There is none righteous, no, not one, declares the apostle Paul (Romans 3:10).
At this present moment, says Paul, there is none righteous. Without exception, not a single one. But instead of listening to Paul, many listen instead to the preachers of repentance from sins. They teach that when God forgives you, He also makes you righteous. And because their followers believe they are righteous, they think God is now, on a daily basis, busily searching their lives for evidence of that new righteousness.
But He’s not. He couldn’t be. Because, unlike some Christians, God never goes searching for what doesn’t really exist. And outside of God Himself, righteousness does not exist. Nowhere. Not even in the forgiven Christian.
Paul says there is none righteous, not there ‘were’ none righteous. Present tense, there is none righteous, no, not one. You’re not righteous. You were never righteous before you came to Christ, and even after you do, you’re still not righteous. And that’s bad news for the Pharisee.
Look back again at the Pharisee and the publican in the temple praying. The Pharisee sincerely believes that the evidence of his righteousness can be found right there in all the righteous works of which he is so eager to remind God. “See,” he happily says to God. “No adultery. No extortion. No unjustness. Nothing like this publican. I am righteous,” says the Pharisee. “And you can see it in my works.”
But the publican declares exactly the opposite. “I am unrighteous,” he confesses to God. “And you can see it in my works.”
But Jesus says the most astonishing thing. His assessment is, in fact, simply staggering. He says the man who counts himself righteous because of his works is actually counted sinful, and the man who counts himself sinful by his works is actually counted righteous.
That is exactly the contradiction to what you would think that God thinks. How do I know that? Because His thoughts are not your thoughts. And that is definitely His thought.
You think the person who does right is right. And you think the person who does wrong is wrong. God thinks just the opposite. And if you’re not very careful, you’ll contradict Jesus right here, and go away, like the Pharisee, never even knowing it.
It would make perfectly logical sense to say that if sin is defined as “the breaking of the law,” righteousness must be defined as the opposite of that. That is, righteousness would have to be defined as “the keeping of the law.” And that’s exactly what the preachers of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” believe and espouse. To turn from sin, wherein one has been a law-breaker, requires, according to them, a turning to the law, where one is now a law-keeper. And that makes perfect sense. That is, it makes perfect sense to everyone but God.
By the law, declares Paul, is the recognition of sin. Not the recognition of righteousness. Astonishingly, the apostle insists, there is no righteousness to be found at all in the doing of the law. None whatsoever.
THEREFORE WE CONCLUDE THAT A MAN IS
JUSTIFIED BY FAITH WITHOUT THE DEEDS OF THE LAW.
(ROMANS 3:28)
True justification, true righteousness, true acceptance with God, according to Paul, must be unaccompanied by the deeds of the law. If you bring the deeds of the law with you when you come to God, your rejection is altogether certain.
Herein lies the problem with the law: the law has only one goal; that is, to condemn. It does not have, never did have, never will have justification and righteousness as its goal. Astonishingly, Paul declares that the fulfilling of the law is not the doing of the law at all, but something altogether different. Something altogether higher. Paul says the fulfilling of the law is nothing less than love.
Here’s the problem with thinking that the “doing of the law” is “the fulfilling of the law:” a man can not steal, and still not love. A man can not commit adultery, and still not love. A man can honor his mother and father, and still not love. The doing of the law never reaches the lofty goal of love. And the goal is always love. Not law.
The “end” of the commandment, the telos of the commandment, in the Greek “from a primary tello (to set out for a definite point or goal); properly, the point aimed at as a limit, i.e. (by implication) the conclusion of an act or state” is love, out of pure heart and a good conscience, and an unpretended faith.
Paul insists that if you make the doing of the law your goal, you have woefully missed the mark:
The goal is not the doing of the law. The goal has never been the doing of the law. Do you understand? You can keep the law without love. And faith is rendered absolutely ineffectual without love. Christ is of no effect to you who are justified by law. You are fallen from grace. For we are waiting still for the hope of our righteousness, that is, Christ Himself, to arrive. And in Christ, it’s not what you do that is meaningful, but why you do what you do that is meaningful.
Don’t show me your deeds of the law. Show me your love. Your deeds of the law will damn you.
Faith worketh by love. The Greek word is energeo, from which we get our word “energy.” Faith without love is dead. The works of faith are never the works of the law. They are strictly and only the works of love.
The preachers of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” seem to think that all men will know you are disciples of Christ by the law that you keep. But Jesus tells it differently:
The preachers of “repentance from sins before forgiveness” seem to think that we will know we have passed from death unto life because we keep the law. But John the apostle tells it differently:
Don’t be impressed when men keep the law. God isn’t.
Be impressed, rather, when they love. Even God is.
The word “righteous” and the word “just” are the same word in the Greek. Remember that as we go through these scriptures. They are both from the same root word dike, meaning “right (as in self-evident),” which is from the word deiknuo, meaning “to show (literally or figuratively).” In other words, it means, “that which is shown to be, or is self-evidently, right.”
Are you ready for the contradiction of righteousness?
Ready or not, here it comes: whom do you think God justifies?
Here’s the astonishing and utterly contradictory truth: God only justifies – that is, declares to be righteous – the ungodly.
Listen to the apostle Paul:
For the one who works, that is, believes that his own righteous works are the basis of his right standing with God, his relationship with God is not the product of grace, undeserved merit, but rather of debt. On payday at your job, you don’t go to your employer to beg his undeserved kindness and favor to get your paycheck. You stick out your hand and say, “Give me what I’m owed.” He doesn’t pay you because he’s gracious. He pays you because he owes you. It’s a debt.
But what if you showed up on payday having not worked that week and stuck out your hand? If your employer gave you anything, it would strictly be by favor. Not because of your efforts, but because of his goodness. In the scripture, the idea of receiving something from God strictly by favor is called “grace.” You don’t deserve it and you didn’t earn it; nevertheless, strictly out of His kindness, God gives it to you. That’s grace.
Paul says that Abraham did nothing to earn his right standing with God. He simply believed what God had said, without confirming and verifying evidence, and his belief was counted unto him for righteousness. That’s the way God does it. By grace. Through faith.
Now listen very carefully: the relationship that you want to have with God is based on this one single idea of counted. You want to have the same kind of righteousness that Abraham had. That’s why Paul uses him as the example.
“Counted” is the Greek word logizomai. It is an accounting term that means “to take an inventory, to estimate, to account, to suppose, or to reckon.”
The word logizomai is translated as three different words in the New Testament. They are the words “counted,” “reckoned,” and “imputed.” They all mean the very same thing.
Abraham believed God, and his belief in what God had said was counted, inventoried, estimated or reckoned to him, as righteousness. This is critically important to understand: Abraham was not righteous. His faith was counted as his righteousness. If Abraham had been righteous, his faith would not have needed to be counted as righteousness.
If you have something already, it makes no sense to impute it to you. Counting, reckoning, and imputing can only be done if you don’t have it. A thing can only be “counted,” “imputed,” or “reckoned” to be a certain way if it isn’t that way already. I can reckon my dog to be human only because she isn’t. I cannot reckon you to be human. There’s no need. You’re already human.
In like manner, God can reckon Abraham to be righteous only if Abraham in reality is not righteous. If Abraham is already righteous, there is no need to reckon him to be so.
Believing is faith. And faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). What is the one thing that must not be seen, must not even exist, but must only be hoped for, in order for God to reckon, impute, or count you to be righteous? That’s right: your righteousness.
In the temple, the Pharisee reckoned that he had his own righteousness in abundance. And he had worked hard for every bit of it. And he was very proud of his efforts. And because he had already earned his righteousness by virtue of his works, God could not possibly reckon righteousness to him. He already had his own righteousness by works. He didn’t need God’s by grace.
Like the elder son in the parable of the prodigal, he had his own hard-earned righteousness. He didn’t need any favors, thank you very much.
On the other hand, in a complete and utter contradiction, the prodigal son and the publican had none of their own righteousness. They freely confessed their own sinfulness. In order to have any righteousness at all, God would have to reckon, impute, and count to the prodigal and the publican what they did not have.
That’s why the prodigal gets the fatted calf. And the party. And the robe and the ring and the sandals. All by favor. None by works. And that’s why the publican went down to his house justified. His was a righteousness given to him, not earned by him. And that’s why the Pharisee went down to his house condemned. He didn’t have the righteousness that only comes by grace. He had his very own. And he was very proud of it.
God cannot impute righteousness to anyone who already has their own. If you already have any of your own, you cannot have His. God only imputes righteousness to the one who hasn’t any of his own. He imputes righteousness without works, by forgiving iniquities and covering sins. If you have no iniquities, how can he forgive them? If you have no sins, how can he cover them? It’s not that the prodigal son doesn’t have sin. The father, in his graciousness and love simply refuses to impute sin to him.
According to Paul, that’s how God does it with us. Not only does He impute righteousness to us when He finds none, but He also refuses to impute sin.
To impute sin would be to un-impute righteousness.
And this is also critical to understand: it’s not just any old righteousness that he reckons, counts and imputes to us. It is His very own righteousness. Listen to Paul:
Whose righteousness is declared for the remission of sins? His righteousness, says Paul.
Why must it be His righteousness, and not your own by your own repentant works? So that boasting may be excluded.
“The just shall live by faith.” Faith excludes boasting. Therefore, there must be no deserving or earning works in faith. The Pharisee, and all who are like him, boast in their own righteous works. Their repentance from sins is the foundation of their boasting. And their boasting is always a comparison between themselves and the greater sinners around them. But Paul says they’re comparing their righteousness to the wrong ones. They should instead be comparing their own righteousness to the only One Who is truly righteous: God Himself.
Those who preach “repentance of sins before forgiveness” bring their own thimble-full of repentance-from-sins righteous works to the ocean of God’s righteousness and pour it in. Then they stand back and wait for the tsunami wave that will surely come crashing in upon all the poor sinners around them. “Behold my righteousness compared to yours,” they cry out. “God receives me because of my repentance and rejects you because of your lack of repentance,” they proudly assure all the poor sinners around them.
But Paul rebukes them in their folly:
The word “knowledge” in the phrase, by the law is the knowledge of sin, is the Greek word epignosis, meaning, “recognition; to know upon some mark.” Sin is recognized by the law. Righteousness is not.
That’s where the Pharisee makes his fatal mistake. He believes that by the law, righteousness can be recognized. “See me keeping the law?” he calls out to the sinners around him. “That’s what righteousness looks like. See, no adultery, no extortion, no unjustness, no traits of the publican in me.”
And again Paul rebukes him in his error:
By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified. And repentance from sins before forgiveness is definitely a deed of the law.
All have sinned. There are none righteous. There are only those who, in their humble honesty about being sinners, are being reckoned as righteous, and those who, in their proud dishonesty about being sinners, are being counted as what they and everyone else really are: unrighteous.
There are only two postures that can be taken before God: either you will confess that you are a sinner, and like Abraham have God’s own righteousness reckoned to your account without adding your own righteous works to the mix, or you will confess yourself righteous by your own law-keeping works and see how your righteousness compares with His on judgment day. There is no door number three.
Paul says hope that is seen is not hope. For why would a man hope for what he can now see? And righteousness that is seen is not God’s righteousness. For why would a man hope for the righteousness he can now see? But we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. We don’t have righteousness yet. But we have the promise of righteousness. Righteousness isn’t here yet. But it’s on it’s way.
Christ is our righteousness. In Him alone we glory. If we have even one molecule of our own righteousness, we cannot have any of His. He will impute to us none of His own, as long as we have any of our own.
Faith guarantees the absence of righteousness. And righteousness guarantees the absence of faith.
Do you understand? If you already have righteousness, why would you wait for the hope of righteousness by faith? Of course, you wouldn’t. And that’s the Pharisee’s problem. He won’t wait for God’s own righteousness to arrive in the form of Christ Himself. He must have it now. And it must be his own. Otherwise, there will be no ground to boast. And the Pharisee must boast. That’s what he lives for.
Simply said, the just, that is, the righteous, shall live by faith. And faith is believing the promise of God. And the promise of righteousness is only about the future. It is never about the present. If it’s about the present, then by definition it is no longer a promise. And if it’s no longer a promise, it is no longer faith. So the just, the righteous, shall live by the promise of a future righteousness. Not by the deeds of a present righteousness.
Do you understand? The deeds of the law just serve to anger God. Because the law is not of faith. And the law worketh wrath.
You who say you keep the law: do you not hear the law?
If righteousness is already here, it is by the law and not by promise, and, therefore, not by faith. And if righteousness comes by the law, then Chist is dead in vain.
Righteousness is coming. But it’s not here yet.
Think of it like this:
When I was in the third grade, I had a teacher named Mrs. Mobley. She was at least in her late sixties at the time, maybe even in her late seventies. At ten years old, I couldn’t tell. I just knew she was really old. Thin as a rail, with an unruly shock of snow white hair, Mrs. Mobley loved torturing our young third-grade minds by making us define words. Every day, all day, day after endless day, nothing but definitions. That was her own joyful tortuous specialty. If it moved, she made us define it. If it didn’t move, she made us define it.
There were real definitions and nominal definitions. There were ostensive and stipulative and descriptive definitions. There were definitions by cause and effect, by comparison and contrast, by example and illustration, and by process analysis. There were definitions by usage and by material and by shape and by function. It seemed, to my young mind, there must have been at least a thousand different ways you could define the simple word chair. And Mrs. Mobley was passionately convinced that we needed to know them all.
But every once in a while, my classmates and I would come into the classroom and find that dear Mrs. Mobley wasn’t there. And sitting in her place on those occasions would be Mr. Smith. And even at ten years of age, we could tell the difference. Mr. Smith simply looked nothing like Mrs. Mobley. She was old and had short white hair. He was young and had long dark hair. Unlike Mrs. Mobley’s high and quavering voice, Mr. Smith had a low and robust voice. She was thin, he was not.
Mr. Smith was, of course, the substitute teacher. He wasn’t the permanent teacher. Mrs. Mobley was the permanent teacher. And that was, even for a ten year old, not an extremely difficult concept to grasp.
Mr. Smith’s presence guaranteed Mrs. Mobley’s absence. And Mrs Mobley’s presence guaranteed Mr. Smith’s absence. They were never in class at the same time. They didn’t need to be. Ever. One had a temporary function, the other a permanent.
But think about this: even though my classmates and I were only ten years old, we still never got upset when we saw Mr. Smith. Never. Not one time. Not one bit. Because we had already been told, by someone whose word we trusted, that this would happen. And we were, I suppose, fairly mature in our reaction to the circumstance when it would occur.
And in our fairly mature ten year old reaction, here’s what we never did, never even once: we never confused Mr. Smith with Mrs. Mobley.
And we never made Mr. Smith try to act like he was really Mrs. Mobley.
And we never demanded that Mr. Smith don a white wig, alter his voice, suck in his stomach, and pretend that he was Mrs. Mobley.
Never. Amazingly, not even once.
So it is with faith and righteousness. Faith is the substitute for righteousness. As long as faith is present, righteousness cannot be. And when righteousness finally arrives, faith will no longer be necessary.
That’s the way it works. And that’s the only way it works.
And until righteousness arrives, don’t act less mature than a ten year old and go around trying to pass off your faith as your righteousness.
Don’t try to dress faith up and pretend it’s real righteousness. Don’t have faith hold in it’s stomach like real righteousness. And don’t have it try to speak in the voice of real righteousness. Faith is not righteousness. Like the substitute teacher, it’s just counted, reckoned, and imputed to be righteousness. The substitute teacher is counted as the permanent teacher, but everybody knows, and it’s patently obvious, that he’s not the permanent teacher. He looks nothing like her. And when you make him dress up and pretend he’s her, you just embarrass them both. And when you make faith dress up and try to pretend that it’s really righteousness, you embarrass both faith and righteousness.
Listen carefully: everybody around you already knows that you’re not really righteous! Stop pretending that you are!
Nobody will have a problem if you simply confess that you have faith, God’s ordained substitute for righteousness. It’s OK. This is School Board approved. But stop trying to convince everyone that Mr. Smith is really Mrs. Mobley! You’re making a fool of Mrs. Mobley, Mr. Smith, yourself and Christ.
Your permanent Righteousness is on His way here to be sure. But He’s not here yet. And no one around you will have problem if you simply tell them that your Righteousness is on His way. But they cannot and will not believe you when you tell them that He’s already back and hanging out exclusively at your house.
Faith is here. But righteousness is not. Not yet.
Stop working for your righteousness. It’s just making God angry. Believe on Him that is justifying the ungodly. That’s you. And don’t for a minute imagine that He will ever count your righteousness as your righteousness. He will only count your faith as righteousness. And the righteousness He counts as your righteousness will be His righteousness, not yours.
So keep confessing your faith. But for God’s sake, stop confessing your righteousness. You don’t have any. Not yet.
Most people are at least vaguely aware that the Old Contract is the law, the ten commandments that God inscribed with His own finger on tablets of stone. That Contract was an agreement of works:
Do the law, get its righteousness. That’s what Moses says. The problem, of course, lies in the fact that nobody ever kept the law, and therefore no one was ever righteous under the law, or because of the law.
Have you ever broken the law? Jesus says you have:
Consequently, because you haven’t kept 100% of the law, you’re automatically under its curse.
Paul contrasts the Old Contract with the New Contract by using some different-by-a-universe descriptions of the two:
According the apostle, the ten commandments kill. That’s their very goal. That’s their one and only job. The ten commandments, written and engraven in stones, are actually a ministration of condemnation and a ministration of death.
God has made us, Paul insists, able ministers of the New Contract, not the Old. The word “ministers” is the Greek word for a “table waiter.” Think of it like this: those who would preach the law and a repentance unto the law are like table waiters offering to their patrons death in their dishes instead of life. “Would you care for the poison fish or the poison mushrooms?” they cheerily ask. “You will find both to be equally deadly.”
“But don’t we need to tell the world that the law condemns them?”
Apparently not, according to Paul. He says they already know it. In fact, Paul says, the work of the law is actually written in their hearts already. No need to tell them. God has already done that job:
The work of the law is written in their hearts, says Paul. Who taught little Johnny to come running to his mother decrying the fact that little Susie has done him a grave injustice by taking his toy? The answer is, of course, nobody. God wrote it on his heart.
Everyone, in every culture, every creed and religion, has the work of the law written in their heart. It’s not the law, but rather the work of the law that is written. The work of the law is that very basis by which we excuse ourselves and accuse others, declares the apostle. That work of the law compels every man, from young to old, to agree that there is indeed such a thing as right and wrong.
And it matters not one whit what right and wrong. The content of the right and wrong in the work of the law written in every man’s heart is not material to its stated goal: condemnation.
There is not a man who ever lived who did not fail by his very own standard. There is not a man who ever lived who has not said, “I should have, and I did not,” and, “I should not have, and I did.” That’s the work of the law. And it’s already written in every man’s heart. You don’t need to go out and re-write what God has already written. Your penmanship isn’t nearly as good as His.
Just as surely as the law of Moses was inscribed on the tablets of stone by the finger of God Himself, so also is the work of the law inscribed in the heart of every man by the finger of God Himself. And just as surely as the law of Moses condemns every Jew in his failure to continue in it, so also does the work of the law inscribed in the heart of every man condemn him in his failure to continue in it.
If any man says he does not believe in the reality of an inwardly written right or wrong, you need only strike him once across the face to make him realize that his real feelings on the subject of whether right and wrong really exist are quite different than his theories.
Those who preach the law or a repentance from the sins of the law are table waiters of death. They need to be arrested so that their administration of death and condemnation will cease. The law is good. Your preaching of the law is not. Let the law condemn. It does a perfectly fine job without you.
Paul continues in his explanation of the difference between the Old and the New:
What’s the operative phrase for Paul? “Not as Moses.”
Even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart, says Paul. Nevertheless, if a man turns from Moses to Christ, that is, turns from Moses and the law to where the Spirit of the Lord is, he finds the freedom that he could never find in the law of Moses. Moses brings the law that brings death. Jesus brings the gospel that brings life.
You may think that it’s your God-given duty to inform the sinners around you that they’ve broken the law. But you’re wrong. You’re incapable of doing that right. You’re not qualified. Stop thinking that that’s your calling. It isn’t. It never was. It couldn’t be.
Stop preaching the law. God has not made us “able,” hikanoo, “qualified and competent,” ministers of the letter, written and engraven in stones. Stop pretending He has. You’re killing with the letter. And that’s not your job. That’s Moses’ job. And the word that Paul instructs you with is not as Moses.
Don’t do it like Moses. That’s not your job. Do it like Jesus. That’s your job.
The law, the ten commandments, written and engraven in stone, is the Old Contract. And because of sin, not a single Jew to whom it was offered was ever able to keep it. And consequently, God withdrew Himself from fulfilling His side of the Contract.
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, says God. Not like that. The New Contract is not like the Old Contract because the Old Contract could not be kept because of sin. They continued not in my covenant, says God. So I regarded them not. They breached the contract by not continuing in their side of it. In other words, they failed to keep their side of the bargain. And what was their side of the bargain? Keep the law. Don’t sin. Keep the law and live, said Moses.
The word “continued” is the key to understanding this passage. In the Greek, it’s the word emmeno, “to stay in the same place.” Remember that word when we spell out the conditions of the New Contract. That’s what God is after. Continuance. Period.
You will be required in the New Contract, just like they were required in the Old Contract, to continue, “to stay in the same place,” in the same condition under which you entered the agreement, or God will find you in breach of the New Contract just like He found the Jews in breach of the Old.
Does that make sense?
The Old Contract said “keep the law.” That was it’s sole binding condition. They failed to keep it. And in failing to continue in it, they breached the agreement.
So what are the conditions of the New Contract?
They are, thankfully, an entire universe away from the Old. Here’s the offer to you, from God Himself.
This is God’s one and only offer to you for a relationship with Him. This is the New Contract. If you do not relate to Him on the basis of this Contract offering, you cannot relate to Him at all.
Listen very carefully to exactly what is required from you to enter this agreement, because you will be required to continue in the conditions of the Contract. If you fail to continue, you will breach the Contract.
If God says, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, what part of that stipulation is yours to bring to the agreement, and what part of that stipulation is God’s? That’s right: your part would be to bring your unrighteousness. His part would be to bring His mercy. And if you failed to bring your unrighteousness, He could not possibly bring His mercy. For on what would He lavish His mercy except your unrighteousness?
Do you understand the problem with the Pharisee? The Pharisee brings to the table of agreement his righteousness, not his unrighteousness. And God cannot bring His mercy, because righteousness doesn’t require mercy.
The publican, on the other hand, brings nothing to the table but his unrighteousness. And therefore, God can bring His mercy and they can make an agreement.
What’s the second part of the New Contract? And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. What part of that stipulation is yours and what part of that stipulation is Gods? You must bring your sins and iniquities, and God will bring His non-remembrance. If you fail to bring your sins and iniquities, what exactly would God not remember?
Do you understand the problem with the Pharisee? He wants God to remember His righteous deeds. Not forget his sins and iniquities. But that’s not the agreement that God is offering. Not even close.
God will only enter the agreement if you bring your unrighteousness, your sins, and your iniquities. That’s your side of the bargain. You don’t have anything else. Do you understand? God will only agree to be in a relationship with you under those specific conditions. That’s the New Contract. There is no other. Take it or leave it.
But there is another consideration concerning the Contract. You must continue in it. And that’s where many go wrong. They make the agreement, and then breach it by failing to continue, “to stay in the same place” required to enter the Contract in the first place.
Paul upbraids the Galatians for beginning in the New Covenant but vacating it by going back to the Old:
It is witchery, says Paul. You’re under an evil spell. You are foolish beyond imagining to think that you could begin in an agreement with God one way, and continue in the exact opposite way. Paul continues:
Those who would have you obey the works of the law have put you back under Moses’ agreement, the very agreement that no man can keep. And if you attempt to keep that agreement and fail to do so, according to Paul, all the curses of that agreement must come upon you.
If the agreement is by law, by works, says Paul, it cannot be by faith. The law is not of faith.
We must continue in faith, not in law. The law is the doing of righteousness. Faith is only the promise of a future righteousness. If you would have righteousness now, like the Pharisee, it must be by the law. It cannot be by faith.
When you fall, you always fall down. Never up. You fall from grace, down to the keeping of the law. You fall from God’s reckoning, imputing, and counting of the righteousness of grace, down to the earning, deserving, and indebtedness of the righteousness of the law. You fall from having God put His robe of righteousness over your dirty body, to putting your own robe of righteousness over your self-cleaned body. You fall from the kisses of your father on your dirty neck, to the refusal of his kisses on your self-cleaned neck.
In order for God to continue in His side of the New Agreement, you must be willing to continue in your side. His side is mercy and non-remembrance. Your side is unrighteousness and sins and iniquities.
That’s why the breast-smiting confession of the publican is the continuing confession of the New Contract. That’s why Paul, and every man who would continue in relationship with God, cries out continually, “O wretched man that I am.”
Those who would confess that they are presently righteous abrogate the New Contract. They cannot abide in relationship with God. The New Contract is only for the unrighteous. It is never for the righteous.
But many would protest this viewpoint by posing Paul’s question to the Romans: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1) And they do indeed quote his question correctly, but not, I think, with understanding.
Paul’s question is framed not as “do we have the inherent capacity for sin?” and “is grace available at all times to super-abundantly meet and overwhelm that sinful capacity?” because his answer to that question would obviously have been “Yes and more than yes!” And his question is not “will we sin at any time in the future?” and “will grace super-abound to our forgiveness if we do?” because the answer to that question would also be a resounding “Yes, we will, and yes, it will!”
But rather his question is posed much like if someone were to ask you, “Shall we dance?” They’re not asking, “Do you have the ability to dance?” or “Have you ever at any time in the past or will you ever at anytime in the future dance?” They’re asking, “Do you want to dance right now?”
Paul is asking whether or not we should make a plan, right now, to continue to sin in order to get the grace that we need and desire from God. And the obvious answer to that question is a resounding ‘no.’ But the reason for the answer is not as obvious as the answer itself.
Paul asks this question in response to information he has just communicated in the preceding verses of chapter 5, particularly the last three verses of that chapter.
By whose disobedience were many made sinners? The answer is, according to Paul, by Adam’s disobedience. His disobedience is purely past-tense. That’s a done deal. And by Whose obedience shall many be made righteous? The answer is, of course, by Christ’s obedience. And our being made righteous is purely future tense. That is not yet a done deal. The just, that is, the righteous, shall live by faith, says the apostle. And faith is strictly a promise of things not yet fulfilled, the substance of things only hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen. If you’re still hoping for it, and if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s still in the future. That full and present persuasion of a promise not yet fulfilled is the very definition of faith. And nothing else pleases God but that.
But then Paul says the law entered to make a complete mess of things. The law came to make sin abound. But, thanks be to God, grace came in and out-abounded sin, so that even though sin used to reign unto death, now grace reigns unto eternal life. Sin used to sit on the throne, but now grace does. And here is where the confusion lies:
Paul says grace now reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.
But whose righteousness is he referring to? Yours or Christ’s? Through whose righteousness does grace now reign unto eternal life? Yours or His?
Didn’t he just say that because of Adam’s disobedience you were made a sinner? Do you think he is now saying that by your righteousness grace will reign unto eternal life? He says very plainly that you’re the sinner. And very plainly that Christ is the righteous. If he’s referring to grace “reigning by your own righteousness,” then the next sentence in which he asks the question, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But if he’s referring to Christ’s righteousness through which grace is reigning, then it makes perfect sense.
Paul’s answer to his own rhetorical question is emphatic. Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid!
But why shall we not sin? Shall we not make a plan to sin because we are now righteous? Because we now pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps and decide, “I’m just not going to sin anymore”?
No. Quite the opposite actually. Paul says we shall not continue in sin because we’re dead. And the dead do not sin.
In the ten sentences that follow, including the very one where he emphatically asserts that we should not make a plan to sin, he uses the words death, dead or died nine times, and in the one sentence where he doesn’t use the word death, he uses the two words crucified and destroyed. Close enough.
We don’t make a plan for sin not because we are righteous, Paul insists, but because we are dead.
Why do we not sin? Not because we are alive and reigning through our own righteous behavior. But rather, because we are dead.
Paul says the law has dominion over a man so long as he lives (Romans 7:1). But when that man is dead, the law’s dominion is done. If in the course of a crime, the perpetrator is shot and killed, he never goes to trial afterward. The law is finished with him. It has extracted from him the maximum penalty. There is no more price to pay. So it is with us. Only in our case, the law did not extract from us the maximum penalty. It rather extracted it from Christ in our stead. He died unto sin once. But being raised, he dies no more. And in that He lives, He now lives unto God, declares Paul.
And then the apostle gets right down to the heart of the reason why we do not plan to sin anymore: likewise, he says, reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ.
It’s not that we’re already dead to sin. That’s not what he’s saying. He is saying that we must reckon ourselves dead unto sin. To reckon is to count a thing which is not as though it already is. A reckoning is a future reality, not a present one. Count it this way, says Paul.
On the other hand, you are, right now, in reality, at the present, indeed, dead to the law by the body of Christ.
But you are not dead to sin. Not yet. That is why you must reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin. You reckon it because, at present, it is not so.
And how do we accomplish that? Paul continues in the same passage:
Sin shall not have dominion over you, not because you now keep the law, but rather, because you’re not even under the law, but under grace. How can you be under the law, the apostle reasons, if you’re dead? The law has no dominion over the dead. And if you’re in Christ, then you’re dead.
Dead to the law because of sin, reckoning yourself dead indeed to sin, and simultaneously spiritually alive to God through Christ. Dead and alive at the very same time.
There are two practical aspects of this living-death: first, do not let sin reign, “be the king,” that you should obey it as your king. The word obey is not an obedience by compulsion, but rather a willing obedience. In the Greek, hupakouo means “to hear under (as a subordinate), i.e. to listen attentively; by implication, to heed or conform to a command or authority: hearken, be obedient to, obey.” Paul says that the law of sin that is in his members compels him, against his will, to do those things that he does not want to do.
You may still be the reluctant servant of sin, but don’t any longer be the willing, attentive, eager servant of sin.
Second, neither yield your members to sin and its causes. Yield, paristemi, is “to stand beside so as to recommend, to proffer,” that is, to offer for approval. No longer willingly serve sin as your master, but rather, yield your members to Christ. Stand beside now “so as to recommend” Christ instead.
Can you reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin? Yes, you can. And you must. And can you reckon yourself alive unto God through Christ Jesus? Yes, you can. And you must. And can you stop “standing beside so as to recommend” sin as its eager and willing servant and instead now recommend Christ? Yes, you can. And you must. And can you acknowledge that it is the righteousness of Christ alone and not your own righteousness that will ultimately bring you to eternal life? Yes you can. And you must.
But can you, or will you, or must you, never sin again in order to be His faithful and pleasing servant? Of course not. And those who would tell you that you must, or imply that you must, or even fail to tell you differently, lie.
Like all Pharisees, they lie.
Faith is righteousness by promise. And the promise is much like a written check. The check is a promise of things to come, but not those very things themselves. If the writer of the check is trustworthy, the check will cause the same rejoicing as the cashing of the check.
God promises righteousness. You have His word on it. And God has never bounced a check. Not once. Heaven and earth will pass away, but His word will never pass away. But until Christ returns and the Permanent replaces the substitute, the check will have to be enough. And if you try to cash that check drawn on a future righteousness now, by the law, then He will refuse to honor it at His return.
Abraham is our example of faith. Faith, because it is the reckoning, imputing and counting of what is not really there yet, requires a contradiction of circumstance to be activated. Such was the case of Abraham:
God waits until the circumstances of Abraham’s life make the fulfillment of his promise impossible in natural terms. Hundred year old men with dead-wombed wives do not become fathers of many nations. That’s impossible. And that’s exactly the way God wants it: impossible.
But astonishingly, Abraham believes God anyway. And his faith is counted as righteousness. And that’s the same offer God makes to you.
Your contradicting circumstance is that you are impossibly unrighteous. And impossibly sinful and iniquitous. And God says to you, right in the big middle of your utterly contradicting impossibility, For I will be merciful to your unrighteousness, and your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more.
God only makes one offer: you be the sinner, continually, and Christ will be the Righteous. Begin as a sinner. Remain a sinner. And like Abraham, believe what God offers you in the New Contract. And your faith will be counted unto you, just like Abraham’s was unto him, as righteousness.
The sinful publican goes home justified. He has the righteousness of God. It is counted, imputed, reckoned, not present, only future, by promise, by faith.
The ‘righteous’ Pharisee goes home condemned. He only has his own righteousness. It is earned, seen, worked-for, present, not by promise, not by faith.
And that righteousness is no righteousness at all.
My thoughts are not your thoughts, says God. Not one. Not ever.