Are you a Christian? Then you are a disciple of Him who died for His enemies. Nobody would be a Christian if God didn’t love His enemies, and overcome evil with good. This is why anybody happens to be saved – forgiven, and on our way to Heaven, instead of on our way to Hell.
The Problem
We were the enemies of God. Many of us still are. This enmity flowed both ways. We were rebellious, insubordinate, and self-centered. God’s just and holy response was wrath and justice toward us. We were children of wrath, on our way to destruction, and there was no hope. This makes Matthew 20:28 one of the most important verses in the Bible, where Jesus says, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” The meaning of the suffering of Jesus is: Ransom, a payment for deliverance. Christ overcame evil with good by paying a ransom, where all of our debts to God were paid.
Our debt to God was infinite. Why? Because you measure the grievousness of a sin against a Being by the measure of the dignity of the Being sinned against; and the measure of the dignity of the Being I sinned against, i.e. God, is an infinite dignity, and in infinite measure, and therefore my offense against Him is an infinite offense, and if I am to pay this debt, there is only one way I can pay it, by spending an infinite amount of time in Hell. That is the only way I can pay this debt, and I will pay, unless another payment can be found. It cannot be found… on earth.
Psalm 49:7-8 states, “No man can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him. For the redemption of his soul is costly.” No finite man can pay your infinite debt to God. This is where all the religions of the world go wrong… except for one. They say, “A debt is owed, and we are guilty… Now, do this, and then do this in order to get right with God.” So the transaction in all the religions of the world, in order to be accepted by God, takes place between man and God. It will not work, because it cannot be done.
The Solution
This is what makes Psalm 49:15 precious beyond words, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me.” Now that everything is finished, we know how God did it. God, looking down on all these infinitely sinful people who deserve an infinite amount of time in Hell, engages with His Son in Heaven.
“Son, I’ve designed a salvation. Will You, in covenant with Me, bear the sins of all who trust You?”
“Father, I will.”
“Go.”
He enters into the womb of Mary, and is born Son of God and Son of Man. He lives an absolutely perfect life, fulfilling every requirement that I ever failed to fulfill, and then He stretches Himself on a cross to bear the full brunt of the wrath of God that was owed to me (and all those who will trust Him), and in a moment, as an infinite Being, absorbs an infinite amount of wrath, to remove from all those who will trust Him an infinite suffering forever and make them right with God. No other religion in the world believes this.
Christ overcame sin with good in two ways. There is a moral transformation by which His people begin to have new behaviors, new attitudes, and they stop sinning so much. This happens, but that is not the first thing that must happen. Nobody experiences this until some other form of overcoming happens first. A transaction must happen, not between you and God first, but between God and God first, because you, or any other mere man, can never ransom your soul for God. Only God can ransom you for God, and God sent God into the world in the form of His Son, and He became a God-man, and He stretched Himself out on the cross. What happened at that moment was not your moral transformation, but your legal justification.
In other words, you were guilty in the court of heaven, and God had only wrath to rest upon you in your guilty condition. You had failed to meet every requirement of the Law. There was wrath upon you, guilt upon you, condemnation upon you, and there was nothing you could do about it. Therefore, God, in His love, brings into that situation a Substitute, and He pours out His wrath upon that Substitute. That Substitute, in dying and living, fulfills every requirement that His people failed to fulfill, and when God looks upon that divine Substitute, He says “Righteous. Everyone who is in Him is righteous, not guilty. The debt is paid.” All this takes place before there is any moral transformation in your life. That’s the difference between Christianity and every other religion on earth. God makes a transaction with God to justify His people, and we enjoy that justification by faith (true belief/trust) alone.
That’s when the Holy Spirit comes – sent by the Lord Jesus, who was raised from the dead. On the basis of the blood of Jesus, He’s willing to move into this carcass of mine and begin to work a slow, precious transformation, by which we start loving the cross, loving God, hating sin, hating our failures. We start wanting to be a good person. Little by little, we’re becoming like him. This moral transformation is second. It isn’t the Gospel; it’s the result of the Gospel.
Find the sermon here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2005/207_Christ_Overcame_Evil_With_GoodandmdashDo_the_Same/
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