The Perfect Substitute

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8: 2-4

One of the best theological discussions I ever had was in a temporary employment agency I worked for in the late 90’s. There was a young woman there and we were discussing the perfect standards of God and our need for a substitute to bear the burden and pain of our sin. I will never forget what she said to me, “of course I need help to meet the standards of God, I can’t even meet my own moral standards.” We Romans 8 speaks about the ‘weakness of the flesh’ that is its reference point. I don’t do the things I want to do and I do the things that I don’t want to do.

That is bad news, but I am a preacher of good news and the good news is that I have a substitute. This is a simple message but it seems to be lost in the midst of our efforts to build his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. The Substitution is multifold for me.

It is at once a singular event and an ongoing reality. The Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians frame this thought as follows. “I am saved, I am being saved and I will be saved.” What they mean is this. When I came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s only Son sent into the world as God in flesh, to live and die for me I was saved. It also means that as I live my life I live it through Jesus who substitutes my sin and failure with his righteousness and empowers me live a life in the spirit and not the flesh. It means that when I stand before the judgment seat of God. Jesus stands in my place and says. “The law perfectly fulfilled in him because my blood covered all of his sins.

I pray that you are not to admit that you need a substitute, I pray that you will have the common sense understand of the young woman I described who knew that she could not keep the dictates of her own conscience never mind the righteous requirements of the law. I pray that you will be saved in a moment in time, like a new birth, I pray that you will be saved like gold going through the fire, sanctified and made pure. I pray that you will stand before the judgment seat of Christ with dirty hands and a dirty heart but with a substitute that makes you pure and clean and worthy of heaven because of the work of Jesus. God as man before man, and man before God as God would be for you what you could never be yourself;