Journeys of a Former Firebrand

2 Corinthians 5:20–21 (NASB 95):  21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Often we view ideas that seem conflicting as opposites. At times, this is a safe assumption to make since there exist many non-negotiables like light and darkness, hot and cold, or forward and backward. Because some things conflict in their nature, we view that conflict as unresolvable.

Not so with God. He isn’t contradictory in His nature, even when our limited experience and knowledge indicate to us a conflict exists. We just can’t grasp God’s complexity. When we think we do, we’re just deceiving ourselves with a lie.

With all that said, we should never see any divine attribute like God’s mercy and justice as something that would ever lead to ethical dilemmas. Justice and mercy (along with her close sister, grace) may seem contradictory when we try to apply them, but it’s simply not so.

Let’s define these ideas biblically before we go any further:

Mercy is that property that spares punishment to the sinner. When we deserve hell and God doesn’t send us there despite the litany of sins we commit, that would show a merciful act of God. He shows us mercy when we don’t end up in hell.

Grace is simply the flip side of mercy. Mercy doesn’t give us what we deserve and grace gives us what we don’t deserve. We receive a relationship with God when we have done nothing to deserve it.

Justice on the other hand states God cannot endure any kind of sin, so His perfect nature must always punish sin. If a crime is committed, He’s the judge who never fails to bring a guilty verdict. If He did, God wouldn’t rule justly in that case.

You can already see a problem forming. How does God show mercy to us guilty sinners when our sin requires punishment?

Our passage today explains that this isn’t a compromise or conflict for God. He resolved it by exercising both sides of His nature at the same time.

Let’s examine:

1 Justice

Imagine for a moment that you are standing in a courtroom because you were caught speeding. There’s no doubt you committed the crime, so you must pay a fat penalty. The problem is that the bill is too high. Not only are you guilty of that sin but you can’t pay the tab.

If we look closely at this verse, we see that sin and its guilt play a key role. Our sin is mentioned twice in this verse, so it must present some kind of problem for us. The problem is the bill for our sin is infinite. In other words, it could never be paid in our lifetime or any lifetime.

We are those who have sinned against the perfect, holy nature of God. We all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and are completely rebellious toward God from the time we’re conceived until the day we die. This means we’ve run up quite a tab, an infinite tab, with all our sins.

To use our original illustration, we are like a person standing guilty because of speeding. God is the Judge who must demand that the fine be paid so that guilt will find satisfaction. No payment. No freedom.

To put it in biblical terms, God’s justice demands that we be condemned for our sins. We’ve stepped over the line of God’s requirements and are guilty of a crime greater than all others: sinnng against a perfect and holy God. If we are to continue enjoying our existence, we must find someone who can deflect the punishment of our sin by paying the penalty for us.

We must find someone who will pay our speeding ticket for us.

2 Mercy and grace

Here’s the good news. Someone already took that punishment for us. He paid our speeding ticket, so to speak. His name is Jesus. Many of us may already know Him and what He’s done for us. But let me go into detail to remind us what He did for us.

His death on the cross took our punishment away. Christ, in a sense, became sin on our behalf, as Paul writes here. In the moment He did this, God placed on Him all our sin along with the punishment.

In other words, Christ stepped up to the bench and paid our speeding ticket. He’s perfect, so He has no sin to account for. In other words, He has a clean driving record. He didn’t have to pay our fine because He didn’t have a fine to pay.

But He paid ours anyway when He went to the cross.

God’s just nature found satisfaction in Jesus’ sacrifice for sin. At the same time, God’s mercy deflected our sin to Christ so that the penalty was paid fully in Him. The moment we believe, we walk free while Christ doesn’t

Grace also gave us something in this deal. We gained Christ’s righteousness so that we could stand righteously in His presence. In other words, not only did Christ pay our speeding ticket, He also gave us His spotless driving record to boot. What a deal!

Of course, we must put our trust in Jesus. He doesn’t bail anyone out who doesn’t depend on Him to pay the speeding ticket. If we believe in Him, He takes the penalty and we go free.

And the best part is He gives us eternity in heaven, living in the presence of God for all eternity. All we must do is believe Christ will pay the speeding ticket…er…penalty for our sin.

That’s mercy and grace.

So What?

If we want to skip the penalty and find all the blessings of heaven, we must trust in Christ. He will do all that for us and more.

For those of us who have fully realized grace and mercy, we need to thank God every moment of every day, day by day, month by month year by year, for what He did for us through Christ’s death on the cross.

If we put our trust in Him, He will never fail to pay.