I used to think the same thing because that’s what the religious world has taught. But the religious system is wrong! I found that out when I finally received the revelation that I’m the righteousness of God in Christ and recorded a song about it. The Christian radio stations (which back then were still in bondage to religion) wouldn’t play it. To them, that sounded like heresy.
Bless their hearts. The disc jockeys at those stations were good people but, like me, most of them had been brought up in churches where the one verse everyone knew was Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
That’s a sorrowful verse when you take it out of its setting! It leaves the impression that we’re all destined to be sinners forever. That we’re all doomed, with no hope of ever being anything but unrighteous before God.
Read the verse in context however, and you get a whole different picture. You realize verse 23 is sandwiched between verses 22 and 24, and those verses don’t doom us to unrighteousness at all. On the contrary, they declare: “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference…being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Notice that says the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. It’s by faith, not by deeds. It’s not something you have to earn or attain. Righteousness is a free gift that’s been provided at God’s expense for all mankind.
This is what I call “The Great Exchange!”
Jesus was made sin with our sins to make us righteous with His righteousness. He suffered our shame to give us His glory. He was condemned to set us free. He was made sick with our sicknesses so we can be healed and live in health. He was cast out of the presence of God to make us welcome there. He went to hell to take us to heaven.
BVOV : 7
