.
“He made Him who knew no sin, sin”. Only in one sense and that is that He treated Him as if He’d
committed all the sins ever committed by all the people who would ever believe when in fact he
committed none of them and He did it on our behalf or for us. Listen to this, “In order that we might
become the righteousness of God in Him.” That’s the other side of imputation. This is just mind-
boggling to me. Let me tell you what that last half means. The perfect life of jesus Have you ever asked yourself the question, “When Jesus came into the world why did He have to live all
those years?” If I was planning the plan of redemption I’d have had Him come down on Friday, die, rise
on Sunday and go back to Heaven Monday. I mean, that was the only deal, it needed to happen, wasn’t it?
Have you ever though that through? Why 30 years? Why 30 silent years? Isn’t that quite a remarkable to
you that you have one little tiny vignette in the life of Christ at the age of twelve and that’s it?
And that’s not of monumental theological significance. He was a twelve-year-old who got separated from
His parents and He was wandering around the temple asking questions of the theologians there. And He
made the one comment that He needed to be about His Father’s business, which a noble Jew could have
made. A devout Jew, concerned about things of God who was His Father. But you have 30 years of absolute silence. You have 30 years of no record. Look this is God on the
Earth! This is the Almighty, glorious God of Heaven living in the world and we have absolutely no
information about this. We don’t know anything about what happened. So many times I’ve wondered what
kinds of a little boy He was. Was He like my little boys? Not a chance. Was He like your little boys?
Not a chance. What was He like? And you have all these apocryphal books about whenever He saw a bird
with a broken wing He healed it and whenever He saw a crippled child He healed him and those are
fanciful things. What was He like? Well, we know He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God.
And then we know absolutely nothing. We have 30 blank years of the life of God on Earth. Isn’t that
wonderful to think about? I mean, I just wish there was ---I wish the Gospels didn't start with the
birth of Christ and leap to the baptism.There’s 30 years in there, what was going on in there? I’ll
tell you what was going on. The reason He had to be here all those years was identified at His baptism
when John said, “I’m not going to baptize you.” Remember that? And He said, “No, you have to. I have
come to fulfill all righteousness.” That was just part of doing what righteousness required. And the
reason, listen carefully, that Jesus lived a full life was that He might live a complete life fully
righteous. That He might live a complete life absolutely without sin, absolutely perfect (listen to me),
so that that perfect life could be credited to your account. That’s the backside of imputation. On the
cross, God treated Jesus as if He lived your life so He could treat you as if you lived His life. That’s
the Gospel. That’s substitution. I don’t think people even grasp the reality of that. The only way God could ever be reconciled to
sinners was if sin had been paid for and He did it in Christ. And if the sinner was made righteous
and He did it in Christ. And that’s why Paul in Phillipians says, “Oh man, all those years I was
racking up all that stuff in the gain columnyou know, circumcision, tribe of Benjamin, of the Nation
Israel, Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law, you know, a Pharisee, blamelessand then I saw Christ
and it was immediately manure. And I found a righteousness, not of my own, but the righteousness of God
through Christ.” What happens in justification? God simply declares you righteous because your sin has
been paid for. He treated Christ as if He’d committed all your sins and lived your life and He treats
you as if you lived Christ’s life. That’s how the Father sees you now. And that happened at the moment
of faith, didn’t it? That’s the Gospel. That’s what we need to tell sinners. That’s the essence of it. September 2007 |
