JUST AS I AM

JUST AS I AM

                “Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me and that Thou bidst me come to Thee, Oh Lamb of God I come, I come.”

                We sing it, but we don’t always tend to believe it. After years of struggle and learning to put away sin in our lives and learning how to live sanctified lives, it is easy to begin to look at our track record as somehow contributing to our salvation in some way. And yet, if we are deeply honest with ourselves we would ask this one question: ”Would I rather stand before God with my own good record, or Jesus’ perfect record?”

                I once had an 80 year old friend come up to me and to tell me that he had been living a sinless life for some years now and that he expected to be among the 140,000 virgins listed in revelation 14:1 Of course he was basing his idea of perfection on the Law and since he had stopped breaking the Law, he felt that He was now in a special group somehow.

                For all such people Galatians 2:19-21 stands in bold relief: “Through the Law I died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for it righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

                The Law has only one job and that is to condemn us to death and to bring us to the foot of the cross where we can decide if we will die for our own sins, or we will accept Christ’s death in our place. If we decide to receive Christ’s death in our place, then we by faith enter into His death and thereby we die to the Law. For us then the Law has absolutely finished its work. It killed us, but we by faith entered into Christ’s death instead of our own death. So… what’s next?

                On what must seem like the flip side of the coin, the bible everywhere talks about growing in grace and overcoming by the blood of the Lamb. We are called to live by the promises of the Word, but not the Law, for we have died to the Law. That is a done deal. So what is our struggle in this life if it is not to keep the Law?

                Our struggle is that of learning to live by the Spirit of Christ rather than by our fallen flesh. We have been delivered out of Egypt, but now Egypt must be delivered out of us. And yet the Law has no power to do this and anyway we are dead as far as the Law is concerned.

                Paul deals with this struggle in Romans chapter 7:21-25 saying: “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.  For I joyfully concur with the Law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”

                The man who thought he had become perfect according to the Law had forgotten that our righteousness is as filthy rags and that even if we were able to perfectly fulfill the Law in every detail, we would still fall infinitely short of the glory of God. Jesus, on the other hand, did not fall short of the glory of God. Do we want to live by our righteousness, or His?

                Jesus Christ IS our righteousness. We do not own even a speck of righteousness. No matter how long we are on this journey we still come to Jesus without one plea, but that His blood was shed for me.

                David understood this very well and so, instead of standing in the temple like the Pharisee saying: “I thank God that I am not like other men, he came to God as a penitent man. Remember if you will that it was Jesus Himself who told this story and revealed to us the mind of God saying:

                Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself; ”God I thank Thee that I am not like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” But the tax- gatherer, standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ Then Jesus astounded them all by saying, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other…”

                So David, when he prayed to the Lord, he came to Him not like the Pharisee, but like the publican saying:

                “Behold, thou dost desire truth in the innermost being and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop and I shall be clean; Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice. Hide Thy face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Thy presence and do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.” Ps. 51:6-12.

                David came to the Lord like the publican and not like the Pharisee and so did Paul, saying: O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? But Paul does not leave us in Romans 7. Thank god for Romans 8 for it says:

                There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the Law of sin and death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did; sending His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4

                So when John identifies God’s remnant people as those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Rev. 12:17 and Rev. 14:12) He is not talking about those like my friend who thought that he had become perfect according to the Law, nor was he talking about the Pharisee who paraded his own righteousness before God.  He is rather talking about those who live by the Spirit. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

                Our job on this earth is not to be conformed to the Law, which cannot save us, but to be conformed to the image of Christ. Romans 8:29… to be transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus. Romans 12:2

                If there is a struggle in this Christian life… and there is… it is our struggle to remain dead to the Law and alive to Jesus Christ. It is to remain dead to the flesh and alive to the Spirit, for as Paul says:

                “… Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who indwells you.” Romans 8:8-11

                This is why Paul became so apoplectic when he returned to Galatia and found the church there returning to the Law. He virtually shouted out: “Who has bewitched you. Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?” Gal. 3:1-3

                Then Paul goes on to remind them that as Christians we are no longer in the covenant of Law, but in the covenant of promise… the covenant of Abraham that came before the Law. “So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer, for as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse. And Paul goes on to explain the temporary nature of the Law which was added because of transgression until the seed should come to whom the promises were made… that is Christ and if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise.

                Today large portions of the church are once again being bewitched by Judaism. They are returning to the Old Covenant to keep days and months and new moons and Sabbaths and such, all of which were shadows of the real thing… but the substance belongs to Christ.

                We are trading our New Covenant in for a covenant that cannot save us… even to the extent where many Christians are denying Jesus Christ and returning to Judaism. What would Paul say today?

                Paul’s conclusion is this: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in Him… for in Him dwells all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete and He is the head over all rule and authority.

                Should we not return to Christ with a renewed understanding of what it means to be penitent? Should we not repent of our falling away from the covenant that Jesus brought to us by His blood? Have we fallen into the trap of trying to improve upon the New Covenant by keeping the Old Covenant as well? But Paul says that we can’t have it both ways. To live in the New Covenant we must pass through the death of the cross and in the process we die to the Law in order to live by the Spirit of Christ. We are either in one covenant or the other and we can’t be in both.

                Paul counted everything that came before Christ as rubbish, even though he had an impressive track record. He warned the Philippians saying, “Beware of the false circumcision for we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. Phil. 3:2, 3.

                We could go on for hours quoting text after text that talks about our transition from Law to grace, even quoting Old Testament texts like Jeremiah 31:31. But in all reality, we really need to come before God with penitent hearts and ask that He will teach us how to live by His Spirit, for indeed it is those who live by the Spirit of God that are the sons (and daughters) of God.

                Have I said anything controversial here? No. This is the heart of the Gospel. As we have received Him, so let us walk in Him.