There are many people who are described as being righteous in the Bible
God called them righteous because they had Jesus' righteousness on them, not because they were without sin. Jesus was the only human without sin, this is the righteousness they had. James 2 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. We are all transgressors of the law.
Deuteronomy 30:11-14 says that God's law is not too difficult to obey
You know the story of the young rich ruler? What do the disciples say after? “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. So how can the law be not too difficult to obey but at the same time be impossible? It is not too difficult to obey because God wrote it on a heart of a believer. Why do you think Israel had to sacrifice all the time?
however, I still see living in obedience to God's law as being an intrinsic part of the gift of being saved from not living in obedience to it.
Luke 18 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Why was the the sinner who did not follow God's law justified? Why not the one who was living by God's law? Why was God not merciful towards the Pharisee, he behaved better than the tax collector.
Luke 23 39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
What commandments was the thief keeping? He called Jesus Lord and repented, that's all.
King David, slept with someone's wife, and then ordained things to have her husband murdered. He lied. He made himself 'God' by counting the armies of Israel.
Abraham - Abraham was called righteous because he believed God's promise, not because of his deeds, for Abraham sinned many times.
Yes, these men believed God, they repented, but regeneration comes first.
For this reason I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it is given to him by the Father” (
John 6:65).
Jesus is saying that, without exception, there is no human being who can come to Him unless it is given to him of the Father. This is an absolute,
No one has the ability to come to Jesus.
'Unless' is a necessary condition. So Jesus is saying that there is a necessary condition that must be met before anyone can come to Him. This verse is teaching is that none of us has the natural ability in and of ourselves to come to Christ unless God does something.
John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him.” This is not quite as ambiguous. Here, the necessary condition Jesus spells out is that the Father draws somebody.
Our Lord Jesus taught that it is impossible for a human being to come to Him unless that person is drawn by the Father.
But what does it mean that God draws?
The classical Arminian approach, or semi-Pelagian approach, is that nobody can come to Jesus unless the Father entices or woos him. That is usually tied into some notion of prevenient grace, or the influence of the Holy Spirit to woo and entice. The word “draw” in
John 6:44 is interpreted to mean “to woo” or “to attract,” just as honey draws bees and lights draw moths. The idea is that the drawing God does is still resistible. According to Arminianism, those who respond to the enticement—to being wooed—are redeemed, and those who do not respond to being drawn are subsequently lost.
Let’s see how this Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament. If we turn our Bibles to
James 2:6, we will find this same Greek word. The verse says: “But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court?” This verse uses the exact same Greek word that is translated by the word “draw” in John 6. Do you have a guess as to which word that might be? It’s the word “drag.” Now let’s supply the semi-Pelagian interpretation: “But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally woo you into court?”
If that isn’t sufficient with respect to man’s ability, let’s look earlier in John’s Gospel where John describes the encounter that Jesus has with the Pharisee, the theologian, Nicodemus: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, unless (remember that “unless” indicates a necessary condition) one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (
John 3:3).
According to Jesus, what has to happen before a person can see the kingdom of God? He has to be born again. Regeneration precedes seeing the kingdom of God. In fact, nobody can see it at all unless they are first born again—regenerate.
John goes on to say that Nicodemus is puzzled: “Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? He can’t enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born, can he?’ Jesus said, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’” (
John 3:4–5). Regeneration is a prerequisite for entering and seeing the kingdom of God.
Semi-Pelagians have people choosing Christ before they are regenerate. Semi-Pelagians have people in their human nature cooperating with prevenient grace, responding to this wooing, enticing, or attracting of God when the Holy Spirit is not yet in them and has not yet regenerated them. The bottom line is that the Arminian position has people who are not yet born again seeing and choosing the King of the kingdom of God. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
Regeneration precedes faith. Regeneration is seen as a necessary condition for faith, as Paul teaches in
Ephesians 2:4–5. He says that, while we were dead in sin and trespasses, God quickened us, that is, made us alive in Christ—when we were dead!
Paul then tells us, “Therefore it is by grace you are saved, through faith, and that is not of yourselves, but is the gift of God” (
Eph. 2:8). So we see that faith is the gift of God which is the result of the Spirit’s work of regeneration within us. God Himself supplies the necessary condition to come to Jesus. That’s why it is
sola gratia, by grace alone, that we are saved.
Next, Jesus says: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you that you must be born again” (
John 3:6–7). Jesus is saying: “Why should this surprise you? You’re a theologian, Nicodemus. Don’t you understand the fundamental point of man’s fallen nature? That which is born of the flesh is flesh.”
Elsewhere He tells us that the flesh profits nothing (
John 6:63). But if we believe that God entices us to Christ and all we have to do in the flesh prior to our regeneration is cooperate or assent—if we can in fact cooperate and assent to prevenient grace—to the end that we enter into the kingdom of God and are redeemed forever, and we’re doing that while we’re still in the flesh, then I ask you: What would the flesh profit? Not just something, but everything—your eternal salvation.
Paul speaks about this in Romans: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do it” (
Romans 8:5–7).
Here the Apostle tells us something about man’s moral inability in the flesh. He says that man in his fallen state, in the flesh, is hostile to the law of God. He does not obey the law of God, he is not subject to the law of God, and neither indeed can he be. The Apostle is saying that fallen man cannot obey the law of God and “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (
Rom. 8:8).
If God only wooed us to Christ and left it to us to make the final decision, nothing would please Him more than that we would respond positively to that enticement and wooing. But the Apostle tells us that, in the flesh, there is nothing man can do to please God.
It's not abut who keeps more commandments, that person is saved. Or who is trying to keep the commandments. I myself broke all the commandments as a non-Christian, and so did many others, yet I am saved. No one is good enough, that's why God send a Saviour.
Paul delighted in obeying the Law of God
And so do I delight in keeping Lord's commandments. When Christians ask me what they can pray for me, I always say first that I love God and obey Him. This is not me saying do not keep God's commandments, I'm saying ask God to be merciful to me sinner. Psalm 32
Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.
