Christ's righteousness is mine! (Romans)



Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God


Romans 5:8, but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.


The book of Romans was written by the apostle Paul during a time of relative peace for the Roman Christians. He reminds them of the basics of the gospel. We all need to be reminded of the basics at times. Our first text comes from the section where he talks writes about the sinfulness and lack of righteousness of man. (Romans 1-3). Paul very clearly tells us that we are sinners "as it is written, 'None is righteous, no not one'." (Romans 3:10) and "no one does good, not even one"(Romans 3:12b). Again, he repeats this in our passage "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." It can be so easy to think we are good people and forget this basic truth. We are all sinners, incapable of righteousness, incapable of doing any good. We don't like to think of ourselves in this way. Sometimes, we even try to put ourselves above others because their sins may be more obvious than ours. Don't kid yourself, though. The Bible is very clear about our sinful nature. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Genesis 6:5) 

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8).

It's quite clear that we are all sinners. We need to admit our sins and see the sins in our own lives. It's not something we're eager to see. But if we don't, we'll miss out on something beautiful. Paul doesn't end with pointing out how great our sin is. It would be a sad and scary world if he stopped there. If you keep reading Romans, you'll see it doesn't end there. In chapters 4 and 5, he writes about how we receive God's righteousness when God justifies us by faith in Christ Jesus. We are not left in our sin; God sent us His only Son to be righteous in our place! 

"But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). How amazing is that! We, who can do no good, who sin continuously, are loved by God! So much so that He sent His Son to be righteous in our place. The Bible tells us how great our sin is and how none of us is righteous but also tells us how we can attain the righteousness of Christ! The extraordinary gift of righteousness is secured through Christ's death on the cross.

"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 Corinthians 5:21)

When you truly look at yourself, you can see how great your sin really is, which then reminds us how great Christ's sacrifice truly was. He bore our sin that we might be considered righteous. What a loving and awesome God we have.

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