This sermon was broadcast on December 15, 1963, over stations WTTL and WFMW. The speaker is C.D. Cole, interim pastor of the First Baptist Church, Madisonville, Kentucky. My text for this message is 2 Corinthians 5.21, and I will read it from the translation of Moffitt. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says, and I quote, For our sakes he, God, made him to be sin who himself knew nothing of sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Unquote. In a word, Paul is saying that God the Father treated Jesus Christ the Son as a sinner or unrighteous person so that we sinners might be treated as righteous persons. A missionary was once preaching from this text to a group of natives in a foreign land. When he had finished his message, he was desirous to know whether they had understood it or not. So he asked them to tell him in their own words just what it all meant to them. The chief of the tribe spoke up and said, It means that the Lord Jesus swapped with me. And I might say that this puts the way of salvation just about as plain as human language can put it. He who was without sin took the place of sinners under God's holy law so that sinners might have the place of sons before God as father. Christ, the righteous son of God, took the place of the guilty and bore their sins in his own body on the tree of the cross. He who was rich became poor for our sake, that we through his poverty might become rich. Christ died as the just one for the unjust one, that he might bring us into God's favor. A man was once asked if he would not like to be saved. He replied, yes, if God can save me without doing wrong. This man was a thinker. He saw a problem in a just God saving unjust people. He realized that a just God must punish sin. He confessed that he was a sinner, and that if God was just in dealing with him, he would have to punish him for his sins. This was Job's problem in the long ago when he cried out, How then can man be justified with God? Their reasoning is after this fashion. If God is wholly unrighteous, And all men are sinners and deserve punishment? How can they justly go unpunished? The answer is in the blessed and glorious gospel truth that the Son of God swapped places with sinful men and redeemed them from the curse of the law by being made a curse for them. In swapping with us, he took our place under the law of God and obeyed the law for us. The sinner is saved by obedience. but not by his own obedience. Romans 5.19 says, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. If we had obeyed the holy law of God, we would have been righteous in our own name and on our own record. God will never punish a good man if a man can be found who has never sinned. That man will live before God as a matter of justice. He will need no grace or mercy, but only justice. But the truth is that no such person has ever lived except the sinless Son of God. The Bible brings the changes on the fact that all have sinned, that none is good, that there is none righteous, not even one. The chief of police in a western town received a letter from a woman asking him to put her in touch with a perfect man with a view to matrimony. The chief did a very sensible thing. He sent the letter to the Bureau of Missing Persons. The perfect man is missing and there is no kind of bureau that can locate him on this earth. The spirits of the just made perfect or even now in Heaven. There once lived the perfect man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he kept the law for sinners, and all who trust him have his righteousness, the righteousness he provided, and stand justified before God. There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8, verse 1. The Lord Jesus obeyed until death. That is, he obeyed all the days of his life, your honor. He never had a sinful thought. He never did a selfish or sinful thing. He never spoke a sinful or even idle word. He did the will of God in all things, at all times, and in all places. When he came to die, he could truly say, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. John 17, verse 4. And let us remember that all that work was for us to make us right with God. I reject with abhorrence any religion that adds anything to the precious blood of Christ as the ground of salvation. The Bible says it is the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1, verse 7. The Bible says that when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, Hebrews 1 verse 3, and the redeemed sinner delights to confess, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. The Lord Jesus Christ obeyed unto death, that is, he obeyed at the cost of his life. denotes both time and degree. The time of his obedience was until he died. The degree of his obedience was at the cost of his life. In swapping with sinners, Christ had to settle with the holy law of God for all our sins. As sinners, we were responsible to settle with the law we have broken. But this would have meant our eternal ruin, for the wages of sin is death. As Savior Jesus Christ paid our sin bill, and as believers in him we delight to sing, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Now let us look a little deeper into the meaning of the death of Christ. He died the death that denoted a curse. In his death he was being cursed by God. In Galatians 3, Verse 13, Paul says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us. And he adds a quotation from Deuteronomy 21, verse 23, which says, he that is hanged is accursed of God. In saving sinners, God had planned that his son would die the death that denoted a curse. And so Christ died while the Romans were in power. If Christ had died under Jewish law, he would have been stoned to death. But God had decreed that his son would die on a cross, and the scripture had foretold this kind of death. And so in divine providence, Christ died on a Roman cross as a sign that he was being cursed by God. It was more than physical suffering Christ endured for us. He suffered separation from God. On the cross, the Father turned his back upon his Son, because he was being made sin for us. The Father was forsaking his Son for a while, that he might not in justice forsake us forever. If God had been with Christ on the cross to help him bear our sins, he could not have redeemed us. To save us he had to be forsaken and punished by God, and this is what constituted his terrible suffering. Jesus was an exile from heaven while here on earth. Heaven was his proper and rightful place where he enjoyed all the glory of God the Father. While here he spake of the glory he had with the Father before the creation of the world. It is to be observed that after Jesus went to Calvary, no word came to him from heaven and the Father. The heavens were as brass above his head. No help came in response to his cry. It was easy enough for the Lord to hear from home, from heaven, before he went to the cross. At his birth, millions of angels came from heaven to celebrate the great event. They may have sung the songs he had heard them sing in heaven around the throne. At his baptism, the Holy Spirit came from heaven in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father was heard, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father's voice was again heard, This is my beloved Son, hear ye him. And all through his earthless sojourn, he was in constant touch with the Father. When he would pray in the silent hours of the night, he could hear the Father speaking to him. When his enemies came to arrest him, he told them that even he could ask the Father and get twelve legions of angels for his defense. But on the cross he had no word from God. Heaven was silent. The three hours of darkness symbolized this separation from God. God was making his son to be sin for us, and therefore he could not smile or even look upon sin with any mercy. God spared not his own son when he found him in the sinner's place. All that a just and holy God can do with sin is to punish it and pour out his wrath upon it. If God were to give us sinners what we deserve, we would not deserve salvation but his wrath. Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, came and exposed himself to the wrath due us, that we might receive the blessings due his sons. Yes, it blessed be his name. He took our place as sinners, that we might have the place of sons in the Father's house. He took our guilt, that we might have right standing with God. Yes, he swapped places with us. He was made to be sin for us, that we might be righteous before God. It becomes us to sing with Charlotte Elliot these verses which so beautifully and strikingly set forth the experience and hopes of the redeemed. Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am in waiting not to rid my soul of one dark plot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am poor, wretched, blind, sight which is healing of the mind, Yea, all I need in thee I find. O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am, thou wilt receive, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve. Because thy promise I believe. O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Yes, beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ swapped places with us. He took our place in guilt of sin. that we might have the place under grace in him. Hallelujah. What a Savior.