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Bible Study: Choosing God’s righteousness


NASHVILLE (BP) — This weekly Bible study appears in Baptist Press in a partnership with LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Through its Leadership and Adult Publishing team, LifeWay publishes Sunday School curricula and additional resources for all age groups.

This week’s Bible study is adapted from The Gospel Project curriculum.

Bible Passage: Luke 3:23-28, Romans 5

Discussion Questions:
— How have you experienced the blessings and benefits of being in Christ by faith?
— How can you express praise and thankfulness to God right now for His rescuing you from condemnation and declaring you to be righteous in Christ?

Food for Thought:

Read Romans 5:12-21. Adam really did mess everything up, didn’t he? The consequences of his offense have been rightly severe; not only for him, but for you and me as well. However, before we go wagging our fingers at Adam, we need to realize that though we inherited the sin nature and consequences that originated from Adam, we each have made plenty of our own mistakes. We’ve each individually sinned. We’ve each individually offended a holy God. We each individually deserve the wrath of God.

Nevertheless, in our God’s gracious plan to save fallen humanity, Christ came to overcome the destruction from Adam, both in terms of our guilt and our corruption.

The condemnation for our guilt as sinners must be corrected first through justification, our being declared to be in a right legal standing with God. By this declaration, God imputes our sin and guilt to Christ, and His righteousness to us. Yet our diseased spiritual DNA must be fixed through a spiritual transfusion of sorts, namely, through the Spirit-led process of renewal and change known as sanctification.

Through Christ we now have a choice: continue identifying with the first Adam or become united by faith with the last “Adam.” We either continue on with the guilt and condemnation that come with affirming Adam’s sinful choice by our own sinful choices, or we repent and accept the righteous imputation of Christ that brings eternal life.

Jesus’ sacrifice in the place of sinners means the presence, peace, power and perfection of Christ may now become inseparable parts of who we are, because we are in Him and He is in us.

If we’re honest, we can see that if given the chance, we would have ultimately sullied perfection as did the original Adam. Thankfully, Christ has conquered the sin of Adam and replaced condemnation with justification. And now, grace reigns.

The Gospel Project
The Gospel Project is a chronological, Christ-centered study for kids, students and adults. The Bible is not a collection of stories. It is one story of God’s plan to rescue His people from sin and death. It is the story of redemption, the gospel message of Jesus Christ. More information can be found at LifeWay.com/gospelproject.

Other ongoing Bible study options for all ages offered by LifeWay can be found at LifeWay.com/SundaySchool.

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  • Staff/Lifeway Christian Resources