Wearing the clothing of Jesus' righteousness
I listened to a teacher's message last Sunday, telling us how he learns to love others. To help him love others, he said that he looks for something good in each other. At that point, a passage from the Bible came into my mind. Jesus says "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. (Matt 19:17). It is curious because He did not consider himself good. Jesus although at that moment when He made that comment He was sinless, He knew that there would be a time when He would be looked upon by the Father as no good also. On the cross, He took all our sins.
The sins that Jesus took upon were all of humanity's sins from the beginning of the existence of man until the end. All the vile crimes and atrocities ever committed by man. Even the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, by Hitler regimes, the rapist, the torturous, women and children abusers, to the little white lies. All have sins and all fall short of the glory of God. (Rom 3:23)
Jesus took them all to the cross. Although we try to keep all the commandments and break only one, to the smallest hidden taught in our heart, e.g. looking at a woman and desiring her in our heart, adultery, we all fall short of the glory of God. Even if we serve in the community, look after the widows and the orphans, pay tithes, and teach the good word yet sin, we fall short of the glory of God. We are no good. Job has learned that lesson in a hard way.
Jesus took all our sins, past, present, and future ones so that whoever believes in Him may be saved and have everlasting life. His death covered all our sins, not with the tunic of skins that clothed Adam and Eve, which was a shadow of things to come but with the clothing of righteousness of Jesus, the righteousness, which is from God by faith (Phil 3:9). This is how God our Father is looking at us now. He looks at us wearing the clothing of Jesus' righteousness.
This is how we are to look at each other in the church, among the body of Christ. It is much easier to love and not to judge others by looking at others in the same way the Father looks at us. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God".(1 Jn 4:7) And to know God is to know how God looks at us.
In addition, this is how we are to love our enemies and those who are not in the body of Christ the Church. Jesus has paid the penalties for their sins also. Although they are not wearing the righteousness of Jesus, they have the opportunity to wear it too. "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world". (1 Jn 4:17)