Monthly Archive for January, 2000

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Galatians 2:20d

Published on January 21, 2000 in Galatians. 0 Comments
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“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”
 
and the life which I now live in the flesh
 
Paul now has a new life in Christ in contrast to his pre-salvation life. The “flesh” here is not the sin capacity but simply life in his human body.
 
The action of the two words “loved” and “gave” in Greek grammar precede the phrase “I now live.” Christ first loved me and gave Himself for me before I could “now live.” It is crucial to understand this point. Christ does not live His life through us but we live His life when we allow the Holy Spirit to fill us. At the point we reject our ability to live up to the law and yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, we live by faith.
Principle:
It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life.
Application:
We did not find the power to live before we became Christians because we did not have His life to live. We cannot live the Christian life until we have the empowering Christ to enable us to live it. We may try to copy other Christians but is mightily irksome to do so because we cannot live the Christian life in our own power.
Now that Christians stand crucified eternally before God, we have a new life. This implies we should live our Christian life in appreciation for what Christ did for us ["love" and "gave himself" for us]. We should be willing to waive all rights because of what Christ did for us. “I relinquish all my rights. I am dead positionally to my sin.” This is as hard for a believer to accept as it is for a non-Christian to believe John 3:16, yet this is something we must believe.
“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:5-14).
It is not that I reckon myself dead so that I am dead. The reckoning process does not kill our sin capacity. However, I am dead positionally–that is, dead to the legal consequences of my sin– so I must believe that I’m dead to sin. Biblically, we always base faith on fact.
We cannot crucify ourselves. Dying to self will not free us from sin in itself. We do not have to “feel dead” because we are dead to sin as far as God is concerned.
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Galatians 2:20c

Published on January 20, 2000 in Galatians. 0 Comments
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“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”
 
but Christ lives in me;
 
The clause “Christ lives in me” explains the phrase in verse 19 “that I might live to God.” We do not live the Christian life on our own. Our new life in Christ animates our day-to-day living for God–Christ lives in the believer.
 
When we become a Christian, we have new life in Him. Our old life in Adam died and now Christ lives in us. This does not mean that our personality no longer exists. It does mean that the presence of Christ lives in us. Paul is not afraid of the personal pronoun “me.”
This phrase may refer to the character of Christ produced in us rather than Christ Himself living in us. Paul is not lawless but lives under a higher law than the Mosaic Law. By his association with Christ, Christ forms a new dimension of character in Paul. The Christian cannot produce the Christian life by conjuring up overt behavior patterns from the self. The problem is that the sin capacity cannot produce the character of Christ. However, Christ can produce His character in us by giving us new life.
Principle:
The Christian life centers on the Lawgiver rather than the law.
Application:
The Christian life is a relationship, not a set of rules. The fruit reveals the nature of a tree. The same tree does not produce apples and oranges. An apple tree branch does not produce pears, oranges and apples. That is impossible. The tree establishes the character of the branches. Our life in Christ reveals the character of Christ.
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4).
The Christian life is not a course of accumulating a big list of prohibitions. That would put us into a religious straitjacket. Many people reject the Christian life because they see it as too restricting.
How would you like to be married to a man who put you in a straitjacket? “Here is what you do every hour on the hour, Monday through Friday.” He has every hour of the day planned for you. That is not living; that is dying. This is not the Christian life.
We do not have to have a set of religious regulations and laws because we have the life of Christ in us. The person of Christ is a mighty power against living in carnality. He influences every aspect of our life and sways every decision we make. If we break our fellowship with Him then we violate Him and His standards. If we live under the influence of His person, we live a spiritual life. That is when we live a powerful Christian life: when we take our hands off the throttle of our lives and permit the Lord Jesus to live His life through us.
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Galatians 2:20b

Published on January 19, 2000 in Galatians. 0 Comments
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“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”
 
it is no longer I who live,
 
By his crucifixion with Christ, Paul now lives in another sphere, another dimension, because of his new life in Christ. He no longer lives in reference to the law; he lives in reference to Christ.
 
The “I” is emphatic in the Greek. His death in Christ is so complete that another power lives in him.
 
“I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:25).
 
Principle:
Christ freed us from the law so that we walk with God in a relationship, not a legal system.
Application:
A person who tries to draw near to God by his own futile efforts will forever fail to walk with God. Our own righteousness never impresses God because the only righteousness that ever impresses God is Christ’s righteousness.
Our totally depraved nature annihilates any attempt to find God’s acceptance by keeping the law. We can only live the Christian life by yielding ourselves to the Holy Spirit. That is, we acknowledge that we can only please God with His power. Our new life in Christ energizes us to live beyond what our depraved nature would allow us to do. The residence of His life in us affects everything we do and say.
There is such thing as a bastard crucifixion. This is a progeny of the flesh, a fleshly imitation of co-crucifixion. It is the crucifixion of self, not our co-crucifixion with Christ. A person who crucifies himself appears to crucify sin in his life. This person is in a worse condition than if he never crucified himself (Corinthians 2:23) because he operates in the pride of self-righteousness.
True crucifixion with Christ is positional truth. Christ did the work on the cross for us, making us legally perfect in God’s eyes. We benefit from what He did. True Christian living is the appropriation of positional truth to experience. This is not crucifixion for Christ but a participation in Christ’s crucifixion. Death is the only escape from self-righteousness. Our legal death in Christ frees us to fellowship with God any time, any place.
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Galatians 2:20

Published on January 18, 2000 in Galatians. 14 Comments
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“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”
 
Verse 20 expands on verse 19. Paul deals with the same point, but in more detail. Paul died to the law at the cross. Paul details how he died to the law. His co-crucifixion with Christ killed the law’s demands on him.
 
I have been crucified with Christ;
The word “crucified” is a compound term, coming from two words: with and crucified — co-crucified. When they crucified Christ on the cross, God crucified Paul there as well. What occurred to Christ physically occurred to Paul legally. His was a positional or legal crucifixion. This is more than Christ being crucified for Paul but that Paul himself participated in the crucifixion itself. That is how he died to the law. Death was his one chance of escape from the penalty of the law.
The word “crucified” occurs five times in the New Testament: here, Romans 6:6 and three times in the gospels. All three times in the gospels have to do with Christ being crucified with thieves (Matthew 27:44; Mark 15:32; John 19:32).
The Greek tense for “have been crucified” means that Paul’s crucifixion had a permanent effect. God crucified Paul on the cross and he stands crucified to the moment of writing. His crucifixion has present finished results. Our identification with Christ is forever. This is how we died to the law. Christ released us from every duty to the law so that we might “live to God.” Paul came to a point of crucifixion in God’s eyes.
The words “have been” mean that Paul received crucifixion [passive voice]. This is not something he did; it was something that God did to him. Paul cannot take credit for his crucifixion. The glory goes to Jesus Christ for that. He did not do anything to earn nor deserve crucifixion with Christ.
Principle:
God does not command us to crucify ourselves for sanctification. We stand in the total efficacy of the work of Christ before God.
Application:
Our crucifixion with Christ completely frees us from obligation to the law. We have perfect and permanent standing in God’s eyes. God looks upon us as participating in Christ’s crucifixion so that we do not have to merit salvation or sanctification. We receive it as a gift from God. God released us from a performance orientation and gave us a privileged position in Christ.
When Jesus engrafts us into new status with God, we gain new power for living the Christian life. As a flower gets its energy from its roots, so we get our dynamic from Christ.
Most people misunderstand the point of 2:20 even though it is a very popular verse. We cannot crucify ourselves. We died to the law in Christ’s crucifixion. The law cannot save or sanctify. We live out our new life in Christ by faith. We live by faith, not works.
When we believe in Christ, we acknowledge our inability to be saved or sanctified by works. Only by our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection can we live the kind of life God expects. The disgrace of the cross lies not in Him who died on it but in us who made the cross indispensable.
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Galatians 2:19c

Published on January 17, 2000 in Galatians. 0 Comments
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“For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God”
 
that I might live to God
The law did not permit Paul to live a life of unqualified devotion to God because the law could not satisfy the absolute requirements of God as a means of salvation and sanctification.
“Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another— to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter [the law]” (Romans 7:4-6).
The believer’s union with Christ is with His death and resurrection. The law cannot bring life because no one ever lived up to the law except Jesus Christ. The law prohibited Paul from living to God. When Paul died to the law through the death of Christ, law lost all its claims on him. You cannot arrest a dead man for loitering in the cemetery. Now we can live to God because we have new life in Christ. He has given us a new resurrection life.
Jesus did not put us to death to the law that we might live for self. He put us to death to the law that we “might live to God.”
“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:11).
“…and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15).
“Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God” (1 Peter 4:1-2).
Principle:
Our identity in the death and resurrection of Christ allows us to live for God in a way we could not live under the law.
Application:
We can live an unfettered, unhampered, unhindered life before God now that Christ died for our sins and gave us a new resurrected life (Romans 6:11; 2 Corinthians 5:14,15).
Who are you living for – your wife, your husband? How many of us could say, “I am living for God without any strings attached. Nothing else counts.”
“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Corinthians 3:1-3).
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Galatians 2:19b

Published on January 16, 2000 in Galatians. 0 Comments
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“For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God”
 
died to the law
 
Not only are we dead through the law, we are dead to the law. We legally died to the law when we embraced the cross to obtain forgiveness for our sins. The law has no claim beyond death. Jesus paid our debt to the law by His death. He substituted His death for our death.
 
The law demands a penalty for those who break it. Through the law, Paul died to the law. The law killed any hope of his living for God. Paul’s status of having been crucified with Christ (2:20) freed him from sin and its consequences (3:13). The law curses us but Christ killed the judgment of the law. The law has no further claim on the Christian.
The law itself kills any hope of merit before God. It precludes any hope of justification or sanctification by works because it places the standard too high for any sinner to achieve. However, the law has no authority over people executed for crimes. They have paid their penalty by death. Society has no further claim on them (Romans 6:1-14; 7:1-4). Jesus died for our sin so the penalty of the law has no further claim on us.
Paul does not say that the law is dead. Far from it. He says that he is dead to the law. In the eyes of the law, I do not exist anymore. The law has no authority over me, even though it is very much alive. It still curses and condemns the sinner. It still demands the death of the transgressor but we are no longer transgressors because Christ forgave us when we came to trust His work on the cross.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14).
Paul does not claim that he is a lawless person. He is no law unto himself. His point is that law has no claim on him. The law declared him a sinner and punished him for his sin through Christ. Now he is free from the law because Christ fulfilled the law.
Principle:
The law has no authority over the Christian because Christ fulfilled the demands of the law by His death on the cross.
Application:
The law has no more authority over us now that we have died to it by Christ’s death. When a woman’s husband dies, her legal relationship to her husband dissolves. When Christ died for our sins, we died to the law. The law can no longer condemn us.
“Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another— to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:4-6).
“But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).
“…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
We do not try to die; we are dead already. We cannot crucify ourselves; we stand crucified with Christ already. When Jesus died on the cross, I died there on that cross (2:20). This is the way God looks at us if we have been born again.
“Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—” (Corinthians 2:20).
The law brings us to the realization of sin (Romans 3:20). The law makes us give up all hope in self and human merit. It drives us to place our hope in Christ alone. The Christian is like a corpse at which the law can thunder with all its might but get no response. The law does not get the stir of a finger or the flicker of an eyelash. No master can give orders to a dead slave.
“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; “and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39).
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1 ).
The law has no remedy for sin. It has a double power: 1) it declares us sinners and 2) states our penalty for being sinners. Suppose a person committed the terrible crime of murder. He deserves the death penalty or life in prison. The authorities arrest him, bring him before a judge, and arraign him for murder. They call the witnesses one by one. They all testify with one accord to the man’s guilt. There seems to be no defence for him at all. The jury finds him guilty. He is guilty according to the law and the authorities should put him to death.
Before the judge pronounces the sentence something suddenly happens to the accused. While he is on the stand, the man suddenly slumps down and dies. A physician pronounces him officially and legally dead. What does the judge do now? Does he continue with the penalty? He cannot carry out any penalty. The law cannot try, convict nor carry out a penalty on a dead man. He is beyond the reach of the law. All that the judge can do is rap his gavel and solemnly dismiss the case and adjourn the court. The man is dead in the eyes of the law.
In the case of this illustration, the man cheated the law. The law had the right to put him to death but could not do so because he was already dead. In our case, Christ fulfilled all the requirements of the law (Romans 8:2-4).
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Galatians 2:19

Published on January 15, 2000 in Galatians. 1 Comment
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“For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God”
 
For I
 
Paul uses himself as an illustration again. He contrasts himself who operates in grace to Peter who reverted to legalism.
 
through the law
The law shows the standard for entering heaven – perfection. The standard for going to heaven is God’s righteousness. None of us is that righteous so we need Christ to deal with our sin.
“Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4).
Paul died to the law through the law. The law itself put him to death. The law asks no more than death. Once the law puts the condemned to death, he or she is free from the law. The person is legally dead. God’s legal system closes the case. We died to the law through Christ’s death. It was the law that demanded Christ’s death for our sin because God cannot tolerate sin of any kind.
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”)…” (Galatians 3:13).
Principle:
The Christian is legally free from the law through Christ’s death on the cross.
Application:
Jesus took the eternal death we richly deserved. Jesus took that death I deserved on the cross. God paid the legal penalty through Christ’s death on the cross. Our death in Christ freed us from the penalty that the law demanded. The law convicts every person as a transgressor of God’s righteousness. Christians stand dead to the law in God’s eyes (2:20). The law lost its claim on us at the cross. It is only then that we begin to live to God.
As soon as Christians put themselves under the law, they are dead to God. The law condemns us to death and kills us. The law was not dead to us but us to the law. The best thing that the law did to us was kill us. Until we come to Christ, the law kills us. The standards of the law killed Christ. There was no way we could have a proper standing in God’s eyes until God settled the sin issue by Christ’s death.
Some of us suspect that we can keep some sizable percentage of the law. This is because we are unaware of what is involved in keeping the law. We must keep the law 100% to be acceptable to God.
“For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).
Because we cannot keep the standard of the law, it becomes a sledgehammer against us. We think that the law saves us but it only condemns us. Only trust in Christ’s death on the cross can save us.
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Galatians 2:18

Published on January 14, 2000 in Galatians. 4 Comments
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“For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor”
 
For if I build again those things which I destroyed,
 
Paul “destroyed” legalism when he put his trust in the cross as the way of salvation. Hypothetically, if Paul tore down the house of legalism as the way of salvation and sanctification, then rebuilding it would be inconsistent with grace. Self-righteousness would replace Christ-provided righteousness.
 
The word “destroyed” means completely razed to the ground. Paul completely destroyed the law as a system of salvation and sanctification. Paul was in the business of destroying false doctrine. He will show in chapters 3 and 4 that the law never did save or sanctify. Biblical consistency is a core value of Christianity.
I make myself a transgressor
A “transgressor” is someone who crosses over a line or standard. Paul would violate the standard of grace if he reverted to law. Paul in that case constitutes or establishes himself a “transgressor.” Righteousness based on merit will show how extensively we violate the law.
Principle:
Law and grace are mutually exclusive. They cannot be co-extended for one contradicts the other.
Application:
When we believe in the death of Jesus Christ to forgive our sins, we in effect destroy the law as a system of salvation. If we revert to the law, we rebuild as a system of salvation. If we choose both the law and grace as systems of salvation, we restrict both of them.
A foundational truth of Christianity is that we are sinful in comparison to a holy God. We have a heart of mutiny against God. The only cure for that rebellion is the cross. We cannot engender righteousness from within because we are corrupt within. This only points to our desperate need for Christ and His work on the cross.
It is not the doctor’s fault when we have heart disease. Our clogged arteries are killing us. Doctors merely report test results. They simply tell us the truth. Christianity tells us the truth about how God views us as totally depraved [not totally depraved to man but to a holy God].
It does me no good to keep patching my house if the structure is fundamentally flawed. I have a primary problem in my spiritual house that no patchwork will fix. It has to do with the foundation of my being. God condemned our moral house. That is why we must tear down any attempt at self-righteousness as a way of gaining God’s approval. We must acknowledge that the only approval we can have before Him is our acceptance in Christ. It is a shameful thing to face the fact that we have nothing to offer God. In humility, we must throw ourselves on the work of Christ for salvation and sanctification.
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Galatians 2:17

Published on January 13, 2000 in Galatians. 4 Comments
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“But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not!”
 
But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ,
 
Paul’s antagonists contended that justification by faith eradicates the moral law. If grace does away with law, then people can live as they please. They argued that eliminating the law would mean that a person could do as he or she pleases. Peter and his crowd argued by implication that a person has to work for justification. The cross of Christ is not enough for salvation.
 
we ourselves also are found sinners,
It was an admission on the part of Jewish Christians that justification by works proves that they are sinners. Their failure in keeping the law forces them to admit their sinful condition. They did not find righteousness in keeping the law.
is Christ therefore a minister of sin?
If God declares a person right in His eyes by faith, does this make Christians lawless? Legalists argued in this way, “If Christ does away with the law for salvation and sanctification then that would make Christ lawless.” Christ would endorse sin. This conclusion is false because Christ dealt with the sin issue on the cross. To believe that God justifies and sanctifies a person by faith does not imply lawlessness.
Liberty is not liberty from God’s righteous standards. Neither is it lawlessness to fellowship with Gentiles. Going back to the law as a system of salvation and sanctification abandons the grace principle. We imply what Christ did on the cross was not sufficient.
If Peter is right in going back to the Mosaic Law, then he was wrong in eating with the Gentiles. If he is right in eating with the Gentiles, then he was wrong in going back to the Mosaic Law. If he is right in one place, he is wrong in the other. He cannot hold the two at the same time. They are mutually exclusive. If he starts out by grace, then goes back to the law, he then abandons grace. He would say in effect that what Christ did on the cross was not enough. Peter’s return to legalism was an attack on grace.
Certainly not!
The conclusion that Christ is the minister of sin is the right inference if Peter’s reversion to legalism is right. The thought that Christ is the minister of sin is a revolting thought to Paul. The law cannot add anything to the death of Christ for our sins. If we carefully investigate justification in Christ and find ourselves to still be sinners, that doesn’t make Christ the minister of sin. This is an abhorrent thought. Paul adamantly denied the accusation that Christ promotes sin by offering the principle of grace.
Principle:
The principle of grace does not endorse licentiousness.
Application:
The principle of grace never encourages sinful living. People who believe in Christ no longer do as they please because they are under the lordship of Christ.
When Christians abandon grace and revert to legalism as a way to gain God’s approbation, then they vilify Christ’s work on the cross. They imply that His work is not sufficient for salvation or sanctification. They say in effect that, after they accept Christ as Savior, they are still not sure of salvation.
Christ’s finished work on the cross flies in the face of all that. He is sufficient for salvation and sanctification.
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Galatians 2:16b

Published on January 12, 2000 in Galatians. 0 Comments
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“…knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified”
 
that a man is not justified
 
The word “justified” primarily sets forth the idea of to deem, declare or cause to be right. The standard for relating to God is God Himself. God cannot compromise His integrity. As an absolute being, He cannot do anything outside His character, nor can He live with anyone that is outside His character. Every person on earth, save one, has committed sin (Romans 3:10,23). We all fall short of who God is in His righteousness.
 
Paul uses the word “justified” four times in verses 16 and 17. When we stand in God’s court, our lawyer must defend us according to the laws of God, the laws that govern God Himself.
The word “justified” connotes the idea of receiving justification [passive voice]. Justification is something that God does, not people. We do not earn or deserve justification.
by the works of the law
God declares people who believe Jesus died for their sins as right as He Himself is right, exclusively by faith, not works. God renders them as right as Himself the moment they place faith in Christ’s death as payment for their sin. God henceforth treats them as judicially right in His eyes. They are right, because God resolved His justice at the cross.
but by faith in Jesus Christ,
Paul uses a similar phrase later in this verse. Faith is the instrument of salvation. There is no inherent merit in faith. The merit is in the object of faith.
even we have believed in Christ Jesus,
“Believed” means to be persuaded of, and hence, to place confidence in. When we believe in Christ, we place confidence in or gives credit to Jesus as the only one who can save us from our sins. We entrust our entire eternal future to Christ Jesus. He is worthy of our trust.
that we might be justified
The word “justified” is a causative verb in the Greek. When we trust the death of Christ to forgive our sins, God declares or causes us to be as right as He is right forever. Justification is more than a declaration of “not guilty.” It is a declaration of being as right as God is right.
by faith in Christ
When we place our trust in Christ, we come to the place of full persuasion that we can trust Him for our eternal future. We rely on His character. Faith in Christ as our object makes our faith valid. There is no validity in faith itself. Jesus is completely believable because of His person and work.
and not by the works of the law;
Even noble keeping of the law cannot make a person measure up to God’s standard because every person has fallen short of God’s righteousness (Romans 3:19-24,28).
for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified
No quantity of keeping the law can bring a person to the point of justification. Three times Paul declares that God justifies people by faith and three times he affirms that God does not justify a person by the works of the law.
Principle:
God’s own standard of absolute righteousness is the standard for us going to Heaven.
Application:
Any claim that God causes a person to be as right as He is right by works profanes God’s character. Some people think that if they keep the 10 commandments, they are on good footing with God. The purpose of the law is not to justify us, but to show us our need for justification (Galatians 3). God never justified an Old Testament person by offering an animal sacrifice. God justifies no one by keeping the laws of the Old Testament. The law teaches us about the knowledge of sin and how it separates us from God.
We cannot go to a dying person and say, “Now you have to do more good works than bad to go to Heaven. You have to keep the 10 commandments. Keep the golden rule.” There would be no hope for that person. “I do not have time to keep the golden rule. I only have a few hours of life left.” The good news is that Jesus will save poor lost sinners. The only way God accepts us is through undiluted grace.
Salvation is free of charge. God, who is undiminished righteousness, will declare a person who embraces the cross for forgiveness to be as righteous as He is righteous. This is not something humans can manufacture (Romans 3:10, 23). The split second we place our faith in the finished work of the Son of God on the cross, God causes us to be right in His eyes. God declares us to be more than innocent, acquitted, or pardoned. He declares us to be as right as He is. Only God can do that.
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