New Year, Same Priority

6 · Oswald corrects a potential misunderstanding by insisting that God is not a helpless victim of human rebellion

You don't have the wrong idea about what's going on here. This rebellion, it can kind of leave you with this picture that God is somehow a small helpless victim. That's not the case. The chasm separating us that draws the battle lines is owing to our rebellion, yes, but it's also equally owing to God's anger The Bible calls it God's wrath against sin, against that rebellion. Romans 1:18 reads, 'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.' God's anger is revealed against this treason. Romans 8:7, 'For the mind,' that is set on the flesh, the mind that is set against God, is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's laws. Indeed, it cannot.

7 · Oswald connects the congregation's recent study of God's holiness to the sermon's argument, establishing that reconciliation is necessary because of the juxtaposition of our sin to God's holiness

Our need for reconciliation, it stems directly from the juxtaposition of our sin to God's holiness. For those of you who came to the The classes we were doing in the mornings the last 6 weeks, The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul, we saw this in vivid detail, the astounding nature of God's holiness, His purity, His perfection, His otherness, and the infinite distance our sin creates. We are sinful by nature, but God God is utterly and inherently holy. He's set apart. He's other. He's unique. He's different. He's flawless in perfection and purity. In every way imaginable, He's the antithesis of our brokenness, in our sinfulness. Now, because of God's holiness, there's only one possible response to our sin. As uncomfortable as it can be to talk about, the only response of a holy God to people in rebellion, of a pure God to people who've defiled themselves, is just wrath. Sinclair Ferguson writes this: The holiness of God teaches us that there is only one way to deal with sin: radically, seriously, painfully, constantly. If you do not so live, you do not live in the presence of the Holy One of Israel.

8 · Oswald argues that the word reconciliation gains its full weight only when we grasp the severity of the enmity between the parties

The reconciliation Paul is talking about in this passage, it's a dynamic word, isn't it? It's such a profound concept. But to talk about reconciliation takes on a whole other degree and level of meaning when you consider the seriousness of the enmity between the two parties. When Case has a fight with one of his little friends, We have to reconcile them. Somebody's probably not sharing a toy. With Case and Sadie, the big excuse recently has been one of them will do something and the other one will quickly yell, 'It was an accident!' To which the other one's like, 'It wasn't an accident! He was trying!' We have to separate them. We have to seek to reconcile them. As traumatic as it seems to them though, it's not a major reconciliation. It's not the kind of reconciliation you would have, say, between an unfaithful spouse. I was talking with a pastor friend who has a new couple in their church, and the woman was part of an adulterous affair with a well-known pastor the pastor of the couple in their former church. He just talked about watching the trauma of them seeking reconciliation because the hurt is so deep and it's so hard. Talks about how a lot of Sundays they just sit there and just hold each other and cry. Reconciliation is a dynamic thing. Especially when you consider the levels and the depths of the break in relationship. To accurately speak of our reconciliation to God, we have to first ponder the infinite antithesis that our sin is to God's holiness.

9 · Oswald recounts a conversation with an unbelieving woman who could not fathom how a lifetime of rebellion deserves eternal punishment

I was talking with an unbelieving woman a while back, and she just could not fathom fathom in her mind how there was any sort of justice, how you could even have a conception of God that would look at someone who had passed away, even if they had lived a long life, and said that person who lived a long life in rebellion against God, that that life, even if it was 70, 80, 90 years long, that that life lived should then deserve eternal punishment. It completely failed to compute in her mind. The two didn't add up. It wasn't just. More explicitly, she said it wasn't loving. That's not who God was. You don't need that kind of reconciliation. George Smeaton, in his famous book, 'Christ's Doctrine of the Atonement,' writes this: The guilt of the offense is proportional to the greatness, the moral excellence, and glory of Him against whom the offense is committed, and who made us for loyal obedience to Himself. Nothing else, therefore, comes into consideration in estimating the enormity of sin but the infinite majesty, glory, and claims of Him against whom we sin.

10 · Oswald contrasts the severity of our offense against God with trivial human conflicts, arguing that our rebellion against God's infinite majesty does deserve eternal punishment

Our disobedience of God, our rebellion against God, our rejection of God, it's infinitely different than two 6-year-old boys fighting over the remote control of the video game. One life. In the balance of God's holiness and glory against our sinfulness does deserve eternal punishment. Romans 5:10 demolishes any notions that you can have an easy appeasement, an easy coming to peace. We read about the stunning cost that gets inflicted to bring about the reconciliation Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians. Romans 5:10 says, 'While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God.' While we were enemies, while we didn't want to be reconciled, we were reconciled to God. How bad was the disruption of relationship? While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.

11 · Oswald warns against lowering the bar on sin or gutting reconciliation of its strength

You can't twist biblical reconciliation. You can't lower the bar. You can't be working to kind of gut it of its strength. When you try and take away the stench of our sin from what's happening in reconciliation, you completely lose the entire concept of what's happening. You lose the majesty and the glory and the awesomeness of the Gospel that's taking place in the act itself. Our holiest deeds are polluted by the presence of our sin. That's a stunning statement, isn't it? Every aspect of our lives needs to be cleansed in order to bring us back to God. But as stunning as that sounds, it only underscores the truly stunning nature of God's own holiness.

12 · Oswald corrects a common caricature that pits a loving Jesus against a wrathful Father

Here's the thing, unlike other alienated parties, we said it before, God shares no blame. This isn't a 90/10, it's not a 50/50, it's 100% on our side. And yet, what does Paul say in our text? All the blame is on our side. We were his enemies. And who makes the first move? Verse 19: That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. We can have this caricature, I think, sometimes that at the cross you have loving Jesus and wrathful, unreasonable God the Father. Here's Jesus standing between an angry God the Father and humanity and pleading our case. Divide up the Trinity in that way. But that's a caricature of what's actually happening. God's reconciling activity isn't divided up within the Godhead. In Christ, God— God the Father— was reconciling. Christ is doing the work of reconciliation as He does the Father's bidding, as He does the Father's will. It's the Father who wants us to be reconciled. It's the Father Who's pursuing us in Christ. It's His plan of redemption. Reconciliation—the restoration of relationship. It's the joy of the Godhead. Christ's historic actions on the cross are to be viewed through the lens of the Father beginning and planning and ending this work. The wronged party in the equation of 2 Corinthians 5 is doing all the labor of reconciliation.

13 · Oswald signals the structural shift from the first major point (alienation) to the second major point (the price of peace)

That gives you a sense of the nature of our alienation. Which then allows us to consider the price of the peace.

14 · Oswald expounds verses 19-21, highlighting the uniqueness of God's reconciliation: the wronged party initiates it and goes to extreme lengths to reestablish peace

In v. 19, we read, 'That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. For our sake He made Him (Christ) to be sin who knew no sin, that in Him,' we might become the righteousness of God. The uniqueness of our reconciliation is seen both in God's initiative—that the wrong party initiates reconciliation—and in the lengths that God goes to reestablish peace. If you have on the one side our treason, you have on the other side God's reaction to it, which is His pursuit of us in love. God chooses not to count our failures against us. Romans 5:8 says, God shows His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were still rebelling, while we were still hating Him, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

15 · Oswald polemically engages pop culture pastors who malign God's wrath and refuse to talk about sin

It's right here. It's precisely here in considering that God doesn't count our sins against us. That the peddlers of cheap grace get the gospel most wrong. Pop culture pastors malign the idea of God's wrath. They don't talk about God's holiness. They don't mention things like sin. They smile a lot. They have lots of really encouraging messages, but they don't touch on those subjects. Sometimes they avoid those subjects. Sometimes they speak out publicly and write books against those subjects. It's wrong, they would say, to talk about a God who's angry. It's wrong to say you would talk about a God whose holiness requires wrath against sin. But when they do that, they impugn God's character in speaking against God's wrath, in lowering the bar of holiness, in refusing to talk about our sin, they actually distort the very nature of the cross itself, don't they? If God really feels no wrath against sin, then the supposed love displayed by the cross, isn't it really nothing more than just a twisted instrument of cruelty and injustice? Why is He sending Jesus to that cross if He doesn't have wrath that needs to be appeased against sin? That strips Christ's sacrifice of its loving purpose. No wrath leaves us with a God who is hardly loving, and He's certainly less than holy, both in His attitude towards sin and the way that He treats His Son.

16 · Oswald resolves the apparent tension between God's holiness and love by arguing that the cross is where both meet in common purpose

It's only when we view the cross through the dual lens of God's holiness and God's love that its purpose becomes clear. The price of peace required that our trespasses be dealt with. Something no fallen man could ever do. The holiness of God demanded that these could not be merely cast aside. God's holiness demands there has to be a penalty for violating Him in the way that we've done it. And yet the love of God refused to leave us unreconciled and separated. Now, if we're not careful, it can kind of seem like God's love and God's wrath are set against each other, right? Listen to how Philip Hughes talks about it. When the cross is seen to be the place where God become man bears for man, as man, the sin of man, endures the just penalty of sin and therefore exhausts the wrath of God against sin. And all this because of God's surpassing love for man. Then alone will it be seen that at the cross, love and wrath meet in a common purpose, that mercy combines with truth, and righteousness and peace kiss each other. The cross. Is not a point of battle between God's holiness and His righteousness and His love and its mercy. The cross is the point where they're both held up in their most glorious and brilliant level of detail.

17 · Oswald warns that when we lower the bar on sin—renaming it, minimizing it, or pretending it isn't that bad—we neuter the cross and rob it of its power

God's ultimate love for Himself above all else is extended to us mercifully. When we lower the bar of holiness, when we discount the evil of sin, when we pretend sin isn't that bad, when we call things that are sin not sin, or we change the names of sin, that Father doesn't have an anger problem. He just gets a little upset sometimes. Websites out there now, the tagline of which is, 'Have an affair.' The marketing tagline. Have an affair. Just an affair. It's not adultery like Seth read about in 1 Corinthians 6 that can leave you separated from God for all eternity. When we lower the bar, when we sterilize how bad sin is, we neuter the cross of what's actually happening there. And instead of seeing the unfathomable wisdom of God, men start to conceive that the cross is some sort of divine child abuse. It's in that framework that eternity in hell becomes too much punishment for a mere lifetime of sin. These increasingly popular ideas tear at the very foundation and glory of the gospel itself.

18 · Oswald critiques Christians who embrace the language of reconciliation—peace, love—but divorce those words from their biblical meaning

Many Christians who are most enamored with the biblical idea or the word reconciliation. Concepts like peace and love, they have no stomach for the essential price that was paid to actually achieve those things. They divorce those words from their actual biblical meaning. I was at a Christian university and there's passages about reconciliation all over the place. And all these passages about reconciliation are just being held up and touted as this wonderful thing. And not a single one of these ideas had any sort of connection to the reconciliation they're promoting being primarily between God and man. Yes, reconcile people who are in enmity with each other. Yes, reconcile races that are having a hard time just even living next door to each other. Yes, reconcile marriages in difficulty. Reconcile relationships between estranged fathers and sons. Reconcile relationships between heads of state and nations to prevent war. But all of that is only possible because God has sought reconciliation with us through His Son, Jesus Christ. To speak of God's love and peace without regard to God's holiness And the terror of the cross for Jesus robs Jesus of the eternal glory he purchased there.

19 · Oswald makes a hard but true claim: God's love is not unconditional but was conditional upon perfect obedience

Here's a hard thought, but a true thought: God's love, in a very real sense, is not unconditional. God's love is not unconditional. It was conditional upon perfect obedience. But the mercy of God has seen that when we couldn't meet the condition, God in love sent His Son Jesus to walk out the condition in our place. To purchase what with His blood the price that we couldn't meet. And that's the miracle of 2 Corinthians 5:21, one of the sweetest verses in all the Bible. 'For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.' That simple sentence is pregnant with world-altering truth. In a few direct words, Paul puts before us the Gospel—the Gospel of reconciliation—in all of its just breathtaking beauty. He unshrouds the mystery. He bears the wonder before us. Phil Hughes in his commentary on this passage writes, 'There is no sentence more profound in the whole of Scripture.' Think about that. The entire Bible has no other verse more profound than the verse we're looking at this morning, 2 Corinthians 5:21. For this verse embraces, Phil Hughes says, the whole ground of the sinner's reconciliation with God.

20 · Oswald poses a series of urgent questions—how can we stand before God without cowering in fear?—and answers them by expounding 2 Corinthians 5:21

How do you have any hope to stand before God? How do you have any hope that upon His return you won't cower in fear but will rejoice? How? Because of 2 Corinthians 5:21. For our sake, He, the Father, made Him, Jesus Christ, to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him, Christ Jesus, we who were rebellious, sinful, treasonous God-haters might become the very righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 reveals the final basis of our reconciliation. Mortal enemies of God receive eternal peace with Him only through Christ's imputing work.

21 · Oswald explains the doctrine of imputation by correcting a common misunderstanding: we don't just need a clean slate

Imputation is God's means of reckoning sinful men clean and holy. The thing I think we oftentimes fail to realize is in our rebellion, it's not just that we need a clean slate. God's not just devoid of sin, right? When we say that God's holy, it just doesn't mean that He doesn't do bad things. It means that in His holiness, He's perfect. To come into the presence of that kind of being isn't just that you're morally neutral. To come into that presence, you need your own perfect record. Only when Christ's righteousness and His perfect obedience, only when His life always doing the Father's will perfectly and unfailingly, whether He was 6 years old and not fighting with the other 6-year-olds in the playground, Or whether He was going to the temple for the first time. Or whether He was 30 and returning to His hometown and having His own family fight against Him, or He's interacting with religious leaders even as He clears the temple in holy wrath. His entire life lived in perfect obedience to the Father's will. Only when Christ's righteousness gets taken and taken from His account and moved over to our account, That's the only time we go from not just having a bad record, not just having a neutral record, but having a perfect record. That's the gospel.

22 · Oswald deepens the doctrine of imputation by citing Sinclair Ferguson to argue that the gospel does not merely restore us to Adam's innocence but lifts us to what Adam was to become had he persevered

Where we've only known failure, Jesus doesn't just remove the shortcomings, He applies His faithfulness. Perhaps the most wonderful thing in all of this, Sinclair Ferguson writes, God lifts us not only from what we are by nature to what Adam was in the Garden of Eden, but to what Adam was to become in the presence of God and would have had he persevered in obedience. The gospel does not make us like Adam in his innocence. The gospel makes us like Christ in all the perfection of his reflection of God. The purpose of the gospel, the purpose of God imputing our sin away from us and imputing Christ's righteousness onto us, isn't so that we would be like Adam before he sinned. It's so that we would be co-heirs with Christ. That we would look like Christ. That we would reflect the majesty and the brilliance and the glory and the holiness of God Himself.

23 · Oswald expounds the doctrine of double imputation from 2 Corinthians 5:21: not only do we receive Christ's faithfulness, but all of our sin, lawlessness, and curse are applied to Christ and set upon His back

2 Corinthians 5:21 speaks of this imputation, but it speaks of a double imputation. The price of reconciling us isn't just that we receive all of Christ's faithfulness. As stunning as that is, it's not that we just get reckoned holy, counted righteous like Jesus was. It's that all of our sin, all of our lawlessness, all of the curse that we've earned throughout our entire lives, even by our own nature, all of that gets applied to Christ. It gets set upon His back. Verse 19 does not say that God overlooks trespasses. In love, God decides, 'I won't be angry at sin. My love is going to win out over my anger against sin, and I'm just going to push it aside. I'm going to stick it in that closet where you put stuff when you're having people over and you don't want them to see it. That's what I'm going to do when people sin. I'm going to put it in this little corner, close the door, and I just won't think about it anymore.' He can't do that. He does not count our sins against us. Sin isn't ignored. Sin's imputed. God's holiness requires satisfaction against His justice.

24 · Oswald uses a rhetorical question to highlight the scandal of the gospel: in what culture does the wronged party pay the price for the offender's transgression? He uses an absurd hypothetical—the wife of a murdered man going to prison for the murder—to show how scandalous God's justice is

We talked a few weeks ago in the series on Malachi, right? They're accusing God, 'You're not just!' God rebuts them and says, 'I am just.' But in what culture— think about this— in what culture does the wronged party, the party who's been offended, in what culture does that party ever pay the price for the other person's transgression? Where would that happen and you'd say, 'That is justice'? That man killed that man and the wife of the murdered man is now going to prison for it. Oh, that is justice! That doesn't make sense. It doesn't compute. We don't have a category for that. How does that work? And yet God does exactly that. What we would deem as contemptibly unjust for lesser offenses between human beings, God does on our behalf. According to the righteousness of God, we deserve nothing less than eternal separation and punishment from God. That's the curse of our disobedience.

25 · Oswald contrasts presidential pardons (where justice is not satisfied) with the cross (where justice is fully satisfied because Christ takes the penalty)

When a pardon takes place— presidential pardon, right? At the end of office, presidents pardon all sorts of people. When a pardon takes place, a lot of times justice hasn't been satisfied. A lot of times the pardoned party is guilty. Compassion might have taken place, but there hasn't been just punishment for a crime. Justice, justice for the price of sin against God's holiness was accomplished only when Christ took the burden and took the penalty for our sins. We aren't just pardoned at the cross. We are pardoned because Christ is punished. Reconciliation requires us to be justified before God's holiness, and justification is a coin with two sides. One side is the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us, and the other side is the forgiveness of our sins, because all of those sins are imputed to Christ. We become the righteousness of God in the same way Jesus becomes sin, through God actively imputing those things. Our filthy garments are removed and they're replaced with Christ's pure vestments. Our sin-defiled robes aren't forgotten. The stench isn't cast aside, it's placed on the back of Jesus. I love how the song puts it: My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.

26 · Oswald steps out of the expositional flow to address the congregation directly with personal urgency

You ever felt your heart stir when you sing those words? You know the good news of the gospel, but make it a bit more personal. My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is placed upon Christ. And He bears its shame. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

27 · Oswald summarizes the doctrine of the atonement and reconciliation: the sinless One became sin for us, and the righteous One becomes the ground of reconciliation for the unrighteous

God has made the sinless One sin for us. The righteous One becomes the ground of reconciliation for the unrighteous. You can't sever the atonement from reconciliation. Our self-awareness should be both of our sinfulness and of our righteousness in Christ. I love the final words of John Newton before his death. Precious saint. What amazing grace. Wise pastor. Pastor of pastors. His letters are just this treasure trove of biblical wisdom. Before he was saved, he was a slaver. He knew his sins. On his deathbed, he said this: 'My mind is almost gone, but one thing I remember: I am a great sinner, and Jesus is a great Savior.' He understood the nature of his reconciliation.

28 · Oswald signals the shift from the second major point (the price of peace) to the third major point (the reward of reconciliation)

And that leads us into the reward of reconciliation.

29 · Oswald expounds verses 18-20, showing that God has given believers the ministry of reconciliation and the message of reconciliation

Verse 18: All of 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, entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. In light of everything else we've said this morning, verse 20: Therefore, We are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. We implore you on behalf of the One who was pinned to that tree in your place, be reconciled to God. What a privilege. To enter 2015 and say, 'I want to be an ambassador for Christ. I want to herald that message. I want to live in such a way that people see the beauty of what Christ has accomplished.'

30 · Oswald clarifies the nature of the ministry of reconciliation: it is not primarily horizontal peacemaking but a ministry with a message—proclaiming the beauty of 2 Corinthians 5:21

The ministry of reconciliation is not primarily about being a peacemaker between men. It's not about doing deeds that receive Nobel Peace Prizes, right? It's primarily a ministry with a message. It's proclaiming to people the stunning, indescribable beauty of 2 Corinthians 5:21. So what if our resolution for 2015 was as simple and profound as Paul's? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:2, 'For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.' The knowledge of the glory of the gospel was such that for Paul, he wanted to know nothing else. What if we joined hands together in our church here at Providence, and we said, in 2015, in our marriages, in our care groups, in our serving, in our worshiping, in our fellowship with one another, in our hospitality with coworkers and neighbors, in our evangelism, in our missional living, in all of those things in 2015, what if in all of them our ultimate purpose is to pursue and to behold and to know and to proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified? That's our resolution for 2015.

31 · Oswald applies the sermon's thesis to the congregation's personal resolutions

What if we placed all of our other resolutions beneath that great resolution? Not that you don't have other resolutions, but that they're pointed towards the greater resolution. What if your goals of weight loss of book reading, healthier diets, more quality time with loved ones, less television. What if all those resolutions and whatever else you might have, what if those were pursued for the higher purpose of wholeheartedly deepening our communion with the crucified and risen Jesus Christ in 2015? How sweet would we stand here a year from now and say, 'We raise an Ebenezer, a rock of remembrance. How sweet was this year to have known the crucified, risen, and reconciling Savior.'

32 · Oswald declares the express purpose of the cross: to bring us deeper into relationship with God

Because that's the good news. The express purpose of the cross is to bring us deeper into relationship with God. 1 Peter 3:18: For Christ also suffered once for sin, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. He took our place, He wore our sin, He clothed us with His perfection so that we could know the Father, Son, and Spirit. So that we could have the gift that Adam lost at the fall.

33 · Oswald closes with a vivid quotation from Sinclair Ferguson that dramatizes the doctrine of imputation

I want to finish with this quote by Sinclair Ferguson, getting our minds around what happens in reconciliation. It is as if he has said to me, 'Here is my righteousness. Wear it. It's yours. It fits your needs.' perfectly and completely. That's Christ's gift to us. And then as I stand in God's presence, the Father, He looks at me and I hear Him say, 'Where have I seen that righteousness before? Come near. Ah, I recognize it now. That is my Son's righteousness you are wearing.' 'Enter! You are welcome and you are safe here.' Would you pursue that kind of knowledge and that kind of experience with me in 2015? Because by the grace of God, it is available for us in Christ Jesus.

34 · Oswald closes the sermon with a pastoral prayer that addresses God directly

Lord, we want to enter your presence. We want to drink living water. We want to have the deep desires of our souls satisfied. We want to have our guilt and shame cast aside. We want to know you, the true and living God. And so we come in the name of Your Son Jesus, the great reconciler of His saints. God, we ask that we could place an Ebenezer, a stone of remembrance, a year from now and look back over 2015 and recognize that through the grace of Your Gospel, Through the name of your Son Jesus, we have drawn near. Father, we want to know you. We want to walk with you. We want to commune with you. We want to be changed by you this year. So we ask now in the name of Jesus, send your Spirit. Do that very thing. In Jesus' name, amen.