The Divine Exchange

Over the last few weeks I have been studying the Divine Exchange with my online Church Group. Some time back we spoke about the desire we had to find out exactly what Jesus has done for us on the cross and how we can live in His resurrection power.

We came across a book by Derek Prince called The Divine Exchange. This book opened our eyes to great and wonderful truths. Truths that we already knew but didn't really understand. The revelation we received from this study has birthed a deeper love and adoration for our Saviour Jesus and reignited a passionate relationship with our Father.

I pray you will be greatly blessed by this study too.

"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Matthew 11:28

This is an open invitation from Jesus. He extends His invitation to each one of us today to come and find rest from our emotional struggles, our financial worries, our health concerns, our weariness of life, and all things that torment us. He calls out to us today to come to Him.

But, how do we come to Him?

God has made a way for us to come to Jesus and enter into His rest. He has the perfect answer to all our burdens, all that torments us and makes us weary. His answer is the cross of Christ. The cross is the answer to all our questions and the one thing that can silence all the accusations of the enemy and rend him powerless. The cross is our greatest weapon when we know its true power.

We have an enemy. An enemy that knows what happened on the cross. An enemy that knows the power of the cross. His plan is to keep us in deception and unbelief. To keep us from a true understanding of what happened on the cross. To keep us from the whole truth. If he can keep us looking to ourselves instead of the cross, then he has the victory.

If we are to live the victorious life that Christ died for us to have, we need to know the truth of the cross and exactly what took place there.

Jesus's whole life led to the cross. His sacrificial death was His life purpose. He was born to die.

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

Hebrews 10:14

This is a powerful verse. I think you need to read it again, slowly!

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

Hebrews 10:14

So, through Jesus's death, He offered Himself as a living sacrifice for all of us. He made us perfect by His works; not by anything we have done, but because of everything He did. He gave His perfect, sinless life in exchange for our sinful, disobedient lives.

God, in His wisdom, had a master plan that would see an end to humanity falling into a lost eternity and would reconcile all men to Himself. His plan wasn't reliant on man. And the plan didn't need man to participate for it to come to pass.

We all have been brought up in different backgrounds. We all have different colours of skin, different colours of hair. Some of us have been brought up in wealth and some in poverty. Regardless of where we have come from and what the world thinks of us, we must all come to the same place if we are to truly receive the answer to all our questions and walk in the resurrection power.

The place where each of us must come is to the cross. We need to have a revelation of what Jesus has done for us. We need to repent of our rebellion against Him and receive all that He died to give us. We must fully understand all that He has done for us if we are to walk in His resurrection power.

We see in Isaiah 53:10-11 a description of the righteous servant that was prophesied to come and take the penalty for sin on Himself and make atonement for all humanity.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. After He has suffered, 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.

From the beginning of time it was God's plan for Jesus to come and take upon Himself all the sins of the world. Through all that Jesus would do on the cross, we would reap the rewards. Sin had to be atoned for.

From the very beginning man choose to go his own way, denying the wisdom of the almighty and following his own selfish desires. This we see in Isaiah 53:6 -

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

This is where we see the inherant problem of all humanity. We have all turned, each one of us, to our own way; forsaking fellowship with our divine maker. We may not have committed adultery or murdered, or stolen, but each one of us at some point in our lives have gone our own way and disregarded God's instruction and guidance. We have all rebelled against God and lived in disobedience to Him.

So, the purpose of the cross was to pay the penalty, divinely exchanging the evil that was due all mankind for their iniquities and sinful ways for all the good that was due the perfect Son of God for His sinless life. Jesus endured all the evil consequences that were due us by divine justice for all our iniquities and rebelliousness and in exchange God offers us all the good that was due to the sinless, obedient Jesus.

This divine exchange was set in place by our Father in heaven, by His lavish grace. There is not one of us who deserved such an offer of outrageous proportions, where Jesus would take our filthy rags and exchange them for His lavish priestly robes.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Paul shows us that through Jesus and the work of the cross, atonement was made for us, not by our own efforts, but by God's own righteousness. It must be accepted by faith. It cannot be earned.

Jesus became our sin. He took on Himself all of humanities iniquities from the foundation of the earth to the end of days.

He absorbed all our rebellious ways. All the consequences and punishment due humanity for their sin was put upon Him. The sinless Saviour bore our sin. In exchange for this He offers us His righteousness. His right standing with the Father. A mended relationship; a restored identity.

What a Saviour!

Do we really understand what that means? That Jesus gave us His righteousness. Think about that for a minute...

Jesus was perfect in the eyes of the Father. He was with the Father from the foundation of the earth. He knew the Father, heard the Father, saw the Father. We read in Matthew 3:17-

And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus holds a place of honour with the Father. Jesus is sinless, obedient, and in a right relationship with the Father. Jesus exchanges His right standing and right living for our sinful, disobedient and rebellious lives. It is mind blowing to think that our God would go so far for us, to reconcile us back to Himself. He did it all for us.

God knew our weaknesses and that we needed a rescue plan of gigantic proportions. He knew we would not be able to bridge the gap back to Him by ourselves. From the very beginning we get glimpses of the perfect plan of redemption to come.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.

Genesis 3:15

At the perfect time in history He steps down from HIs heavenly throne, into humanity, and takes our punishment on Himself.

He instigated the rescue plan; putting it into place at just the right time. He took the place a guilty humanity; paying all the costs in His own body with His own life.

What a beautiful Saviour!

So why did He have to die? Why couldn't He just make things right without dying? We see from scripture that the price of sin is death.

Ezekiel 18:4 says

...The soul who sins shall die.

James 1:15

...sin, when it is full-grown brings forth death.

Jesus knew that to atone for our sins He would have to die. Throughout the old testament we see foreshadows of the cross. We read about the sacrificial lamb being sacrificed for the sins of the people once a year. We read how the sins of the people were transferred to the animals and then they were killed. The blood of these animals covered the sins of men for one year. All these old testament accounts point to the cross and the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord Jesus.

But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:9

He not only paid the price for my sin, but the sins of all humanity. He died the death of every single soul that ever would be, even those He knew would reject Him. He died our death that we might gain His life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23

Our punishment was death. But, Jesus gives us a gift of eternal life. If we would just believe in Him, believe what He has done for us and receive from Him all that He died for us to have. God's plan for humanity never included death. It was by one man's sin that death entered into the equation.

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.

Romans 5:12-16

Hallelujah, what a Saviour.

Jesus became sin for us, that we would receive His righteousness.

Jesus died our death that we would live an eternal life.

The law demanded death for sin. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, in their love of humanity and their desire to bring a fallen world back into a right relationship with them, took the punishment and paid the ultimate price.

Do you know there is nothing more to be done for our salvation?

"You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary." Jonathan Edwards

Is it only me or do you too find this mind blowing?

Psalm 73:25 says -

Whom have I in heaven but You?

And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Thank the Lord for all He has done for you. Receive and accept His sacrifice, His blood, His love for you. Believe He died just for you. Believe He loves you so much He died for you.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

Hear Him call out your name today and choose this day to believe on Him. To believe His word, to believe He died just for you, to believe He loves you. To draw closer to Him and rest in the assurance that the work of salvation has been done for you, once for all. He loves you so much He died for you.

Remember the cross is the answer to everything the enemy will throw at you. The cross is the greatest expression of love the world has ever seen. The cross is our freedom.

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If you would like a free download of the Divine Exchange by Derek Prince then copy and paste the link below:

https://www.derekprince.org/Articles/1000132017/DPM_USA/Contact/Divine_Exchange_form/The_Divine_Exchange.aspx