Over the past few months, my wife and I have been renovating our new home. There has been much painting and repair, including the installation of new flooring. Some of the flooring was installed using very sticky mastic, which in the cleanup seems to adhere everywhere. I've spent some time simply scraping mastic off tile walls and bathtubs. Soap will not do, because you cannot dissolve the mastic. That mastic is a bit like the sin that adheres to us in our Christian life. It takes something more than soap and water to deal with it. There were certainly places in our home where the mastic was splashed onto walls, and then painted over. Paint covers it. You cannot see it. And it is no longer sticky. No scraping is required.

The filth of our adhering sin is always there, like the mastic, but those who are justified in Christ find that it is covered by the righteousness of another, painted over by the blood of God's eternal Son poured out for poor sinners like us. We must still confess that we are sinners and that our lives are spattered by the adhering mastic of sin. It cannot be brushed off or cleaned up with a little soap and water. Only the blood of God's Son covers all sin. The sin that still plagues us and is serious, is ever covered by the righteousness of Christ, and is always seen by God in the light of the sacrifice of His precious Son. Justification is a gift that just keeps on giving.

This giving nature of God's gift to us in His Son also plays itself out in our lives as we live out our hope in Christ through the power of our baptism. We are not powerless or hopeless in the world. For God thinks so much of us for Christ's sake, that He cannot help but shower down upon us the ornaments of a righteous and holy life. Justification is such a powerful gift that it brings every good fruit with it. It connects the believer with Christ and confers the very life of Christ to those who are so connected to Him. The result is that we can dare much for the sake of Christ and for the need of our fellow human. This is not some contest to see who could accomplish most, but it is how God shows forth the power of Christ's righteousness to make beautiful His world. However, we must never get the cart and the horse in the wrong order. The righteousness which is given to believers by faith must always gain good works and the righteousness of Christ is never given because of the good works of believers. However, the adornments of a holy life will and must follow faith because faith and works can never be separated. 

Martin Luther