Our sins were a debt in our spiritual bank account before God that we had no way of clearing. One day the demand would be made upon us to settle this debt or be cast into a fiery prison. What a fearful thought knowing a hellish reckoning is coming without a single hope within ourselves of avoiding it! Our only hope is that someone else would reconcile our debt for us. Then enters Christ who settled our debt by becoming our sin for us and then giving us his perfect righteousness. In Christ God is no longer counting our sins against us! The written record of the debt of our sins that stood against us was taken away. This means the account was not only paid in full and satisfied, but it was also shut down and removed, never to be opened again! There is no sin account with your name on it in heaven anymore! There is no place where sin can be recorded against you ever again. Your account was taken away and nailed to the Cross in Christ (Col 2:13-14). We have a new account now and it’s called the gift of His righteousness. This account is an inheritance we have received. We didn’t earn it and it is therefore not dependent upon us in anyway. It is full and overflowing with God’s righteousness. Sin cannot affect it, it can’t drain it, it can’t diminish it. This account is given and maintained by grace and not our works. It is managed by our heavenly mediator and advocate, Jesus Christ (1 Joh 2:1-2). It stays as perfect and full of righteousness as much as God is perfect and full of righteousness!

Some Christian’s erroneously think that when they sin, that very sin appears in their spiritual bank account and their righteousness account goes down respectively. They believe that through repentance and asking for forgiveness that sin disappears from their account and causes their righteousness account to go back up again. They live in fear of their accounts not balancing and receiving the due consequence from God. They believe that as long as their account doesn’t balance their relationship with God is compromised. If they die with an unreconciled account they fear what may happen. Some believe their salvation could be lost or at least there would be severe consequences. Surely this is bondage, legalism, self righteousness and a recipe for God’s people to live fearful and insecure and outside of the perfect love of God, which is supposed to cast out all fear of judgment. Surely Jesus did not die for this kind of a complicated accounting nightmare. What about all the sins we may have forgotten to include in our list? What about all the sins we commit that we don’t consider as sins, but God does? I’m sorry, but if your righteousness and salvation is dependant upon you clearing EVERY sin from your account, and you have forgotten even a single one, then your righteousness is NOT perfect and you are NOT going to heaven!

Thank God our sins cannot affect our spiritual account anymore! If you think you must maintain your righteousness through the transaction of repentance and asking for forgiveness then you are no better off than Israel under the law covenant and your eternal destiny is as unstable as theirs was. You have merely exchanged animal sacrifices with the act of repentance and asking for forgiveness and ascribed them the exact same value.

I thank God that grace is not like that! There is NO part of salvation that is OUR DOING! If it is by works of any kind then it is not by grace. If it is by grace then it is not by works. In Christ we have a new spiritual bank account and it is full of His unending righteousness and grace. The old account of sin is gone. God made it this way. Religion cannot accept this because it still wants to offer some kind of a sacrifice or performance to get rid of sins. But faith believes what Christ has done and that it’s a perfect, complete and finished work! It’s our inheritance as children of God. NEVER by works but ONLY by grace through faith in our wonderful and perfect saviour, Jesus Christ!

COLOSSIANS 2:13-14 “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”


2 CORINTHIANS 5:18-21 “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”


1 JOHN 2:1-2 “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”


HEBREWS 10:11-14 “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”


EPHESIANS 2:4-9 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”


ROMANS 11:6 “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”


TITUS 3: 4-7“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”


GALATIANS 3:2-3 “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”


GALATIANS 2:21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

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