The Great Exchange

Transcript:

Hello this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

At the heart of Christianity is the notion we call “the Great Exchange”. What is the Great Exchange? It is the sweet and gracious reality that at the cross, Jesus Christ took our sins and gave us His righteousness. The sin was ours alone, but He took it. And the righteousness was His alone, but He freely gave it.

Now, sadly, I have heard some contemporary theologians claim this notion is a late invention in the history of the church, only coming to prominence in the Reformation period and beyond. However, this is not historically accurate. The Great Exchange has always been the very heart and power of the church.

One the greatest Christian writings of the mid 2nd century was The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (c. 150 A.D.). Listen to this statement of Christ exchanging our sin for His righteousness:

“He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for the transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”

As the Apostle Peter summed it up:

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

Oh, sweet exchange!

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“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.”

~2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (ESV)