He Made Him To Be Sin Who Knew No Sin

As I write this, former Iraqi dictator and mass murderer Saddam Hussein was executed just a few hours ago. While watching the news off and on in the hours and minutes leading up to his death, I kept reflecting on the fate of this man and the biblical reality of hell. Saddam was not at all prepared to meet his Maker. Any religious duties he carried out during his time on earth mean nothing now. He went to the gallows clothed in unrepentant sin and now faces the judgment of the One “who dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16). There is absolutely nothing more terrifying in all the world. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” We would do well to meditate on these words and tremble.

Scripture teaches that hell is the fate not only for brutal dictators like Saddam but also for all who have sinned against God. It is easy for me to think, “Saddam deserves hell for all the blood on his hands.” As true as that is, I must remember that I too deserve God’s punishment in hell for all the ways I have rebelled against and dishonored Him in my thoughts, words, and deeds.

In my last post, I pondered the (unpopular) attribute of God’s wrath on sin and how it stems from His absolute holiness. The biblical text I focused on was John 3:36 – “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Let us not overlook this word “remains.” The Scripture here is testifying to the terrible predicament that has existed since the fall of mankind in Genesis 3: all of us have willingly rebelled against the God who made us, and therefore God’s righteous wrath hangs over us. Not only are we all subjected to a physical death, but also because of our sin we are already spiritually dead. We are born with our minds set on earthly things, and naturally we love drinking from the broken cisterns of our own sin rather than from the Almighty God, who is the Fountain of Living Water for our souls (Jeremiah 17:13). Naturally we are self-exalters rather than God-exalters. We have despised His revealed Law and bowed down to other gods. In this condition, we stand no chance before the Sovereign Lord of the universe. The gate to heaven is shut. God’s wrath remains on us. But does the story end there? Thanks be to God that it does not end there!

Now let us turn to the most astounding and precious message that will ever be proclaimed.

I just want to focus on one particular verse in the New Testament that sums up so succinctly the glory and wonder of the Gospel:

“For our sake He [God the Father] made Him [Jesus Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him [Christ] we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

When I heard this verse preached (perhaps for the first time) in a sermon about three years ago, God began to open my eyes to see the Gospel like I had never seen it before. This Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, in whom there is no sin, took on flesh to dwell with us—and not only to dwell with us, but to become our Substitute through the suffering and humiliation of the cross. As Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ helped to illustrate, the physical suffering Jesus endured was more horrendous than we can fathom. But far more dreadful for Jesus was drinking the cup of His Father’s wrath as He suffered and died on Calvary. We get a glimpse of Christ’s agony in Mark 15:34 (also Matthew 27:46), when He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” What is going on here? As Paul’s exposition of the Gospel in 2 Corinthians 5:21 indicates, God the Father sent His Son to the cross to be sin on our behalf. As we have seen, God’s holiness means that no sin will go unpunished. The Good News is that Christ bore our sins in His body on the cross and absorbed the full wrath of God for the sins of all who would repent and trust in Him. Going back to the first half of John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” What a mind-blowing truth! For those who become united to Christ in faith, our sinful self is crucified with Christ, we are cleansed from our wickedness, and we no longer have to fear God’s righteous wrath and judgment. As redeemed children of the Most High, we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ and enabled to worship Him and savor His infinite glory for all of eternity. Our boast is only in the cross and what God has done for us!

Let us herald this Gospel and take it to the nations, that more and more people from every tribe, language, people, and nation would trust in the wrath-absorbing, substitutionary work of Christ Jesus in their place and embrace Him as their supreme Joy and Treasure.

Humility, Human Goodness, and God’s Holiness

[Note: I started writing this blog in August and finally got around to finishing it.]

The August 14 issue of Newsweek contained an exclusive cover story on one of the great evangelists of our day, Rev. Billy Graham. One day as I was reading through the article, the following paragraph jumped out at me:

"A unifying theme of Graham’s new thinking is humility. He is sure and certain of his faith in Jesus as the way to salvation. When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: 'Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won’t … I don’t want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.'" (Jon Meacham, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, Newsweek, 14 August 2006, p. 43 – emphasis added)

I’m not sure what Rev. Graham truly meant by these words, but I can’t imagine that a man who has labored so extensively in preaching the Gospel of Christ to millions suddenly has become a universalist (if so, why would he have preached at recent evangelistic crusades in New York and New Orleans, despite his old age and poor health?). That aside, what stood out to me was how the writer, Jon Meacham, linked humility with one’s hesitation to speculate about whether “good” people of other religions will enter heaven. So, to be a humble Christian in the eyes of Mr. Meacham (and in the eyes of the world in general), I must refrain from proclaiming that salvation is only possible through Jesus Christ. How arrogant of me to do otherwise, even if I present my conviction in a loving and gentle manner! Sounds nice in this age of tolerance, right? Easy for everyone to swallow. A stance that won’t offend many and will probably spare me from most persecution and ill repute.

Yet the Bible speaks of a radically different reality. Take these words from the Apostle John:

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).

The word I want to focus on here is “remains.” God’s wrath remains on those who do not obey the Son. This is frightening! John indicates that God’s anger has been looming over humanity. Why? The Bible gives us the answer: sin. The prophet Isaiah illustrated sin like this: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6a). King David wrote, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). Sin is declaring before God, “We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart” (Jeremiah 18:12). The Apostle Paul described sin as exchanging the truth about God for a lie and worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). What a miserable condition to find myself in! And yet in my natural state this is exactly what I wanted.

Therefore, by asking if heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, secular people, etc., a monumental consideration is being left out of the picture: the wrath of God.

The issue is not whether “good” people of other faiths will make it into heaven. The reality is that no one is good! No one seeks for the true God (Romans 3:11). In fact, no one is good except God alone (Mark 10:18).

I have belittled the infinite worth of God by preferring other things above Him.
I have dishonored God in my words, my thoughts, my attitudes, and my actions.
I have attempted time and again to find joy and satisfaction outside of God Himself.

Thus, should God not respond in anger toward me, His rebellious creature? Does He not have the right to demand supreme allegiance from those whom He made in His image and for His glory? It is crucial to understand that God’s wrath flows from His absolute holiness. The Almighty would contradict His very nature if He were to sweep sin under the rug and set aside His holy wrath. He would not be perfectly righteous and therefore would not be worthy of our total devotion and submission. God would not be God if He did not hate sin. Friends, let us not minimize the reality of God’s righteous wrath, lest we create an idol of our own liking.

This leaves us with a question of utmost importance and urgency: how can we, as guilty sinners, stand before God with His wrath removed from us if He must punish all sin by virtue of His character? The natural man, espousing his own ideas about the nature of God, hopes that after death his assortment of “good” works or religious pieties carried out during his life on earth will earn him favor from the Creator. But Scripture gives us no basis for such thinking.

Because God’s wrath is real, is there any hope for us as sinful human beings? This is where the Good News of Jesus Christ shines so brilliantly. More on that in my next post!

Living as a Bold & Brokenhearted Theologian

At the Passion 06 conference in Nashville this past January, I went to a breakout session by John Piper in which he pleaded for a new generation of “bold & brokenhearted theologians” who are passionate about the whole counsel of God as revealed through the Holy Scriptures. Piper’s hour-long message resonated deep within my soul, leaving me with an earnest, joyful desire to be part of such a generation.

Not long ago, theology was something I just pushed aside, considering it a bothersome subject that merely divided the Church. Gradually, through various means, God began to show me the danger of this kind of thinking. In particular, I started seeing that Paul’s letter to the Romans, which I had once ignorantly breezed through in the One-Year Bible, was a vast sea of unparalleled depth, filled with treasures so precious that the greatest earthly gain suddenly became utterly trivial. Paul himself, after writing the first eleven chapters through the power of the Holy Spirit, bursts out in a moment of worship in what is one of the most mind-blowing passages in all of Scripture:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?’
‘Or who has given a gift to Him that he might be repaid?’
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.”
(Romans 11:33-36 ESV)

The Apostle Paul surely trembled as he penned those wondrous words about the everlasting God. The God Who created the universe out of nothing (!) and Whose right hand spread out the heavens (Isaiah 48:13). The God Who in His astonishing mercy sent His eternal Son to bear the sins of His people, enabling sinners like us to escape His coming judgment and enjoy everlasting fellowship with Him. The God who through Jesus Christ upholds the universe by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). O how we ought to fall on our faces in worship of this infinitely righteous God!

So what is a bold & brokenhearted theologian? Isn’t it someone who is puffed up by a wealth of head knowledge and is more interested in debating others than in evangelizing the lost? I answer with a resounding No! That is certainly the mark of many theologians, but not brokenhearted ones. Let me first say that, broadly speaking, theologians aren’t a specific class of people; rather, every human being is a theologian because every human being has thoughts about who God is. Thus, there are various degrees of good theologians and bad theologians, depending on how accurate one’s understanding of God is when measured against the objective, revealed Word of God.

So brokenhearted theologians are those persons who have been thoroughly humbled by the truth of the Gospel and have cast themselves on the mercy of Christ in saving faith & repentance. They are those who, in examining the vileness of their own sin and the corruption of their own hearts, resolve to continually put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit (Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5). They are those who, in walking humbly with God, recognize that it is only because God has had mercy upon them that they no longer see the cross as folly but rather as the power of God for salvation (1 Corinthians 1:18). They are those who, because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, are willing to suffer for Him and live lives of sacrificial love so that others may see and rejoice in this all-glorious Redeemer.

And such theologians are also bold, for they are immovable in their biblical, Christ-exalting convictions. The world likes to define humility as being relativistic and uncertain in one’s conviction. Friends, this is not true humility but rather a lie from the pit of hell that will only do people harm in the long run!

I am fully convinced that to be indifferent to doctrine is to be indifferent to Christ. Why, you might ask? Because loving Christ is inseparable from knowing Christ. And how can we know Christ but through the divine revelation of the Bible? As Martin Luther once said, “We teach nothing save Christ crucified. But Christ crucified brings all these doctrines with Him” (The Bondage of the Will, pp. 107-8). Of course, we can never know God fully, for He is the infinite Creator and we are His finite creatures; yet, we can indeed know God truly through His Word as illuminated by the Spirit. The Apostle Peter exhorts believers to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:18). The desire to grow in this way is a mark of all genuine believers.

A bold & brokenhearted theologian loves true doctrines and propositions about the Triune God for the purpose of seeing and treasuring more and more of the beauty of Christ Jesus. The more we truly know Christ, the more our affections for Him will be set ablaze, and the more we will long for those around us to experience the joy we have found.

Brothers and sisters, let us be bold & brokenhearted theologians for the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Let Us Fight for Joy

Hi, friends. Thanks for stopping by. As you can see, I’ve finally thrown in the towel and joined the ever-popular blog scene. Actually, I have wanted to create one for a while, even though I’m not sure that more than a handful of people will ever visit. Over the past three years or so, God has awakened in me a deep hunger to know Him and to plunge headfirst into the vast treasure chest of His Word. This God – the only true God and the Holy One who calls Himself I AM (Exodus 3:14)– is more terrifyingly glorious than we could ever imagine. And shining with utmost brilliance at the center of this immeasurable glory is the cross of Jesus Christ, whereby God ordained the worst evil (crucifying the Son of God) to bring about the greatest good (reconciling rebellious sinners to Himself, to the praise of the glory of His grace – Ephesians 1:6).

I hope you will see at least three particular convictions manifested throughout this blog:

1 : A passion for God’s Name & Renown to be the desire of our souls [this is the 268 declaration, based on Isaiah 26:8, that defines the Passion movement as led by Louie Giglio].
2 : A desire to live out the truth that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” [this amazingly profound statement, coined by Pastor John Piper, goes hand-in-hand with the 268 declaration].
3 : A commitment to embrace a humble orthodoxy [this was the theme of the New Attitude 06 conference].

Now a word about the title of my blog: “Fighting for Joy.” Those of you who are familiar with John Piper will know that the phrase “fight for joy” is commonplace in his preaching and writing. Fighting for joy means fighting to see Christ with our spiritual eyes – it is a fight to forsake the deceitful promises of sin and to cling to the superior, life-giving promises of God. It is a fight to believe that Jesus Christ is more satisfying than anything this fallen world can offer. How I so often fail in this battle against my flesh! Yet for those of us who have been born of God and united to Christ in faith, the cross must be kept in full view. We must continually place the Gospel at the center of our lives, lest we become performance-driven and forget that we have been justified by the blood of Christ, apart from works of the law (Romans 3:20, 23-24).

I see this blog as another facet in my fight for joy in Christ. And joy is never complete unless it overflows into the lives of others. I want my life to be characterized by a labor of love: laboring in God’s strength to make others glad in God. May this blog be a small means to that end. For your joy and mine, and for the glory of Jesus Christ.