the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Romans 5:19
‘The obedience of one’
Read Romans 5:12-21
The essence of the gospel is substitution. The everlasting salvation of God’s elect is in no way dependent upon, or attributed to, anything done by us. ‘Salvation is of the Lord!’ God’s gift of eternal life, all the blessings of grace in this life and all the blessedness of eternal glory in the life to come are freely bestowed upon every believing sinner only as the result of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Substitute. We could never earn or merit everlasting salvation. But the Lord Jesus Christ has earned the eternal salvation of God’s elect. God in justice, righteousness and truth must reward his Son with the salvation of every soul for whom he lived, died and rose again. ‘For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.’ As we were made sinners in the eyes of God’s law and justice by the sin and fall of our father Adam, though we had not yet committed any actual sin of our own, even so we are made righteous by the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ as our Substitute, though we have no actual righteousness of our own.
By his obedience in life as our Representative, Christ brought in all everlasting righteousness for us. God in his law required that we live in perfect righteousness, entirely without sin, loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. This is what Christ has done for us. In him all who believe have perfectly obeyed God’s law. By his obedience in death, the Son of God satisfied the penalty of the law against sin as our Substitute. He was made to be sin for us by divine imputation. And, when he was made to be sin for us, our Substitute received the wages of sin death. In him all who believe died under penalty of God’s law. Now God imputes the righteousness of his Son to every believer. In exactly the same way as Christ was made to be sin for us and was rewarded with death because of sin, we are made to be the righteousness of God in him. Being righteous in Christ, we shall be rewarded for his perfect righteousness with eternal glory.
