Think of that: Christ gave himself for us. He always was the eternal Son of the Father, and he lived in limitless bliss and happiness in the eternal celestial realm. He was entirely fulfilled and happy beyond human power to describe, and yet he readily changed his whole situation. He became incarnate; he took upon himself a body and occupied human flesh so that he was both God and man. As man he was humiliated for us and suffered out of love for us, he took our sin and paid for our salvation, and offered up his perfect righteousness to deserve and earn heaven for us. What we do for one another does not begin to compare with what he has done for us. It is amazing and remarkable; his love is so great. Then, too, he has changed his eternal future for us, because he will wear that glorified body forever, so that we can have a visible God, so that we can see our Saviour and his attributes. He will be eternally changed and he will be our King and our Lord and reign in our presence everlastingly. So even the ever-living Son of God, who had everything he could conceivably desire, gave himself in a remarkable way to be changed for us. How can God change? Well, he changed in order to fulfil all the attributes of God ‒ his lovingkindness, as well as his power and his knowledge. So it was no change in a sense for him, but it was a change so far as we can see. He was ready to change his entire eternal office and existence. For what? Out of love for us. When you consider the love of Christ to us, and the cost of salvation, and the pledge of the eternal Son, can we not desire to be more like him and to be people of kindness every day?
As we look at the last part of verse 2, we may be puzzled. In the Old Testament books of Genesis, Numbers, and Leviticus, and elsewhere, we read much about the offering, which is for a sweet-smelling savour. We see the offerings of ancient times, which represent the work of Christ and they are a kind of pictorial prophecies of the work of Christ. We see that there are offerings to please God and offerings to atone for sin. There are the meal offering and they make a sweet fragrance to God, representing the fact that Christ must give his righteousness and obedience to the Father on our behalf to earn the blessings of heaven for us. Then there are the atonement offerings, where the animal is slaughtered to represent the death of Christ and his agony as he bore the penalty of sin. So we see two kinds of offering ‒ the sweet savour and the shedding of blood in the sacrifice, but here the apostle Paul, under inspiration, does not distinguish between them. He says, ‘and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice.’ He calls both kinds a sweet-smelling savour. Just a minute Paul. If you were speaking strictly in line with those Old Testament books you would say that the offering was for the sweet-smelling savour to please, and the sacrifice was to represent the sin bearing of Christ. Why put them together and make them both a sweet-smelling savour? Because that is the truth. While in the Old Testament there seems to be a distinction between them, in the New Testament, to help us, you see that really both aspects of the redeeming work of Christ – his offering up his righteousness, and his bearing the punishment of sin – are both so well pleasing to God. You mean to say that when God the father poured out upon God the Son, that horrific and indescribable punishment due to the redeemed for their sin, that was well pleasing to God? Yes, because although it must have been (if we can use such terms) agonising and horrible to God the Father and done in such anguish, yet it was also amazingly wonderful. It was the most beautiful thing ever done: that Christ should suffer for us, that the perfect one should take our sin, that the great physician, the healer, should suffer and die in our place. It speaks of the perfection of Christ. He alone was qualified to do that. It speaks about the beauty of his love and the greatness of his compassion. It gives us some indication of how far Christ's love would go to save us. Christ, the Son, equal with the Father, humbled himself and died on Calvary. Not only the righteousness, but also the pain and agony was an offering of a sweet-smelling savour. It was the most pure and wonderful thing ever done in a human body. So the apostle cannot help merging them together.