Righteousness is Legally Ours

RIGHTEOUSNESS LEGALLY OURS

HIM who knew no sin God made to become sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” God made Jesus sin. Sin was not only reckoned to Him, but His spirit actually became sin. He died twice on the Cross. Is. 53:9, marginal rendering, “And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his deaths.” Note that “in his deaths” is plural. He died spiritually the moment that God laid sin upon Him and made Him to become sin. He died physically hours later.

He died in spirit. Then it tells us in 1 Tim. 3:16 that He was justified in spirit, and in 1 Peter 3:18 that He was made alive in spirit. As soon as He was justified, that moment justification belonged to the world for He was our substitute. Romans 4:25, “Who was delivered up on the account of our trespasses, and was raised because (or when) we were justified.” When were we justified? When Jesus was justified.

When was Jesus justified? When He was made alive in spirit. That explains two Scriptures. Acts 13:33-34 where God says, speaking of the Lord Jesus, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee”, and Col. 1:15-18 “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation …. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.” Jesus was the first person ever Born Again.

He was the firstborn, and His birth out of death into life was for us.
Now we can understand Eph. 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” When did He do that work? At the time of which I have just spoken-from the time He was made sin, justified, arose from the dead, carried His blood into the Heavenly Holy of Holies and sat down at the right hand of God. He sat down because His work was finished, because the New Creation could become a reality. Now men could pass out of death into life, could become the Righteousness of God in Him.

If Jesus was made righteous, and made so righteous that He could come out of hell and go into heaven; if He after being made sin could become so righteous that He could go into the Father’s presence, sit down at His right hand, and be accepted there by the Father, then everyone who accepts Jesus Christ as Saviour, confesses His Lordship over him, and receives Eternal Life will become as righteous as Jesus is because Jesus was made unto us Righteousness from God.

Don’t stop there. Dare to turn to Romans 3:26 and read the American Revision. ,
“That God might himself be righteous, and the righteousness of him that hath faith in Jesus.” There God declares that He Himself becomes the Righteousness of the man who has faith in Jesus as a Saviour and confesses Him as his Lord. If we become the Righteousness of God in Christ-and Righteousness means the ability to stand in the Father’s presence without condemnation and with absolute freedom, then God has solved the Sin Consciousness problem.