THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS # 16

When the angels announced the birth of Jesus Christ to the shepherds they described their message as 'good new of great joy'.

Because we are justified ' declared 'not guilty' ' we can rejoice firstly in the certain hope of salvation because our salvation depends not on us but on the substitutionary death of Christ. Secondly, we can rejoice in our sufferings because suffering can never again be understood as God's judgment because Jesus Christ bore all of God's judgment on their behalf.

There is a third level at which this free gift of righteousness, this justification by faith, brings joy: we rejoice in God.

Apart from this free gift of righteousness in Christ we are dependent on our own performance: we live each moment with the need to ensure our own acceptance in the presence of God. There is no joy in it ' only the constant need to perform; only the terrible dread that we are not good enough. God, in this legalistic mindset, is someone to fear, not someone who generates joy.

But God calls his gospel 'good news of great joy'. It dispels the fear of judgment; it displaces the focus on us and our ability to keep God's laws and to satisfy God's justice. It takes the spotlight off us and our inability and impotence, and puts it on the love and mercy of God. It reveals to us a God who loves us so much that he sent his Son into the world to become one of us so that he could take the full judgment and punishment of our sins and set us free to live with joy in the presence of God.

We rejoice in God. Without fear of his judgment. Without guilt in his presence. Without any prospect of his rejection of us. We rejoice in God ' we see his immeasurable love, we see his limitless mercy, we see his infinite compassion, we see his unsurpassable wisdom and power, all of which were and are active for us - and we rejoice in him.

The fear is gone. The dread is gone. The uncertainty is gone.

Because of his free gift of righteousness in Christ only peace and joy in his presence remain.

Scriptures: Luke 2:8-14; Romans 5:1-3; Romans 5:11; 1 John 4:18.