Just as if I had Never Sinned

Titus 3:4-7 “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

What I thought was a small study on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, but turns out to be a study on “justification”. In Holy Scripture, the word “sanctification” speaks to the whole process in redemption by Christ, which includes justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines “Sanctification” as: The act of making holy. In an evangelical sense, the act of God's grace by which the affections of men are purified or alienated from sin and the world, and exalted to a supreme love to God. The Apostle Paul speaks of those who are “being saved”, a clear reference to the ongoing purification from sin that believers experience in their sanctification. In the Bible passage above, Paul speaks of how Christ has “saved us”, and he is plainly thinking of justification for us, done through the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. My old pastor Ken Krueger translated the word “justification” as: being found by God, just as if you had never sinned, because Jesus put on our sin and, by faith, we put on His righteousness in exchange.  

John 3:3-5 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

There is a divine initiative in justification. God did not justify us based on the works we have done in righteousness. Justification is by grace alone, apart from any works that we have done and apart from any works other sinners have done for us. God achieves this through the works of Christ alone by the washing of regeneration. The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “regeneration” in theology as: new birth by the grace of God; that change by which the will and natural enmity of man to God and his law are subdued, and a principle of supreme love to God and his law, or holy affections, are implanted in the heart. Human beings are a trinity of body, spirit, and soul (mind, will and emotions). When Adam and Eve originally sinned in the Garden of Eden, their spirit died. The spiritual connection with Creator God was severed. 

Ephesians 2:4-9 “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

To Regenerate is to quicken the spirit and transform the heart; to make alive in a spiritual sense; to communicate a principle of grace to. It is the spirit, which died in all humanity due to original sin, that is regenerated. Faith is the only instrument through which we receive the righteousness that justifies us. We are justified, renewed and blessed in Christ.