Living by the Grace of God, Part 5

2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

This Scripture passage sums up the entire process of our transformation from a nature of sin into God’s righteousness by the grace of God through the redemptive work of Christ in His death and resurrection. Hallelujah!

So we see that grace and grace alone is the means by which fallen sinful man can attain to the righteousness of God in Christ. Grace does not bring us only the mercy and forgiveness of God at salvation leaving us to struggle to be righteous on our own in our fallen sinful nature. But the grace of God effectively treats the core of man’s problem of sinning at salvation. It treats man’s fallen nature of sin and death and actively raises the believer up into a newness of life in Christ. It is by this newness of life in Christ we are enabled to live and walk by faith in God’s righteousness in Christ. Let us by faith receive this glorious and abundant grace from God!

Rising from our original human condition of spiritual death in sin to live a righteous life in Christ is a work of the grace of God. It is not an achievement of our own struggles and efforts. So as helpless as we may be to achieve it on our own, when God saves us we can depend on Him in faith to accomplish it effectively in us. We read in Romans 4:4-5: “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”

The grace of God is amazing! Peter sums up this powerful truth of living a life of righteousness by the grace of God in 2 Peter 1:2-4: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

Let us not cheat ourselves of all that the saving grace of God provides for us through our salvation in Christ. Life and godliness, partaking of the divine nature, and escaping the corruption of carnal lust that is in the world are present experiences made available to every believer in Christ by the saving grace of God. And so, whereas the grace of God brings forgiveness and cleansing from sin to the sinner as well as to the righteous if he sins, the grace of God has abundant provision to free us from the dominion of sin and empower us to live victoriously over sin in this present evil world.