Justified Fully in Christ

Romans 3:21-26

²¹ But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been revealed—attested by the Law and the Prophets  ²² —that is, God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction. ²³ For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.²⁴ They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. ²⁵ God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. ²⁶ God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.

One of the most critical questions of all time is this – How can man be right with God?

The answer to this question is one in which God spent 4000+ years preparing his eternal answer…

Rightness with God is an important subject stretching all the way back to the garden when Adam and Eve rejected God’s design for them. Each generation has wrestled with this question right and will continue until Christ returns and restores the world itself to its right state.

Mankind's sin is not right, it is unrighteous, intolerable to a righteous God. Sin thus renders us unacceptable to God. So then this sets the context behind the usage that God is “right/just” he alone sets the standards of rightness.

To be justified means to be made right, I've heard this described as “Just-as-if-I’d never sinned…”

You see when we are justified we are brought into a new status of being acceptable/right with God through our faith in Jesus.

According to Mosaic Law the only way for an individual to be declared right was for an atonement to be made... Now days the word atonement isn't something that we would use in every day conversation, but when I was younger I learned a great way to define atonement  by breaking the word out similar to the way we did justified – “At-One-Ment” – while it’s not a perfect definition it is apt we are “atoned,” “made one,” made acceptable to God through the blood of Christ.

This is key for us to remember, we are made right before God not by anything we have or are able to do.  Believers are made right with God (justified) solely by God’s grace.

Praise be to God it’s not about what we can or cannot do… rather 100% about what Christ has done for us!

Are you justified fully in Christ or are you attempting to do it yourself?