The Gospel: 1
A new series of short reflections on different aspects of what the Gospel is.
The Gospel is:
A Gift of Righteousness
For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
Romans 4:3
We have a problem of unrighteousness. That is to say, we have no standing in the throne room of God and no defense in the law court of God. As a result of this we cannot be in right-relationship with God.
God solves this problem by creating for us a righteousness not our own. If it were our own then it would be neither perfect or spotless. Since we were born in unrighteousness and away from God, even if we began to live moral and upright lives, any righteousness ‘gained’ couldn’t cancel out our problem. There isn’t a balance of merits so there isn’t anything to redress. Worse than this, our problem is unrighteousness and righteousness is more than ethical behaviour; therefore even if we did live morally our entire life we’d still have two problems: 1) we were born in unrighteousness and 2) this new morality is not righteousness.
How does he create us a righteousness not our own? First he declares that we have standing and require no defense. And then, oh mystery of the Gospel! Then, to prevent this making him unrighteous by virtue of this being a legal fiction - to stop this declaration from being a lie - he clothes us in his own righteousness.
Jesus lived a perfect, righteous life and died a perfect, wrath-bearing death. God counts Jesus’ life as though we lived it. This is called ‘imputation,’ he counts to our ‘account’ Jesus’ life that he lived for all his children. Not only does God avert the wrath we deserve, but God declares us to be his spotless children. Then he goes further! He seats us in heaven and makes us co-heirs with Christ.
The Gospel is a gift of righteousness, and it’s a gift we can’t ever deserve!
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