God has absolutely nothing that He reckons against the believer in Jesus Christ. But even that is not all. Paul goes even beyond this in 2 Cor. 5:21, +"He who knew no sin he (God) made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him."+ Here we are explicitly told that the believer in Jesus Christ is made the righteousness of God in Christ. In Phil. 3:9, R. V. we are told that when one is in Christ he has a righteousness not of his own, but a "_righteousness which is of God upon faith_." In other words, there is an absolute interchange of positions between Christ and the justified believer. Christ took our place, the place of the curse on the cross (Gal. 3:13). He was "made to be sin on our behalf" (2 Cor. 5:21). God reckoned Him a sinner and dealt with Him as a sinner, so that in the sinner's place, as He died, He cried, +"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"+ And when we are justified we step into His place, the place of perfect acceptance before God, or to use the exact words of Scripture, we +"Become the righteousness of God in him."+ To be justified is more than to be forgiven! Forgiveness is negative, the putting away of sin; Justification is positive, the reckoning of positive and perfect righteousness to the one justified. Jesus Christ is so united to the believer in Him that God reckons our sins to Him. The believer, on the other hand, is so united to Christ that God reckons His righteousness to us. God sees us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Him and reckons us as righteous as He is. When Christ's work _in_ us is completed we shall be in actual fact what we are already in God's reckoning, but _the moment one believes_, as far as God's reckoning is concerned, he is as absolutely perfect as he ever shall be. Our present standing before God is absolutely perfect, though our present state may be very imperfect. To use again the familiar couplet: "Near, so very near to God, Nearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I am just as near as He. Dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I am just as dear as He." IV. THE TIME OF JUSTIFICATION