If someone sins, someone suffers. If someone obeys, someone flourishes. God's justice requires it. So how can we not suffer in hell if we have sinned? And how can we flourish forever if we haven't obeyed God perfectly?

Only through the great exchange.

We sin and earn God's wrath; Jesus obeyed and earned God's blessing. In the great exchange, God gave Jesus what we deserve, and he gives us what Jesus deserves. On the cross, Jesus "carried our sorrows... he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities... the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (53:4-6). In the great exchange, Jesus got the punishment; we get the peace. Jesus got the wounds; we get the healing (53:5). "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).

How could our evil become Jesus' responsibility and his perfection go to our credit? We can't understand fully, but think of it this way: Suppose a rich corporation buys a failing business with huge debts. The debts of that business become the corporation's problem, and the corporation's vast riches become a resource to save the failing business. So, too, once Jesus purchases me, I belong to him. I am not my own. My debts are no longer my problem but his. The riches of his obedience and the infinite value of his blood are no longer his assets only, but mine. And my bankrupt soul is saved.

PRAYER--"Guilty, helpless, lost were we; blameless Lamb of God was he, sacrificed to set us free: Hallelujah, what a Savior!" Thank you, Jesus, for the great exchange. Amen.