Jesus, Our Righteousness

As the Scriptures say,
“No one is righteous–
    not even one.
– Romans 3:10 (NLT)

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” 

This is what Jesus did for us.  Colossians 2:14 says He wiped out the handwriting of requirements against us.  It’s talking about the Law.  Galatians tells us the Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ – it pointed us to the cross.  Jesus came and lived the perfect, righteous life and when He went to the cross, He stayed up there as a sacrifice, giving His righteous life for our sinful nature, and when we accept Him into our hearts, our sinful nature is replaced with His righteousness.  When we do that, now God sees us as righteous and we can go to heaven and we can have a relationship with God the Father.

So, what happens then?  Hebrews 10:14 says He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.  The word ‘sanctified’ here means being set apart from their sin.  Who’s being set apart from their sin?  Those who don’t know Jesus?  Here’s the question we need to ask:  What really makes us a Christian?  Is it our own efforts or is it accepting Jesus as our Lord and our Savior? The answer is Ephesians 2:8-9: It’s by grace you’ve been saved, not of works lest any of us would boast.  So nobody is saved by their own actions, their own words, their abilities.  Nobody is good enough to work themselves into heaven.  So, back to Hebrews 10:14: Who’s being set apart from sin?  Is that someone that has never accepted Jesus, that’s living by their own efforts, their own abilities?  No, they’re lost in their sin, they’re slaves to sin.  It’s talking about those that belong to Jesus.  He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified, meaning, when you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, God sees you as righteous.  Do you still sin?  Yes, you do.  Do we do things we’re not proud of?  Yes, we do.  But what do we do then?  Hebrews 4:16: We come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain grace and find mercy in time of need.  When do you need grace, when do you need mercy?  You need it when you screw up. 

The verse before that is also profound: Hebrews 4:15: We do not have a High Priest that cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, for He was tempted in all the ways we were tempted, but did not sin.  Jesus can understand what you’re going through, but you need to bring it to Him.