A Legalist of Sorts
I am a legalist of sorts. In making this confession I am not saying that I can point to a specific set of laws or moral standards I ascribe to, and live by, and believe that upon this basis I have a good standing with God. I know what the Scriptures say about the false hopes of self-justification, and the sharp contrast between life under the Law and the righteousness that comes by faith. Moreover, I know full well that any good I do is infected with egoism, pride, and fear. So, this confession is really about how little I get grace, I mean really get grace, so that it digs into the marrow of my bones and releases me into the glory of God.
Earlier this morning, as I was reading Crisis in Masculinity by Leanne Payne (worth several posts unto itself) and was processing the relationship between righteousness and grace, I wrote the following words:
The righteousness of faith is the righteousness that comes when one leans upon the right-making, restoring action of God wrought in human hearts at Jesus’ expense when he poured himself out on the Cross.
I wrote this because I was trying to work out what I hope the Spirit was working into me as I was processing grace and righteousness. Honestly, I know so little of this right-making action in the heart, and for my entire adult life I have been morosely puzzled by this fact. I have read quite a bit about grace, holiness, and the process of sanctification, but mostly my efforts resulted in amassing information, and not in the transformation I was seeking. Regarding what I wrote, I think what the Spirit was speaking is that we can only experience this right-making action at that place where we are sinners. About this Saint Paul says, “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” I have long taken heed of this verse, but being a Christian of the Protestant persuasion, I primarily understood this verse to be describing a new status I have before God on the basis of trusting that Jesus bore the judgment I deserve for being a sinner. What I didn’t see in this verse is an implication for how one spiritually grows through God’s action of justifying the ungodly through the work of the Cross.
Instead of merely receiving a new status, I am starting to think that this verse is also talking about discovering again and again that God meets people where they continue to be broken, fearful, resistant, rebellious, selfish, and unlovely, and rights them at that very place by administering the reality of Jesus being poured out on the Cross. In this way, when the Scriptures declare that “the just shall live by faith” it is saying that the just are the ones who live in the awareness that God is constantly covering them by pouring himself out through Jesus on the Cross, particularly as they find in new and deeper ways that they are indeed sinners. This means that the Gospel is not just a reality that we the “converted” preach to the lost out there, but is a reality by which we Christians continue to be converted. I imagine that this again-and-again discovery of the Gospel is what enables us to go from glory to glory, and to truly be transformed in to the likeness of the one who loves us, and in a manner of speaking, continues to give himself up for us. I think this is more akin to what Luther meant when he referred to Christians as simultaneously just and a sinner, for the Christian is the focal point where the ongoing justifying (right-making) action of God is happening.
I will conclude by saying that I hope what I shared above is near the truth, as I imagine this is the only way that I can stop being the legalist that I am.
