Derek Prince has a profound respect for Scripture and it’s emphasis on the Grace of God. Paul Ellis posted this portion of a Derek Prince sermon on another blog. It is important reading.
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I’ve been looking for an excuse to post something by Derek Prince ever since I started this blog. Recently I came across a series of five messages by Prince entitled The Divine Exchange. In this series Prince describes 10 things that Jesus did for you at the cross (listed below). It is an awesome and powerful message that will have you thanking Jesus for his love and sacrifice.
Prince preached The Divine Exchange back in 1987. This message has since been transcribed word for word and turned into a free book.
To encourage you to go and read this excellent series, I will paste some snippets of his introduction below, followed by links to the 10 aspects of the divine exchange. It’ll take you about 2 hours to read the whole series, but they will be 2 of the best hours of your life.
Now ladies and gentlemen, in his own words, here’s Derek Prince…
“This young lady from Oklahoma spoke… ‘Consider the work of Calvary. A perfect work, perfect in every respect, perfect in every aspect.’ … Instantly my mind went to the Greek New Testament and one of the last utterances of Jesus on the cross when he said, ‘It is finished.’ The Greek word is just one word tetelestai. But it’s the perfect tense of a verb that means to do something perfectly. I have said sometimes you could translate it this way: It is perfectly perfect or it is completely complete.
“At the close of the last session we had arrived at Isaiah 53:4–6… You know that the name of Isaiah is directly linked with the Hebrew word for salvation. He is the prophet of salvation. Here is the essence, the heart of salvation. We’ll look once more at verse 6 and consider its meaning a little more carefully.
“All we” leaves out no one. Do we agree about that? Does that apply to all of us? You don’t have to tell me but you need to make your mind up.
“That word ‘iniquity’ is an interesting and important word. The Hebrew word is avon… It’s basic meaning is guilt. Another way of rendering it is perversity. What is our guilt? … I think the most contemporary translation is ‘rebellion.’ That’s the universal guilt of the whole human race. But Isaiah says
“The word avon not only means guilt but it means the punishment for guilt… So that God not only laid on Jesus the guilt of us all—now listen, this is vitally important—but he laid upon him the punishment for the guilt of us all…
“Now that’s very important because it’s the key to understanding what happened when Jesus died on the cross. God the Father made to meet together upon him the guilt, the perversity, the rebellion of all of us and all the evil consequences that follow rebellion…
“If you can once grasp that, that’s the key to the storehouse. Everything you need is contained in that revelation…Let me say it this way: What happened on the cross was a divinely ordained exchange.
Think of that key word ‘exchange.’ All the evil due to our rebellion met together upon Jesus. That’s the left hand. The right hand is the opposite. That all the good due to the sinless obedience of Jesus might be made available to us… It’s contrary to our natural thinking, we wouldn’t reason it out that way. All the evil due to our rebellion came upon Jesus on the cross that all the good due to his sinless obedience might be made available to us. Or, to say it very shortly, the evil came upon Jesus that the good might be made available to us…
“Now I want to change one word. Instead of saying “us” say “me.” Now it’s very personal, it’s just you and God. You know what they say at the cross? There’s only room for one at the foot of the cross? You’re the one now. You’re looking up at the cross, you see his body beaten, bleeding, a horrifying spectacle, something that you don’t really want even to look at or think about. And then you say this. ‘The evil due to me came upon Jesus that the good due to Jesus might be made available to me.’ That’s right. It’s when you make it personal. Now you may not have felt any change but you have opened the way to the treasure house when you’ve grasped that one central fact…
“Let’s look at some aspects of the exchange. I’ve listed ten. I don’t want you to imagine for a moment that’s complete, it’s just a specimen. You may recall that when the Lord spoke to me through that young woman from Oklahoma he said, ‘Consider the work of Calvary, a perfect work, perfect in every respect, perfect in every aspect.’ So there are respects and there are aspects. We are going to look at ten different aspects of the work of Calvary. Ten different ways to view what God accomplished there by the death of Jesus.
- Jesus was punished that we might be forgiven
- Jesus was wounded that we might be healed
- Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness, that we might be made righteous with His righteousness
- Jesus tasted death for us that we might share His life
- Jesus was made a curse that we might receive the blessing
- Jesus endured our poverty that we might share His abundance
- Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory
- Jesus endured my rejection that I might have His acceptance with the Father
- He was cut off that we might be joined to the Lord
- Our Old Man was put to death in Him that the New Man might come to life in us
