ARE WE ALL INFECTED WITH THE SIN VIRUS?

Are we all infected with the SIN virus?

This weeks verse is 2 Corinthians 5:21 –  It reads “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

The Bible makes it clear, first of all, that all people are sinners by nature and by choice. In fact, all people are sinners from birth. And thus all people are born alienated from God who is holy. He cannot look upon sin, nor can he fellowship with sinners. That alienation because of sin prevents us from knowing God. He is too perfectly holy to have anything to do with sinners, except to reject them.

Now that kind of reality proves that the most deadly virus in the world is not the HIV virus, it is the SIN virus. Like the HIV virus, it kills everyone it infects, only unlike the HIV virus it infects everyone. It kills not just in time but in eternity, it kills not just physically but spiritually. There is no cure for the HIV virus, but thankfully there is a cure for the SIN virus. In fact, God has made it possible for sinners to be cured so thoroughly and completely that they can be reconciled to God and have eternal fellowship in His presence.

And that is the good news, that is what Christianity preaches, that’s the gospel. There is a cure for the SIN virus so that the hostility between people and God can end now and forever and sinners can be reconciled to holy God. In fact, if you look back at verses 18, 19 and 20 you see several times the word “reconciled” in one form or another. Verse 18 says, “God who reconciled us to Himself.” Verse 19, “That God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.” And at the end of verse 20 we call on sinners to be reconciled to God.

This is the good news that you don’t have to live godlessly in time, and you don’t have to live godlessly in eternity. You don’t need to suffer through this life without God and to suffer eternal torment without God in the life to come. Reconciliation is possible.

Now as we analyze this verse together I want to consider three aspects:

* the benefactor,

* the substitute,,

* the beneficiaries and benefits.

That really sums up how God can reconcile sinners.

Who is the benefactor. The verse begins, “He made…” Now if you’re a Bible student the first question you’re going to ask is to whom does “He” refer? The answer comes quickly, look one word back at the end of verse 20…God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. The point is it’s God’s plan, He’s the benefactor. God is behind the whole reconciliation plan. He designed it. He worked it out. It is His plan.

There could be no reconciliation unless God initiated it. There could be no reconciliation unless God activated it. There could be no reconciliation unless God applied it. He had to design it and He has to execute it. It cannot come from any human source. Nothing man could do,  could produce reconciliation with God. It isn’t anything we do or don’t do. In fact all of our efforts in the religious realm amount to filthy rags, the Bible says.

The world is literally filled with religion and all of that religion apart from Christianity is man producing a plan with the aid of Satan in which he can initiate reconciliation with God. That is the fatal flaw of all world religions no matter what name they come under.

Who is the substitute? He made Him who knew no sin.” That’s the identification of the substitute. Who is it? Him who knew no sin. That narrows the field to one. It’s not a human being for there is none of them who is righteous, no not one. They’ve all sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23. There’s no human being who qualifies.

Who is the one who can bear the full wrath of God against sin for somebody else because He doesn’t have to bear it for Himself? No sinful person could be a substitute, no sinner could die for another sinner because he would have to pay the penalty for his own sin. There had to be a sinless offering. And it had to be a human being because it had to be man who dies for man, but he couldn’t be a sinful human being or he would have to die for his own sin and couldn’t provide atonement for somebody else’s. So it had to be a sinless man.

Well the only way to have a sinless man was to have a man who was God because God alone is sinless. So if you’re going to have a sinless man you have to have a man who is God. And that’s exactly what God designed…that the second member of the trinity, sinless and perfect, equally holy with the other two members of the trinity would come into the world in the form of a man. He was not to have a human father, Joseph was not the father of Jesus and Joseph knew it. The angel told Joseph, “That which was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit.” So that Jesus had a human mother that He might be a human, but God was His Father so that He was the God/Man, the sinless human being.

The beneficiaries are all of us for whom Christ died and who will believe and receive the benefits. And what did He provide us? “In order that,” we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” There’s that imputation. What is the benefit? We become righteous before God. This is what justification does. And the righteousness that we are given is the very righteousness of Christ. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:9, “We are now found in Christ not having a righteousness of my own,” he says. Not some righteousness derived from keeping the law but a righteousness through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God. It’s imputed to us. He’s holy. God imputed sin to Christ and imputed righteousness to us sinners. We’re sinful, God imputes holiness to us.

By. Way of summary,

The benefactor is God, it’s all His plan, it comes out of His love.

The substitute is Jesus Christ who took your place, the perfect God/Man.

The beneficiaries, all of those who will believe.

And the benefit, you receive the righteousness of God imputed to you as if you were equal to Jesus Christ in holiness.

And some day you will be made holy. But until then you’re covered with the righteousness of God in Christ. You can do nothing except ask and it becomes yours through faith, believe, repent, and put your faith in Jesus Christ.