to his actual performance of the work of redemption. Now, this by no means means that we will be able to cover that work in this one message. but rather this will serve as an introduction that will lead us into a consideration of Christ's sufferings and his obedience, and all that he did in order to accomplish a full redemption, pay the sin debt on our behalf, and so bring salvation to his people. In 1 Timothy 2, We read, beginning with verse 5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And here is the text, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Who gave himself a ransom for all. I want us to examine, first of all, this statement that Christ gave himself. He gave himself. And he gave himself as a ransom to redeem us. The Apostle Paul delights in this expression, he gave himself, or he offered himself. He uses it here in writing to Timothy. Christ Jesus gave himself a ransom. Also, in the book of Galatians, he there uses the phrase, in writing to the Church, in chapter 2 and verse 20, he says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Then again, in the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, he says in verse 2, "...and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. In the same chapter, he says in verse 25, Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Then in the book of Titus, the book of Titus, chapter 2, And writing to this young preacher, he says in verse 14, "...who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." Then further, in the book of Hebrews, chapter 9, in verse 14, Paul writes, "...how much more shall the blood of Christ, in contrast with the blood of the sacrifices under the Mosaic dispensation, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Well, what does it mean for Christ to give himself? to give himself. Throughout the scripture we read of Christ giving this or that or the other with reference to our salvation. And I think that it is a combining of all these things that is summed up in the giving of himself. For example, and I'll not read the scriptures for the sake of time, in 1 Peter 119 he gave his blood in order to redeem us. In Luke 22, verse 19, we read that he gave his body for us. In John 6, verse 51, he says that he gives his flesh in order to redeem us. In John 10, verse 15, he says that he gives his life for our redemption. In Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 10, the Lord says that he made his soul an offering for sin. And in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 9, he gave up his estate, his riches, his dignity, and the outward manifestation of his glory, for he who was creator of all things became poor. laid aside as riches that we in him might have a wealth and an inheritance and riches that will be unto eternal life. Therefore, for Christ to give himself as reference to the total of all that he did in his work in his obedience, in his suffering, in his death, in his resurrection, in his ascension for the purpose of our salvation. We think of one as giving himself when he gives his works, his operations, his actings, his whole time and labors to a particular project. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ did in every sense of the word. He came into the world under the Father's authority, and he dedicated the totality of his time and of his labor as our friend to do the will of the Father in order to redeem us from our sins. Furthermore, a person may be said to give himself when he gives up the comforts of his life and denies himself. The Lord Jesus Christ interprets this as forsaking lands, houses, father, and mother. The Lord Jesus Christ parted with the communion of his father, being in the father's bosom from eternity. He laid aside the splendid display of his glory as God. He gave up his inheritance that was rightfully his as the creator of the world, so that though the birds have nests and the foxes have hoves, the Son of Man did not even have a pillow upon which to lay his head. The clothing he wore was provided by another. The food he ate was the kind provision of France. He usually slept upon the earth, but what time he was in a house, it was not his home. When he came to die, it was upon another man's cross. When they took him down to bury him, they had to bury him in a tomb that was owned by a friend. And when he was departing from this world, he had no real estate, no inheritance, and had to commit the welfare of his mother into the hands of his beloved disciple, the youngest of all, John the Apostle. He gave up all. He gave himself. But this giving of himself has reference primarily to his human nature. which consists of his soul and his body. For when he gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins, to pay the sin debt in our stead, it was that human nature in its full. that sinless human nature, body and soul that was offered up in sufferings and death as a ransom price paid to free us from the slave market of sin. And so the ransom price was paid in full. Now, we oftentimes, if we wish to exaggerate the value of something, we say it's worth a king's ransom. This phraseology came over into our language and has lost its meaning by at one time having reverence to that tremendous sum of money that would be necessary to ransom a king who had been captured or who had been taken captive or kidnapped out of his own country. It would take enormous wealth to buy his freedom. to buy him back and put him on the throne over the nation from which he was taken. But when we come to the ransom price paid for our salvation, it is more than a king's ransom. It is instead the King of kings and the Lord of lords, very God of very God himself, being the ransom. being the price that was paid in order that such unworthy, no-account, and worthless, undeserving sinners like you and I might be freed from the bondage of sin and have eternal life. It was the ransom of a king. It was the king who was the ransom price paid. Now, in the scriptures that I read wherein Paul spoke so freely about Christ giving himself, in every case it was prefaced by that statement, who loved us, who loved me, or who loved her, the Church, and gave himself. So this giving of the Lord Jesus Christ shows to us the immeasurable greatness of the love he had for those people he came to redeem. He set that love upon them in eternity past when the Father gave them to him as his heritage. That love never staggered. through all their existence, as sinful as we are. And that love sent him into this world, that love caused him to take our nature upon himself, and that love carried him all the way to the cross and would not allow him to come down by his own power. Now, we often think of the Father's love when we consider the subject of redemption. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have life everlasting." But my dear friends, although the Father's love is great, how great is the love of the Son. The Father in his love gave a Son, but the Son out of his love gave himself. what matchless love we see in this statement. He gave himself a ransom for all for whom he is mediator. But now let us go on to see that in order to be a ransom, that is, in order to pay the sin debt, in order to accomplish our salvation, it was necessary that two things become a reality in the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Number one, he must be made sin. And secondly, he must be made a curse. Without these two realities becoming his, he is not a savior. He is not a ransom. He must be made sin. as horrifying as the thought is, and being made sin, he must be made a curse. This is extremely vital now to the understanding of the gospel and of our salvation. Now, follow me. To redeem us, his elect people, sinful as we are, and who are under the law and its curse, under the law and its demands and unable to meet them, the Lord Jesus Christ must become that which we were and are by nature in the judgment of that law. Now, that law by its precepts judges us to be transgressors, sinners. And that law, because of our transgression, our anomia, our lawlessness, puts us under a curse of eternal death. Therefore, for the Lord Jesus Christ to redeem us, he had to become that which the law judges us to be. Turn in your Bible to the book of Galatians, chapter 4. I want us to read this scripture and then analyze its thoughts. Galatians chapter 4, in verses 4 and 5, we read, But when the fulness of the time was come, not one minute before, not one split second late, in that exact moment as predestinated by God Almighty in his covenant of redemption, The human nature was conceived of by the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Jesus Christ made his pronouncement of dedication, Lo, I am come to do thy will, O God, in the fullness of the time. In the fullness of the time, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. that we might receive the adoption of sons. Now, if you're not under the law, you've never been redeemed. For the whole purpose of Christ's coming is to redeem us out from under the curse of the law, out from under the judgment of that law, of us as being transgressors, as being sinners. So let's see what this scripture is saying. It is saying that whatever Christ redeemed us from, He was himself made for us. In other words, he came to redeem us from the law. He himself then had to be made under the law, and that by a voluntary covenant. Now, the difference here, and the language of the Spirit is so accurate, The difference here is you and I are not made under the law. We are born under it. We are born under its curse. We are born as transgressors. But the Bible says Christ was made under the law because it was something that he voluntarily and willfully chose to do himself. And so when the fullness of the time was come, he moved in under the law, taking a human nature to himself, becoming the God-man. Now, to be under the law means that we are subject to all that the law is able to say or do. In other words, to be under the law is to be under its every pronouncement and under its every deed. This is of vital importance if Christ is our substitute and redeemer, because if Christ is made under the law for sinners, then the law will have as much to say unto him as unto sinners themselves. What I'm saying is that whatever the law says to you and to me, it had to speak to the Lord Jesus Christ as well. It had to say it to him as our ransom price to be paid, our redemption, as our surety and substitute and savior. You see, the law has a great deal more to say to sinners than any other creatures. For to those who are not lawbreakers, and none exist in this world, the law would do nothing but pronounce blessings. But now it has a judgment of cursing which it passes upon sinners. And here's what the law can do. First of all, the law can accuse sinners. The law can stand up and call sinners to their faces and be right in it. It can lay all our sins to our charge. And we cannot argue. The law can say thou art a blasphemer. The law can say thou art an idolater. The law can say that thou art a false witness. The law can say thou art an adulterer. The law can say thou art a murderer. It can speak against us. Now, that is not all. The law can also call sinners cursed for all these sins. It can say not only that you are a sinner, it can say you are a curse because of sin. So in Galatians 3, verse 10, we read, "...for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueeth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." And what man is there that would stand up and say, I've done all that is written in the book of the law? So we may note, then, there is an accusing power in the law to declare that we are sinners. And secondly, there is a condemning power to actually bring us unto the curse. If, therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ is to be our Redeemer, he must be made unto the law for us And when he is made under the law for us, the law will say as much to him as it had to say to us. You are a sinner, and you are accursed. Now, we are going to see that though this proposes a problem, how it is answered in the Lord Jesus. Was he a sinner? We say that he was without sin. If he was without sin, if he was born without sin, if he was impeccable in his nature, if he never committed a sin, how then is the law going to say, Thou art a sinner, Thou art accursed, Thou art condemned? And it must say this if we are going to be saved. Also, justice stands there to back God's law and will not respect or spare the greatness of Christ's person if he come under that law as the sinner's substitute in the place of the sinner. That law will command of him that he keep every commandment and that perfectly, and then it will command of him that he suffer the full curse of the law in the stead of the sinners for whom he came under. So as a result, then, the Lord Jesus Christ had to be made sin. This is brought out in 2 Corinthians 5, where we have the gospel summed up in one statement, in verse 21. For he, that is, God the Father, hath made him, God the Son, sin. The verb to be is not in the original text. It made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now, some tone this scripture down by saying that Christ was simply made a sin offering. That's not so. He was our sin offering. But this scripture means that Christ was made sin, made sin. Not simply a sin offering, but he did not escape the sin itself. But how can this be? How can the Lord Jesus Christ be made sin and yet not be a sinner in his person? For you see, if the Lord Jesus Christ was ever guilty of one single sin himself, he is disqualified to be our Savior and must therefore suffer for his own sins. But he did not suffer himself for his own sins, but he offered himself for us. Yet he was made sin. This means that he was made the guilt of sin. That God took all the sins of all the redeemed throughout all time and rolled them up in one bundle and placed them on the Lord Jesus Christ and said, there is sin. And the law came forth with its thunderous voice, Condemn him! Condemn him! For the guilt of all the sins of all the redeemed were charged to him." Now, this can be done. For you see, guilt does not have reference to moral pollution, but guilt has reference to a liability before the law to suffer, to make satisfaction. That is, to suffer for the crime one has been accused of. So our liability to punishment, our responsibility as guilty before the law, was taken from us and placed over on the Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute. The word translated made in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, is a forensic term, a legal term, and literally means to be constituted, legally constituted, constituted by a court of law. So it says that God has legally constituted Jesus Christ's guilt for us. sin's guilt for us. Why? That we might be legally constituted by his court of law, the righteousness, the justifying righteousness of God in him. So the Lord Jesus Christ is constituted sin by the law. He is accounted as the one who is guilty of all the sins. of the elect, and don't lose sight of that, because that makes the mystery of his atonement even more astounding. When that law charged him, it charged him not with guilt in general, but it charged him with the guilt of every particular sin, as well as original sin that adhered to every person he was going to the cross of Calvary in order to redeem by the shedding of his blood. Therefore, he has not simply made the curse that adheres to our sin, which is the punishment itself, but first he has made the guilt and then the curse. For the punishment must follow the guilt, and there can be no punishment righteously unless first there is the guilt. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, this truth is set before us in verse 6, where we read, "...all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." And the picture there in the Hebrew is that God has made to meet on him the guilt of our iniquity as streams converge into the mainstream and then into the ocean. All flowed down and had their meeting place on him. Therefore he was charged and accused by the law as a sinner because he had become our substitute in the covenant agreement with the Father to redeem us. Now, it is extremely important to keep this distinction when we deal with the subject of Christ being made sin. Personally, the Lord Jesus Christ was sinless. He was not born with sin, and he never transgressed God's law throughout the whole of his life. He was obedient even unto death. But officially, officially in his office as mediator, in his position before the law as our Redeemer, he was the guiltiest sinner that ever lived! For all the guilt, all the sins of all the were made to meet on him. And when the law dealt with him, it dealt with him accordingly. This is illustrated in the scapegoat, where on the day of atonement in Israel, the high priest leaned his hands upon the head of the scapegoat and confessed all the sins in particular of Israel over that goat, and God reckoned those sins in their guilt to that goat, and that goat became guilty. Then it was led out into a wilderness and turned loose, never to come back to Israel, showing that their sins had been put out of sight and would not be called to remember. The Lord Jesus is that scapegoat, and he has borne the guilt of our sins away from the eye of God. So it was guilt that was placed upon Christ. Then there is another illustration of this over in the book of Philemon, one chapter preceding the book of Hebrews in Philemon. verse 18, where Paul is writing to a master about a runaway slave who had come in contact with Paul and had been saved in Rome and was now going back home. And he was admonishing the master to take him back in, not only as a slave, but as a brother in Christ as well. And Paul, in verse 18, says, "...if he is wronged thee," that is, he's stolen anything, "...are any debts to be paid, or oweth thee aught." put that on mine account." In other words, I will become his surety, and I will become responsible for his debts, and I will pay them in full. This is what the Lord Jesus did. He became our surety, and he said, put their debt to my account. I'll settle it up. And in the fullness of the time, he came into the world made of a woman made under the law in order to settle up our account. Now, a surety is not only one who is bound to pay a debt he voluntarily becomes responsible for, but a surety is one who makes another's debt his very own. A guarantor only takes the debt and is bound to pay if the other person fails. Christ, by becoming surety, made our debt his own, so that when the law demanded payment, it bypassed us and went directly to him. Therefore, the order of events here are of the utmost significance. For if Christ would take our punishment upon himself, if he would punish the equivalency of an eternal hell with his divine capacity in those three hours of darkness on the cross of Calvary for every single individual he came to redeem, and so satisfy the claims of justice, he must first of all take on himself the guilt of those sins. The reason for this is simply that God will not punish the innocent. God does not act unrighteously. Therefore, the party who is punished, legally speaking, before God's law, must be guilty. And in order for the Lord Jesus Christ to be punished for sin in the eyes of the law, he had to be guilty, or else God could not have punished him. As our substitute, he became guilty. So that in our justification, that guilt already being punished in the person of Christ, we stand righteous, not guilty. And there is not a guilt of a single sin that can ever be charged against a child of God with condemning force from the law since Christ has died for all those sins. And that raises this question. And I have hinted at this throughout, but I want you to see this. Now, this is not preached in our day, because if you limit the design of the atoning work of Christ, people go into a rage. But our Puritan forebears were careful to guard the atonement of Christ. His blood was not poured or spilled, it was shed with a purpose in view. And I believe the Puritans had their finger on the crux of the matter and the heart of the Atonement when they dealt with the subject of what sin it was that Christ was made. Was he just made sin in general? Well, I'm in keeping with the thoughts of the Puritans, no. Surely our original sin was put on Christ But the scriptures speak as if he bore not only our guilt in general, but the guilt of every particular sin we had ever or ever would commit, so that those sins were punished adequately in his death. That intensifies his sufferings beyond your comprehension, as well as mine. This is brought out. I want you to see it in Psalm 40, since we have treated the passage in Hebrews that quotes Psalm 40 on the dedication of Christ to this work of our redemption. In verse 6, we have the statement, sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened as a bond-servant. burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required, these things could not satisfy. Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book, that is, the book of God's decree and covenant of grace, it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is written within my heart." Now there's no doubt in any person's mind who accepts the authority of the Bible, but that that was a prophecy of Christ, and so is quoted with reference to him in the book of the Hebrews. But now look, when we come to verse 12, the same person speaking who is none other than Christ, becoming identified with us, and he doesn't say these words until, first of all, he says, Lo, I come. I'm incarnate. I take human nature into union with myself. Then watch what he says. After he comes, after he actually takes up the work of redemption, in verse 12 he says, "...for innumerable evils," not just guilt in general, "...but innumerable evils have compassed me about." Now you become so identified with us under the law, being made under the law, that he says, "...mine iniquity." They're now mine. I'm the head of the body and I bear the responsibility. Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I'm not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of mine head, therefore my heart healeth me. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Innumerable evils. iniquities more than the hairs of the head. Therefore he must have borne particular sins. Particular sins were confessed over the scapegoat. Christ as the great atonement took our particular sins. Furthermore, as surety, Christ was to pay the uttermost farthing And if he was to pay the uttermost far, then, to the satisfaction of divine justice, then he must have known what items he was paying for. For certainly if we go down to redeem something, we know what items we are redeeming and what price we are paying. Christ must have known the intensity of the sufferings he would endure in order to pay for the items or the sins that were charged against him. Ah, but I want you to turn to the Gospel of Luke because this sheds some light on some things. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 7. We have our Lord eating with a Pharisee. And Mary, the great sinner, eases into the house where our Lord is prolonged on a couch. and begins to bathe his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair in great repentance. When the Pharisees began murmuring, if he were a true prophet, he'd know that she's a sinner, she's a prostitute. And our Lord spoke to them and said, let me tell you a story. And the head of the house said, well, my stirrer teacher, Tell us the story in verse 41. He says there was a certain creditor which had two debtors. Now the creditor here is God and the debtors are the sinners. The one owed 500 pence and the other only 50. And when they had nothing to pay, they could not get out of debt themselves. Both of them were equally broke, though not equally in debt, you see. One was a greater detour than the other. Now he says, he frankly forgave them both, an act of free grace on his part. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Watch it now. Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged." Now, you see, some can be forgiven more than others. But now, what's the result of this? Look at verse 47, "...wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." Thomas Goodwin and others, far sounder theologians than we have in our time, drew from this, as well as Isaiah 53, that in paying the sin debt, in meeting the terms of justice, if Christ was made sin, that he suffered more intensely for some than for others. He had a bigger debt to pay for some than he did for others. And rather than saying, well, let us go out and whip it up and sin the most, it has a humiliating effect to think that no matter how small my sin or how great or how numerous or how few, nevertheless it was Christ who suffered what I ought to have suffered for those sins in an eternal hell. Oh, he paid the sin debt. He suffered the equivalency of our eternal And because of this, we ought to love him the more. Well, there's a great deal more that could be said. He was made a curse for us. The curse simply follows the sin and is the punishment of the crime which is equal to the nature of the crime committed. which meant that the Lord Jesus Christ, in the dignity of his person as the God-man, must have an infinite ability to endure the punishment due to our sins, which would give to his sufferings an infinite merit, so that the one could suffer for the many and a full redemption be Well, the Lord willing, we shall begin to probe into some of these sufferings in their detail, and the obedience of Christ in its detail, to see more fully now what was actually involved in the accomplishment of our redemption. But, oh, how that woman we ought to love! Him. He gave Himself, not the angels, Himself, not His world, Himself, not gold or a ransom, to pay our sin debt, the debt we could not pay. Let us stand for prayer. Our Father, we pray that Thou wilt give us a comprehension to the best of our abilities, of the greatness of the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We stand amazed in the presence of the crucified woman and in thy wisdom that found a way to save so great a sinner and to give us the fullness of life eternal. Give Christ the preeminence, exalt his name, lift him up and attract sinners to him. Strengthen thy people in their faith. For we pray in that name which is above every name, even the name Jesus. Amen.