“For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21).

Many men would boast of being “self-made” men, but no Christian can do this. Everything we are that is truly worthy and eternal was made in us by God through Jesus Christ. Our text is clear on this. We have been made righteous in Christ, but this was only because God made Him to be sin for us.

When He made us righteous in Christ, He also “made us accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). Furthermore, we were “made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). The contexts of these passages make it abundantly clear that our being made righteous, accepted in Christ, and nigh to God, is all of grace; we did nothing to merit such privileges.

This is not all. At the same moment, He also has “made us meet [‘fit’] to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12). That we in our poverty should be made joint-heirs with Christ once again is only by His unmerited grace. “Being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7).

In promise now and in full reality later, He has “made us kings and priests unto God and His Father” (Revelation 1:6). Positionally, we even share His throne, for He “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).

Without Him we are nothing; but in Him we have all things. He is “made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (I Corinthians 1:30). Truly, in salvation as well as in creation, “it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3). HMM