Why? He fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:17). We could never live a perfect, obedient life before a holy God to save us. We are all sinners and fallen short of God's glory (see Romans 3:23). We cannot come to God on our merit, we needed someone in our place to do that.
Jesus was God in the flesh. He came as man and as God. He came to bring about peace but not a peace the world understands (see John 14:27). Christ saved us from the wrath of God by His life (see Romans 5:9-10).
Christ was a righteous man who suffered for us to bring us to God (see 1 Peter 3:18). Now, some would say that Christ was given righteousness because He fulfilled the law. Nope. He is righteous:
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2).
Christ was not given righteousness. He is righteous.
In the 1 John passage, Christ was called the propitiation, which is a word not commonly used today. In fact, it is only mentioned three other times in the New Testament (Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, and 1 John 4:10). What does this mean? Burk Parsons said:
...the word propitiation simply put means "satisfaction." It means that Christ, in His perfect life and atoning, substitutionary death, that He satisfied the wrath of God against our sin and against us. It wasn't that He simply satisfied or assuaged God's wrath against sin; He assuaged God's wrath against us.
Christ took God's wrath meant for us to satisfy His righteous anger against us. Christ could only do this if He fulfilled God's law. Who else meets this requirement? No one. No other religion had their founder, which for Christians it is Christ (Hebrews 12:2), died for them.
Jesus Christ is the only One who can save us from our sins and that is why we say we are saved by Christ alone.
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