While
I am quick to encourage everyone to have their alone time with God every
morning, I must also point out the blessing that happens only when God’s
children share in the word and prayer together. It has been my experience, and
I have heard it from others, that sometimes when sharing what we have learned,
it feels as though we are learning new things even as the words of our sharing
are still coming out of our mouths.
As
I was speaking about faith at our prayer meeting last night, the issues of
faith became even clearer. “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”[1] It is
not as though this is law, and if we break this law we are sinning. Rather,
this is reality, that we are either under law, in which case we are sinning, or
we are living by faith, in which case we are righteous.
In
Romans 14, Paul is dealing with issues that are decided by faith. He wants us
to know what it looks like for new covenant Christians to live by faith instead
of law. Law would tell us whether we could eat meat, or drink wine. Law would
tell us to observe a day, or not observe a day. Law puts things into boxes so
it is easy to measure whether anyone is doing as they are told.
Paul
has used the book of Romans to declare very clearly that believers in Jesus Christ
no longer live by the law. Although the righteousness expressed under the law
is still righteousness, the law was only a temporary management system, put in
place until the offspring of Abraham came and created the way of living in
righteousness based on faith.[2]
Our righteousness is now based on Jesus’ works instead of our own, and we enter
into the righteousness of his works by faith, not by doing our own works
alongside his.
For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed
God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his
wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not
work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as
righteousness,[3]
There
are two ways of looking at this, the positive and the negative.
POSITIVE: Our faith in Jesus Christ is
counted to us as righteousness.
NEGATIVE: Whatever does not proceed from
faith is sin.
The
point is clear, since it is faith that is counted as righteousness, only when
we are living by faith are we righteous. Sin is measured by the law; righteousness
is measured by faith. If we do something without faith, it is sin because only
faith is counted as righteousness. Faith connects us to the work of God, and
the work of God is to make us righteous.
In
the first two paragraphs of Ephesians, Paul shows us that all the work of
making a people who are righteous in his sight rests on God.[4] God
has done all the “work” to have us in his own image and likeness. We experience
this work by faith!
·
God chose us to be holy and
blameless in his sight (vs 4)
·
God chose us for the adoption
as sons that would make us holy and blameless in his sight (vss 4-6)
·
God provided the complete
redemption that would make it possible for him to adopt us into the sonship
that would make us holy and blameless in his sight (vss 7-10)
·
God has given us the
inheritance that will make us fully and finally holy and blameless in his sight
(vss 11-12)
·
After making us alive in the
Lord Jesus Christ through our belief in the gospel, God has sealed us with his
Holy Spirit who guarantees our completion as holy and blameless in his sight (vss
13-14)
·
There is coming a day when we
will acquire full possession of our inheritance of righteousness, and it will
all be to the praise of God’s glory, for he has done all that he chose to do to
make us holy and blameless in his sight (vss 13-14)
God
gave the law as a temporary measure to lead his people through the wilderness
of sin towards the Promised Land of redemption in Jesus Christ our Lord. The
whole time, he was not giving us life under the law as an improvement to what he
promised to Abraham, but only as a temporary measure to take care of the young
children, so to speak. We needed a guardian to get us to Christ. The guardian
had to hold us in line, and guide us into the realities of faith in Jesus Christ
our Lord. The guardian could not give us that faith, but gave us the rules that
would lead us to faith.[5]
What
Paul teaches us repeatedly is that it is impossible to think of our lives based
on the law. Everything is so settled on the work of God that the only way we
can connect to the righteousness of God is by faith in Jesus Christ. If it is
not faith, it is sin, because anything that is not faith is under law, and
anything that is under law makes us conscious of sin.
In
fact, here is the rub: the law enables us to live with left-brain satisfaction
that we have checked off our list and determined we are okay (or hopelessly
guilty). Everything is rules, and details, and facts, and figures. We do not
need to feel anything, as long as we are doing the right thing.
On
the other side, faith must be right-brain in its expression into the material
world. Faith requires us to use our right-brain to think in personal ways. We
must think about someone other than ourselves. We must consider what God thinks
and feels. We must consider how the things we do affect others. We seek a faith
that does what is right, and does what is right in a way that never causes a
brother to stumble. The decisions we make can change from one scenario to
another because, while our faith may be okay to do a particular thing when we
are on our own, the same faith will not allow us to do that same activity when
we are in a group because of brothers who would stumble over our acts of
freedom in Jesus Christ. There is no way a law could record all the
possibilities of such kind of living.
Only
faith could figure these things out. Only faith gives us this personal
relationship with God where we know what he is saying, what he is doing, and
how to join him in his work by faith. We can never join God’s work by law,
making rules about how to do it, but must join God’s work by faith, so that it
is us who are the branches abiding in him who is the vine so that his life
flows through our lives in the bearing of much fruit.[6]
The
issue is not bearing fruit, but abiding in the vine. The issue is not that we
are DOING, and so we are blessed with fruit, but that we are ABIDING and so we
are bearing fruit. It can only be this way, O God. It can only be this glorious
way.
So,
when Paul begins Ephesians with that glorious expression of praise, it is
centered on this reality that everything we need to be holy and blameless in
his sight is in Jesus Christ our Lord, and so we can only have that
righteousness by faith. There is no way we can add even one sliver of law to
our lives. If the thing we are doing proceeds from law, it is sin. If what we
are doing is because we are following law, even the law of the Ten Commandments,
we are sinning. The Ten Commandments are good, but they cannot make us good.
Only faith can make us good, and so we strive to live by faith. “The righteous shall live by faith.”[7]
All is of faith, and we must walk in this faith to the glory of God. We do give
glory to God when we walk by faith, because then we are putting on display that
it is God who has done it all.
The
warning that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin is just that, a
warning. The book of Romans calls us to walk in the righteousness God chose for
us before the beginning of time. God just wants us to know we can only do that
by faith.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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