Jesus’ Blood and Our Standing Before God
Scripture Reading: Romans 5
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” — Romans 5:9
I want you to imagine two young men. They could not be more different. One was wealthy, the other a lowly thief. One came to Jesus calling Him good teacher. The other hurled insults at the Lord. One could say he kept God’s commandments since he was a boy. The other admitted he was being justly executed for his heinous crimes. Although Jesus loved him, the first man walked away from Jesus sad, forfeiting the kingdom of God for his wealth (Luke 18:18-23). The second simply said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He was granted a pardon and paradise (Luke 23:39-43).
Now imagine this. A nun spends her life working in a slum in a poor country, feeding the poor, helping the sick and dying, and caring for the orphans. As she nears death, you ask her why God should let her into heaven. She replies, “Because I have devoted my life to serving others. I have denied myself for decades. I hope that I have added enough merits that God will accept me.” She dies and faces God’s eternal wrath because her faith was in her own good works, not in the shed blood of Jesus Christ alone.
Meanwhile, on death row a murderer awaits execution. He mercilessly tortured and killed a young woman. A chaplain visits this killer and finds that he has been reading the Bible. God has convicted him of his terrible sins, so that he despairs about dying and facing God. He knows that he deserves eternal torment in hell. The chaplain tells him the gospel, that if he will believe in Jesus Christ, who died for the ungodly, God will forgive all his sins and credit Christ’s righteousness to him. He does believe, is filled with joy, and goes to his execution at peace with God. He spends eternity in the unspeakable joy of heaven.
How do you feel about these stories? Do you feel like the first young man and the sweet, selfless old nun deserve to go to heaven? Do the thief and the murderer deserve to burn in hell?
In Romans 4:5, Paul says, “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.” God justifies the ungodly. What an amazing statement. In other words, we trust Jesus, not our own good works, to save us. On the cross, Jesus carried our sin and paid the penalty for us. When we believe on Jesus, His perfect righteousness is “credited to our account.”
So to be “justified” means that God treats me just-if-I’d never sinned. By virtue of Jesus’ blood, we have been justified before God, we have been declared “not guilty.” When we trusted in Christ and His shed blood to save us, God banged the gavel and declared, “Not guilty! The penalty has been paid by My Son!”
For us, the key to receiving this gift of right standing with God is faith. For God, however, the key to procuring this standing was the blood of Jesus. On the cross Jesus took on our sin and suffered our punishment — we have now been declared righteous by His blood.
Romans 5:9 again says, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” The “much more” is this: If God loved us so much that Christ died for us ungodly sinners, won’t He also now save us from the wrath to come?
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure. — Toplady
