Shame and the Amazing Exchange

Jesus was no whipping boy or scapegoat.  There’s far more going on here than punishment which happened when He took away our sin (which was both the offense and the point source of all our guilt and shame). 

Here’s the key: we don’t just start with a clean slate, as good news as that is.  Yes, our sin got “imputed” to Christ, and God accepted His sacrifice.  That’s the clean slate and it never needs to be repeated (Hebrews 1:3, 7:17-8:1), which is in itself amazing…

But, here’s something more glorious:
there’s an exchange possible
only because He is God Incarnate and He identified with us! 

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

By our faith in Him and His redemptive work, we’ve already received forgiveness for our sins, are able to reject our own moral agency through the power of the Holy Spirit, and then, His righteousness gets imputed to us in return.

Read again “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.  The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.  Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.  You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.” (Romans 8:3-10)

Just how was God willing to give us the righteousness of Christ?  Stay tuned…