Devotions: Trading Sin for Righteousness

 

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

2 Corinthians 5:21 New American Standard Bible 1995

 

There are two “He”’s in this verse: the first is God the Father, the second is Christ. The Father made Jesus who never sinned to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Jesus. Christ never sinned, not once. He became a man and experienced everything we do, except the act of sin. He never did anything wrong. If He had He would no longer be God. That is what the enemy was trying to get Him to do when He was tempted in the wilderness, but it didn’t work. Jesus is and always has been perfect. Yet He ‘became sin’ for us. This does not mean that He sinned but that He took on our sin and the punishment for it. On the cross He experienced the full wrath of God for all sin in history, and paid the price that sin required. He did this so that we could have a relationship with Him. God created us so that He could have relationship with us, but sin got in the way and separated us from Him. It is only through the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God that we could bridge that chasm. Through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, His righteousness is bestowed on us. It is credited to our account you might say. We could never pay that debt ourselves and still have enough left over to get to heaven. Nothing we do could be good enough, like washing filthy rags in a mud puddle. We could never make ourselves clean. There is none righteous, not one. Jesus is the only human who was truly righteous by Himself and that is because He was also fully God. When we believe in Him, we are clothed in His righteousness. Our clothes could never be good enough, but His blood covers us so that when God looks at us He sees His Son, and we grow by receiving the fruit of righteousness which only comes through Jesus. We become the righteousness of God through Christ.

What sin do you have? How are you trying to make up for it on your own? What does it mean to you that Jesus became sin for you so that you could become His righteousness?

 

 

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