The Two Parts of Justification Under the Law

The two parts of justification under the law seem to be active and passive efforts to please God. Actively, we do things like sacrifice to atone for our sins. Passively we abstain from doing the things that make us unclean or that break God's laws. These things are motivated by bitter envy and selfish ambition. We either want something that someone else has, or we want to be better than someone else. This is the double edged sword that we stab ourselves with every day.

Under active sacrifice would fall reading more books to increase our knowledge out of sheer desire to gain more knowledge for ourselves. Being incredibly productive at work with a goal of being noticed by the boss would be another example. This is a mindset that desires personal advancement by magnifying the laziness of others and magnifying the importance of self so as to be seen for what one's personal worth is and that it is much higher than those around you. This becomes a system of works righteousness.

The other side of the coin with which we passively promote ourselves and try to be justified by the Law is by not doing some things that others do that are sinful. I don't have sex with women that I am not married to. Therefore, I am better loved by God and ought to be more highly blessed in what I do. I also deserve to be more richly rewarded both here now and in the life to come. Going back to the previous paragraph, in productivity, I refrain from laziness (passivity) and do productiveness (activity). Or I refrain from sex and do chastity. These are the two sides of justification by the Law.

What this leads to is a mentality that sees oneself as a living, breathing version of the Lord Jesus. It becomes a person who is justified by grace but thinks that with their efforts that they have obtained a degree of sinlessness. I'll give you an example from my own life: 1 Corinthians 13:7 says that love "believeth all things". When I hear of a promise that someone else made, and make judgements on their ability to keep it, merely on the basis of the way I perceive their character to be. I judge them as promising something that they are unable to fulfill, simply because I view them as less spiritually mature than myself. I don't take them at their word because I see their ability to keep their promise (the Law) as less than mine because I view them as not having the Holy Spirit (even though I am not sure if they are saved or not).

Furthermore, I imagine that I know what is really in their hearts because I remember a few Scriptures about Jesus, "knowing their thoughts" or "knew what they were thinking in their hearts" or "But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man" Joh 2:24-25. I picture myself as being so discerning that I can actually judge their character as to whether they will keep their word or not.

I actually see unsaved people do this all the time. Where do you think the phrase, "good judge of character" came from? But this is far from something a sactified and justified and glorified person should be doing. The Bible is clear. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" 1Co 13:7. If I find myself not doing these things, I can be sure that I don't know the grace of being forgiven because I don't think my sins are very bad.

My only plea is to hate this in myself and desire to obey God. To realize that this attitude does not come from God but is a part of me that needs to die. "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry"

Col 3:5. Why persist in this sin? If you realize that you are doing it, don't give up calling upon God every day to free you from a love of self and ask him for a love for others. Review the gospel that tells you that you are nothing and think you are something: "For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself" Gal 6:3. This verse doesn't say that some of us are something and some aren't, only those who know they are nothing are actually something. Those who think they are something point out to the Lord that they are really nothing.

Matthew 5:6 - Do you Hunger For God's Righteousness?

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

(Matthew 5:6 ESV)

Do we feel despair or satisfaction regarding our spiritual condition? We can say one or the other and be wrong. If we say we aren't satisfied, it can be because we want God to solve all of our problems because we don't like the situation we are in. Much of the world today looks for God to save them from their situation or some kind of oppression. The problem is that Jesus did not come to save us from that. There is always going to be a situation we aren't going to be happy with.

Jesus came to save us from our sins. The question is not whether we are satisfied with our spiritual condition in relation to the place God has put us or with the amount of spiritual knowledge that we have. This verse refers to our desire to be conformed to God in the aspect of his justice. We are to hunger to be just as straight and free from corruption as God is. We are to hunger for the same mercy, love and hatred for our own sin as God has. Do you have this?

If we say that we are satisfied with our spiritual condition, we need to go back to week 3 and study Luke 18:9-14 again because we haven't learned the principle of the righteousness of God. We have not learned that repentance is a gift of God only to those who realize their own injustice and depravity who cry out to God for mercy. In fact, if we are hungering for something, we do not possess any of it and need it for survival. That is why desiring to be as just and straight as God, is compared to having a hunger. It should be as necessary to us as food. If we haven't eaten for a week then we will be very hungry.

This is how we should progressively be. We at the beginning hunger for God's righteousness and think that we are doing well. But after years of living the Christian life we should many times more hambriente for it that at the beginning. If we think that we have lived the Christian life so long that we are almost at the point of having God's justice then we show how far we actually are from it. If we aren't hungering for God's justice we must think we have much of our own so why should we need God's?

Conflicting Desires and Torment in Hell

For some reason, I begin these blogs talking about some subject and that gets me thinking and by the end of the blog, I am talking about something not even remotely similar to what I began with. This time I was going to attempt to compare my life before Christ to my life now.

Before Christ, my desires were more intellectual for studying the Bible than actually deriving joy from it. Being a Christian was like a 9 - 5 Job for me. For example, I would go to church, serve there, spend time with my friends and turn my mind immediately to other things upon leaving. I spent my time thinking about normal pursuits such as movies, partying, working and playing on the computer. I was always looking for the next party where I could meet some girl or hoping that some beautiful girl would consent to go on a date with me. Even while in church I thought of those things.

Now, you are going to think, "Wow, what a hypocrite!" But I really did read the Bible. I actually read it in the morning and in the evening sometimes. I succeeded in reading the entire Bible once before I went to Mexico for a year and had read numerous books on how to live a godly life. A few such were, "Every Man's Battle", "The Prayer of Jabez", "Wild at Heart", "Life is Tremendous!", "The Magic of Thinking Big", "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and a myriad of others. I was one of the best Christians you had ever met (although I was not).

I had a good paying job at UGA and attended church every time the door was open. I actually taught Bible Study and was an Elder in my church! I even went to Mexico and became a missionary for a year. There I had to learn Spanish. I went down there knowing very little and left being able to preach the Bible in Spanish. I actually shared with the church there all that God had taught me through my stay in Mexico. But you know something, I WAS NOT SAVED!

If you had told me this, I would have told you that you are crazy. Of course I am saved! If you had named my sins and told me that my persisting in them was evidence of my perdition, I would have told you that they didn't mean that I was lost because they were sins that I didn't do ALL the time and that I had a sincere desire to serve the Lord and that my life had evidences of my faith.

Now, you are probably thinking, "you don't seem all that bad to me." You are right! I wasn't all that bad. In fact, I would probably put most people who are reading this blog to shame in regards to "being a good Christian". By the way, "being a good Christian" is just another way to say, "as to righteousness under the law, blameless!"

So, in regards to this, where was my problem? It was actually much deeper than anyone or myself could ever see. God had to reveal it to me through many painful experiences, betrayals and loneliness. Thank God for pain. Without it we just kind of simmer in the pot until we are fully cooked. This is actually one of the things that I pray more and more for people. I pray for pain and discomfort in their lives so that they can turn to God for answers instead of other things. I want people to hate themselves and others so much that they finally come to the point where they realize everything bad in their lives is their own stupid fault and that they must repent or face eternal torment in hell apart from God where, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.