THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS #9

A significant question about God's free 'gift of righteousness' is: How can God, who is just, announce his acquittal of a person who is actually guilty? How can he treat such a person as innocent and still remain true to his own character and to the system of legal justice which he himself defined and determined?

The Bible's answer to this important question is spelled out in Romans 3: that God presented Jesus Christ as a sacrifice of atonement.

In the Old Testament practice of substitutionary sacrifice an animal bore the death penalty in the place of the sinner. These sacrifices, however, had to be offered day after day, year after year, and were effective only at a ritual level.

By contrast, the death of Jesus Christ as the perfect substitute is a permanent, once-for-all sacrifice which effects the removal of legal guilt and the cleansing of the conscience.

Christ, the perfect and sinless human, bore in himself, in his body, the total condemnation and judgment due to the sinner.

In submission to and concurrence with his Father's will, he took our place under the judgment of God: he died for us. There is no more condemnation hanging over the person who has acknowledged Jesus Christ, for in embracing Jesus Christ that person also embraces all that Jesus Christ, the ultimate substitute, has done on his or her behalf.

Jesus Christ himself is our declaration of acquittal; he himself is the source and essence of God's 'not guilty' pronouncement.

The one whom we know as our 'Saviour' is also our 'salvation'. Thus Jeremiah, anticipating the life and death of Christ hundreds of years previously, referred to him as 'The LORD our Righteousness'.

He took our place under God's judgment. In this, God's justice is demonstrated. In this God is both just, and the One who justifies. Sin's penalty is paid by our Saviour and we are acquitted.

Scriptures: Romans 3:25-26; Leviticus 1-7; 16; Hebrews 9:11-10:18; Romans 8:1; Hebrews 10:7; Jeremiah 23:6.