What We Should Know About OUR Jesus! #5

What We Should Know About OUR Jesus!

Justification

And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. -- Romans 5:16-19; English Standard Version

My wife is a public school teacher. She accrues time off a little at the time. She gets a certain number of hours vacation per days she works. Recently one of her coworkers needed surgery. This particular coworker used all of her own vacation and sick leave. A note was posted on the behalf of the of the recovering coworker asking for people to consider transferring some of their leave time over this one who had recently experienced surgery. I know my wife plans on "donating" some of her time off and I am sure others will too.

Now, the recovering coworker SHOULD have a debt to her employer, because she has used more days than she had for herself. Instead, her coworkers will impute (transfer) their days off to justify (make right) her deficiency. Not only will that lady's debt (missed days) not be counted against her, but days she didn't earn will be given to her.

We've talked about Jesus as Mediator and Advocate; we'll now see Him as our Justification. All three of those are what we might call forensic language; better known as courtroom talk. Here's the deal as plain as I can fork over the cards... justification, in our case, means the Judge declares us "not guilty" when we trust Christ as Savior and, at the same time, declares Christ "guilty" in our place. His righteousness is imputed to us and our sin was imputed to Him. Simply put, we get what He deserves and He got what we deserved.

Jesus serves as the Justification for our penalty. It's not that our penalty was set aside, but was forgiven (or satisfied) in Christ.

Have you ever heard the phrase "take a walk in someone else's shoes"? I'm sure you have. In the most lay of terms, that's what Jesus did. He took a walk in our shoes and sent us off walking in His.

In Paul's letter to the Romans he clearly indicates that sin was introduced to the human race through Adam and was clearly satisfied in Jesus. By one sin came in; by One the debt was paid.

I really think this whole thing--justification--is quite amazing. To think, by His own voluntary action, Jesus put Himself in my place...WOW! I really can't get over that. Not only could we have never paid the debt ourselves, but we also would have never been able to produce any kind of righteousness that would impress God. So, Jesus becomes sin for us and imputes His righteousness to us at the same time.

I love You, JESUS!!!!

As we seek out these things we should know about Christ it is much like getting to know Him better. I feel that the better we know Him, and the more we understand what He did for us and who He is to us, the better we will all trust, obey and love Him. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being MY Justification. Only You could do it. Only You would do it. What an awesome God You are!