A lot of people assume that the only thing keeping us from heaven is our
sin. But we actually have two problems.
1. We have sin....and have no way of getting rid of it.
2. We do not have righteousness....and we have no way of getting it.
So, if we have nothing in us that will earn us favor with God and we
have nothing in us that can make right what we’ve made wrong, on what
grounds can God call us righteous when we are not?
Under the old covenant (in the Old Testament), a spotless lamb, bull, or
goat was sacrificed as a sin offering. Then the high priest would lay his hands
on a goat, symbolizing the transfer of sin from the nation of Israel to the
goat, and send it out into the wilderness (this was the scapegoat).
That was a shadow of what Jesus would do for us as He dies on the cross.
The bible says He willingly took upon Himself the weight of our sin, shame, guilt,
and condemnation (Isaiah 53:3-7).
So, now in the sight of God, He looks at Christ and He sees a mass of
sinfulness, because on the cross our sin was transferred to Jesus.
Now, if that’s all that happened (that single transfer), we would never
be fully justified. We would be innocent in the sight of God, but that is not
what gets us into the Kingdom of God. All that would do is keep us out of
hell…..for the moment….three minutes later, when we sin again, we would be just
as guilty….and Jesus would have died in vain.
-Jesus didn’t take our sin and die on the cross just to get us back to the
Garden of Eden.
-It’s
not just innocence that gets us into the Kingdom of God; it’s righteousness.
“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:20)
“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds
are like filthy rags.” (Is. 64:6)
That’s why there has to be another transaction. As sinners we cannot
"obtain" righteousness. Even the Pharisees who, in their eyes,
followed the law perfectly still fell short, never attaining righteousness. But
Jesus' righteousness far exceeded theirs. That's what made Him the perfect
sacrifice for our sin to be transferred upon.
So, if our sin was transferred to Christ, what happens to Christ’s
righteousness? This is the second transfer:
Jesus gets our sin and God’s wrath…and we get His
righteousness and God’s grace.
“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that
in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21)
So, now in the sight of God, He looks at us, and He sees the
righteousness of Christ. This is why Jesus' death on the cross doesn't only
change our nature, but it changes our position before God.
This is how Jesus saved us from sin....and to
the Kingdom of God. If we don't understand this, even after we're saved we will be tempted to try and earn what Christ has freely given to us. We cannot earn righteousness or a right standing with God. That has to be imputed to us.
“Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which He thinks
of our sin as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us and
declares us to be righteous in His sight.”
-Wayne Grudem
