I was standing at the teller’s window in the main branch of a local bank. My brother, who was living with us at the time, had gotten his first paycheck. We’d gone to the bank together to cash his check.
At the next teller window stood a local businessman I’ve known for years. I introduced him to my brother.
While we were chit-chatting, the teller at this man’s window began laying taped stacks of $20 bills on the counter. She began counting, “One, two, three,” and ended with “eighteen, nineteen, and twenty.”
I saw those stacks of 20s and turned to the man with whom we’d been visiting. “How much money is that?” I asked. “$20,000,” he said.
The man explained that he was engaged in some property transactions and was moving money between accounts at different banks.
“It’s just faster if I do it in cash,” he said.
“Holy buckets,” I replied. “$20,000!” And then I asked, “Can I hold it?”
“Sure,” he said, and handed me the money. I stood there, holding $20,000 in cash. I then turned to my brother. “Here,” I said. “Hold this.” And he did.
We each held the money for a few moments then gave it back. My brother’s teller gave him the cash from his paycheck (significantly less than $20,000), we made our goodbyes, and left.
It then dawned on me. Holding someone else’s $20,000 is a lot like being a Christian.
I am saved. I am a member of the kingdom of God. I have the privilege of addressing the One whose word created the universe in six days as “my Father.” But my entry into God’s kingdom and my status before God has nothing to do with anything I have done or anything I have given Him.
My salvation is the result of something that belongs to someone else. I am saved on the basis of what someone else has done for me and now gives to me. I am saved with a borrowed righteousness”with Christ’s righteousness. It is Christ who lived a life of perfect obedience, and His obedience is now credited to me. He died for my sin and rose victorious over my death.
His death and life, loaned to me from God, are my salvation.
Jesus earned my salvation and then gives it to me. It would be nice if I could pay Him back.
But whenever I worship, this is the gift I bring: I confess to Him the truth about myself. “I have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed.”
Every time I worship, I give to God what belongs to me”my sin”and God gives to me what belongs to Him. He gives me Christ’s righteousness. “I forgive you,” He says, “for Jesus’ sake.” “Take eat, take drink,” He says, “the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for you.” I am saved from my sin because God puts into my hands something that doesn’t belong to me. And that’s why holding someone else’s $20,000 reminds me of being a Christian.
In both cases, the item of value isn’t mine. It belongs to someone else.
There is, however, this difference. I gave the $20,000 back to its rightful owner. But the righteousness of Christ? I never give it back.
You might say His righteousness is on “permanent loan” to sinners like me. St. John makes that clear in Revelation 7, in his inspired vision of heaven.
The Christians who have died and stand before God’s throne are depicted as holy, without sin.
Yet even in heaven, theirs is a borrowed righteousness. They are robed in white because “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Whether Christians live here or in heaven, this fact never changes. The righteousness that saves us belongs to someone else. The righteousness that saves us belongs to Christ.
When you think about it, God probably wouldn’t make a very good banker. He gained His wealth the old fashioned way. He earned it. He paid for it with His perfect life and His unjust death. But He then loans His hard-earned riches”His righteousness in Christ”to sinners, knowing full well we will never be able to repay Him.
This God, who loans His righteousness to sinners, makes a very poor banker. But, thankfully, He makes a very good God.
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