The Divine Exchange

The Divine Exchange

If we are in Christ, if we have made our peace with God, then in the spiritual dynamic, God has enacted on our behalf the divine exchange.

What is the divine exchange, you ask?

Last night Lorraine and I watched the recent half hour video on the life of Billy Graham, produced by his son, Franklin Graham. In one part, the video showed graphic images of the cross. Words cannot describe what I felt as I looked upon the gnarled, rough wood of that cruel instrument of torture.

Upon that cross, Christ paid the price for my sins. My sins and yours crucified him. In God’s system of ultimate justice, sin has to be punished. Jesus took my punishment and yours.

Because he took our punishment, we can receive the free gift of eternal life.

How does that work, exactly?

We come to Him, confess our sins, ask forgiveness and receive Him to be our savior and Lord. Lord means master, so at this point we are recognizing that He is “the boss” of our life.

We are no longer our own to do as we please, but we belong to Him and we now do as He pleases. We seek always to do those things which please Him.

This is the meaning of salvation or eternal life.

When we come to Him, we are clothed in sin, just like if we had a suit of clothes and we take them off and give them to Him. These “sin clothes” are hung on the cross. He, in turn gives us a new suit of clothes, heavenly garments, pure and holy, clothes of righteousness, and we put them on.

We are, at this point, new creatures, creatures of righteousness. Righteousness means right-standing. Christ gives us His righteousness. We now wear our new clothes, a suit of complete righteousness. It is His righteousness that He has given to us. God now sees us as if we have never sinned.

Glorious, is it not?

We now, no longer have to hide from Him as Adam and Eve did in the garden, because of the guilt they felt. We no longer have to wrestle with feelings of guilt because Jesus has taken our old sin nature and hung it on the cross, where it was paid for.

So, to put it in simple terms, we take off our old clothes of sin, give them to Jesus and He hands us His perfect, righteous clothes. We put them on and begin a totally new life.

This is the Divine Exchange. 2 Corinthians 5:17 perfectly describes that exchange: Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Photo designed and taken by Lorraine

A special thank you to Allen and Candy of Mesa, Arizona for the gift of the cross to us that was used in this article photo. This beautiful cross was hand made by Allen. God bless the desires of your hearts.