How did God justify sinful humankind? Continued.
“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” 1 John 4:14, NET. God the Father commissioned Jesus to the earth and redeem humankind from slavery in the kingdom of sin and darkness. And to save it from eternal death as the punishment for sin. Jesus Christ did not volunteer to go and save the world; the Father told him to go. Some Christian exegetes maintain that Jesus volunteered to go to the Earth. However, that is not what Jesus told us. “Jesus replied, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come from God and am now here. I have not come on my own initiative, but he sent me.” John 8:42, NET.
Jesus Christ remained faithful to his mission. By suffering the “Cross of Christ” (The separation from the Father), he removed our sin and the guilt for sin from us. Therefore, Jesus’s faithfulness to his mission made us righteous in the eyes of God. By trusting Jesus, the justification and righteousness of God by the faithfulness of Christ Jesus becomes our daily experience. Jesus is trustworthy because he has faithfully accomplished everything needed for our justification and salvation. Our faith in Jesus, while expected and commendable, does not justify us because it would be the justification by works. Our faith in Jesus Christ is something we do. Therefore, “trusting Jesus Christ” is the appropriate translation.
When we trust Jesus or believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit who comes into us enables us to make the justification by the faithfulness of Jesus our personal daily experience. How do we know that we are with God now? “By this we know that we reside in God and he in us: in that he has given us of his Spirit.” 1 John 4:13, NET. God has given us his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who testifies to our new spirit from Jesus Christ that we are now the children of God in Christ Jesus. The sinful and helpless humankind could not contribute anything to the justification by the faithfulness of Jesus. We are not justified by believing IN Jesus but by the faithfulness OF Jesus. We trust Jesus and believe that he justified and made us righteous in the eyes of God.
The Mercy Seat is next.
