Our scripture lesson this evening is from 2 Corinthians 5, verses 12-21. We focus our attention on the justice and mercy of God in Christ, and after several lessons on the incarnation of Christ and the relation of his natures and person. We're going to focus on how that all came together in his ministry at Calvary. And so after we read this scripture text, I'll be reading from The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 20, which you could find on page 173 in the Forms and Prayers book if you'd like to follow along, which is going to guide us in our reflection on the love and mercy and justice of God in Christ demonstrated at the cross. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 12. We, the Apostle Paul and his associates, are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us so that we may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, and therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might not, might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. For even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who, through Christ, reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Amen. Let us also listen with ears of appreciation and Interest to the words of the Belgic Confession, Article 20, page 173. We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful, is also very just. Sent his Son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed, in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. So God made known his justice toward his son who was charged with our sin, and he poured out his goodness and mercy on us who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us his son to die by most perfect love and raising him to life for our justification. in order that by him we might have immortality and eternal life. Amen. Friends, as we consider this evening the death of Jesus Christ, on the one hand, we could say that is really just a historical fact. A fact that, as the Apostles' Creed put it, can be summarized in a few words. Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified. He died and was buried. And no Honest, sincere, even rigorously unbelieving historian would deny those facts. Jesus of Nazareth died under Pontius Pilate. That, as J. Gresham Machen said, is history. But to take that history and understand it as doctrine, we have to know what that historical event means in the thinking of, in the way that Machen presented that. We want to ask this evening, what did Jesus' death accomplish? Accepted as historical fact from the insights of the historians and from the record of the gospels and the epistles, but what does it mean? What did it accomplish? And of course, when we start asking these questions, we realize they are not abstract, theoretical questions. We all feel The guilt of sin. We experience the shame of failure, and more severely and eternally, Scripture makes the point very bluntly, the wages of sin is death. And so the question we're asking this evening really is, can the cross change that? Can what happened at the cross truly mean anything for me as a young person, as a child, as an adult, as a true sinner, and as we know in our own consciences, as sometimes a terrible person? We've felt that, haven't we? I'm a terrible person. I've done some wrong things in my life. Can the cross change that? Or will the wages of my sin also result in death, not just Temporal death, but eternal death. Why did Christ die? And that's what we want to consider first of all, and then second, we'll draw out some points of application from what we've learned in this first point. So why did Jesus die? And I want to review a few answers to that question. The first answer, probably the most common contemporary answer to the question, why did Jesus die, is that Jesus died as a moral example. He died to show what morality looks like. He died to show, if we could heighten that a bit, he died to show the love of God. As one theologian summarizes it, in this view, of the atonement, answering the question, what happened at the cross? Why did Jesus die? In this view, Jesus suffered to reveal the divine love so as to soften human hearts and lead them to repentance. And while we're going to acknowledge that this is an inadequate answer, it is surely not the complete answer to the question, why did Jesus die? There is truth in it, isn't there? Christ's death is in fact a sign of God's love. Jesus truly entered into our suffering. He practiced trust and obedience so that we might follow in his footsteps. He calls us to take up our crosses and follow after him and to do so because we have experienced the love of God and we now love the Lord and so we also want to obey all of his commandments. God, in fact, demonstrated his love for his people in the death of Jesus Christ. John 3.16 is one of the most famous examples of that truth in Scripture. God loved the world and so he gave his only son for us. But this model of the atonement or this theory of the atonement doesn't answer several important problems or questions. This doesn't answer the question, to put it bluntly, why the cross? Why the cross? Why this horrible, shameful, excruciating, demeaning method of death? If God wanted to show love to his sinners, why crucify his son? You could easily imagine many other ways of God showing love to His people. The moral example model of the atonement also doesn't address God's just wrath against sinners. It focuses merely on His love, which we can say with no hesitation, God is love. We don't apologize for that. It's absolutely true. But God is also just. And He's justly angry at sinners because of their sin. What is to be done about that? This model doesn't answer that question. It doesn't address the reality that sin earns the reward of death. What happens to that penalty which we have rightly earned because of our sin? And this model of the atonement, if left as the only answer to the question, why did Christ die, doesn't really speak to the reality that even godly people do not consistently follow Christ's example. And so the proponents of this theory say, well, The Lord Jesus came down from heaven to the earth and lived a faithful life and went to the cross to show the love of God so that we might follow the example of this wonderful Savior, which we should, which we must. But what happens when we don't? What happens when we fail miserably? What happens when our lives don't look at all like the life of Jesus Christ? When we fail to acknowledge or follow this model of servant leadership, what do we glean from the cross if this is the only thing that's being communicated? So it is true that Jesus died to show the love of God and to live as an example of true sacrificial morality, but we must say more than this in answer to the question. A better view, still not complete, but helping to round out the answer to the question. This view, common in the ancient church, was that Jesus died to conquer evil. It is sometimes identified in the Latin form of the ministry of Jesus on the cross. It is the Christus Victor model. And in this model, Christ's finished work on the cross is declared as a victory over those demonic powers which have enslaved humanity, and it is an act, the death of Christ is, whereby God is reconciled in and through his reconciliation. In the words of one proponent of this, And it is true, isn't it, that as Colossians 2 says, In this way, Paul writes, Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. And so it is absolutely true, as the ancient church proposed that Jesus is the victor over evil. And the surprising symbol of that victory is the cross, of course, coupled with the empty grave. At the cross, the devil thought he had attained the victory, but he has been defeated in the cross because of the of the fact that Jesus canceled the legal demands of the law in the cross. And so, this is true. Jesus Christ is the victor. When we think about the cross, we think of Jesus ruling over, going to the cross deliberately, not being dragged to the cross, but raising himself up so that he might draw men to himself and put the devil under his feet. But the Bible's most prominent answer to the question, one that is really the centerpiece of Christian theology, is that Jesus died as a substitute for sinners. So we speak of the substitutionary model of the atonement. And this is, necessary because of the character of God. God is just. He cannot pardon sin without exercising judgment. He cannot deny his justice. But God is also merciful. He delights in showing kindness to the undeserving. And so for these reasons, for the fact that God is just and is merciful, God's Son, as we've been studying for the last several weeks, assumed the nature in which the disobedience was committed and in which the blessing was needed. And so, go back to what we just said, if God is just and he must exercise judgment, then it's exactly what we needed, that Christ came in our humanity to experience the justice of God without being destroyed. And since it is real humans who needed to experience the blessing of God, it is appropriate that the Son of God came in real humanity in order to experience the kindness of God and the blessing of God. And so he became human to both bear the punishments of sin and to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law for us." And that's Paul's emphasis, isn't it, at the end of 2 Corinthians chapter 5, when he says this, Christ became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The other models of the atonement don't deal with what with the justice of God and with the mercy of God as this truth does. Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 24, Christ himself bore our sins in his own body and on the tree that we, having died to sin, might live for righteousness. Christ, in the Scriptures, is the scapegoat upon whose head the sins of the people were placed and to which guilt is transferred, as we have described for us in symbolic form in Leviticus chapter 16, or as the New Testament picks up on the sacrificial language in places like John 1 verse 29. Jesus is that Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so substitutionary atonement honors the character of God, who is both just and merciful. Why did Christ die? Yes, to show the love of God. Yes, to provide an example for us that we might follow after him in his footsteps. Yes, to demonstrate that he has conquered over evil, choosing to die and to be raised victorious from the grave in newness of life which cannot be extinguished. But also, because God must exercise his just judgment against sinners, either in themselves or in a substitute. And he is merciful, and he delights to show mercy, and he does that because of the righteousness, the obedience of Jesus Christ. And so affirming those truths together, we also should ask this question then, how should we respond to Christ's death? How should we respond specifically to Christ's death as a substitute for us? And we'll focus this evening on just three applications drawn from the truth of Jesus' substitution and interacting with some of what the other models of the atonement helpfully set before us as well. And so first of all, We should respond to Christ's death by recognizing that the atonement assures us of God's love. We need that assurance more than anything else, that God loves me. You feel in Galatians 2, verse 20, he seems to summarize his whole approach to the faith when he says, Christ loved me and gave himself for me. What else could be said? If God loves me, then it doesn't matter what man says about me or does against me. That is the chief truth that we must experience. And the atonement helps us understand the depth and the breadth and the richness and the permanence of the love of God. We need to know those things because when especially we're not, when things aren't going well in our lives, we may wonder, does God love me conditionally? Does God only love me when I'm performing well? When I'm being a true servant? Sacrificing my will for the will of others. Does he only love me when I'm good? And then we ask what really ought to be the follow-up question. If he only loves me when I'm good, how good do I have to be for God to love me? And we can get all mixed up wondering, does God really love me? Can God love me? Me, I'm so insignificant. What is man that you think about me, David says in Psalm chapter eight. And then we start contemplating our sinfulness. Not just that we're not living as Christianly as we ought to be, or however we want to put it, but I'm a real sinner. And then we, would have to agree with John Calvin as he ponders these things when he says that in God's righteousness he cannot love all the unrighteousness that he sees in us. All of us therefore have in ourselves something deserving of God's hatred. And you know that truth and you You wonder then, what does this mean for me? And yet, as Calvin goes on to say as he ponders this truth of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus, he says, yet out of his own kindness, God still finds something to love in us. He finds something to love in us because he's loving Christ in us. And God, in loving Christ in us, and therefore loving us, despite our unrighteousness, God doesn't love us reluctantly, or illiberally, cautiously. He loves us in the way, I love the way the Belgic Confession puts it. As we think about God's love toward us, his mercy and his goodness, it doesn't just say that God shows us His love, or gave us His love, or says He poured forth His mercy and goodness on us in loving Christ in us. And so we ought to imagine this when we wonder, am I really lovable? Can God truly love me? The truth of the substitutionary atonement of Christ says that like a mighty waterfall, God pours Himself upon us, His love upon us, unrelentingly. If you've stood at the, you know, adjacent to a mighty waterfall, Niagara Falls or something, something lesser than that, but still mighty, you say, this water just keeps pouring. It just keeps coming. It's like a faucet that never gets shut off. And that's the love of God toward us. Paul says in Romans 5 verse 8, God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. How do I know that God loves me? Because when I didn't love God, Christ died for me. Not by accident, not by being caught up in unfortunate circumstances in world history, he gave himself for me because the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit love me." And then Paul's argument in Romans 8, verse 39, clenches the matter for believers when he says, therefore, nothing. will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. If he's given Christ for you while you were yet a sinner, while you were yet in enmity against him, then there's nothing that he'll withhold from you. The atonement assures us of God's love. And that means, secondly, that the atonement also confirms believers' security. We know love in human relationships, in the human sense, to be fickle, changing, it ebbs and flows. But that isn't how we should think about the love of God. should affirm that if I'm united to Christ by a believing heart, then my salvation has already been accomplished in the cross. And that's part of what this Christus Victor model sets before us, even though on its own it may be inadequate, but to affirm that Christ is Victor is absolutely essential. What that model stresses is that the work of Christ on the cross is finished. And in a certain sense, that's obvious to us. It was a historical event. It is done. But Jesus means more than that, doesn't he, when he, hanging on the cross himself, says, it is finished. He says, the work that I came to do is accomplished. It's done. It is There's nothing more to add to the work than what I have done just now. Christ was delivered up for our offenses. Our offenses were paid for. He was raised for our justification. The sins of God's children have been judged, never to be judged again. Our eternal life has been secured in Christ's resurrection. Causing our forefathers at Dort to affirm this truth. God, by raising Jesus Christ, showed that he accepted the death of his son as a sufficient ransom for our sins and will accept his perfect obedience as justification for all who believe in him. The price has been paid. The deed is done. The exchange has been made. Because of Christ's finished work on the cross, J.I. Packer says, no question of my ever being judged for my sin can now arise. It's beyond dispute, it's been paid for. It's done. There's no possibility of a double jeopardy scenario where I get recharged for the crimes that Christ has been charged for. Or as Paul puts it in Romans 8 verse 32, he who did not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? That payment has been made and it is sufficient for the forgiveness of all of our sins and for securing our place with God. The atonement confirms believer's security. And then third, in terms of our response, Just to pick something out of the many things that we ought to believe and do in response to these glorious truths, we can say this, the atonement teaches us to hate sin. One of our Pastors put it this way, our sins were the judicial grounds of Christ's suffering. Our sins, real sins, yours and mine, were the judicial grounds. When God declared Christ guilty to hang on the cross, it was because of real sins. He was made sin. If Christ died for you then, he died for your sins, he died for your sins that you still commit and are tempted to commit. And so it's appropriate for us to ponder our role, the role of our sins in the atonement of Jesus Christ and to lament with the hymnists who take this who take this question seriously and ask, for example, who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? As the hymn writer is looking by faith upon Jesus Christ crucified, the Lord of glory with hands and feet pinned to the cross with a bloody head and with scorn and shame heaped upon him. in the process of dying as a terrible criminal, the question is appropriate. Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? And then the realization, alas, my treason, Jesus hath undone thee. For me, dear Savior, was thine incarnation, thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation, thy death of anguish, and thy bitter passion for my salvation. Christ died for your sins. What does that mean for you in terms of your addressing of your sins? If you recognize that Christ willingly suffered all the pain and anguish of hell because he loved you and he did not want to see you destroyed by your sin, It changes your view of sin, doesn't it? Why would I continue to commit the sins for which Christ died? The gospel says to us, and we've been reflecting on this in the previous two points of application, that believers have peace with God. God loves his children. But we may never have peace with our sin. We may never come to the place where in our lives we make a peace treaty with sin and say, well, this is just how it's going to be. with me and you, sin. Paul says in Romans chapter eight, which we've been pondering a little bit this evening as well, that if you live according to flesh, you'll die. You must by the spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh so that you can live. So you cannot be at peace with sin. You need to hate the sin that earned Christ's death. You and I need to sincerely and passionately confess our sins, be honest about our sin, make holy war against our sin. Are you trusting in Christ, believing the gospel, so that you can know the love of God and the assurance that God is for you now and can never turn against you because of the payment of Christ precious body and soul. And are you turning from sin? Do you recognize that sin is not a small matter? It is a heinous thing to sin, especially, as the writer of Hebrews says, having once been enlightened by the gospel. And so what we have in scripture when we start to analyze the historical, really undeniable death of Jesus Christ, is a presentation of a double substitution, or a double imputation. Christ experienced for us what we needed to experience, both judgment and death, as well as mercy and life. And I I know I've mentioned this to you before, but I do think that the blessing of Joseph's sons by their grandfather Jacob can serve for us as a memorable illustration of this truth. You may remember in the book of Genesis that Joseph brings his sons Ephraim and Manasseh to his own father, Jacob, who he surely at one time thought he would never see again, but in the mercy of God, here is his father. And so he brings his sons to be blessed by his father. And so, as one would expect, Joseph presented the firstborn, Manasseh, on Jacob's right, and the younger, Ephraim on Jacob's left, and so you have the grandsons in front of Jacob, and the expectation that Jacob had was that his father, or that Joseph had, was that Jacob would reach his hands out, just as the sons were placed, and he would bless them with respective blessings for each of them. Traditionally, the older child should expect the richest blessing. But what we have in the narrative is Jacob, as he reaches out his arms to bless the boys, the Bible says he crosses his arms. And he gives the blessing, the greatest blessing to the one that traditionally would not have expected it or deserved it. And in the same way, Christ, He's developed his illustration a bit. Christ and God's people stand before the Father. Christ at the right hand of God's blessing, and the elect sinner at the left hand of God's judgment. And that's exactly what you ought to expect. The father would reach out his hands and bless his son, and bring judgment upon the rebels, like you and me. But in the cross, as God's hands go forward, he crosses his hands. And that's the glory of the atonement. Christ takes our curse and gives us in return his glorious blessing. This is the message of the cross. In my place, condemned he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah, what a Savior. God's most perfect love is truly amazing. We hope to sing in just a moment this question, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? And the lesson that we've considered this evening doesn't make that question less remarkable, but it does provide a biblical answer. God should die for us because, and only because, He is perfectly merciful and also very just. And so we say to that, hallelujah, what a Savior. Let's pray to the Lord together. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your eternal love for your people. We do believe that you have loved us with an everlasting love and yet because of our unrighteousness you could not love that unrighteousness. In fact, you should hate us because of our sin. But you have united us to Christ in his death and resurrection signified for us in our baptism and Because of that, you love us because of Christ in us. We thank you for this powerful truth from your word that you have swapped places with us, as it were. that we might receive the blessing you deserve, and that you might receive upon your blessed person the judgment that we have earned. And so we say praise the Lord, hallelujah, what a Savior. Help us, Lord, to remember these things as we go through the discouragements of life, the ups and downs of life, and as we face temptations, perhaps some that we've grown accustomed to accepting and giving into, help us to do so no more as we reflect on the seriousness of sin. We pray that you would bless us with faithfulness in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.