3. _By the atoning death of Jesus Christ all believers in Jesus Christ have forgiveness of all their sins._ We read in Eph. 1:7, +"In whom+ (i.e., in Jesus Christ) +we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace."+ Because Jesus Christ died as a full satisfaction for our sins, forgiveness of sin is not something which believers are to do something to secure, it is something which the blood of Jesus Christ has already secured and which our faith has already appropriated to ourselves; "we _have_ forgiveness," we _are_ forgiven. Every believer in Jesus Christ is forgiven every sin he ever committed or ever shall commit, because Jesus Christ shed His blood in his place. Through Christ's atoning death all believers in Him, although they once "were _enemies_," are _now_ "_reconciled_ to God by the death of His Son." As we read in Rom. 5:10, +"While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son."+ That is to say, the enmity between God and the sinner is done away with, or, as Paul puts it in Col. 1:20, Christ has "made peace through the blood of His cross," or, as he puts it in the next verse but one, Col. 1:22, Christ "_hath reconciled_" believers "in the body of His flesh through death." The story is told of a faithful vicar in England who was told that one of his parishioners was dying. She was a good woman, but he hurried to her side to talk with her. As he sat down by the side of the dying woman he said to her very gently but solemnly, "They tell me you have not long to live." "No," she replied, "I know I have not." "They tell me you will probably not live through the night." "No," she replied, "I do not expect to live through the night." Then he said very earnestly, "Have you made your peace with God?" She replied, "No, I have not." "And are you not afraid to meet God without having made your peace with Him?" "No, not at all," she calmly replied. Again he said to her, "Do you understand what I am saying? Do you realise that you are at the point of death?" "Yes." "Do you realise you will probably not live through the night?" "Yes." "And you have not made your peace with God?" "No." "And you are not afraid to meet God?" "No, not at all." There was something about the woman's manner that made him feel there was something back of her words, and he said to her, "What do you mean?" She replied, "I know I am dying. I know I am very near death. I know I shall not live through the night. I know I must soon meet God, and I am not at all disturbed, for I know that I did not need to make my peace with God, because Jesus Christ made peace with God for me more than eighteen hundred years ago by His death on the cross of Calvary, and I am resting in the peace that Jesus Christ has already made." The woman was right: no man needs to make his peace with God, Jesus Christ has already made peace by His atoning death, and all we have to do is to enter into the peace which Jesus Christ has made for us, and we enter into that peace by simply believing in the One who made peace by His death upon the cross. Jesus Christ's work was a complete and perfect work. There is nothing to be added to it. We cannot add anything to it, and we do not need to add anything to it. Jesus Christ has "made peace through the blood of His cross."
4. The fourth result of the atoning death of Jesus Christ is that _because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ all believers in Him are justified_. We read in Rom. 5:9, +"Being now justified by His blood."+ Justification is more than forgiveness. Forgiveness is negative, the putting away of our sins, manifested in God's treating us as if we never had sinned. Justification is positive, the reckoning of us positively righteous, the imputing to us the perfect righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, not merely the treating us as if we had never sinned, but the reckoning us clothed upon with perfect righteousness. By reason of Jesus Christ's atoning death there is an absolute interchange of position between Jesus Christ and His people. In His death upon the cross Jesus Christ took our place of condemnation before God, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance before God. As Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:21, +"Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."+ Jesus Christ stepped into our place in the curse and rejection, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance, or as it has been expressed by another:
"Near, so very near to God, Nearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I'm just as near as He.
Dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I'm just as dear as He."