“The wages of sin is death.” Do you know what that means? It means that the only wages we can ever earn is death. We sin all the time and so God ought to punish us all with eternal death — death in hell.

But God doesn’t do that. Instead he sent us the gift of his only Son, Christ Jesus. Yes, Jesus came to pay the punishment that we deserve. He died on the cross for our sins. He took away God’s anger at our sins and the curse of our sins.

But Jesus did a lot more than just dying on the cross. Jesus’ dying on the cross makes us innocent, but it doesn’t make us righteous. Think of this example. There are bank accounts where you can go into overdraft. This means that you can spend more than you have got in your account and then you owe the money back to the bank. Say you had an account like this and you spent $100 more than you had. You would owe the bank $100. If you paid this $100 back to the bank, then your account would still be empty. Your debt would be paid, but you wouldn’t have any money.

In the same way Christ has paid the debt for our sins, but that by itself doesn’t make us righteous. Our sins have been paid for, but we still don’t have any good works. And that is the other thing that Jesus did for us. He was also perfectly obedient in our place. He obeyed every single commandment perfectly, and God says that by Christ’s obedience we are made righteous.

Jesus has poured all his perfect obedience and good works into our bank account, and so when God sees us, he no longer sees our sins, but through Christ he sees our works as perfect. We are now righteous before God.

Instead of death in hell, we receive Christ’s perfect obedience. Where you don’t obey your parents, Christ obeyed his perfectly in your place. Where you don’t speak lovingly to your friends, Christ did that perfectly for you. Isn’t that wonderful news?

Reflection with your child:

What two things has Christ done for you?

Source: Sermon by Rev. A. Pol on Lord’s Day 34