This morning we consider the truth of God's Word as summarized in Article 20 of the Belgic Confession, found on page 78 in the back of the Psalter hymnal, page 78, the bottom portion of that page. It has the title, God has manifested His justice and mercy in Christ. That's the teaching of Scripture. We turn together to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53, as well as 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5, we'll read verses 11 through 21 and read chapter 53 of Isaiah, where he speaks of the suffering servant. Hear now the word of God. Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life and a death and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. 2 Corinthians 5, beginning at verse 11. Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view, though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Beloved in the Lord, as brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a wonderful story to tell, don't we? And that wonderful story is how we came to be His brothers and sisters. That's an amazing story And the best part about it is that it's true. We sing of that. I love to tell the story of Jesus and His love. More wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams. Or we sing, tell me the old, old story. Tell me the story slowly that I may take it in. The wonderful redemption. God's remedy for sin. What was God's remedy for sin? god made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of god that's the story of the great exchange now article 20 of the belgic confession reminds us that god is a just and a merciful god he is both just and merciful and it reminds us of how those two attributes of God, His justice and mercy, come to expression for us and our salvation in Christ. Follow along, if you will, as I read it. We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and just, sent His Son to assume that nature in which the disobedience was committed, to make satisfaction into the same, and to bear the punishment of sin by His most bitter passion and death god therefore manifested his justice against his son when he laid our iniquities upon him and poured forth his mercy and goodness on us who were guilty and worthy of damnation out of mere and perfect love giving his son unto death for us and raising him for our justification that through him we might obtain immortality and eternal life now notice that the article says god sent His Son. Why? To make satisfaction. To make satisfaction. And this satisfaction would be for sin. The curse of sin must be dealt with. The wages of sin, namely death, must be paid. God, if you will, was made unsatisfied because of sin. And in article 21, the next article, will deal in more detail with exactly how God was made satisfied again through the blood of Jesus. but article 20 in anticipation of article 21 teaches the beautiful truth of scripture that this satisfaction involved the great exchange and that exchange was a demonstration of both god's perfect mercy and justice now of course we know that there are those who want to play god's mercy off against His justice. Make them competing forces. They say they contradict. They don't fit together because they can't understand how God can be both merciful and just at the same time. But the truth of Scripture, beloved, is that God's justice and mercy was united for us and for a perfect salvation. And that, beloved, makes for a wonderful story. I used to hear a song on the Christian radio station that said, His death for my life, what a wondrous exchange. And this article testifies to the truth of Scripture that this great exchange was needed. It describes man as guilty. That is, disobedience and sin was committed in the human nature, and therefore each one of us is guilty before God because not only are we conceived and born in sin, as David says, but all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, as Paul says, and our guilt, as the article says, makes us guilty of damnation. I'm sorry, worthy of damnation. Now, boys and girls, often when we think of being worthy of something, that's a good thing, isn't it? We're worthy of honor, worthy of respect, worthy maybe of getting a gift of some sort. Not here. We are worthy of damnation, eternal hell, the eternal wrath and punishment of God. Beloved, the wages of sin is death. The bottom line is that man has desired to be free from God. He has desired to go his own way, and in sin he has earned death. He has earned hopelessness, sorrow, pain, turmoil, destruction, and every other horrible thing you can think of. He has turned his back on love, joy, peace, hope. He's turned his back on life itself because he has turned his back on God. Man has turned his back on salvation and he desperately needs help. And that help is only found in our Lord Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life who is the only way to the Father. We needed another not simply to help us out a little bit, but we needed another to take our place completely because by nature, as Paul says, we are dead in trespasses and sins. When God made His covenant of works with Adam, He said, do this and live, but if you break my covenant, there will be a curse. And the curse of sin and death hangs over all of us apart from God. And the Bible is not short, congregation, it is not short on reminding each one of us of our sin and misery. There's no lack of that in Scripture. we've already mentioned what Paul says about all having sin. We go back to Genesis, before the great flood. We read in Genesis 6, verse 5, The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. And David confesses, For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. And in Isaiah 53, we cannot help but notice what rightfully belongs to us. Our infirmities. Our sorrows. Our transgressions. Our iniquities. Now that's quite a resume, isn't it? A resume is supposed to make us look good. That's quite a resume, isn't it? 2 Corinthians 5, verse 19 says that God was not counting men's what? Men's sins against them. In Galatians 3, verse 13, Paul says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. The curse was upon us. You see, the proof of our need is clear and we must admit, beloved, that once we understand our desperate need by the grace of God, then we can't help but ask, in essence, as one of the catechism questions does, but can't God just forget about it? Does He have to punish sin? Can't He simply say, well, I'll forget about it and give you another chance? After all, we do that with others at times, don't we? We do that with our children. We warn them over and over again. We even promise to punish them if they do this, that, or the other thing. But when it comes down to it, when it's time to make good on our word, on our warnings, We soften the punishment or we completely give them a second chance. And that's mercy, isn't it? That's a good thing to do, isn't it? The only problem is that with our mercy as parents, we often fail to uphold justice. And when we are just, it is often without mercy. But not so with God. Our God is holy, righteous, good, merciful, and just. And even more than that, He is perfectly holy, perfectly righteous, perfectly good, perfectly merciful, and perfectly just. And because of all of this, God's reaction against sin is holy anger and wrath. God was offended because of sin. Sin spurns His holiness. To sin against God is like spitting in His holy face. And it still is. Every sin we commit day by day is terribly offensive to Him and we must admit that even as confessing Christians, we often sin so easily without thinking about how offensive it is to Him. We're more worried about offending each other, aren't we? Than we are about offending God. Arthur W. Pink in his little book on the attributes of God points out that there are more references in Scripture, he says, to the anger, fury, and wrath of God than there are to His love and tenderness. He says, because God is holy, He hates all sin, and because He hates all sin, His anger burns against the sinner. You see, beloved, maybe you've heard the phrase, well, God hates sin, but He loves the sinner. Well, that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not in any way biblical. Psalm 5, verses 4 through 6 says, You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil with you. The wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies, bloodthirsty, and deceitful men the Lord abhors. Pink also says, Now the wrath of God is as much a divine perfection as is His faithfulness, power, or mercy. It must be so, for there is no blemish whatever not in the slightest defect in the character of God. Yet there would be if wrath were absent from Him. He says, indifference to sin is a moral blemish. You see, God cannot be indifferent to sin. He cannot just look the other way and say, It's okay, I'll forget about it, we won't deal with it. As we often do. And that's because He is God. He is a just God. And His justice means, beloved, that He is loyal to His Word. He will fulfill His Word in the day that you eat of the tree. You will surely die. He has fulfilled His Word. God is faithful to His Word and that means that sin must be punished. The wrong must be made right. Sin's punishment must be paid in order to satisfy God. Answer 11 of the Heidelberg Catechism says, His justice demands that sin committed against His supreme majesty be punished with the supreme penalty, eternal punishment of body and soul. And then answer 12 says, God requires that His justice be satisfied. Therefore, the claims of His justice must be paid in full, either by ourselves or by another. Again, man sinned. Therefore, man must pay. but of course we cannot because we continue to sin every day. Again, some of our favorite hymns talk about this. We sing of it. Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul. Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole. Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God. Not all my prayers and sighs and tears, no matter how many there are, can bear my awful load. And we sing, nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress. Helpless look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. Indeed, God is a just God. And He demands that whoever commits disobedience must be punished for it. Animals didn't sin. That's why the blood of the Old Testament sacrifices, that blood which was a constant reminder of sin and a constant reminder of the need for satisfaction, that blood would not satisfy God's justice, but only the blood of man would do. And as we know from Scripture and have considered in our study of the Belch Confession to this point, that blood had to be perfectly sinless. See, God in essence said to Adam, I will provide the sacrifice. I will provide the one to take your place. And as Paul says in Galatians 4, verses 4 and 5, but when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons. God Himself provided the great exchange and accomplished that great exchange. Again, the article says that God poured forth His mercy and goodness on us who were guilty and worthy of damnation out of mere and perfect love, giving His Son unto death for us. God's justice in no way cancels out His mercy. And His mercy in no way cancels out His justice. God found a way. He provided that way. He provided the great exchange and again accomplished it. Beloved, that's the indisputable truth and teaching of Scripture. Only ignorance and an unregenerate heart would not see that. Isaiah chapter 53 again, verses 4 through 6 says, Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to His own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And that's what Paul says. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us. so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Just as the high priest on the Day of Atonement would pour out the blood of one goat on the mercy seat, pointing to signifying the forgiveness of sins, the payment of sins, and would lay his hands on the head of the scapegoat, sending it out into the wilderness, signifying the taking away of our sins, the perfect and imperishable blood of our Lord Jesus Christ was shed to pay for our sins and our sin and guilt and eternal curse was laid on Him, taken away by Him who knew no sin. Hebrews 7, verse 27 says, He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself. Hebrews 9, verse 12 says, He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the most holy place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. And Peter makes the truth of the great exchange clear when he says in 1 Peter 3.18, For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body, but made alive by the Spirit. Once for all. It is done. Never again. People of God, God most definitely carried out His justice. Article 20 says, God therefore manifested His justice against His Son when He laid our iniquities upon Him, giving His Son unto death. He most definitely carried out His justice against all His elect upon His Son. Our iniquities, that is, The sin of all those whom God elected before the creation of the world were punished in Him. God's wrath was carried out against my sin, but not and never will it be upon me. Christ endured that wrath in my place. My sins were punished. Again, not and never will it be by me. Christ experienced that punishment in my place. God has been satisfied. In my case, I didn't satisfy Him. Christ did. We speak of imputation. That's strange but beautiful word. Imputation, to impute boys and girls. That means to charge something that belongs to one to the account of another. My sin, the sin of all believers, was charged to Jesus, taken from me, given to Him. but we have been calling this the great exchange it's not simply that he took something from us he gave something to us his righteousness to stand in the very presence of god his righteousness is imputed freely given to us you see beloved as we speak of god's justice as his people we cannot help but also speak of god's mercy we have said on occasion that a simple definition of mercy is is not getting what we deserve when the case of the one giving the mercy bestowing the mercy not giving what is deserved the confession says again that we were guilty and worthy of damnation we deserved to be eternally miserable and to suffer God's wrath forever, but in His mercy, God did not give us that. That's what our Lord Jesus Christ received. In His mercy and grace, we are given justification and eternal life. We know, of course, that all throughout history, God manifested His mercy already in the Garden of Eden with that mother promise God made provision to reconcile Adam and Eve to Himself. They deserved to be destroyed from off the face of the earth, but instead God clothed them and thereby comforted them. Or we think of the sacrifices and the offerings which covered the sin of God's people in God's sight. Those sacrifices and offerings pointing forward again to the only true and effective sacrifice of Christ. Those sacrifices and offerings, a sign of God's mercy. And over and over again throughout the history of God's revelation, we see God's mercy. But the cross, the cross is where God's justice and mercy came together at one time, in one place, upon one person. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His death for my life. But of course we know, don't we? That we live because He lives. He's not still dead. He lives. He paid the penalty for sin by His death and He conquered death and the grave by His resurrection. And by His resurrection, God accepted that payment as sufficient. He is satisfied and we are justified. The great exchange has not only been accomplished, but it has also been applied to those for whom He substituted Himself. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. By His sacrificial death, which only He could do, Jesus paid the penalty and removed the curse from us. Our sins are forgiven. And by His righteous life, His sinlessness, He makes us righteous in the sight of God by freely giving to us His righteousness as our very own. That's justification. My sins removed from me, His righteousness given to me, and that's all mine by faith. And you know, this is exactly what Isaiah prophesied would happen in verses 10 and 11. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering he will see his offspring and prolong his days and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand after the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities. Reverend Hyde again in his series of articles especially on this article 20 in the outlook writes, just as our sins were the judicial ground for the suffering of Christ, His righteousness is the judicial ground for our acceptance with God. See, beloved, God did not send His Son to execute eternal punishment on us. Instead, through His only begotten Son, God became our shield and our protector from His justice. Again, many want to play God's mercy off against His justice and say that a loving and a merciful God could never eternally punish anyone for sin. Some say that the God of the Old Testament is a different God than the God of the New Testament. That the God of the Old Testament is an angry, wrathful God of vengeance, but the god of the new testament while he's loving and gentle and kind but to say that and to believe that is to have a god of your own making and that's idolatry our god is one perfectly just perfectly merciful indeed in our day god's wrath and anger is played down many preachers don't preach about it many churches don't teach it because society doesn't want to hear about a god like that people want to hear about about kindness and mercy and love and and that kind of a god but you know this wasn't popular in bible times either was it but the prophets didn't let us stop them isaiah jeremiah and the others like amos who said in essence enough is enough god doesn't want your sacrifices he he does not want your false worship they never sugar-coated god's wrath and justice and neither should we. God hates sin. It must be and it will be punished. We may very well overlook the transgressions of our children, but God cannot and He will not do that. Every single sin must be satisfied for. You see, God cannot forgive unless His justice is satisfied and the beauty here is if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ then you know that his justice has been satisfied for you by Christ and you know by experience what mercy is you know that you stand before Him in Christ as not guilty. The Holy Spirit applies the fruit of that great exchange all throughout history and still today as He brings the elect to faith in Him. You see, still today, there's no contradiction. There's no contradiction between God's mercy and justice. He still hates sin and will punish it. Jesus Christ will come again and at that time execute eternal punishment on those who rejected Him. He will say to them those awful words, away from me, for I never knew you. But by God's grace, we can truly rejoice, truly rejoice in the kindness and mercy and love of God. And I say truly because unless you know how great is your sin and misery, and unless you understand God's justice poured out against the only Savior, unless you know that and understand that you can't truly know His mercy and love. But by His grace, we can sing of Jesus and His love. And we know that God's mercy was directed toward us even before He poured out His justice on the cross. And we know that it is only because He is a just God and cannot and will not allow sin to be in His presence, we know that heaven will be heaven with no sin, no sickness no sorrow no tears only everlasting joy in his presence forever what we had coming jesus came to take that's the heart of the gospel and the very heart of the gospel always to be preached is that people still today are invited on the very same terms as ever repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Beloved, God's wrath against sin is and will be great. As we said earlier, the psalmist says, if you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? Not one of us. And our Lord himself, our Lord Jesus Christ himself trembled beneath the weight of sin as he prayed, If it is possible, let this cup pass from me. And as he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Indeed, not one, if our Lord Himself trembled under that weight, not one will be able to stand. Indeed, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. The way of the wicked will perish. Beloved, our God is a consuming fire. but also a comforting Father. We have a story to tell to the nations, and what a story it is. No one has a claim on the mercy of God. No one can say, God, I deserve it. Pour it out on me. But He pours it out. He pours out His mercy for Jesus' sake upon those who believe on Him. In Him, we are the righteousness of God, and we are called to desire righteousness. We are called to actively seek after righteousness. Beloved, meditate on that today, won't you? We are called to actively seek righteousness and all that we think and say and do to desire to be righteous in a way of showing gratitude to God for such a great salvation, such a great exchange. Knowing, though, that as we fail day by day, Our Jesus Christ has taken those sins as well, satisfied for those sins for us. In all that we do and say, may we strive to show that we have been a part of that great exchange by God's grace. And may our lives sing of the Redeemer and His wondrous love to me. He from death to life has brought me, Son of God, with Him to be. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, indeed, may the song on our hearts be that we will sing of our Redeemer and sing of such a great salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ who took our place completely, fully, and perfectly that indeed we might have that eternal life, we might enjoy it today and look forward to it in glory. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word, which is a lamp unto our feet and a light upon our paths. Continue day by day by the illumination of Your Spirit to guard us, guide us, protect us, and lead us in Your holy way. May we desire to show gratitude to You by living thankfully, by striving for righteousness, to honor You in all that we do. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray these things. Amen.