*This continues a series of thoughts from a free book, "Holy Sin", due to be released in August.*
Our self-righteous nature finds a thousand ways to kick against God’s free grace and even despise it. If you really think about it, there’s something inside of every one of us that wants to fix the problem and pat ourselves on the back. Man is inherently self-righteous. On the whole, we really do have high opinions of ourselves! Accepting God’s free grace is difficult precisely because it means we have to go against everything of this world: we have to go against the idea that everything must be earned. We have to go against the idea that we ought to seek for glory, that we ought to become something.
“Ever since man became a sinner he has been self-righteous,” says Charles Spurgeon. In fact, often our rebelliousness against God is because of our self-righteousness: we feel that we “deserve better” from life and that God himself isn’t being “fair” about things. This is when we live in unbelief and we decide that we somehow know better, or that we’re entitled to something because “it’s not fair”, and so forth.
Jesus was emphatic with the Pharisees that self-righteousness is worth nothing (Luke 18:9-14) but a relationship with God is paramount before we do any of his commandments. We don’t have a relationship with God until we come to terms with what prevents us from doing so: our self-righteousness. Then his commandments are done for the sake of love and God’s mission and not for the sake of our own righteousness. The Bible is emphatic that the old man of self-righteousness must die first. Only God can do all this.
I spent many years of my life trying to kick an addiction and none of the pat answers of, “stop doing this; start doing that; read your Bible; pray more; etc.” ever worked. I couldn’t last more than a week or so before the old habits came back. After many years of suffering I started asking: is this Christianity? Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of power in it? A power beyond just the goosebumps I experience in worship? A power that actually deals with my desires head-on? A power that goes beyond the vague idea that if I shout loud enough about injustice then I’m actually a good person?
God does not want us to become santized but rather sanctified. Being holy is not about looking and feeling great, having the right image of success and victory and piousness in our own eyes and in the eyes of God and others. What God wants to do in us – and he wants to do something in us (there is a power in Christianity more than we realise) – is far beyond what what most of probably think when we hear the word ‘holiness’.
So what does he want to do? He wants to put to death the old man of self-righteousness in us. This old man must die. We can’t deal with our immorality until we deal with our morality. Our self-righteousness is the real sin that we must face and see for what it is. Righteousness is not a thing that we can emulate. It is a person, Jesus, who acts upon and through his people, us, by His Holy Spirit. He does this firstly by declaring us righteous, because of his own work and authority – we are “justified by the faithfulness of Christ” (Galatians 2:16 NET) which creates us into new people. We are made into new creatures as the old man is crucified with Jesus – the old man that seeks to be righteous on its own. Then the Righteous One acts through us by his Spirit and we participate in his acting and work.
And that is, indeed, a grand promise!
Our self-righteous nature finds a thousand ways to kick against God’s free grace and even despise it. If you really think about it, there’s something inside of every one of us that wants to fix the problem and pat ourselves on the back. Man is inherently self-righteous. On the whole, we really do have high opinions of ourselves! Accepting God’s free grace is difficult precisely because it means we have to go against everything of this world: we have to go against the idea that everything must be earned. We have to go against the idea that we ought to seek for glory, that we ought to become something.
“Ever since man became a sinner he has been self-righteous,” says Charles Spurgeon. In fact, often our rebelliousness against God is because of our self-righteousness: we feel that we “deserve better” from life and that God himself isn’t being “fair” about things. This is when we live in unbelief and we decide that we somehow know better, or that we’re entitled to something because “it’s not fair”, and so forth.
Jesus was emphatic with the Pharisees that self-righteousness is worth nothing (Luke 18:9-14) but a relationship with God is paramount before we do any of his commandments. We don’t have a relationship with God until we come to terms with what prevents us from doing so: our self-righteousness. Then his commandments are done for the sake of love and God’s mission and not for the sake of our own righteousness. The Bible is emphatic that the old man of self-righteousness must die first. Only God can do all this.
I spent many years of my life trying to kick an addiction and none of the pat answers of, “stop doing this; start doing that; read your Bible; pray more; etc.” ever worked. I couldn’t last more than a week or so before the old habits came back. After many years of suffering I started asking: is this Christianity? Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of power in it? A power beyond just the goosebumps I experience in worship? A power that actually deals with my desires head-on? A power that goes beyond the vague idea that if I shout loud enough about injustice then I’m actually a good person?
God does not want us to become santized but rather sanctified. Being holy is not about looking and feeling great, having the right image of success and victory and piousness in our own eyes and in the eyes of God and others. What God wants to do in us – and he wants to do something in us (there is a power in Christianity more than we realise) – is far beyond what what most of probably think when we hear the word ‘holiness’.
So what does he want to do? He wants to put to death the old man of self-righteousness in us. This old man must die. We can’t deal with our immorality until we deal with our morality. Our self-righteousness is the real sin that we must face and see for what it is. Righteousness is not a thing that we can emulate. It is a person, Jesus, who acts upon and through his people, us, by His Holy Spirit. He does this firstly by declaring us righteous, because of his own work and authority – we are “justified by the faithfulness of Christ” (Galatians 2:16 NET) which creates us into new people. We are made into new creatures as the old man is crucified with Jesus – the old man that seeks to be righteous on its own. Then the Righteous One acts through us by his Spirit and we participate in his acting and work.
And that is, indeed, a grand promise!