The Lost Gospel by Paul Washer (Compilation) — Compilations

Christ’s Perfect Obedience and the Horror of Bearing Sin

There has never been one moment in your entire life that you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not one time. Not one moment. There has never been one moment of your life that you have loved God as God deserves to be loved.

And yet there was never one moment in the life of Jesus of Nazareth that he did not love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. There's never been one event or one task or deed that you've accomplished that you have accomplished purely and only for the glory of God.

And yet every breath he breathed in and out, every beat of his heart, every conscious decision, everything he ever did, he did perfectly and completely for the glory of his Father. So when we understand that this person, Jesus, was made to be sin, that's a terrible thing.

It's an astounding thing. That the one who always beheld the face of his Father, the one who delighted in the Father perfectly and in whom the Father delighted always, everything the Father has done for his Son.

And to think that on that tree he was made to be sin. What does that mean? Does it mean that when he was on that tree, his nature became defiled, corrupted? Did he himself in his person become a vile thing?

No. On that tree he was still the impeccable Son of the living God. On that tree he was still a spotless lamb. Then what does it mean that he was made to be sin on our behalf? Well, let's look at our text.

Imputed Righteousness and Justification by Faith

He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. How is it that the believer is the righteousness of God in Christ? This is very important. Does it mean that the moment we believe in Jesus Christ, we're somehow so changed in our nature and so infused with grace that we're absolutely perfect and we no longer sin?

No. Does it mean that we become in ourselves a perfectly righteous being? Absolutely not. Then what does it mean? It means the moment that a person, no matter how vile, no matter how wicked, a person places their faith in Jesus Christ, they are forensically or legally declared to be right with God.

And in being declared right with God, they are treated by God as right with Him. That is justification by faith. So that the moment I believed in Jesus Christ before the throne of God, I am legally declared right with Him.

And not merely right with Him, not merely pardoned, but the very righteousness of Christ has been imputed to me. So I stand before God in a position of legal righteousness and He treats me that way. That's why He can answer my prayers.

That's why He can lead me. That's why He can love me. All the benefits of being perfectly righteous before the throne of God are now mine. So what does it mean that Christ on that tree is made to be sin?

Christ Bearing the Guilt of His People

It means this, that all the sins, all the sins of wicked men were imputed to Him. Guilt of His people was imputed to Him. And God the Father treated His only begotten Son as guilty, as the one who must die, as the one who falls under the curse of the covenant breaker.

That's what it means that He became sin. Now you and I speaking about sin, we can no more speak about sin than fish can speak about water. We were born in sin. In sin our mothers conceived us. We drank down iniquity like it was water.

We're so accustomed to sin, so trained in sin. We can't see the evil of sin, the grotesque, heinous nature of sin. We can't even begin to comprehend it. But there was One who could, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And when He was on that tree to say that He bore the sins, the guilt of His people is to say something you and I could never understand. Though our intellect grew exponentially, though our spirituality knew no bounds, we would never understand the grotesque nature of what He experienced on that tree for His people.

The Preacher’s Duty to Expose Sin

And that is the task of the preacher. The reason we must speak much about sin, and that is the reason if we do not speak of sin, we are deceivers. But not only are we deceivers, we are robbers. Unless we speak about sin, even the people of God cannot understand what Christ suffered on that tree, and thus they cannot glory in Him as they ought to glory in Him.

If you never read, she loved much because she's been forgiven much. Sir, you do not love much because you do not know how much you've been forgiven, because no one's ever told you how sinful you are. We do a great disservice to men.

We fail to speak much on the radical depravity of their heart. Christ, when He is on that tree, He bears the sin, the guilt of His people. He stands in their law place and He becomes a curse. The scriptures say, Cursed is every man who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law so as to perform them.

Christ Redeems His People from the Curse

Under a curse. Do you want to know how horrifying, how terrible, how loathsome is the sin of man? Do you want to know what it means to be under a curse? To be under a curse or the man who dies in his sin, the last thing he will hear when he takes his first step into hell will be all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because God has rid the earth of him.

So terrible is our sin. So grotesque in nature. So how could we be saved from such a thing? But Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. He took upon Himself our curse and became a curse. Now what does that mean for Him?

The blessed are granted the kingdom of heaven. The cursed are refused entrance. The blessed are recipients of divine comfort. The cursed are objects of divine wrath. The blessed are satisfied. The cursed are miserable and wretched.

The blessed received mercy. The cursed are condemned without pity. The blessed shall see God. The cursed are cut off from His presence. The blessed are sons and daughters of God. And the cursed are disowned in disgrace.

Have you ever said this? I'm so blessed. Well, you should have this in the forefront of your mind. I am so blessed because He was so cursed. Every time blessing rolls off our lips, it ought to roll off our lips with a sense of trembling.

The only reason I can say that about me is because I can say this about Him. He carried the curse. He bore the curse. He suffered the curse of divine law, of divine justice. The very thing that should have been heaped upon our head without number, He bore and suffered.