If you are a Christian, how does God see you? This question is important because it is imperative that we see ourselves the same way God does.  Do you know the answer?  You should because Paul tells us.

Romans 8:3-4 (ESV)
³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The phrase “in order that” introduces the reason why God sent His Son to condemn sin.  That reason was so that the “righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.”  To understand what a great blessing this is, we must know what the righteous requirement of the law was.

To be saved under the law, a person would have to live sinlessly.  Why?  Because the law could not forgive sins.  We saw Paul emphasizing this in last night’s blog.  Here it is again.

Acts 13:38–39 (ESV)
³⁸ Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, ³⁹ and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

From what could the law of Moses not free a person?  Sin.  Thus, to be saved under the law, a person would have to keep it perfectly, or, in other words, never sin.  Someone might ask, “What about the animal sacrifices that were demanded under the old law?”  The writer of Hebrews answers that question.

Hebrews 10:1-4 (ESV)
¹ For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. ² Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? ³ But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. ⁴ For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.   

Since bulls and goats did not sin against God, their blood was useless when it came to washing away sins.  Man sinned; thus, a man had to shed his blood to become the redeemer.  Jesus did this for us.

Hebrews 9:13-14 (ESV)
¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

The point of the Hebrews writer here is that the blood of animals could only cleanse the defiled outwardly, while the blood of Christ removed our sins, allowing us to serve the living God with a good conscience.  The point of it all is that there was nothing under the law of Moses that would take away sin.  So, if you were under that law, it required that you live sinlessly if you wanted to be saved.

Now, Paul tells us that in Christ, the requirement of the law has been fulfilled in us.  That means we appear before God as if we have not sinned, which is pretty much the definition of justification.  How can God see us this way when we all sin (Romans 3:23)?  It is because our sins have been washed away by the blood of Christ, and every time we sin, when we repent and ask God for forgiveness, we are cleansed once again.  

1 John 1:7 (ESV)
⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

What a wonderful blessing.  It is no wonder that Paul said that we are in a state of no condemnation.  There is, however, a condition that we must meet to maintain this state of being.  Tomorrow night we will discuss it.  In the meantime…

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.