1007 和好的本質
神使那無罪的替我們成為罪，好叫我們在他裡面成為神的義。《哥林多後書 5:21》
罪是一種根本關係——它不是錯誤的作為，而是錯誤的本體/人——它是故意的、堅決地要脫離神而獨立。基督教信仰將一切都建立在罪的極端、自信的本質上。其它信仰都處理罪行——聖經只對付罪。耶穌基督首先面質的，是人裡面罪的遺傳，正因為我們在呈現福音時忽略了這一點，福音的信息就已失去它的扎心和爆炸力。
聖經所揭示的真理並不是耶穌基督背負我們肉體的罪行在祂自己身上，而是祂擔當無人能觸碰的罪的遺傳。神使祂自己的兒子「成為罪」，以至於祂可以使罪人成為聖徒。整本聖經都揭示出我們的主通過與我們認同，而不是通過同情我們，將世人的罪背負在祂自己身上。祂刻意背負在祂自己的肩上，祂自己的身體承受了人類完全的、累積的罪。「神使那無罪的替我們成為罪…」祂這麼做，就把全人類的拯救，單單置於救贖的根基上。耶穌基督使人類與神和好，將其帶回到神設計的所是。現在任何人都可以經歷到那個和好，被帶入與神合一，建基於我們的主在十字架上所成就的。
人不能自我救贖——救贖是神的工作，並且是絕對做成和完全了。它對個人的應用，乃是他們自己的個人行為或回應的事。救贖的啟示真理，和一個人生命中實際有意識的救恩經歷，必須要有所區分。
來自章伯斯的智慧
亞伯拉罕信神的偉大之處，乃在於他預備好為神做任何事。《不知往何處去》
1007 The Nature of Reconciliation
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. —2 Corinthians 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship— it is not wrong doing, but wrong being— it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins— the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son “to be sin” that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us…” and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.
A man cannot redeem himself— redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person’s life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. Not Knowing Whither, 903 R