What was to be done? Hear the answer: "God hath made Christ to be sin." But where? Reader, look well at this. Where was Christ made sin? Was it in His birth? or in Jordan's flood? or in the garden of Gethsemane? Nay; though, most assuredly, in that garden the shadows were lengthening, the darkness was thickening, the gloom was deepening. But where and when was the holy, spotless, precious Lamb of God made sin? On the cross, and only there! This is a grand cardinal truth—a truth of vital importance—a truth which the enemy of God and His Word is seeking to darken and set aside in every possible way. The devil is seeking, in the most specious manner, to displace the cross. He cares not how he compasses this end. He will make use of anything and everything in order to detract from the glory of the Cross, that great central truth of Christianity round which every other truth circulates, and on which the whole fabric of divine revelation rests as upon an eternal foundation.
"He hath made Him to be sin." Here lies the root of the whole matter. Christ, on the cross, was made sin for us. He died, and was buried. Sin was condemned. It met the just judgment of a holy God who could not pass over a single jot or tittle of sin; nay, He poured out His unmingled wrath upon it in the person of His Son, when that Son was "made sin." It is a serious error to believe that Christ was bearing the judgment of God during His lifetime, or that aught save the death of Christ could meet the question of sin. He might have become incarnate—He might have lived and labored on this earth—He might have wrought His countless miracles—He might have healed, and cleansed, and quickened—He might have prayed, and wept, and groaned; but not any of these things, nor yet all of them put together, could blot out a single stain of that dreadful thing "sin." God the Holy Ghost declares that "without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb. ix. 22).
Now, then, reader, if the holy life and labors of the Son of God—if His prayers, tears, and groans could not put away sin; how do you think that your life and labors, your prayers, tears, and groans, your good works, rites, ordinances, and ceremonies could ever put away sin? The fact is, that the life of our blessed Lord only proved man more and more guilty. It laid the topstone upon the superstructure of his guilt, and therefore left the question of sin wholly unsettled.
Nor was this all. Our blessed Lord Himself declares, over and over again, the absolute and indispensable necessity of His death. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John xii.). "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved (or was necessary for) Christ to suffer" (Luke xxiv. 46). "How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be" (Matt. xxvi.)? In a word, death was the only pathway of life, the only basis of union, the only ground of reconciliation. All who speak of incarnation as being the basis of our union with Christ deny, in the plainest way, the whole range of truth connected with a dead and risen Christ. Many may not see this; but Satan sees it, and he sees too how it will work. He knows what he is about, and surely the servants of Christ ought to know what is involved in the error against which we are warning our readers.
The fact is, the enemy does not want souls to see that, in the death of Christ, sentence was passed on fallen human nature and upon the whole world. This was not the case in incarnation at all. An incarnate Christ put man to the test—a dead Christ put man to death—a risen Christ takes the believer into union with Himself. When Christ came in the flesh, fallen man was still under probation. When Christ died on the cross, fallen man was wholly condemned. When Christ rose from the dead, He became the head of a new race, each member of which, being quickened by the Holy Ghost, is viewed by God as united to Christ, in life, righteousness, and favor—he is viewed as having been dead, as having passed through judgment, and as being now as free from all condemnation as Christ himself. "He hath made Him to be sin for us, [He] who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."
Now, it must be plain to the reader who bows to Scripture, that incarnation did not, and could not accomplish all this. Incarnation did not put away sin. Need we stop here to dwell upon the glories of the mystery of incarnation? Will anyone imagine that we take away from the value, or mar the integrity of that priceless fundamental truth, because we deny that it puts away sin, or forms the basis of our union with Christ? We trust not. That incarnation was essentially necessary for the accomplishment of redemption is plain to all. Christ had to become a man in order to die. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." He had to give His flesh for the life of the world. But this only goes to prove the absolute necessity of death. It was the giving of His flesh, not the taking of it, that laid the foundation of the whole fabric—life, pardon, peace, righteousness, union, glory, all. Apart from death, there is, and could be, absolutely nothing. Through death we have all.
But we cannot pursue this profound subject any further now. Enough has been said to set forth its connection with our special thesis—the ministry of reconciliation. When we read that "God hath made Christ to be sin for us," we must see that this involved nothing less than the death of the cross. "Thou," says that blessed One, "hast brought Me into the dust of death" (Psa. xxii.). What an utterance! Who can fathom the mighty depths of those words—"Thou"—"Me"—and "death"? Who can enter into the question, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Why did a holy, righteous God forsake His only begotten, well-beloved, eternal Son? The answer contains the solid basis of that marvelous ministry whereof we speak. Christ was made sin. He not only bore our sins in His own body on the tree; but He was made sin. He stood charged with the entire question of sin. He was "the Lamb of God bearing away the sin of the world." As such He gloriously vindicated God, in the very scene where He had been dishonored. He glorified Him in respect to that very thing by which His majesty had been insulted. He took upon Himself the whole matter—placed Himself beneath the weight of the whole burden, and completely cleared the ground on which God could lay the foundations of the new creation. He opened those eternal flood-gates which sin had closed, so that the full tide of divine love might roll down along that channel which His atoning death alone could furnish; so long as sin was in question, reconciliation must be out of the question. But Christ, being made sin died and put it away forever, and thus changed entirely the ground and character of God's dealing with man and with the world.
The death of Christ, then, as we have seen, is the alone basis of reconciliation. That divine work has opened the way for placing men and things in their right relationship to God, and on their proper footing before Him. And this, be it remembered, is the true sense and meaning of reconciliation. Sin had alienated "men" from God, and set "things" entirely astray, and hence both men and things needed to be reconciled, or set straight; and the death of Christ has cleared the way for this.
It is well to see clearly the distinction between "atonement" and "reconciliation." They are often confounded, through inattention to Scripture; and the honored translators of our excellent Authorised Version have not, with sufficient accuracy, marked this distinction. For example, in Rom. v. 11, they have the word "atonement" where it ought to be rendered "reconciliation" and in Heb. ii. 17, we have the word "reconciliation" where it ought to be "atonement."
Nor is the distinction by any means unimportant. The word "atonement," or "propitiation," occurs, in some one or other of its forms, six times in the Greek New Testament. (See carefully Luke xviii. 13; Rom. iii. 25; Heb. ii. 17; ix. 5; 1 John ii. 2; iv. 10.) The word "reconciliation" occurs, in one or other of its forms, thirteen times in the New Testament. (See Rom. v. 10, 11; xi. 15; 1 Cor. vii. 11; 2 Cor. v. 18, 19, 20; Eph. ii. 16; Col. i. 20, 21.) If the reader will take the trouble of examining and comparing these passages, he will see that atonement and reconciliation are not the same thing, but that the former is the foundation of the latter. Sin had made man an enemy and thrown things into confusion; and in Col. i. 20, 21, we read, "And, having made peace through the blood of his cross (here is the foundation), by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of His flesh, through death, to present you holy, and unblamable, and unreprovable in his sight." Here we have the death of Christ set forth as the ground of the reconciliation of both men and things.[16]