THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS # 19

God's gift of righteousness permanently alters our relationship to 'death'.

Before we receive this gift we are in a state of separation from God which the Bible calls 'death'. Paul teaches in Romans that:

• Death entered through sin (5:12)
• Death passed upon all men (5:12)
• Death reigned (5:14,17)
• We are dead [5:15)
• The result of sin's reign is death (5:21)
• The end result or wages of sin is death (6:21,23).

At the point at which we receive God's gift of righteousness we are identified with the death of Jesus Christ who took the death penalty for sin as our substitute:

• We are dead to sin (6:2,11)
• We were baptized into his death (6:3)
• We were buried with him (6:4)
• We have been united with him in his death (6:5)
• We were crucified with him (6:6)
• We have died with Christ (6:7,8)

God's gift of 'righteousness' in Christ both enables and contains the gift of 'eternal life':

• We live by faith (1:17)
• We reign in life (5:17, 21)
• We will be united with him in his resurrection (6:5)
• We will live with Christ (6:8)
• We have been brought from death to life (6:13)
• The result of God's gift is eternal life (6:22)
• The gift of God is eternal life (6:23)
• The law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death (8:2)

In this gift of righteousness, our separation from God is undone and reversed; the legal penalty justly imposed on our sin is fully paid and satisfied, and physical death is robbed of its fear and its permanence.

Scriptures: Romans 1 ' 8 - selected texts.