Dying For Us: Christ's Ultimate Exchange
Daily Scripture
1 Corinthians 15:3, 2 Corinthians 5:19, 21
1 Corinthians 15
3 I passed on to you as most important what I also received: Christ died for our sins in line with the scriptures.
2 Corinthians 5
19 In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation…. 21 God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Was Jesus, in some sense, a substitute for us? Yes, he was—the apostle Paul, building in part on the language of Isaiah 53:4-6, left no doubt about that. There was no possible way that Jesus died for his own “sins”—even the Roman authorities could see through the specious charges the Judean rulers brought against Jesus (cf. Mark 15:12-15). Even better, in dying for our sins Jesus made it possible for us to live the new life of the kingdom of which he is the resurrected king.
- “This densely packed statement describes a divine interchange whereby the sinless Christ assumes the human condition so that sinful humans might become the righteousness of God. In the words of the 2nd-century bishop Irenaeus, ‘Christ became what we are, in order that we might become what he is.’” * The “substitutionary” theory of the atonement captures that divine interchange well. How grateful are you that Jesus was willing to die for your sins?
- However, as scholar William Barclay noted, the “penal” part of the theory goes beyond the Biblical witness. “The New Testament never speaks of God being reconciled to men, but always of men being reconciled to God. There is no question of pacifying an angry God. The whole process of salvation takes its beginning from him. It was because God so loved the world that he sent his son.” ** Why is it vital to understand that, in Jesus, “God was reconciling the world to himself”?
Prayer
Living Lord, you are just that—LIVING. Help me trust and live in the promise of your reconciling resurrection power today. Amen.
GPS Insights
Dawn North
Dawn North, who wrote today's Insight, worships at Resurrection Spring Hill and lives with her husband, Jim, in their comfy cozy log cabin in rural Edgerton. She was a middle school teacher and now is a ‘sometimes’ freelance writer. She loves hanging out with her kids and grandkids and is an amateur beekeeper.
In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller asks if our stories are being stolen by the easy life… a life trying to avoid conflict. * That is a deeply personal question each of us must answer. For me, dodging disagreements and discord are highly developed skills. As a Type 9 on the Enneagram, my word descriptor is “peacemaker.” This lady’s inner nature prefers a storyline of harmony and happiness and sunlight rather than darkness.
But God’s Story is a tale quite unlike any other, filled with treachery, disloyalty, persecution, love and grief. And, even harder, it was a story written in the blood of his son. God, the creator of everything, had a love story to write (sounds paradoxical to the words used above, and it should). Rather than a recital of rules written in stone, it would be a love letter tattooed on the hearts of humanity… a story of infinite love and reconciliation of The Totally Divine with The Totally Human. And God would allow nothing to get in the way.
In J. K. Rowling’s bestselling Harry Potter fantasy series, the wizard Dumbledore persistently tells Harry that Harry’s primary weapon is his ability to love. ** Harry finds this sappy and trite. How in the world could love defeat the number one villain on the Most Wanted List of Hogwarts and its hamlets?
Sound familiar? Neither did those in Jesus’s day see love as a powerful weapon or life-changing ammo. But God knew something they did not. Paul said in today’s reading, “God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God.” Paul spoke about Jesus willingly exchanging his life for ours on a dehumanizing, dignity-stealing cross.
Pastor Adam describes the Story of God as a masterpiece. This masterpiece had been years and years and years in the making. The crucifixion and resurrection were the climactic chapters of God’s love story to humanity. Per Pastor Adam, Jesus’s death was more than a business transaction–if I do this, then you need to do that. This was a relational type of transaction, the goal of which was the creation and maintenance of a healthy relationship. It was an act of reconciliation that would endure forever.
As Harry Potter’s love defeated his nemesis, Voldemort, God’s love truly defeated death through Jesus. Contrary to what Harry thought, contrary to what humans thought, love was more than enough. Rob Bell, in Love Wins, writes, “Love is what God is, love is why Jesus came, and love is why he continues to come, year after year to person after person.” *** I am exceedingly grateful that God’s Story was not stolen by the easy life.
* Miller, Donald, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. 2009. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson.
** Rowling, J. K., Harry Potter Book Series, Volumes 1-7. 1997-2007. Bloomsbury, England: Bloomsbury Publishing.
*** Bell, Rob, Love Wins. 2011. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* David J. Downs, study note on 2 Corinthians 5:21 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 343 NT.
** William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Revised Edition). Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, p. 211.
