CHRIST OUR JUSTIFICATION.

That Christ is made unto us righteousness or justification implies, –

(1) That we are unjust, or unrighteous in the sight of God, and unworthy of his favor.

(2) That, in view of our unworthiness, God had in some manner arranged that Christ’s righteousness should stand good for “us,” and thus give “us” a standing before God which we could not otherwise have because of our imperfections – our unrighteousness.

(3) This scripture does not imply that Christ’s righteousness covers every sinner, so that God now views every sinner as though he were righteous, and treats all as his children. No, it refers merely to a special class of sinners – sinners who, having come to a knowledge of sin and righteousness, and having learned the undesirableness of sin, have repented of sin, and sought to flee from it and to come into harmony with God. This is the particular class referred to in this scripture – “who of God is made unto us justification,” or righteousness.

(4) How God has arranged or caused Christ to be our “righteousness,” or justification, is not here explained; but what we know of divine law and character assures us that the principle of Justice, the very foundation of divine government, must somehow have been fully satisfied in all of its claims. And other scriptures fully substantiate this conclusion. They assert that God so arranged as to have the price of man’s sin paid for him; and that the price paid was an exact equivalent, a ransom or corresponding price, offsetting in every particular the original sin and just penalty, death, as it came upon the original sinner and through him by heredity upon all men. (Rom 5:12, 18-20.) He tells us that this plan of salvation was adopted because by it “God might be [or continue] just, and [yet be] the justifier of him [any sinner] that believeth in Jesus” – that comes unto God under the terms of the New Covenant, of which Christ Jesus is the mediator, having sealed it, or made it a covenant, by his own precious blood. –Heb 13:20,21; 10:29.

(5) While the benefits of this gracious arrangement are only for “us,” for “believers,” for those who come unto God by Christ – under the provisions of the New Covenant – these benefits are, nevertheless, made applicable to all; for God’s special provision for the whole world of sinners is that ALL shall “come to a knowledge of the truth,” that they may, if then they will accept the conditions of God’s covenant, be everlastingly saved. A knowledge and a rejection of error – of false doctrines which misrepresent the divine character even though they be mixed with a little misconstrued truth – will not constitute grounds for condemnation; but a knowledge of the truth and a rejection of it will bring condemnation to the Second Death. The Greek text states this much more emphatically than our common English translation. It says, “come to an accurate knowledge of the truth.” – 1 Tim 2:4.

(6) The provision made was sufficient for all men. Our Lord gave himself [in death] a ransom – a corresponding price – for ALL; he was a “propitiation [or sufficient satisfaction] for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2.) As a consequence, he is both able and willing “to save unto the uttermost [i.e., to save from sin, and from divine disfavor, and from death, and all these everlastingly] all that come unto God by him.” (Heb 7:25.) And inasmuch as God’s provision is so broad, that ALL shall come to an exact knowledge of the truth respecting these provisions of divine mercy under the terms of the New Covenant; – inasmuch as the provision is that all the sin and prejudice-blinded eyes shall be opened, and that the devil, who for long centuries has deceived men with his   misrepresentations of the truth, is to be bound for a thousand years, so that he can deceive the nations no more; and that then a highway of holiness shall be cast up in which the most ignorant cannot err or be deceived; and in view of all this provision God declares that ALL men will be saved from the guilt and penalty incurred through Adam’s sentence (The Adamic curse or original sin).

Because, when all of these blessed arrangements have been carried into effect, there will be no reason for a solitary member of the human family remaining a stranger and alien from God’s family except by his own choice or preference for unrighteousness, and that with an accurate knowledge that all unrighteousness is sin. Such as, of their own preference, knowingly choose sin, when the way and means of becoming servants of God are clearly understood by them, are willful sinners on their own account, and will receive the Second-Death sentence as the wages of their own opposition to God’s righteous arrangements.

The world’s salvation will be complete the moment ALL have come to an accurate knowledge of the truth concerning God’s great plan of salvation; because then they will know that by accepting Christ and the New Covenant which God offers to all through Christ, they may have life everlasting – salvation to the uttermost.

Whether they will hear (heed) or whether they will forbear (refuse to heed) will not alter the fact that ALL will thus have been saved from Adamic sin and death – will have had a full salvation tendered to them. Thus, the living God will be the Savior of ALL men – especially or everlastingly, however, the Savior of only those who accept his grace and become “his people” under the New Covenant. – 1 Tim 4:10.

(7) It is only to “us” that Christ is made justification or righteousness. Though all men are to be saved in the sense of being brought to the knowledge and opportunity of salvation, none have Christ as their justification, the covering of their imperfections, imputing his righteousness to them, except “us” – the household of faith.

“Unto you, therefore, which believe he is precious.” (1 Pet 2:7.) He of God is made unto us justification, righteousness, covering and cleansing from the unintentional weaknesses and shortcomings of the present, as well as from the original sin and its sentence.

Who is he who condemns us?

Will that Anointed One who died; and still more who has been raised, who also is at the right hand of God, and who intercedes on our behalf?

Nay, he has been made our justification; it is the merit of his great sacrifice that speaks our justification. – Rom 8:34.

Justification signifies to make right, or whole, or just. And from the word “whole” comes the word “(w)holiness,” signifying soundness, or perfection, or righteousness. None of the fallen race are either actually or reckonedly whole, sound, perfect or just by nature.

“There is none righteous [just, sound, holy], no, not one; all have sinned.”

But all who come unto God by Christ, whom he has accepted as the justification or righteousness of all who accept the New Covenant, are from that moment accepted and treated as sound, perfect, holy. Although we are actually unholy or imperfect, we are made “partakers of God’s holiness;” first, reckonedly, in Christ, and, second, more and more actually by the eradication of our sinful tendencies and the development of the fruits and graces of the Spirit, through chastisements, experience, etc. (Heb 12:10.) God not only begins on the basis of holiness, imputing to us Christ’s merit to cover our demerits, but he continues on the same line, and ever urges us to “be holy [to strive after actual soundness and perfection], even as he is holy.” (1 Pet 1:15,16.) And he promises the faithful strivers that they shall ultimately attain absolute holiness, soundness, perfection – in the resurrection, when they shall be made actually like Christ, as now their wills are copies of his. For “without holiness [thus attained] no man shall see the Lord.” (Heb 12:14.) Hence, “Every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he [Christ] is pure” – seeking to be as much like him as possible now, and by and by to be fully in his image. – 1 John 3:3, 2.

Only Justified persons and no others are Christians, in the proper use of that term.

Continued with next post.