I've really enjoyed studying the book that Alan Nelson wrote, From Death to Life, How Salvation Works. And I've heard from you on how you've enjoyed this study, and I'm thankful that hearing the reports of how you've grown in such an important matter as salvation. And we as Church members, those of us who identify ourselves with Christ, do so on the basis of salvation. And so therefore, it's very important that we know how salvation works. And there is a great need in our churches to have this knowledge and to teach Bible doctrines. And really that's what we'll be looking at this evening. And chapter 6 is where we were going to be at if you were able to read that chapter this week. Chapter 6 is entitled The Great Exchange. We're going to be looking at namely two points of salvation. One will be looking at justification, what that means, and then also imputation, which is, as we're going to talk about, the great exchange. And this will be a rather brief study tonight due to the phone call and conversation with Dan Rogers momentarily. If you have a Bible, if you would take your Bible and turn with me to Romans chapter 3 and verse 27. Romans chapter 3 and verse 27. And we're going to be looking at, as I said, two Bible doctrines that he mentions in chapter six. The first one is justification. What is justification and what does it mean to be justified? Well, Romans chapter three and verse 27, he says, where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds or the works of the law. Really, a quick definition of justification is that it is a legal declaration by God. Justification is a legal declaration by God. And that is when someone responds to God's call to repentance and faith, God responds to that faith by thinking of that person's sins as forgiven and by thinking of Christ's righteousness as belonging to that person. And at the very moment At that very moment, God also declares that person to be righteous in His sight. So this is called justification. We talked about a couple weeks ago this thing of regeneration. And regeneration is really another word for that is the new birth, where a new believer becomes new creatures in Jesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit comes to the sinner and he quickens the dead spirit And therefore the sinner then is able to respond to God in repentance and faith toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember last week we talked about that we cannot free ourselves out of sin's prison, right? We are in bondage. Spiritually speaking, we're dead in trespasses and sins, and we cannot free ourselves. If we could, it would be a salvation by works. And so regeneration is that where the Holy Spirit frees us. He removes that dead spirit. He quickens our spirit and makes us alive toward God. And that is solely a work of God. Well, and that brings us to justification. Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which He, first of all, thinks of our sins as forgiven and thinks of Christ's righteousness as belonging to us and therefore declares us to be just or morally righteous in His sight. Paul is very clear that this justification comes after we respond to the gospel call in faith, and that justification is God's response to our faith. We see this in Galatians chapter 2 and verse 16. He says, Paul says, we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but through what? Faith in Jesus Christ. That's as simple and as plain as you can get it. We are not justified by works. We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. That is just one scripture that Paul gives that I'm reading, but there are others that I could take the time and show you where that same principle is seen many times in the New Testament. But the righteousness that is imputed to our account, as R.C. Sproul put it, the righteousness that is imputed to our account is an alien righteousness. That is, it is wholly something outside of ourselves. We are not justified based on the good works that we do, but on the good works that Jesus Christ has done. And so now we're looking at this thing of not only justification, but how this justification works is the thing that is called the great exchange, this imputation. And really it is the double imputation that we're talking about. And we see this in second Corinthians chapter five and verse 21, second Corinthians chapter five or 21. Paul says, for he made him who knew no sin, that is Christ who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And so that's a powerful verse, 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for he made him, Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Now, in a legal and in a positional sense, we are righteous once we are justified, because when God looks at us, he sees the perfect righteousness of Christ. But this righteousness is not something that we have within ourselves or something that we do, and it's very important that we get that. The righteousness that we have is not something that we have within ourselves. It is a declared righteousness. And that is why at the time, in more, that is why at the same time, in more of a human sense, we are still sinners. We're still in the flesh. We still sin. However, we are no longer legally subject to the punishment due our sin. And again, R.C. Sproul says, nonetheless, sin is still present in us until we are glorified. Now our spirit is saved at the moment of regeneration and justification, but guess what is not saved yet? You know it, our flesh, right? Our flesh is not yet saved. The flesh will not be saved until our glorification. when the Lord gives us a new body, a body that will not be touched by sin and touched by infirmities and all of those things. But God can view us as righteous in Christ because of what? Because of imputation. Imputation means to credit or count something toward an account. And it's really seen in Romans chapter 4 and verse 5 where it tells us that when we put our faith in Christ, we are counted as righteous. So that is the perfect righteousness earned by Jesus is then imputed to us. In turn, our sins are imputed to Jesus who made satisfaction for them by bearing the wrath of God against His people on the cross. God's law tells us that we can never be good enough to be righteous in His sight. All of our works are as what? Filthy rags. Every good deed that we could ever do, if somehow, someway we could pile those good deeds up and at the end of our life put all those good deeds before Jesus Christ, to Him still it would be as filthy rags. We need the righteousness of God to clothe us. And so the gospel tells us that Christ is perfectly righteous and that by faith alone His righteousness is credited to us. And here's the thing, that is the good news of the gospel, isn't it? that we who by no means, no way could ever earn God's favor have been freely granted this on the basis of Christ's work alone. I tell you, that right there, when we think about all those, the precious gift of salvation, we ought to take time and spend some time praising God for His unspeakable gift. And remember that if you truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has imputed His righteousness to you. And so that's the basis of chapter number six, where it talks about this thing of justification and then imputation, the great exchange, and where Christ's righteousness is applied to our account Our sins were applied to Christ's account, which he was the satisfactory atonement for our sin. Now, next week, we'll be looking at Chapter 7. And that is the next thing in our salvation experience, that there is the regeneration, the new birth, the justification, But it doesn't stop there, does it? It stops, or it continues, with sanctification. That is, we're growing in Christ. Every day, the Lord, our Heavenly Father, is molding us into the image of His dear Son, and that's the process of sanctification. So, next week, chapter 7 living things grow and if you are alive in Christ you're going to have growth in the Lord Jesus Christ and so I encourage you to read that and next week we'll be looking at that in greater detail than what we were able to do today. At this time I'm going to take some prayer requests and