This little verse is a gem, shining with all the brightness of heaven and brimming over with love. It is a verse to meditate upon and commit to memory because of the stark truths it presents about the Father and the Son in relation to our evil natures and God's righteousness. It starts and ends with God, describing an awesome sequence of events which were planned by God. They result in God sharing His nature with people, who were once rebellious enemies, but who have been reconciled by the blood of Christ (Colossians 1:22).

It starts by affirming that God the Son, who became the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, had no sin. He was always in intimate relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit from eternity past. And yet the divine plan was for Jesus to 'become sin' because of God's love for us (John 3:16). That does not mean that Jesus became personally sinful or that in any way He rebelled against His Father's will. It means that He became the sin-bearer. God placed upon Him the sin - all the sin of all the people of all the world for all time (John 1:29) - like the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:10). The cross was no accident: it was God's intended way of atoning for our sin (Acts 2:23).

The ultimate purpose is that we should wear the righteousness of Christ (Romans 3:21-22). Just as our sin was imputed (attributed) to Christ, so His righteousness is now imputed to us. His death, bearing our sin, was because He loves us (1 John 4:10). Likewise, His righteousness replaces our unrighteousness. The two are linked, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness" (2 Peter 2:24). As unrighteousness is the uniform of the world's rebellion against God, so His righteousness is the uniform of heaven. We must take off unrighteousness and delight in wearing His righteous nature (Ephesians 4:22-24). That is why Christ died for us – not just to relieve us of a guilty verdict in the court of heaven, but for us to be like Him and work with Him.

Like the easily-distracted Corinthian church, we can also lose focus. We can forget why we have been saved, and how much it cost the sinless Son of God to bear our sin - He was cut off from Father God for our sake (Matthew 27:46). And yet we can become so preoccupied with our own concerns or hurts that we want to grab the comfort of the cross without accepting its challenge (Matthew 16:24) – to reject our sinful nature and to accept His work in our lives until we gladly wear His righteousness. This is essential, practical discipleship rooted in our gratitude for His love to us.