“Which one of you convicts me of sin?…” (Joh 8.46)
Jesus is in the midst of a dispute with the religious guys. With his soul piercing words he is unraveling the carefully sewn layers of self-righteousness that they are hiding behind. And they are getting heated with their defense and their insults.
Then Jesus says something so amazing. He asks them who convicts him of sin. This really gets to the heart of the matter. People may not like the message of Jesus, they may frown at his demands, they may dislike his followers, but at the end of the day he is and forever will be sinless. He is absolutely irreproachable.
Therefore he is absolutely valuable.
As someone who has sat under the persistent accusations of my own conscience I know the feeling of personal inadequacy and insufficient righteousness. Furthermore, I have sat on the receiving end of the relentless power of the Word of God as it fires with divine precision upon my heart to show me with absolute clarity: I need righteousness. I need a substitute.
Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. (Psa 24.3-4)
And again..
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, (Hab 1.13)
The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. (Psa 34.16)
As I sit with a closed mouth, excuses stopped, and an awareness of deficient righteousness I need help. I need righteousness.
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. (Rom 3.19)
And this is exactly why the Savior is so valuable. Fire the righteous cannon of perfection at him and see him stand blameless. Weigh him in the scales of eternal justice and see him perfectly balanced. Every requirement of the Law of God may be set before and satisfied by Jesus. Not only can he ask for any to convict him of sin but he alone can say with blood stained honesty:
I always do the things that are pleasing to him. (Joh 8.29)
When we begin to grasp the reality of our horrific sentence of divine judgment then we begin to grasp the love of God. We begin to understand that God has provided exactly what we need in Christ! He has provided righteousness. Christ was a living and dying substitute for sinners like me and you. He is the only one who may truly talk like this! See his value. See his beauty. See his glory. And give him worship for what he has done.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2Co 5.21)
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