Paul’s making his case from
Scripture that we’re justified before God not based on our performance at all
but solely based on faith in Christ. As we mentioned before, he’s using Abraham
and David as his pieces of evidence. What he says about Abraham was so pivotal
that I had to spend an extra day on it.
Abraham had a lot of things he’d
done for the Lord. Based only on God’s spoken word, Abraham had left behind
everything he’d ever known in Ur: Most of his family, all his friends, his
home, etc. And did God tell him where he was going? No. He told
him simply “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” Then later
the Lord told
him that he would bless Abraham with children, and that his children would
outnumber the stars in the sky, and here’s where we get to the verse that Paul
quotes. It’s difficult to overstate how important this one verse is to the apostle,
and thus it should be just as important to us: “Abraham believed God, and it
was credited to him as righteousness.”
This is precisely what Paul was
talking about with regards to justification by faith. God gave Abraham a promise,
he trusted the Lord, and God credited it to him as righteousness.
The way a lot of religions--in fact, this is the default setting everybody seems to have--see our relationship
with the Almighty is something akin to a balance sheet for a budget. You have
credits and debits. When you sin or do something wrong, you have something
taken out of your “account” with him. When you do something good, then you add
to the “plus” column. When you die, God weighs the scales, and if your “good”
column outweighs your “bad” column, then you’re good to go.
The problem is that with God, none
of our “good” can ever make up for the “bad.” It doesn’t take more than a drop
of poison (depending on the type) to turn a healthy glass of water into a
deadly concoction. As I’ve mentioned before, his standard is not “better than
Hitler.” His standard is perfection. Anything less isn't good enough to be
declared righteous in his court.
So what do we do? Well, nothing. But
here’s another explanation as to what God
did through Christ. We believe in God’s promises, specifically his promise that
if we trust in Christ, we’ll be saved. For example, one of my personal favorites:
“Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will
not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” Or John
3:16.
He then takes that faith in Christ
and “credits” our “account” with the righteousness of Christ. And as far as our
“bad” column is concerned, it’s erased then broken into pieces, never to be
brought up again.
Now, if you were perfect before him,
if you never sinned in thought or word or deed, and if you perfectly loved him
(the
most important commandment, remember), then theoretically he’d be obligated to accept
you. Anyone want to volunteer for that
system?
For the rest of us--those who are
not Jesus—we have to trust in the One who “justifies the ungodly.”
Now, I need to make a quick note
here. It’s entirely possible that I have some Roman Catholic readers here. I
love you as much as I possibly can without knowing you personally. So I have to
shoot straight with you.
I want to be completely fair and
honest with you. The Catholic Church, at best, is really confused on the
point of salvation. This by no means indicates that there aren’t any saved
Catholics, but it does mean that their church has given them something besides
the pure and simple Good News. Quite frankly, what the Catholic Church
officially teaches concerning salvation completely contradicts verse 5. They
categorically deny that God justifies someone who isn’t really righteous. If
you aren’t personally righteous in your conduct, then God will not pronounce
you as such.
Again, this flatly contradicts the
plain meaning of verse 5: He justifies (declares righteous and not guilty) the
ungodly. He doesn't make us righteous in our conduct and then declare us so.
He declares
us righteous and then starts the process of making us righteous in our personal conduct.
According to Paul himself, it’s
really really really important that we get this straight. Nothing less than our
souls are at stake here.
Father God, I can testify personally
that you certainly do justify the
ungodly. May my whole life and everything I am and do reflect that glorious
truth.
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