2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Let us be clear here.  For our sake he(Father God) made him(God the Son) to be sin.

Only God could stand up under the weight of that task.

Luke 18:27 But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Luke 18:26 Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”

What they heard was that anyone that loves anything more than God cannot be saved. Sure the example in that story was the love of money but the young man was not willing to part with it in order to be saved.

The very first commandment made it painfully clear. We cannot make anything a little “g” god and place our love for that before loving God. We make idols that have no power to save us from ourselves.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

That free will offering had to be God in order that the enormity of the task performed could make it possible to save anyone by faith.

This is why it is so important to believe that Jesus born of Mary is God incarnate.

John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

He earned the right to ask that of us by sacrificing Himself for us.

John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Let me tell you a secret.

I was saved before I knew how it worked or why it worked.

Acts 7:25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

Ezekiel 37:23 They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

When God makes a promise He keeps it.

Matthew 1:21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. (Luke 18)

Jesus introduces us to yet another important concept; justification.