Our kids are getting older. As they do, they leave certain things behind them – things like toys. Or types of videos. Or costumes.

We have a trunk full of costumes the kids used to love to wear. We have Chewbacca masks, Iron Man suits, cowboy hats, princess dresses – all kinds of things. And I remember the days when at least one of our kids would have a costume on all the time. They would run around pretending to be in this battle or that scene from a movie, and we would join into the scene. And then the scene would be over, and the kids would eventually take off their costume and be back to their regular old selves.

The illustration is simple here – that even a child when they put on a costume doesn’t really believe they are Cinderella. Or Captain America. Or a sheriff in the Old West. There is a large difference between pretending to be something, and actually becoming something.

Though the illustration is simple, I wonder sometimes how deeply the reality of “gospel becoming” has sunk into my own heart. For that is the truth of the gospel of Jesus – that Jesus became, so that we might become. I wonder, though, if I truly believe down deep in my guts that I have indeed become something, or whether I am still under the impression that I’m putting on a costume like a child. And that at some point, the costume will come off and I’m right back to my same old fallen and sinful self.

To that end, I wanted to examine together with you this reality of “gospel becoming.” Not “gospel acting”; not “gospel pretending”; but actual becoming. Here, then, are four things that Jesus became that we might in turn become:

1. Jesus became sin that we might become righteousness.

This, of course, does not mean that Jesus sinned, for He did not. But at the cross, Jesus voluntarily took our sin upon Himself – not in part but the whole. Feel the weight of that, Christian. There is nothing left to prove. No longer any need to self-justify. Nothing more to earn. To the extent that Jesus became sin, we become the righteousness of God in Him:

“He made the One who did not know sin to be sin^[l] for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

2. Jesus became a curse that we might be blessed.

Jesus was cursed on our behalf. As in the Old Testament days when the sin was laid on the head of the goat and then that goat was sent into the wilderness, so Jesus was proclaimed to be cursed by God. Though He perfectly and completely kept the law of God, and therefore was subject to no curses that would come from disobedience, He hung on that tree as one cursed so that we might never again not know the fullness of God’s blessing in Him:

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed” (Gal. 3:13).

3. Jesus became poor that we might become rich.

Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped onto with white knuckles, but instead became an impoverished man. He felt the same lowly estate of all humanity – He knew sorrow, hunger, thirst, and pain. He emptied Himself, becoming poor, that we might become rich. No – we are not rich in the sense of financial security – we are wealthy in a far better way. For God has held nothing back from us in His eternal storehouse of blessings:

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

4. Jesus became forsaken that we might become children of God. 

The heart-breaking cry from the cross was not because of the physical pain of crucifixion, but because Jesus – who had enjoyed eternal fellowship with the Father – felt that fellowship broken as He became sin. He was punished and cast out so that we might never again know the pain of being orphans. When He was cast out, we were brought in. When He was forsaken, we were claimed as God’s children:

“Look at how great a love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children. And we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know Him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is” (1 John 3:1-2).

You might not feel like you’ve become anything new today. You might feel cursed. Or impoverished. Or even forsaken. But your position in Christ does not ebb and flow with fleeting emotions. Rather, it’s been sealed by the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Take heart, for as John tells us in that last passage, there will come a day when what is, will be revealed to be. And those that have become, will be shown to have become.