Christ Our Righteousness

Christ Our Righteousness

One of the great majestic names of the LORD God is “The LORD Our Righteousness” (Jer. 33:16).

Jesus Christ is our righteousness (1Corinthians 1:30).  We do not and cannot attain a right relationship with God in our own righteousness because our self-righteousness is as filthy rags.  We are guilty sinners in the need of a perfect righteousness (Rom. 3:23; Jer. 17:9; Mark 7:20-23).

When we speak of Christ our righteousness, we are using a great forensic term referring to our acquittal by God.  All that we have as Christians we have received as a free gift of God through Jesus Christ.  We are justified once and for all by grace through faith in Christ.  It never has to be repeated because it is a non-repeatable event.  When we are united to Christ, we have a righteous and holy standing before God.  We are “in Christ.”  We have a vital union in Him.  We enjoy a right relationship with God because of the finished work of Christ on the cross.  Christ is the basis of our perfect acceptance with God (2 Cor. 5:21).

God has robed us with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.  He is the basis of our acceptance with God.

Godet said, “It is the act of grace whereby God removes the condemnation pronounced on the sinner, and places him relatively to Himself, as a believer, in the position of a righteous man. The possibility of such a Divine act is due to the death and resurrection of Christ.”  His death is the foundation of everything God does for the sinner.

The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:12 that we are through the atoning death of Christ declared righteous before God.  This “righteousness” of God in Christ is that quality, which is ours when God acquits the believer, based upon the finished all-sufficient death of Christ (Rom.4: 22-25). God acquits the believer for Christ’s sake, not ours.

This righteousness, like justification, is always forensic.  God is Judge, and we must stand before Him.  We can only plead guilty because we are guilty.  God treated Jesus Christ as if He were the guilty sinner, and deals with the believing sinner as though he or she were righteous.  Christ did not deserve the curse; we did.  The imputed righteousness of Christ to the sinner is a demonstration of the wisdom of God. It is a display of His justice, mercy, grace, love, and power as would never enter into the mind of men.  It is a manifestation, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (I Cor. 1:25).

The cross and the resurrection is the power of God unto salvation. Let us glory in the cross of Jesus Christ and God’s saving grace.

Because our right standing with God is His work, He alone can get all the glory.  God pronounces the verdict based upon whether we have accepted or denied Jesus Christ as our Savior.  Man cannot satisfy the Judge unless he is righteous.  There is no denying of the fact that no man is righteous before God.  No man can produce the righteousness God requires.  It has to be given to him if the sinner gets it.  Under these circumstances, his faith is counted to him as righteousness (Rom. 3:23; Gal. 3:26).  Christ Himself becomes the righteousness we need (2 Cor. 5:21).  God the Righteous Judge views us not as we are in our sinfulness, but in Christ.  He is our perfect standing before God.  It is only the righteousness of Christ that can possibly satisfy the perfect demand of the law of God.

Christ is our righteousness; none other will satisfy God.

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

Christ Our Redemption

In the wisdom of God, the plan of salvation was fully accomplished by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.   Such wisdom is hidden from the wise and learned of the world, but it revealed to the humble believer of Christ.

Christ alone personified the wisdom of God. “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31, NASB 1995).

Christ is our redemption.  From the moment we put out faith in Jesus Christ alone to save us, we were “Sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). We already have the “first fruits of the Spirit” as we wait the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23).

The wisdom puts to shame the high and mighty people of the world.  The wise men of the world cannot understand how God’s grace in Jesus Christ changes sinners into saints. The mighty men of the world see the grace of God as foolishness and weakness (I Cor. 1:25-29).

God in His grace changes lives when they accept His wisdom and believe on Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Salvation must be all of grace so that He alone gets all the glory. “We are made righteous, holy, and redeemed in Christ Jesus.  Redemption comes here last for emphasis through the very foundation of righteousness and sanctification,” notes A. T. Roberson.  We are “Justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).  God has ransomed setting free the person enslaved in sin.

There is a sense in which the believer is redeemed the very moment he believes on Christ as his Savior.  But there is also the greater expectation that our redemption will not be complete in its fullest sense until the work of God is perfected in him or her.

We are now hidden with Christ in God, and our redemption will come to consummation when Christ returns in glory (I Thess. 4:17).  At that time “We shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (I Cor. 15:49).  We shall be glorified with Him.

Yes, our redemption is our present possession (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14).  We enjoy forgiveness of all our sins, and we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as the first fruits and down payment of greater things to come. The full renewal and reward of our redemption is yet to come at the last day.

The foundation and basis for these great events is the death of Jesus Christ as our ransom (Mark 10:45). Christ came “To give His life as a ransom for many.”  The meaning is Jesus paid the price for a slave who is then set free by the one who bought him.  Jesus gave His own life as the price to purchase our freedom from the slaves of sin.

Jesus vicariously suffered death on behalf of the many who have fallen victim to death.  His death was the ransom payment to redeem us (I Pet. 1:18-19).  Christ “Gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity” (Titus 2:14).

The word “redemption” here probably embraces the totality of Christ’s work of salvation of the sinner. It embraces rescuing men from sin and Satan by the payment of Christ, and it extends to the believer’s final resurrection and glorification.  It looks back upon the cross to the blood that bought our freedom, justification (Rom. 3:24), sanctification (Heb. 10:10), and forward to our resurrection and glorification (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14; 4:30).

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Charge it to My Account

“Charge it.” “Charge it to my account.” Those are words we hear every day in the business world.

But did you know that those words have eternal significance, too?

“Imputation” (logizomai) is a word the apostle Paul used meaning, “to reckon,” “to charge to one’s account.”

In Philemon 18 the apostle asked Philemon to have Onesimus’ debts transferred to Paul. “If he has wronged you,” Paul said, “charge that to my account.” One who has something imputed to him is accountable under the law.

In the New Testament the believer in Christ receives the “alien righteousness” of God as a “free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:15). God reckoned Abraham as righteousness on the basis of Abraham’s faith alone (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3). Similarly, God does not impute the iniquity of the believer who trusts in Christ’s death (Rom 4:7-8). This act of God is based, not on our human merit, but on God’s love and saving grace (Rom. 5:6-8). We stand in the need of God’s grace (Rom. 3:23; 6:23).

In Adam, God judged the entire human race guilty, but only in Jesus is this fact fully understood (Isa. 53:4-6). But not only has humanity been declared guilty; it has acted out its personal guilt.

Jesus said charge it to My account. The apostle Paul wrote, “He [God] made Him [Jesus Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” God took all of our sins and “imputed” them to His Son, put them on Him, i.e., put them to His account. He charged them to Jesus’ account. That is the meaning of “imputation.”

When you charge to someone’s account you take something that belongs to one person and you put it to the account of another. If someone owes you a debt you take it out of his page in your ledger and put it to the page belonging to another person in the ledger. Therefore, you have “imputed” the debt to another. That is what God has done with our sins. He has imputed our sins to His Son, and He has punished them in His substitutionary death on the cross (Rom. 5:6, 8).

Moreover, that is not all God does. We need something else. Just to take away my sins is not enough because before I can stand in the presence of God I must be positively holy. I need to be positively righteous. The Bible teaches us that God is righteous, just and holy. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5). Now anything less that His standard of righteousness cannot stand in His presence. I need to be positively righteous. God does something marvelous out of His grace. The moment you and I believe on God’s Son and His work for us He “imputes” His righteousness to us, He imputes that perfect observance of the law to us. We stand guilty before God because we have not kept the law. However, Christ has kept it perfectly and He is righteous before the law. God “put to my account,” i.e. “imputes to me” righteousness of His own Son.

When we stand before a righteous and holy God we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He clothes us with it. He puts it all to our account. Therefore, when the believer stands in the presence of God, God does not see you, He sees the righteousness of His Son covering you, clothing you completely and absolutely. That is grace! That is something only God can do.

This is one of the most important doctrines in the Christian faith. The imputed righteousness is Christ’s perfect righteousness attributed to me. It is imputed to me or put upon me by God. When God looks at me clothed in the righteousness of Christ, God pronounces me to be a just man, a righteous man, and the Law cannot touch me!

No wonder the apostle Paul declared, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ” (Romans 8:1). As a believer in Jesus Christ you are covered by this perfect spotless righteousness of the Son of God Himself, and have on the “breastplate of righteousness.”

I do Not Know Anyone Who

  “I do not know anyone who goes through life without some wounding of the heart. Sometimes we take a little shower at Calvary rather than let God deeply cut and wash away the hurts with His atoning blood.” — Cindy Jacobs

God delights To

“God prescribes individually for each of His patients. God delights to restore each depressed soul to a sphere of increased usefulness,”  J. Oswald Sanders

Always in Abundant Supply

Jesus Christ is all-sufficient to meet our every need, but if He is going to meet our needs we must be willing to recognize our needs and call upon Him. There must be a turning to Him for help. He can supply every spiritual need we face in life if we respond to His abiding presence.

At the feeding of the five thousand Jesus provided food in abundance, and it is always that way with God (Matt. 14:15-21; Mk. 6:33-44; Lk. 9:12-17; Jn. 6:1-15). The interesting thing is Jesus initiated the feeding of the people. He knew in advance that He was going to meet their need. He was interested in their welfare. He was able to do it.

What is your attitude toward being fed by God? Do you feed upon Him?

God never ceases granting our petitions until we cease asking. True, He does not always answer the way we would choose, but it is always with our very best in His mind. I thank God that He has not always granted my requests from my selfish, ignorant perspective. He often says no, in order to give me His very best.

Jesus is ever coming to bankrupt sinners and placing His hand on the bank draft of heaven and says to us, “Write on it what you need.”

We have so little faith in things unseen and eternal. We draw so little on the resources of our heavenly Intercessor. “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.”

Have you humbly asked God to supply your needs from His all-sufficiency? He is able. Jesus tells us He is always willing to fill our empty buckets.

The wise person recognizes his need and asks God to meet every need as it arises.

God has not forgotten where you are. He is fully aware of your need and He is vitally concerned about your Christian life. He will supply all your need according to His abundant resources in accordance with His eternal purpose.

How do the circumstances of your life fit into His will? Is He not committed to your very best? Does He not see the full span of your life and your current life situation?

Has God forgotten you? Indeed not.

He does not base His giving on our merits, yet He invites us to come to Him again and again. His abundant supply never runs out.

“And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

All of Grace

Grace—what a sweet fragrance. It is the greatest theme in the Bible.

Abounding grace, wondrous grace, boundless grace, fountain of grace, unfailing grace, unmeasurable grace, electing grace, matchless grace, overflowing grace, redeeming grace, pardoning grace, plenteous grace, unfailing grace, fullness of grace, efficacious grace, magnified grace, refreshing grace, sovereign grace, and salvation by grace, grace rich and free!

“Oh to grace, how great a debtor.”

God is exceedingly gracious to sinful man. Grace is the unmerited and undeserved favor of a holy God upon sinful depraved human beings. It is His kindness, love and nature to be gracious to humanity.

Grace is the very opposite of merit. It is totally undeserved favor of God toward the sinner. However, it is more than that, it is favor shown to the one who has deserved the very opposite.

What better definition of grace can you find than that expressed by the apostle Paul in Romans 5:8? “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

In contrast to contemporary man’s thinking, God does not owe sinful man anything. Every blessing humanity enjoys is the result of God’s “common grace.”

Every person is a recipient of God’s “common grace” whether he acknowledges it or not. However, “common grace” saves no one, and it never has. We need “special grace” to be saved.

“Saving grace,” on the other hand, redeems sinful man for time and eternity.

The apostle Paul tells us that no matter how great our sin, the grace of God is proven greater. “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:20-21).

“Sin increased,” actual transgressions increased, but “grace abounded all the more.” More grace added to this super abundance of grace. Grace was added to more grace, over and above the grace that super abounded, with even more grace added to that!

“Oh, to grace how great a debtor”!

Do you need grace? Come to the fountain of super abounding, flooding grace!

All the Law can do is point its finger and say, “You are guilty!” It condemns sinful man. It shows sin for what it is in the eyes of God.

However, God has more than an abundant supply of grace. There was plenty of sin, but much, much more grace in superabundance. There is victory for the sinner in grace.

This superabundant grace replaces the reign of sin. We do not have the power to break free from sin, therefore it reigns and we cannot escape the penalty of death. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

However, God’s grace reigns through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Yes, grace triumphs when God imputes His righteousness and gives eternal life to the sinner who believes on the saving death of Jesus Christ to save him (Jn. 3:16; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; Rom. 5:6, 8; 10:9-10, 13; 8:1; 5:1-2; 2 Cor. 5:21).

God is gracious.

What is your response to God’s saving grace? Your eternal destiny depends upon your response to His saving grace. Christ died for you so that “whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The great preacher of grace, John Newton, wrote:

“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

            That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,  

            Was blind, but now I see.”

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

But Well Worth It.

“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.” Romans 8:1-2 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

So many that are suffering from drug addiction and alcoholism are suffering from something deeper and more painful.

It is abuse by parents when we were children. We never recover and kill the pain with booze and drugs.

This of course only makes the situation worse, not better.

When we surrender to the healing power of Christ, He will free us from this pain.

Sometimes it will happen instantly but most times it takes years of Christian counselling.

It is painful but well worth it.

As we are freed from the prison of abuse we surrender our addictions and because we trust Christ as our Saviour, those sins are forgiven. We belong to Him now, not the past that haunts and torments us . The power of the Holy Spirit sets us free.

We may, and most do, suffer from painful memories all their lives but each time this happens, The Holy Spirit comes and comforts and encourages us.

The Holy Spirit frees us from all prisons in our lives. Joseph a son of Jehovah

Prayer : Thank you Jehovah YAHWEH Ropheka ( God our healer Jeremiah 30:17 ) for healing the painful wounds from my past and setting me free from the prison of addiction that was destroying my life. I extol Thee in the name of He who frees all prisoners, Jesus Christ. Amen

May you be blessed to be set free from your dungeon by the greatest freedom fighter of all Jesus Christ. Amen

This article and photo @ 2021 Joseph a son of Jehovah. All rights reserved. Used only by permission of the author.

Please feel free to look up https://www.5minutediscipleship.com/ for a great daily podcast and https://www.lifeaudio.com/your-daily-prayer/ for great daily prayer

With Grace and Tact

Starting a quarrel is like opening a floodgate, so stop before a dispute breaks out. Proverbs 17:14 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

Have you ever watched water gush over a dam?

Imagine standing under its power. It would be extremely stupid and devastating.

In every relationship there are sore points and unresolved issues. When these sore points are brought up it is opening the flood gates of hurt and pain.

Instead of bringing them up whenever you cannot get your own way the most important thing to do is pray for resolution, preferably with a Christian councillor.

Most times the guilty party refuses to go into counselling, most times it is because of pride. One they do not want to admit they were wrong and two they do not want to take responsibility for their actions and three the injured soul does not want to let go of the hurt, they use it like a crutch and they use it to manipulate.

When the other party begins to go on this stupid wheel of destruction, it does cause deep cuts with the words that are said in the heated battle, just inform them that if they wish to continue the discussion we will do so in a Christian councillors office. If you refuse to do so it is an admission of guilt on your behalf. When you are mature enough and ready for reconciliation let me know and we will go to the Christian councillors office. Other wise this discussion is over. Then just walk away.

If someone refuses to go into mediation with you, walk away. They are not interested in resolution but rather in their favorite hobby, fighting. Joseph a son of Jehovah

It works wonders for me.

Prayer: Please Elohim Ozer Li (Psalms 54:4 GOD My Helper ) please help me to be a wise child of Yours and know how to resolve conflicts with wisdom and grace. When these conflicts involve the spawn of the devil who delight in fighting, manipulation and domineering rather than seeking resolution please bless me with the wise but firm words to inform them I am not playing their perverted little games and until they are ready to behave in a mature manner there is nothing more to be said. I humbly request this in the name of He who quieted the hypocrite Pharisee’s with grace and tact Jesus Christ. Amen

May you be blessed with the wisdom to know when to sit down and work things out and when it is time to walk away. Joseph a son of Jehovah

IMPORTANT NOTICE I ACCIDENTLY EXPORTED THIS SITE AND IT WILL BE DOWN FROM NEXT WEEK. THE NEW BLOG IS AT elohimozerli21798883.wordpress.com

This article and photo @ 2021 Joseph a son of Jehovah. All rights reserved. Used only by permission of the author

Please feel free to look up https://www.5minutediscipleship.com/ for a great daily podcast and https://www.lifeaudio.com/your-daily-prayer/ for great daily prayer