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THE KING’S BUSINESS
positive, 'the reckoning of us positively righteous, the imputing to us the perfect righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, not merely the treating us as if we had never sinned, but the reckoning us clothed upon with perfect righteousness. By reason of Jesus Christ’s atoning death there is an ab solute interchange of position between Jesus Christ and His people. In His death upon the cross Jesus Christ took our place of condemnation before God, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance before God. As Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5 :21, “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus Christ stepped into our place of the curse and rejection, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance, or as it has been expressed by another:
“I do not expect to live through the night.” Then he said very earnestly, “Have you made your peace with God?” She replied, “No, I have not.” “And are you not afraid to meet God without having made your peace with Him?” “No, not at all,” she calmly replied. Again he said to her, “Do you understand what I am saying? Do you realize that you are at the point of death?” “Yes.” Do you realize you will probably not live through the night?” “Yes,” “And you have not made your peace with God?” “No.” “And you are not afraid to meet God?” “No, not at all.” There was something about the woman’s manner that made him feel there was some thing back of her words, and he said to her, “What do you mean?” She replied, “I know I am dying. I know I am very near death. I know I shall not live through the night. I know lI must soon meet God, and I am not at all disturbed, for I know that I did not need to make my peace with God, because Jesus Christ made peace with God for me more than eighteen hundred years ago by His death on the cross of Calvary, and I am resting in the peace that Jesus Christ has already made.” The woman was right: no man needs to make his peace with God, Jesus Christ already has made peace by His atoning death, and all we have to do is to. enter into the peace which Jesus Christ has made for us, and we enter into that peace by simply believ ing in the One who made peace by His death upon the cross. Jesus Christ’s work was a complete and perfect work. There is nothing to be added to it. We cannot add anything to it, and we do not need to add anything to it. Jesus Christ has “made peace through the blood of His cross.” 4. The fourth result of the atoning death of Jesus Christ is that because of the aton ing death of Jesus Christ all believers in Him are justified. We read in Rom. 5:9, “Being now justified by His blood.” Justi fication is more than forgiveness. For giveness is negative, the putting away of our sins, manifested -in God’s treating us as if we never had sinned. Justification is
“Near, so very near to God, Nearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I’m just as near as He. Dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I’m just as dear as He.” 5.
Furthermore, because of the full atonement that Jesus Christ has made by the shedding of His blood, by His atoning death on the cross, every believer in Him can enter boldly into the holy place, into the very presence of God. As it is put in Heb. 10:19, 20, “Having therefore, breth ren, boldness to enter into the holy place (i. e., into the very presence of God) by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having a great priest over the house of God; ,let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith.” Oh, how some of us hesitate to come into the presence of God when we think of the greatness and the number of our sins, and when we think how holy God is, how the very seraphim
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