Elder, David “Doc” Kenser, gives us a daily reflection and devotion.

When proposed an idea that just doesn’t resonate, a generational response might be “As if!”  As if I would even consider that a possibility or would possibly consider it.  There are some things that are so incongruent with who and what we are that “as if” is just the appropriate response.

While you are probably aware of this modern idiom, you may not have realized that it is a biblical construct with deep theological meaning.  No way!  Yes way!  In Romans 4:17, the Spirit reveals that “God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which are not as though [as if] they were” (KJV).

The proposition advanced by the apostle Paul was that not just the Israelites, who had the Law of Moses and the bloodline of Abraham, were sons of Abraham.  The designation of Abraham’s offspring was not limited to birthright but extended to belief, to those who accepted the promise of God through faith: “In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring” (Rom 9:8).

Am I truly a child of God?  Am I an heir of righteousness?  As if!  Yes I am, for God, through the blood of Jesus, has justified me and now it is as if I were righteous and holy.  As it has been said, “Being justified in Christ, it is Just As If I’d never sinned.”  The writer of the book of Hebrews plainly states, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10).

Yes, we “all sin and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) but, in Christ, it truly is as if we had never sinned and now stand before God’s throne as heirs not outcasts.  Jus’ Say’n.