“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin…” – 2 Corinthians 5:21a
Scripture reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12
In our electronic age, great sums of money can be transferred with the click of a mouse as one account transfers funds to another. But no transfer, even the billions of dollars transferred in corporate buyouts, compares to the transfer that 2 Corinthians 5:21 speaks about. It describes how the penalty for all your sins and mine – our sinful actions, our cruel words, our impure thoughts, as well as our innumerable sins of omission – was transferred onto Jesus at Calvary. There, on the cross the words of Isaiah 53 were fulfilled: “…He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace…and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5, 6).
Theologians refer to that as the passive obedience of Christ. In His passive obedience Jesus became our substitute on the cross. He had the power to escape. He told Peter that He could call more than twelve legions of angels for His deliverance. But He added, “How then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 26:54).
By obediently submitting to death on the cross Jesus passively shed His blood, which propitiates the sins of all who have true saving faith in Him alone. To propitiate means to appease the wrath of someone – in this case God – and it is done by covering over that which has caused the wrath, which is our sin. So great is the love of Christ for His people!
Suggestions for prayer
Confess that your sins drove Christ to the cross. And then express awe and wonder, praise and adoration for the salvation Christ secured in His passive obedience as He covered our sin with His precious blood.
Pastor Ted Gray is an emeritus minister of First United Reformed Church in Oak Lawn, Illinois. Before serving in Oak Lawn, Pastor Gray served Orthodox Presbyterian churches in Oregon and Florida, and Christian Reformed churches in Vermont and Illinois. He and his wife, Karen, reside in Crown Point, Indiana. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. This devotional is made available by the Nearer To God Devotional team, who also make available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com.
