Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ro 8:33–34). Tyndale House Publishers.
In these verses we arrive at the climax of Paul’s letter to the Romans. God has justified us. We have been given right standing with Him through the atoning blood of Christ. This is the reason that nothing can separate us from Him. Our justification through faith—and only through faith—is the point. What Paul is saying is exactly what we see in the story of Barabbas. This story is seen in all four Gospels (Matthew 17:15-26, Mark 15:6-15, Luke 23:18-24, John 18:40) and is also the topic of another song that has impacted me deeply. This song is Josiah Queen’s 2024 song, “I Am Barabbas.” In this song, he simply puts himself in the shoes of Barabbas. The one Jesus replaces on the cross. The right standing is in a legal sense. Through the justification, we no longer stand to be punished for our transgressions. Just like how Paul could immediately go from persecuting Christians to spreading it across the Roman empire, we can be changed in radical ways.
Not only did Jesus die to make us right in the eyes of the Father. Now he sits at the right hand of the Father mediating for us. Hebrews 4:14-16 tells us that Jesus is the great high priest. This idea of having a mediator to the Father isn’t new. This was the high priest’s job. Not only was only one person allowed to enter the Holy of Holies but there was only one day a year he was allowed to enter. This is what is meant when people say “the veil was torn” referring to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The actual veil accounted being torn in Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, and Luke 23:45. This veil separated ordinary human access from the holy presence of God. The veil was torn because Jesus—fully God and fully man—reconciled us to the Creator. We don’t need Eden. We don’t need the Tabernacle. We don’t need the Garden of Eden. All we need is Jesus. There is a man who sits in the Holy of Holies daily. That man is our risen Messiah: Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
These two verses are the death, resurrection, and ascension boiled down to the simplest form. It is still important that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday riding a donkey. It is definitely important that Peter cut off a guard’s ear and denied Jesus. It is important that the crowd chose Barabbas over Jesus. It is important that Thomas doubted. Paul wouldn’t disagree with this but what he does is dive into the heart of the issue. That heart is that everything between us and God was radically changed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
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