You turn with me this evening to the second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 5, and the last verse of the chapter. For he hath made him to be sin for us, whom ye know sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. stupendous statement of all in the Word of God. One of such deep mystery that it is difficult to consider how we can begin to expound his meaning. He has married him to be sinned for us, whom we know sin. Now those who sought to take the edge off this saying, I declare that what Paul meant was that God had made Christ to be the sin offering for us. Now that is certainly true that Christ is our sin offering, but that is not what the text conveys. He had made Him to be sin for us. He certainly was a sacrifice for sin. But this verse says more than that. He had made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Here again we are faced with a similar difficulty. You certainly believe that through the obedience of Christ, righteousness is imputed to us. That is, we are reckoned to be righteous. We ourselves are not righteous, but we are reckoned to be righteous and accepted as righteous in the Gospel. But this is not what the verse says. It says this before God. We are made the righteousness of God in Him. Now if I say I do not understand these words, I shall be in fairly good company. For I have read that we are, or that it has to be said upon this verse, by those who down the ages have been qualified to speak and to be heard upon these matters, and I found universally they are in the same difficulty as I am myself. And then if they can tell us what the text does not say, what exactly it means, and it says he was made sin for us, or again we are made the righteousness of God in him. This presents difficulty. Thank God we don't need to solve all mysteries in order to be saved. I suppose that there's very little of facts that we need to know in order to be saved. It is enough that we look and see and behold. As the people in the wilderness, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. It is enough that the sinner looks to the Saviour, knowing that what the Saviour is constitutes his right to be regarded as the Saviour. And what He did is salvation for us. Though we may not fully understand it, it is enough that we look to the Saviour. Look unto Me, says the Lord, all the ends of the earth, and be ye saved. Look and be ye saved. Look unto Me and be ye saved. This is something that we can understand. Do we require any great theology, any intricate scientific exposition of things in order to be saved? What the sinner believes in order to be salvation is, in a word speaking, simplicity itself, as his act of faith is simplicity itself. wherever they lie behind it, theologically, I don't enter into that this evening. Just as the sinner, when he first comes to the Saviour, does not and cannot enter into these mysteries or even details. It is enough that Jesus died. It is enough that he can look and be healed in the looking to the Saviour. As when the Hebrew prophet raised the brazen serpent high, the wind obliterated and straightly cured, the people had ceased to die. Then if it is true that we are saved as we behold the very simplicities of the Gospel and it is wonderfully and blessedly true. Then what purpose is to be served by going any deeper, by trying to solve mysteries? Well, I think the answer to this will appear in a very little while as we seek to penetrate the mystery of this verse. I suppose that when most people are converted It certainly was the case with the one who is now speaking to you, that what impressed our attention most of all was not the wonder and the glory of the Savior who brought the salvation, but just salvation itself. To be saved, to be delivered, to be forgiven, to be pardoned. to be right with God. This is what engrossed our attention. Later on, we began to perceive the materials therein of praise, of wonder, of awe, of majesty, of worship. And progressively we were sanctified in the knowledge of who He was. who died for us, and what this word means, that he died for us and gave his great life at ransom for us. So the penetrating of these mysteries, to any degree at all, is essential not only to the growth of our peace, but to the fullness of our joy. We join in God, says Paul, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have received the atonement. We join in God, we rejoice therein, as new men and women in Christ Jesus, as a new creation. We enter into a new experience, a new life of abounding peace and joy. of increasing conflict with sin and of overcoming the world and all the evils that are therein. There is nothing so wonderful under heaven as living the Christian life with all its conflicts and trials, for by this we overcome. against all the power of the evil one. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. It is necessary, therefore, to be strong in the faith. It is therefore necessary to know faith. Most people never grow in grace who don't grow in knowledge. And most people never grow in knowledge who don't also grow in grace. This, of course, is but growing grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter uses this word knowledge in his first epistle very considerably. He speaks of the wonder of knowing Him whom we have never met, whom we have never seen, whom have we not seen? We love. In whom we know we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice. with joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is necessary to know for the joy of our hearts, for the peace of our conscience, for the strength and stability of our testimony, for our confidence and assurance In the face of death and trial and affliction and temptation, it is necessary for us to know, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But there are depths of love that we cannot know. There are depths of the mystery of Christ's work for us which we can never fully penetrate. And this is one of them. We shall attempt to say some things which will bring us to some approximation we trust to the meaning of our text, but we do not pretend to be able fully to lay bare its meaning. I will that I caught, and I will that I had some acquaintance with the writings and the labels of some man past or present, who can throw any more light upon the matter than I seem to possess at the moment. But this is not the case so far. He hath made him to be saved for us, whom you know saved. The most stupendous statement in the whole range of divine truth in the Word of God. Now we shall be helped no doubt considerably in the understanding of this word. We will come in at least closer to it than could otherwise be the case if we first of all try to understand what this is which is mentioned as sin. He hath made him to be sin for us. It will bring lightness and also increase our difficulties. never understand what sin is. The Father will soon be away from understanding that he should be made sin for us who knew no sin. Now what is sin? Sin is that which denies and repudiates God. which hates the thought of the being of the true God. Sin is that which makes the soul of man averse to the truth. We believers in Christ know only too well how this exists in worldly persons with whom we may converse on politics, culture, arts, music, literature, sports, shall we say, in all its forms, and find ourselves speaking the same language more or less. It's talking about the same things without restraint, without strain of any kind, not talking about the weather a bit to them, which is supposed to be an Englishman's prerogative. It's certainly an Englishman's habit that if he can't think of anything else to talk about or with which to introduce a conversation, let's talk about the weather. We're all conscious in our variable climates, there's always plenty to say. We're all on common ground on these, this great variety of subjects. Even religion. There are times when men will talk about religion or in a religious fashion without restraint. Just like the man who came to my door only this afternoon and rang the bell. Never seen in all my life before. He was smelling strong drink and his speech was slurred as a consequence. He wanted to know where Mrs. Sorenson lived. He had no clue to her whereabouts, except that he understood that she lived somewhere in Roving. Well, I did my best for the poor man, and I looked up in the telephone directory this day, but there was nobody of that name who lived anywhere around our part of the world, so I assured him that I would have done all I could to help him, but I was not in a position to do so. And then do they say, God bless you? I said, thank you very much. Well, when a drunken man asks the blessing of God upon you, I don't suppose we can really complain. Well, what it meant to him, I don't know. What it means to me, I cannot tell. I certainly wouldn't hold it against him. He might have said much worse than that. I mentioned an administration that religion of sorts is not very far from some people's minds. And the further they are away from it, very often the more effective they are to talk about it. So far so good. But sin is averse to the true God. There is nothing for men and women to speak about God, about any God. or even what they think is the God, but the Lord God of truth, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of faith, repentance, of new life in Christ Jesus, of salvation. This is what they are averse to. This unhinges their conscience. Oh, that's the question, isn't it? My friend, have you been converted to Christ? Are you still in your sins? Oh, that's the question. They want to bring that conversation to an end, unless they're deeply smitten, of course, by the spirit of conviction. This is not religion to them. This is a fanaticism. This is an enthusiasm. This is something which upsets their conscience. This is some narrow-minded view of God and of religion that they do not wish to converse about. Very soon reach a point, I, with respectable religious people, tell you. I think of some sad cases now, it's been up to my recollection. Highly respectable cultured people. who don't mind going to church, who reckon themselves to be members of some congregation, some religious order. But oh, when you come close to this personal responsibility in the matter of your soul, of its faith eternally, of its relationship with Christ the Saviour and Redeemer, oh, you don't press this. The soul of the unconverted is averse to truth, real truth. Sin hates the thought of the true God. Sin denies and repudiates God. It throws over completely the idea That we have no responsibility to live at all, except but to God and to His praise and glory. That the lives we live are an offense to Almighty God, and we must repent and turn unto Him with all our hearts. And he says, well, I don't see it that way. The reason you don't see it that way is because sin is averse to God and denies and repudiates Him who made us and formed us for Himself in our original and His own likeness and for His own glory. But sin says, hands off, my life is my own. My will is my own. I, in this world, will please myself. I will go my own way. And I do not wish to be disturbed by any thought of any kind of religion which cuts across these favorite ideas of mine. But sin is the great evil of the universe. For man was made without sin, and God made man upright. But sin has denied and repudiated the God who made us. If this we do evermore, we live outside of Christ and unsubmitted, absolutely. Godly soul and spirit to our great Maker and Redeemer. So this is sin, rebellion against God and against the idea of God. He hath made him to be sin for us whom ye know sin. Now, when I say this, that in Christ, God denies and repudiates sin. Think of that. In the person of His only begotten Son, God has answered the question of sin. He has denied sin and repudiated sin. He has done it in a very marvelous way. So marvelous that unless it had been written down for us, unless it had happened in history, we would not have believed it, and could not have believed it, that He and His God had made the only begotten Son to be sin for us. And in Christ, God has repudiated sin. If sin has repudiated God, God has repudiated and denied sin. He has exposed it. He has condemned it. He has shown it to be what it is. And He has overcome sin and all the evil that sin has brought into the world. And this is the problem that God set Himself to, from all eternity, to overcome the evil which sin creates. The only way in which it could be done was himself to be made sin. Who knew no sin? That he might gather together into himself all the shame and the contempt and the curse which sin has wrought in the divine creation and drag it down with himself. into death and the grave, that he might open up the way of life for sinful men, that they might be made the righteousness of God in him. That has raised above what they originally were. They were made righteous, and we lost our righteousness by sin. Now we are made by an act of divine clemency, incredible in its nature, but it were not that it was true. He has made us, in Christ, the righteousness of God. That is salvation. Our own righteousness will not take us there. No human righteousness is of any avail. The righteousness of God is all He can accept, nothing less than that. So let us be made, says God, the righteousness of God in Christ. All faith in our own righteousness, all reliance upon anything that we are or anything that we've ever done, you require more than that, far more. It is the righteousness of God in Christ, this and this alone, that we might be made come a little closer still to our text. He hath made him to be sin for us. Shall we put it this way? He was made the likeness of sin. This doesn't solve the mystery of our text, but it helps us to understand it a bit better. He was made the very likeness of sin. Look at these words that we have. in the 52nd chapter of Isaiah, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high, as many were astonished at thee. His visage was so large more than any man, and his own more than the sons of men. If there is a form of death which portrays shame, disgrace, which marred the image of God in man. It was the death by crucifixion. His form, his face, which bore all the glory of the eternal God, marred about that of any and his form more than the summies of men, as though he were unfitted to be described as a man. That he'd lost all claim in appearance to the divinity of human nature and the human form, he was made sin. And as such was repudiated even by the human race, He made a curse for them as though he were not fit to be a member of the human family. He was put out upon the cross. His face so marked more than any man, his form and appearance more than the sons of men. He was merely the likeness of Satan. We know that he was made the substitute for sin. God had made him to be sin for us. That is on our behalf. That which we were, that which we are, he became. He hung there upon the cross, yet without seeing sinlessness. He was the substitute for our sin. He exhibited in himself the very form of sin, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. The serpent, as it is the symbol of sin, under sin's judgment, it is the serpent that tempted our first parents, and wrought their downfall and their ruin, and brought sin into the human race. Therefore, let the serpent die. It was a serpent that bit the people in the wilderness, the fiery serpents that came because of the people's sin, which was the very symbol of their sin, which Moses raised up in the serpent that grasped him upon the pole in the midst of the camp. That they might look upon that which had destroyed them, which is a symbol of their own disobedience against God. to the Savior from the cross, I see Him as the symbol of that which destroyed me. And yet seeing Him, I am made alive in Him, and made the righteousness of God in Him. This is true. I know not. I only know that He who has made sin knew no sin. Neither then, nor before, nor since, that He was never so stainless and sinless as when He hung and suffered there. This I know. He has made Him to be sinless who knew no sin. This is His qualification. to be sin for me, that he was sinless in himself. Else he could not have had suffered death. He could not have been qualified to be made sin for me, if he was already sin for himself. But he knew no sins as the apostle. What does this mean? He knew no sins. means that he was God's fellow. He was the eternal son of the Eternal Father. But when God sought to make atonement and reconciliation for my sin and yours, he found one in his own bosom. was in himself the going forth of the righteousness of God. And yet, the one who came forth must be himself God, for the Eternal Father could not require of another to do that work for him which was for his own glory. and for the salvation of the souls, and the deliverance of creation from the curse of sin. It had to be Himself, and never another than Himself. This is why we require the Holy Trinity, three Persons, but one God, without confusing the Persons on the one hand, or dividing the substance on the other. I don't know. This great mystery, I cannot enter into its depths. I only know that He was my God who suffered. As Charles Wesley wrote, that thou, my God, shouldst die for me. I know it was my God who suffered. And I know He was the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. I know that God, the Father, was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not including unto us our trespasses. I also know that the Holy Spirit, the third person, was there, that he was through the entire spirit of holiness, that Christ offered himself there, without stop, to God. This was his qualification to be my atonement and my redeemer. It could never have been just or righteous or proper for God to find another than himself to bear the burden and endure the pain and to take away the curse which he had pronounced. Only he who pronounced the curse could take it away. for our joy of worship and praise, that we should know who he is who died for us, and what he was and what he always is. Who he is, is God. What he is, is sinless, stainless, spotless. He is the righteousness of God, the going forth of the divine wisdom, power, and purpose. He hath made Him to be sin for us, who do not sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Now I do not understand either of my terms, and yet we are getting nearer, and we know Him sufficiently to wonder and marvel that He should be made sin. that I might lay positively the righteousness of God in him. For, this is the only means by which the great life of God could pour itself out for my life. And inasmuch as he is my life, he is also my righteousness. And therefore, I am the righteousness of God in him. The Lord helped me. I have sinned against Him today in thought and word and deed. I need to ask constantly His forgiveness and grace and forbearance and mercy and patience. Yet am I the righteousness of God in Him who hath no righteousness of my own. Yet was He made sin for me. though he knew no sin, and was himself the positive and absolute and actual righteousness and wisdom of God. Now you see, on the one hand, how we can never fully understand our text, and in the honour that it is the most stupendous text in the whole of Scripture. One day we shall understand the veil that is upon our mind and heart shall be taken away. We shall no more see through a glass darkly but face to face. We shall know even as also we are known by God. We shall understand then the mystery of divine grace. But here in our approximation towards it, in our near approach to the understanding of it, that we find all the materials for praise and blessing, for rejoicing in Christ Jesus, for being ashamed of ourselves and of sin, and of longing and desiring for that eternal state. Then Paul says that we that are in this tabernacle do groan within ourselves, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but clothed apart, that mortality might be swallowed up with life. Or again, as in the next chapter of Romans, And verse 21, the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And the earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God. I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worth to be compared with the which shall be revealed in us into a creation blighted by sin and new and a holy and pure principle has appeared in the rising of Christ from the dead who has made sin but knew no sin. It is coming into the world and the man of it is passing out of the world. He came obscure, tender. His new principle of life grew from childhood to manhood in sinlessness and imperfection. Nothing like it ever seen before in this normal world. Though it passed through unrecognized by the world. Caiaphas scorned it. Judas betrayed it. Pilate feared it. yet do not understand, unbelief rejects it, sin repudiates it. But one day He's coming, day and glorious day, for you and for me, when we shall fully realize the inheritance we have in this new life, in this new person, this glorious Son of God, the eternal God manifest in the flesh. We shall fully realize this inheritance, what it means to be made the righteousness of God in heaven. Amen. Now we shall sing 102. Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came, proved sinners to be clean. Hallelujah. What a Savior. One can read in two.