GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH of DANVILLE
October 18, 2009

If our sin was just pasted on Christ and the sword of justice was just pasted on his heart, then his righteousness is just pasted on us, and salvation is a delusion!

I am scheduled to preach for SOVEREIGN GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH in Mercer County on Friday and Saturday (November 6-7). The assembly now meets at 4486 Bohon RD. Bro. Bill Eldridge is pastor. - Telephone: 859-366-4479

Believing on the Lamb of God - Don Fortner
(Tune: #355 - From Every Stormy wind that Blows -LM)

1. Amazing love, beyond degree!
Eternal, sov'reign, rich and free!
God gave His only, darling Son,
For rebels, ruined and undone!

2. I have, by grace, this gift received; -
In Jesus Christ I now believe.
Believing on the Lamb of God,
I claim redemption through His blood!

3. Yes, life, eternal life is mine,
The gift of God, a work divine!
The Holy Spirit, blessed Seal,
Makes ev'ry cov'nant blessing real!

4. The pledge of love, this precious gift,
Above all fears my soul shall lift;
I cannot perish, but shall prove,
The joys of everlasting love!

"I recently had someone ask me if I trusted in works. My first reaction was to say God forbid! But I answered this way. Yes, I trust in works. But they are not my works. I trust in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust in him and what he did for sinners like me. He did for me what I couldn't do for myself. He worked out a perfect righteousness for me. I trust Him and his work alone for all my salvation. His works are now my works." Pastor David Eddmenson

"Made Sin"
2 Corinthians 5:21

All men were made sinners in a legal sense by Adam's transgression; and all God's elect were made righteous in a legal sense by Christ's obedience unto death as our Substitute. Believers are made the righteousness of God in Christ in the sweet experience of God's saving grace, when we trust his Son, being born again by his Spirit, who graciously creates faith in us. But we could never have obtained righteousness, we could never have been made the righteousness of God in Christ had not the Lord Jesus been made sin for us, as the Holy Spirit here declares.

Recently, I heard a man say, with regard to Christ being made sin for us, "I see nothing mysterious about it. It is a legal matter." When I heard that, I shook my head in disbelief. Is it possible for a person to see nothing mysterious, nothing wondrously mysterious about the Son of God being made sin for us? Immediately, I thought of our Savior's words in Lamentations 1:12. - "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger."

The fact is the word translated "made" in 2nd Corinthians 5:21 means precisely that - "mysteriously, wondrously made, made in a profoundly mysterious way that is beyond explanation." It is not a legal (forensic) word. Our Lord Jesus was wondrously, mysteriously, profoundly caused to be sin for us, that we might be made (in the experience of grace) the righteousness of God in him.

Traditionally, it is said that Christ was made sin by imputation. I have said that myself; but that is not really true. The Word of God never says that. Our Lord Jesus was not made sin by imputation. The Scriptures forbid the possibility of that (Proverbs 17:15). Our sins were imputed to him because he was made sin. There is no place in this Book of God where a legal (forensic) term is used with reference to Christ being made sin. It is certainly true that our sin was imputed to our Savior. Had it not been imputed to him, he could never have suffered the wrath of God for our sin. But he was not made sin by imputation.

Our sins were justly imputed to him because he was made sin for us! The Book of God does not say our sins were pasted on him in a legal, ceremonial way. The Book says, "He hath made him sin for us!" The Scriptures do not say he was treated as though he were sin. The Book says, "He hath made him sin for us!" The Word of God does not say he was accounted a transgressor. The Book says, "He hath made him sin for us!" And the Holy Spirit does not here say that he was made a sin-offering. The Book of God says, "He hath made him sin for us!"

Here he manifests forth his glory! Mysteriously, profoundly, wondrously in a way that defies explanation, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Darling of heaven, who knew no sin, did no sin and could not sin, was made sin for us.

This is the good wine of the gospel. Truly, it makes glad the heart! When Christ was made sin for us, it was he and he alone who trod the wine-press of his Father's wrath as our Substitute, when the Lord bruised him and put him to grief. This is the wine that cheers both God and men. When God's justice took the full draught of it for the sins of the redeemed, the Lord declared himself well pleased. And when the poor sinner, by sovereign grace, is first made to drink of the blood of the Lamb, he feels constrained to cry, "Hallelujah! I have found Him Whom my soul so long has craved! Jesus satisfies my longings; through His blood I now am saved."

How was Jesus Christ made of God to be sin for us?
John Bunyan

How was Jesus Christ made of God to be sin for us? - Even so as if himself had committed all our sins; that is, they were as really charged upon him as if himself had been the actor and committer of them all. "He hath made him to be sin," not only as a sinner, but as sin itself. Some, indeed, will not have Jesus Christ our Lord to be made sin for us. Their wicked reasons think this to be wrong judgment in the Lord. It seems, supposing that because they cannot imagine how it should be, therefore God, if he does it, must do it at his peril, and must be charged with doing wrong judgment, and so things that become not his heavenly Majesty. But against this duncish sophistry we set Paul and Isaiah, the one telling us still, "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" and the other that "God made him to be sin for us."

But these men, as I suppose, think it enough for Christ to die under that notion only, not knowing nor feeling the burden of sin and the wrath of God due thereto. These make him as senseless in his dying, and as much without reason, as a silly sheep or goat, who also died for sin, but so as in name, in show, in shadow only. They felt not the proper weight, guilt and judgment of God for sin. But thou, sinner, who art so in thine own eyes, and who feelest guilt in thine own conscience, know thou that Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God in flesh, was made to be sin for thee, or stood sensibly guilty of all thy sins before God, and bare them in his own body upon the cross.

God charged our sins upon Christ and that in their guilt and burden. What remaineth but that the charge was real or feigned? If real, then he hath either perished under them, or carried them away from before God. If they were charged but feignedly, then did he but feignedly die for them, then shall we have but feigned benefit by his death, and but a feigned salvation at last - not to say how this cursed doctrine chargeth God and Christ with hypocrisy, the one in saying, He made Christ to be sin; the other in saying that he bare our sin; when, in deed and in truth, our guilt and burden never was really upon him.

GRACE BULLETIN
October 18, 2009

GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH of DANVILLE
2734 Old Stanford Road-Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438
Telephone (859) 236-8235 - E-Mail don@donfortner.com

Donald S. Fortner, Pastor

Schedule of Regular Services

Sunday
10:00 A.M. Bible Classes
10:30 A.M. Morning Worship Service
6:30 P.M. Evening Worship Service

Tuesday
7:30 P.M. Mid-Week Worship Service

Television Broadcasts in Danville

Channel 6 - Sunday Morning 8:00 A.M.
Channel 6 - Wednesday Evening 6:00 P.M.
Channel 6 - Friday Evening 7:00 P.M.