Five Eternal Gifts from God - Christ 5

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, ESV)

Why can’t God just overlook the sin? He can’t if He wants to remain perfectly just and righteous. If man is to be made just, God’s justice must be satisfied.  “Someone must be able to pay the infinite penalty for man’s sin. It must be a member of the offending party, the human race, but it must be one who has never fallen into the inescapable imperfection of sin.

Given these requirements, no man could qualify; but God could. Therefore, God the Son came into the world and took on humanity. This is the meaning of Christmas.

Hebrews 2:14-17 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:14-17, ESV)

The sin of man is imputed to Christ on the cross, and the righteousness of Christ is imputed upon the sinner by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.

As a result, in God’ sight the human sinner is now both clean of all blemishes and adorned with glorious righteousness.

Dr. R. C. Sproul writes, “We must see that the righteousness of Christ that is transferred to us is the righteousness he achieved by living under the Law for 33 years without once sinning. Jesus had to live a life of (perfect) obedience before His death could mean anything. He had to acquire merit at the bar of justice.” The bar of justice is the partition in a courtroom beyond which most persons may not pass and at which an accused person stands.

Sproul continues by saying, “Without His life of sinless obedience, Jesus’ atonement would have had no value at all. We need to see the crucial significance of this truth; we need to see that not only did Jesus die for us, He lived for us.”

Sproul concludes, “Justification by grace alone, through faith alone means justification by Christ alone. It is by His meritorious life and His substitutionary death that we can stand in the presence of a holy God. Without Christ, we’re without hope, because all we can every carry before God is our unjustness.”

Thanks be to do God for his indescribable gift.