January/February 2000
LegalismAlive and Well
by J. Michael Feazell
| There is nothing wrong with striving for sinlessness. But it is a fruitless quest without faith in God's mercy. |
Somehow we seem to have gotten the idea that the main point of coming to Christ is to strive to get to the place where we don't need him any more. After all, if the main goal of being Christian is to strive toward flawless behavior, as many seem to assume, then as we attain more and more righteousness through these strivings, we will naturally need less and less grace. Eventually, I suppose, if we keep up the pace and begin to close in on perfection, we will need very little grace indeed. Then, on that wonderful day when we finally reach the goal, we will at last need no grace at all.
Where did we get this idea that the main goal of being Christian is to become sinless? Maybe it comes, in part, from Jesus' statement in Matthew 5:48. Here, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." But being "perfect," better translated "complete" or "spiritually mature," is reflected not in sinlessness, which none of us has ever achieved, but is reflected, Jesus says, in a heart inclined toward selfless love (vs. 43-47) a heart akin to the heart of Jesus, who willingly gave himself for us.
What God really wants is for us to come to know him and love him as he truly is (John 17:3). That is why Jesus came, so that we can know God and his love for us by knowing Jesus (John 14:6-9). God shows us who he is in terms we can understand by becoming one of us -- the man Jesus Christ. It is in knowing and loving him that our sins are taken care of. It is like the old joke about the farmer who told the traveler asking for directions, "You can't get there from here." We can't get to "perfection" through achievements -- we get there only if our real goal is to know God.
That is why we need to put our first attention on knowing and loving Jesus Christ and our Father who sent him. As we do that, he will take care of the sin problem. The better we get to know him, the more like him we will become (1 John 4:15-17).
There is nothing wrong with striving for sinlessness. But it is a fruitless quest without faith in God's mercy. Sin, along with the guilty conscience it produces, is removed only by the grace of God, through faith in the blood of Christ (Hebrews 9:14). We cannot scrape sin off ourselves by ourselves. It goes too deep. Only God can do it. That is why he wants us to put our trust in him, both to forgive and to remove our sins.
Too easy? Apparently not, since so many of us seem to prefer striving to get right with God by trying really hard to be good, instead of trusting God to give us his righteousness. Relying on his grace must be harder than it sounds. Maybe that is because when we trust God to make us righteous we are, in effect, saying, "God, I am a hopeless sinner with nothing to offer you but a lifetime of selfishness and arrogance. Have mercy on me."
It is interesting that as we mature in the faith, we become more aware of our sinfulness. The deeper and more intimate our relationship with God, the more acutely we sense our unworthiness. But our sinfulness does not have to cause us despair. Our hopeless condition is the reason Jesus came -- to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). We need him now, and we will always need him.
It is a trap to think, as I heard one pastor put it, "We are assured of salvation by seeing our changed life." No! We are assured of salvation by the testimony of the word of God (Romans 1:16). The greatest commandment -- to love God with all our heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37-38) -- is the fountainhead of all righteous living. Getting to know God intimately provides the only abiding assurance of our solid standing in his everlasting grace.
J. Michael Feazell, D. Min., is executive editor of Plain Truth. He also serves as executive editor of Experiencing the Word -- A Daily Devotional Journey Through the Bible -- available through Plain Truth Ministries.