4. The fourth result of the atoning death of Jesus Christ is that _because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ all believers in Him are justified_. We read in Rom. 5:9, +"Being now justified by His blood."+ Justification is more than forgiveness. Forgiveness is negative, the putting away of our sins, manifested in God's treating us as if we never had sinned. Justification is positive, the reckoning of us positively righteous, the imputing to us the perfect righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, not merely the treating us as if we had never sinned, but the reckoning us clothed upon with perfect righteousness. By reason of Jesus Christ's atoning death there is an absolute interchange of position between Jesus Christ and His people. In His death upon the cross Jesus Christ took our place of condemnation before God, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance before God. As Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:21, +"Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."+ Jesus Christ stepped into our place in the curse and rejection, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance, or as it has been expressed by another: "Near, so very near to God, Nearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I'm just as near as He. Dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I'm just as dear as He." 5. Furthermore, _because of the full atonement that Jesus Christ has made by the shedding of His blood, by His atoning death on the cross, every believer in Him can enter boldly into the holy place, into the very presence of God_. As it is put in Heb. 10:19, 20, +"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place+ (i.e., into the very presence of God) +by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having a great priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith."+ Oh, how some of us hesitate to come into the presence of God when we think of the greatness and the number of our sins, and when we think how holy God is, how the very seraphim (the "burning ones," burning in their own intense holiness) veil their faces and feet in His presence and unceasingly cry "Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of Hosts" (Isa. 6:2, 3). "God is Holy," we think. "Yes." "And I am a sinner." "Yes." But by the wondrous offering of Christ "once for all" I am "perfected forever," and on the ground of that blood so precious and so sufficient unto God, I can march boldly into the very presence of God, look up with unveiled face into His face and call Him "Father," and pour out before Him every desire of my heart. Oh, wondrous blood!