The Gift Of Righteousness |
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Page 8 of 24 THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS #8The gift of righteousness that is freely and equally given to all who believe in Jesus Christ is 'through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus'. This statement from Romans 3 outlaws any perception that God's declaration of acquittal is based on our lack of personal guilt or related to our personal merit. This justification, [this righteousness], that God gives is grounded and mediated only in and through God's liberating activity in Christ. 'Redemption' means 'freedom or liberation obtained by the payment of a price'. The Bible teaches that since Genesis 3 every human being is in bondage ' to sin, to condemnation and judgment, to death and to Satan. We are trapped, we are enslaved ' unable to live without sinning, unable to escape God's condemnation and judgment, unable to rescue ourselves from the separation from God that the Bible calls 'death', and unable to remove ourselves from Satan's deceptive control and accusations. Just as God liberated the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, so God liberates us from the multi-faceted bondage in which our sin held us captive. Just as he sent Moses as his agent of freedom, so he sent Jesus as the great Redeemer.The freedom, the liberation, the redemption, is in Christ: in all that he is, in all that he did in his life, death, resurrection and ascension ' but most of all in his death. That death, that pouring out of life, that shedding of blood, is the price paid. It is the ransom ' the payment necessary to redeem us from accusation, condemnation, judgment and death, and to rescue us from the authority of Satan and bring us out safe into the kingdom of God.Scriptures: Romans 3:24; Titus 3:5-7; John 8:34; Hebrews 2:14-15; Exodus Chs 1-14; Mark 10:45; Galatians 3:13; 1 Timothy 2:6; 1 Peter 1:18; Revelation 5:9. |