"Righteous. Very Righteous."

I'm a big fan of action movies, especially ones that involve cops, feds, military or really anyone fighting against any kind of bad guys. Call it leftovers from loving cops and robbers or playing with soldiers and Indians in my childhood childhood, but whatever the reason, I love action movies. A movie that recently came to my mind was U.S. Marshals, the sequel to The Fugitive. The movie is about a man, Mark Sheridan played by Wesley Snipes, who is framed for murder and subsequently spends the whole movie trying to clear his name. (SPOILERS ahead, if you haven't seen this movie and have any intention of doing so, maybe don't read this blog) Eventually the man trying to bring him in, Chief Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard played by Tommy Lee Jones, starts to believe his innocence. At the end of the movie, ultimately a mole within the U.S. Marshals is discovered and Gerard helps clear Sheridan's name. In one of the final scenes, on the steps of a courtroom building, the District Attorney says that, "the United States Attorney's Office has decided to drop all charges." A reporter asks Sheridan, "How does it feel to be in from the cold?" After having spent all this time running away, he responds, "Righteous. Very righteous."

I used to think it an odd response... How exactly does one feel righteous? But maybe it's not so odd after all. One way to define righteousness is "free from guilt." Ultimately, that is exactly how Sheridan should have felt. Regardless of whether he committed the crime or not, until his name was cleared, he was treated as if he was guilty. But once the true criminal was brought to light, he was deemed innocent; he was finally free again, out from under the guilt of the law.

I've been reading through Romans lately and Paul talks about this concept of righteousness too. Romans 3:21-26 says: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it -- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

Paul is using some cool words here: Righteousness... Redemption... If he had Powerpoint, one more R word for proper alliteration, and a takeaway "homework assignment" for the week, he could probably be a modern-day pastor. But take a second and think about what Paul is saying. In the same breath that he acknowledges that ALL have sinned, he says that we can have the righteousness of God. Wait, WHAT?! How can a sinner have the righteousness of God? He's saying that God's own righteousness is imputed on us as if it were our own. A sinful man, I can now claim the same moral uprightness characteristic of God Himself... And it's not because of what I've done, neither myself nor the Bible would suggest that, it is because of faith alone in Christ alone. But how?

Redemption. Jesus Christ redeemed me from the power of sin. I was bought back for a price. The price being that He took my sin and became a propitiation on my behalf. That means to satisfy the wrath of God. God had a bit of a sticky situation when it came to resolving this whole sin issue... We screwed up and we broke the relationship with God by sinning, but He loves us more than we can ever imagine and He desired so much to restore that relationship. But He is not only a loving God, but a just God, and His perfect character demanded a penalty for sin. He couldn't just write off the sins and give mankind a cosmic free lunch, for that would not be just. Instead, for a time He passed over the sins (not pardoning them) until He sent Jesus to pay that penalty. And in one fell swoop, God is both just and the justifier.

That is the beauty of the Gospel. It's both complex and simple. We can be redeemed by faith in Jesus and declared righteous before God. We didn't earn it and we didn't deserve it, even though we are all steeped in guilt. Even while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8), Jesus reached out and gave us a way home. And how does it feel to be in from the cold? Righteous... Very righteous!

-Scott