Paul clearly gives us one of the hardest to grasp and yet most universal of truths of the Christian faith in Romans when he says that it is by the Law that we are condemned, not saved - we are only brought to our knees by the absolute holiness of God's Law.
Now, to real thanksgiving! For the Grace of God to be even faintly understood, we truly must be humble! Martin Luther ached with these pains for more years than I and this is what that great teacher had to say when he came to meditate on Romans 1:17 (For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." New American Standard)
"Night and day I pondered until I grasped the truth: that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, He justifies us by faith. And thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into Paradise! The whole of scripture took on new meaning and whereas before the righteousness of God had filled me with hate, now it became to be an inexpressible sweetness in greater love - and this passage of Paul became to me a gateway to Heaven!"
Faith in Christ alone. How else are we to measure up? We cannot. I rest all in Him, and in Him I know I have all I need and want.
In Him.
2 comments:
Justification by faith. I love it! I had a question in class today about this. A student asked if it was enough to live a 'good' life and do 'good' things. I am so glad that the answer is NO! I know the 'good' deeds I'm capable of, and they are not Heaven-worthy! It brought to mind Isaiah 64:6 "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away". I discovered recently that a more literal translation of 'filthy rags' is actually 'menstrual rags'! I told my class that this morning (at the risk of grossing them out...) because I think it really throws into stark relief how little our efforts are worth. If we stood before God with only our good works, He would be perfectly justified in doing to us what they did to menstrual rags - throwing them into the fire!
I think we should make that another post all together. (Living a "good" life, not filthy rags). I know too many people claim that they are "good enough."
It begs the question... good enough for what?
Oh, I'm getting fired up. I feel another post coming on. I have to finish up this project first (I'll post what I'm working on in a few moments - a bit out of the ordinary for this site, maybe) and then I have to finish prep for this week's small group material - which I may post in conjunction.
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