The Yardstick of My Righteousness
The words that follow will sting. The Gospel is always scandalous. Why would the Romans and the Jews agree to crucify Jesus unless what he was saying was truly dangerous to the world? And so, borrowing heavily from many others who have gone before, we come to one of the key instruments of the engineer: the ruler.
A ruler measures distance. It can also be used to reckon a straight line. But because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and rulers are all about measuring just how far that shortest distance might be, rulers work best in two dimensions. When additional dimensions are added to the puzzle, they might create obstacles. If there is a building between you and your goal, you might not see the goal for the building. If you do not know where the goal is, you may attempt to scale the building to purchase higher ground so that you may see farther. And in the changing perspective of the higher ground, though you may see your objective, your eyes pass over it, not recognizing the goal from that newly gained perspective.
Now, let us consider the good deeds that we all do. We are taught to love our neighbor. It is written in the Book. Love your neighbor. It is the Golden Rule. But I have a question for you: what is the mission of the church?
There is an expression I’ve heard about the jewels in my crown. Perhaps you have heard this expression as well. Man, that was such a good deed, I hope it earned you another jewel for your crown. These jewels are some sort of measuring device for righteousness, we are led to believe. Really? So, you want to get into a measuring activity for righteousness?
Once upon a time, in a garden called Eden, there was a man named Adam. He fell. God was watching him and was positively put off by this fall. It became known as the Fall of man. God was so angry with Adam, that He said that every man and woman who is ever born for the rest of time will inherit His just wrath towards Adam. The righteousness of each of those descendants will be measured by Adam’s Fall from the time of their conception to their eventual death. Yes, you, Adam, will die. All of your offspring will die. Oh, by the way, we are all inheritors of that curse. Proof of this is available in your local cemetery.
So, basically, God told Adam that because of his Fall, mankind was justly doomed. But God was merciful and He had already sorted out the solution to this problem. You see, God made this world, and He’d like to keep some of it around with Him for all eternity. So, God had a plan B. For all we really know, it was plan A, but for our story, we’ll go with plan B (for Bible.) There was a man who lived a few thousand years ago whose name was Abram. He was a good man. He did good deeds. He was measured as righteous by other men. One day, he had a dream. God recognized that Abram somehow knew of the promise of God concerning plan B. He didn’t really know or understand the details, but Abram believed that there was a plan B. Abram knew that without a plan B, all of man was doomed, he was doomed. But Abram trusted in God that there was a plan B. So, God, being merciful, said to Abram, because Abram had believed in plan B, God would enact plan B through Abram’s seed. And the offspring of Abram, now to be known as Abraham, will fill the world.
Plan B has a few ingredients. First, God needed to establish a royal line. I mean, He wants to put a King here on earth, King of Kings in fact. So, He’ll need a royal line. Let’s see. Abraham is from the Jews, let’s establish that royal line in that man. He believes the promise, before he knew there was a promise. Although Abraham was a child of Adam, God chose to measure Abraham’s righteousness through his faith in the promise. And it was good. So, now we have a royal line.
Next, God wanted man to understand how utterly desperate is his plight. So, God decided to articulate the Law that was written in Adam’s heart (Law that he broke) in writing on stone tablets that all man can read. God decided that his royal line would be the right people to receive the Law. And so there was this man named Moses. (Get Charlton Heston’s mug out of your brain.) Moses believed the promise like Abraham. Moses learned his role from God. Moses gave God’s Law to the royal line.
But there was something different about this New Deal from God. There were conditions. Along with those conditions, there came blessings and curses; blessings if His people kept the Law, curses if they failed. The men discovered that keeping the Law was tough. They broke the Law immediately. God was merciful, though. He taught them a sacrificial system by which they could atone for their sins (law breaking behavior) as they went along, thereby renewing the covenant they had made with God at Sinai. But God still didn’t think it right that this particular group of people would get the land promise that went with the deal, so He let that generation die off before His people were allowed to reach the promised land.
Now, the promised land was to be a model. The main city, Jerusalem was to model Heaven. God’s people were to demonstrate to the world what it would be like to live in heaven. Now, God knew it was only a model, and a model made from children of Adam. And so, really, should anyone be surprised what happened next? Throughout the recorded history of God’s people, prophets arose who believed the promise. These prophets foresaw the doom and destruction that would come upon the royal family. They had not kept the Law. The prophets knew this to be true. They told of a messiah who would come from the royal line. The messiah would be such that even the Gentiles would rejoice in his coming.
Now, wait a second, I know you are saying. Two problems appear in this last paragraph. The Jews had these groups of people, one in particular called the Pharisees who had particular zeal in following the Law. They were absolute nut cases in their adherence to the Law. They followed the letter of the Law in the eyes of all men who saw them. Yikes! We all know that Jesus did not agree with this assessment of the Pharisees. In fact, for this very reason, Jesus picked this particular group to parody in his parables over and over. Something is wrong with our yardstick, Jesus said. Man was not going about the measuring of righteousness correctly.
The second problem is that the Gentiles, who Jesus knew were going to help kill him, who the royal family had been fighting for centuries, from whom Moses had delivered the royal family, these same Gentiles were going to rejoice in the messiah? These are Jewish prophets saying this, remember. There will be highways from Egypt to Assyria with Jews and Gentiles traveling back and forth and worshiping this messiah together. Dogs and cats sleeping together. Mass hysteria. Remember this well. The Jews are the royal family of God, a fact of which they are aware. And the Gentiles? They didn’t know the Law. They didn’t keep the Law. They ate food that was gross. They slept with livestock. They worshiped statues. They broke all the Law without knowing what it was, and they did it effortlessly. There is no prejudice in the history of the world that equals the Biblical age Jew against the Gentile. None. And Jewish prophets are talking about Jews and Gentiles worshiping the Messiah together…as brothers! Please understand just how scandalous this was. There is no real parallel in the history of the world. And Paul, pharisee among pharisees, turns around and invites these Gentiles to the family of Jesus. He talks about adoption into the royal family. He calls them His brothers.
Back to plan B. David comes along. David understands the promise. David is judged righteous and it is revealed to him that his seed will sit on the throne of God forever. OK, David is judged righteous. How? Have you read about this guy? Uriah and Bathsheba ring any bells? How is David judged righteous? The answer is simple. He believed in the promise to Abraham. God looked through His faith instead of at his rather sordid pile of deeds and judged him righteous. Did David blow his righteous standing with God? No. He still believed the promise as he sent Uriah to his death and then claimed Bathsheba for himself. He was still righteous before God. Hmmm.
Prophets came and went. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Ezekiel, you know the list. They keep talking about this messiah. And then, one day, Jesus comes into the world. He is fully man, and yet, at the same time, fully God. He starts fulfilling prophesy left and right. He talks the talk and He walks the walk. No one had ever done that before. No one had ever been able to walk the walk. Jesus, as fully man, inherited the curse of Adam. And, he inherited the Covenant of Law. Jesus, as fully God, actually kept the Law, becoming the one and only keeper of the Law. This is a vitally important point: Jesus kept the Law.
Why did Jesus have to die? He knew that was His purpose for coming into the world. Why was it necessary? Jesus kept the Law. Under the Curse of Adam and the Law of Moses, every man who ever walked the earth was doomed forever. Until Jesus comes along. Here is one guy who follows the law. Remember that sacrificial system that the royal line set up. Jesus is no sheep, lamb, pigeon, bull, ram, goat or other animal sacrifice. Surely a human sacrifice is better than an animal sacrifice, particularly this man. He is the One Pure Man. It took God incarnate to do it, but that was His plan all along. If we sacrifice this One Pure Man who is also Purely God, that will surely suffice to atone for our sins. It will wash away our sins. Yes, of course. But wait! You stop too soon. It’s much bigger than that. You must understand how this all works.
Let’s take man #1 who dies and goes on to Judgment Day. There is God, with Jesus sitting there on the right hand, (may actually be his right hand, but the Trinity is for another day,) judging people. Man #1 comes up and claims to know Jesus. Jesus raises an eyebrow. (For those of you who know me well, yes, this is a divine skill.) On what basis shall God judge man #1 righteous? Remember, the Law was written on Adam’s heart, and the Covenant with Moses was shattered leaving us with the curses, man #1 still has to deal with just judgment under the Law. And so man #1 tells God of the mission work he did. He talks about walking Calcutta with Mother Teresa. He tells God of his ministry to the poor and hungry. He talks about tithing. He talks about opening his heart to Jesus. He tells God about all these righteous things he did.
God turns His head to Jesus. Jesus sighs, and He shakes His head. “Man #1, I know you not.”
Man #2 comes in next. He was just watching the last bit and he’s not looking too good. Yes, I know, he’s dead, but you know what I mean. He begins his appeal. “God, I am a sinful man. Not only did I sin, but I was born in the state of sin. My whole existence was sin. I believe that You sent Your Son Jesus, hi, Jesus, that You sent Him to earth to be the perfect sacrifice for me and for others. I believe that when I tried to help people on earth, that even in my good deeds, my motives were impure. That even in my good deeds, I managed to turn them into sin. Only by the Grace of the Holy Spirit acting through me was any real good actually done. I deserve none of the credit.” As man #2 is speaking to God, on his knees with his head down, he doesn’t notice that Jesus has arisen and stands before him, between man #2 and God. Jesus says, “Father, this one I know.” God sees man #2 clothed in the righteousness of His Son and judges him justly. Man #2 is given a new robe and is seated at the table with Jesus.
The yardstick of our salvation is not our deeds. Our deeds are nothing but chafe in the sight of the Lord. The Holy Spirit enters our minds and our hearts giving us the understanding of that most Precious Gift. This changes our hearts, it transforms us. It is in gratitude, for a gift for which we are so completely unworthy, that we try to Love God in return. The thing is, what do you give the God who has everything? Gratitude. And pass on something to your fellow man while you are at it. Your fellow man is just as sinful as you are. Your fellow man may not know it, but he is. He got the same raw deal from Adam. Let him know the Good News. God gave us a plan B. It’s in the Bible. There are no qualifications. There are no 6 steps. There are no levels of Sanctification. There can be Only One God, and one atoning sacrifice that propitiates to God on our behalf, imputing the righteousness of Jesus to us, and our sin to Jesus, just as Adam’s sin was imputed to us long ago. This is the Gospel. Proclaiming the Gospel is the mission of the Church. Amen.
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