Happy Star Wars Day! I am a nerd. Wore my Star Wars socks today. Fun times!

And, since I can’t think of a good segue into my post, here we go!

A long time ago, in Galilee, far far away…

There lived a man. His name was Jesus. And he came to save the world. He was the only person that could even bring the possibility of passing the sin test.

You and I could not even have any chance at passing this test. It was completely out of our reach. And there was nothing we could do about it.

Recalling back to last week, I spoke on the subject of tests, specifically the COVID test and the sin test.

Here is the last line of that post:

“Over the next two or three weeks, I will explore this idea of ‘testing negative for sin”.

Ideas like righteousness, salvation, grace, and hope.”

Click here to read the whole post.

Remember taking tests in school? Did you have a favorite type?

Multiple choice or fill-in-the blank?

True/False or Essay?

Short answer or Matching?

How about the bubble tests?

The sin test is different than all of those. It is a pass or fail test. You don’t fill in blanks or circles or write an essay. There is no matching word banks or T/F questions.

You either have it in you to pass…or you don’t.

What is it, referring to that last sentence? In a word, righteousness.

There are multiple verses in both the New and Old Testament scriptures that explain the righteousness of God and how we obtain it.

I am only going to share 2 today.

In the Old Testament, Isaiah 53:6 and from the New Testament, II Corinthians 5:21

Is 53:6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.” NIV

II Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

If we look at these verses, there is a similarity. Isaiah says that our iniquity was “laid on him”. Its as if our sin, guilt, and punishment of sin were a great cloak. It was heavy and cumbersome so we shrugged it off and turned away from God. So, God being loving and holy, picked up the discarded cloak and laid it on His son, Jesus, while he was on that cross.

Now compare that to the N.T passage.

Jesus became sin so we could become righteous. We emerged or transitioned out of a sinful state into something that now, God would approve of. Again, we sloughed off that old, sinful cloak for a new, righteous one. Jesus took the old one to the cross with him.

In both examples, we see an exchange.

We start with the sin and end with righteousness.

Jesus is the opposite. He starts pure and free from sin but ends up taking our sin.

God is holy and just. He cannot abide sin. He hates it. He can’t even look at it.

But He also loves us!

So making Jesus take our sin was the only way he could be holy and just and loving at the same time!

So, in light of the sin test, do you see how we would fail 100% of the time?

But Jesus makes it all possible for us to pass!

For our part, we need to accept his gift and live for him.

Our salvation motivates us to love others and do good works.

We love because He first loved us.

See you next week for a post about grace.

And yes, it is amazing!