Due to man’s fall, he was cast out of the presence of God. God is Holy and God is Righteous – He cannot have fellowship or communication with the sinful man unless man is justified before Him and restored to his original condition.
A little over 2000 years ago there was a man called Jesus – also named Christ. He claimed to have come from God and to have been commissioned by God with His work. He claimed that He was the Son of God, even the Messiah, the Sent One, the Christ. He did a lot of good things, spoke a lot of good and inspiring words, and lived a high and uplifted moral and ethical life.
Some could say that “Christ expressed God” – many people called Him, My Lord and My God! He even raised some from the dead, He healed many sick people, He cast out many demons, and He did a lot of extraordinary things on the earth.
After 33 1/2 years on the earth, this man Jesus died – He was captured, formally and injustly judged by some people who already knew what they wanted to do with Him, and then eventually He was crucified.
He was put among two other criminals, and after six hours of hanging on the cross, He died. Yes, there was a “storm” after a while, and the sky turned dark, the curtain in the temple was torn in the middle, etc – but it all may have not been related….
This is what people see when they look at Jesus today. And this is what outwardly “kind of” happened. But this Man Jesus made some pretty strong claims – that He was the Son of God, that He will resurrect from the dead, that He fulfills all that the Old Testament speaks about Him, that He brings in the jubilee, etc.
All these things might have been very strong, daring, and bold – and many would consider Him as an Idealist, a Reformer, or maybe a Prophet of some sort. But something happened after His death – He was resurrected on the third day! His resurrection clearly shows that YES, this One, the Lord Jesus Christ, was indeed the Son of God! He was who He says He was, and He accomplished God’s plan for humanity!
His crucifixion – His sacrifice on the cross – was accepted by God and now, as the Bible further reveals, human beings can be justified by faith in Christ’s redemptive work!
All that Christ did on the earth, including His human living, all His speaking, His miracles, His being here with man, and His crucifixion on the cross – were approved by God in His raising Christ from among the dead! And this is not it – there is so much more that God did through Christ and in Christ – in relation to man!
Though man was fallen and dying in sin, God sent Christ to pay the price to redeem man back to God, even to justify man and be man’s righteousness, so that man may be restored to his relationship with God and have fellowship with God.
The death of Christ has fully fulfilled and satisfied God’s righteous requirements, so that now we are justified by God through Christ’s death (Rom. 3:24). It is of God that we, the ones who believe into the Lord Jesus, are IN Christ Jesus; and God has made Christ our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30)!
There is no need for any other sacrifice, and there is no need for us to improve ourselves – God provides Christ as the all-inclusive sacrifice and this Christ is also being made our righteousness when we believe into Him! Now that we are believers in Christ, we can simply confess our sins and God, based on His righteousness, has to forgive us!
Our experience of Christ of being much more saved in His life today rests upon the foundation of God’s righteousness! We don’t have any confidence in ourselves and we don’t trust in what we can do – our full trust is in Christ’s all-inclusive death on the cross!
We stand on no other merit but on His death on the cross! We are being made sons of God in full based on the redemptive work of Christ on the cross! And now “Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness” (Rom. 10:3-4) – we don’t need to “be under the law” or “obey certain rules and regulations” so that we may be justified before God – we simply need to come to Christ as the resurrected One: He is our righteousness and His death is the base on which we can come to fellowship with God!
God accepted Christ, and now the very righteousness that used to condemn us when we were apart from Christ – this righteousness is justifying us in Christ! The resurrected Christ is the proof and the “receipt” for our justification!
[sharing based on some enjoyment of the life-study of Romans and the life-study of Isaiah (as they were quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization-Study of Isaiah(2)]
Thank You God for putting us in Christ – who now is our righteousness! All we need to do is just believe into Christ’s redemptive death! Thank You Lord Jesus for dying for us! We cannot and we don’t want to work on “our own righteousness” – we just come to You! You as the resurrected Christ are the proof of our justification! You died for us and God accepted Your perfect sacrifice! What a wonderful vicarious death on our behalf! Lord, today we simply want to take You as our righteousness and have fellowship with God the Righteous based on You! We love You, Lord! Thank You so much!
About aGodMan
