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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Belief and Righteousness, #6
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Philippians 3:8,9—NIV)
As we look continually to the Lord Jesus He tells us what He wants us to do right now. If it is to wait, we wait. If it is to put on a big Gospel meeting, we put on a big Gospel meeting. If our response is one of faith as demonstrated by what we do, God will count us righteous. Thus we are righteous by faith and not by any given code of behavior.
"A righteousness of my own that comes from the law."
Notice in the passage above that when Paul is speaking of having a righteousness of his own he is referring to the Law of Moses, not to godly behavior which is what we Gentiles would think of when reading of Paul having a righteousness of his own.
There is a big difference between thinking of a righteousness of our own as being not eating pork, and thinking of a righteousness of our own as telling the truth. The first is of the Law of Moses, which has been done away in Christ. The second is of the eternal moral law of God, which is never done away. The eternal moral law existed before the Law of Moses and will endure forever.
It is not that our telling the truth earns righteousness. It is that as we walk in the Spirit of God we learn to tell the truth. Thus telling the truth is not a means of earning salvation, rather it is an evidence that we are abiding in Christ. However, now that the Lord Jesus Christ has come, refraining from eating pork is not an evidence that we are abiding in Christ. Can you see the difference? The difference is at the heart of the error in Christian thinking.
If we read the context of Philippians 3:8,9 (above) to see what Paul meant by living according to the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith instead of by the Law of Moses, we do not find anything resembling what we mean today by "living by faith instead of works." Rather we find a life lived in the Presence of Christ, a life in which all accomplishments not wrought in Christ are regarded as garbage, a life lived in the power of Christ's resurrection, a life lived in the sharing of the sufferings of Christ.
This is not what we mean today by "the righteous shall live by faith." We are unscriptural. We have destroyed the Christian churches with our incorrect understanding of the Apostle Paul's doctrine of salvation by faith.
We should have known we were off the track when we read the words of Jesus Christ and His Apostles that have to do with righteous behavior. But we were willing to ignore all these commandments, or apply them to the Jews, or to another "dispensation." We have made the commandments of Jesus Christ null and void with our vain reasonings.
To be continued.