14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
17 But if, in our endeavour to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
We may look at 'what was ours' in this way: There is a twofold involvement in our sinful liability. First of all, there is the punishment of the sin, and secondly there is the repair of the injury to the divine majesty. The first refers to the demand of law for the penalty to be paid for its infringement. But this alone does not 'atone'; something else is required. The injury done to the divine honour must be repaired. Holiness demands an answering holiness. 'Be ye holy, for I am holy', saith the Lord. A simple illustration will suffice here. If a thief breaks into my house, and steals a valuable painting, I naturally report the matter to the police, and after due investigation the thief, it may be, is arrested and charged, found guilty and sent to prison. The due process of the law has been carried out in his case, and the penalty of the broken law has been exacted. But that is not the end of the matter, so far as I am concerned. I want my picture back, and not until it is restored to me are things set to rights again. This is how it is with God: it is not enough that the broken law be vindicated in the punishment of the sinner; He wants His picture back too, His 'picture' of man made in His image, and only when He receives this can He ever be at rest. This is the significance of our Lord offering Himself 'without spot to God for us', as well as 'bearing our sins in His own body on the tree'; for in that offering, God was 'getting His picture back' - a perfect manhood offered up in death. This 'double' aspect of Christ's death is beautifully expressed in two successive verses of Philip Bliss's magnificent hymn, 'Man of Sorrows': Bearing shame and scoffing rude In my place condemned He stood - that is the idea of the penalty being paid Guilty, vile and helpless we; Spotless Lamb of God was He; Full atonement - can it be? - that is the idea of His perfection being offered to God in the place of all that we were not. This is what the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us means.