Two more shocking names on the Ashley Madison list

The names of those who have used the Ashley Madison adultery-facilitating site keep on coming. Prominent Christians. Hundreds of pastors. And countless ordinary Christians. All of them adulterers in mind or body, who had not confessed to their sin until the hackers confronted them with the truth. One name I haven’t seen anyone mention, but who is on that list, is the most shocking.
Jesus.

He made him to be sin
This is what God means when he tells us that he “made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5 v 21). This is why Jesus sweat anguished drops of blood in Gethsemane as he considered what would happen to him the next day even as he freely chose to go through with it. This is why the Son of God was forsaken by the Father as he hung on the cross.

He had become sin for us, instead of us, in our place.

Here is what we mean when we say this. We mean that it was an Ashley Madison user hanging on the cross. An Ashley Madison adulterer was dying on the cross. An Ashley Madison subscriber who had betrayed their spouse and raised their middle finger to their Creator was suffering on the cross. That’s who Jesus was on Good Friday afternoon. His Father “made him who had no sin to be sin for us”. God looked down the Ashley Madison list and every time he saw the name of one of his precious children, he saw the name “Jesus”—and treated his Son accordingly.

He had become sin for us, instead of us, in our place.

Ashley Madison has confronted us with the reality, the depth, and the all-pervasiveness of sin. Maybe it has hit very close to home for you; maybe it has hit hard in your home itself. It has, I think, shocked all of us to hear of some of the names listed, some of the confessions made. We know everyone is a sinner, but this has reminded us that everyone really is a sinner. Sin should shock us; but it should not surprise us.

And that sense of shock should enable us to feel the shock, the outrage, the wonder of the cross more deeply:
God “made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”. Jesus’ name is on the list. And the name of every true believer who registered with Ashley Madison is in a real sense therefore not on the list. Their sin will have consequences, heart-breaking consequences, in this life; but it will have none in the next—because Jesus is on the list in their place.

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

Another name on the list
That matters to me because, in another sense, my name is on that list as well. I’ve never visited the site. And I’ve never committed physical adultery. So my natural response is to wonder at the stupidity and the selfishness of those who have treated their spouses and, if they’re Chrsitians, their Saviour, in this way.

But whenever I think “How could they do that?” I am actually saying “I could never do that.” And Jesus doesn’t let me do that. Because when he talked about what adultery is, he made it very clear that any husband who “looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5 v 28). When he talked about what defiles us—what he would become and bear on the cross for us—he listed sexual immorality before he mentioned adultery (Mark 7 v 21-22).

My sin differs from the men and women on the Ashley Madison list only in degree, not in nature. I'm fairly certain that you are no different; a sexual sinner, and if you are married very probably a mental adulterer. In our thoughts, if not in our deeds, we are Ashley Madison subscribers. My name is on the list. But it’s been erased—and there’s a name written over it, in blood. Jesus.

We will never appreciate the gospel unless and until we begin to grasp the truth and the filth of our sin. Only then will we feel the shock, the outrage and the wonder, personally, of this great Calvary truth:
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for me, so that in him I might become the righteousness of God.”

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