Category: Sanctification

Justification by Faith

Whether there are 613 laws to keep or just two, who tend to view morality as a competition in which we compare ourselves to others.

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In a previous blog post, I observed that Scripture reveals a progression from law to relationship to faith. In Habakkuk, the prophet said, “The righteous will live by his faith.” (Hab. 2:4) This statement in Habakkuk is the second half of a verse that contrasts “the proud one” whose soul “is not upright to the righteous one who lives by faith. The implication is that the righteousness is linked to faith and is contrasted to pride.

We see this theme continued in the New Testament:

“The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

“Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” (Galatians 3:11)

“[M]y righteous one shall live by faith” (Hebrews 10:37)

And the reason that salvation is by faith (in the grace of God) is so that no one can boast.

“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:9)

When Jesus summarized all the law and prophets in just two statements (love God and love your neighbor) he whisked us past the academic details of the law to the simple heart and spirit of the law. (Luke 10:25-27) If we think this simplification of the law makes it any easier on us, however, we should think again. At the same time Jesus simplified the expression of the law, Jesus upped the ante on us when he said that, if we even lust in our hearts, we have committed adultery. If we have even gotten angry in our hearts at our brother, we may have committed the sin of murder. (See Mathew 5:21-48)

Jesus made the law simpler and more difficult to follow at the same time!

Maybe this is because our ability to follow the law (to maintain God’s standard of morality) isn’t the key point. In fact, the point is our inability, in ourselves, to live up to God’s standard! Until we realize that we can’t measure up, we don’t measure up, we are depending on ourselves and our own efforts to “be right with God”. But we never can. Whether it’s 613 laws or just two principles, we fall short.

Our focus shouldn’t be on the laws and other people. On this horizontal level, we compare ourselves to others, and we judge ourselves and others in comparison. This is where pride and self-righteousness dwell, and the focus is, ultimately, on ourselves. Rather our focus should be vertical, on God and our relationship to him.

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Sinners and the Struggle Against Sin – The Resistance of Love

In our struggle against sin, we are to resist sin, not the sinners who trigger the pride that tends to well within us when we are wronged.

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In Part I of Sinners and the Struggle against Sin – Taking Insult away from Injury, I highlight a connection between enduring hostility from sinners, as Jesus did on the cross, and our own struggle to resist sin, looking at Hebrews 12:3-4:

“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

We might think of our struggle against sin as a completely internal affair. Hebrews 12:3-4 suggests that there is an external component to it. The hostility we endure from sinners is part of our own struggle against sin. It isn’t hard to see why: the hostility from sinners triggers a guttural, visceral pride response in us, and pride is the root of all sin.

Think of any time you were slighted and how you responded to it. This is what the hostility of sinners triggers within us. We want to fight back. We want to return insult for insult. We want to defend our honor. We want vindication. We might even want vengeance.

In this passage, though, we are exhorted to look to Jesus who resisted sin to the point of actually shedding his own blood. We are reminded by the that we have not yet resisted to the point of shutting our own blood. It isn’t resisting sinners, but resistong sin, that is the key point here.

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Sinners and the Struggle against Sin – Taking Insult away from Injury

When we are told that we have not yet resisted in our struggle against sin to the point of shedding blood, the writer of Hebrews may be getting at something much closer to our own experiences than we might think.

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In Hebrews 12:3-4, the writer says, “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

When I read these words this morning, I saw for the first time the connection between these phrases: “endured from sinners such hostility” and “your struggle against sin”. There seems to be a link between enduring hostility from sinners and struggling against (resisting) sin.

When I think of sin, I think of my own sin that is within me. I don’t think of struggling to endure hostility from sinners as struggling against sin, but that seems to be what this passage is suggesting. The last phrase sheds some light on this connection: “You have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

I have been thinking about the strong encouragement to resist sin in these verses for many days now. I have been thinking of the metaphorical point of resisting sin to the point of shedding blood. But I had not seen the more direct connection between the hostility of sinners and my own struggle to resist sin.

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Diamonds and Coal and the Pressures of Life that Shape Us by Our Reactions to Them

We don’t choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond to them.

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Diamonds and coal are made from the same substance, carbon.[1] They are both formed by heat and pressure, but the results are very, very different. We can learn some very poignant things from diamonds and coal that I will explore in this piece.

The properties of the two substances are interesting, and very different, though they form from the same substance. Coal is relatively soft. Coal burns and provides a source of energy, but it is not a very clean source of energy because coal is full of impurities.

Diamonds, on the other hand, are relatively hard – one of the hardest substance that exist. Diamonds have few impurities, and diamonds won’t burn. Diamonds can be used for cutting hard metals and similar uses because they are so hard and immutable.

Coal is readily available. It is soft and combustible. Coal is dirty and rubs off everywhere. Coal is really only useful for burning. Appropriately, a coal in the stocking has become cliché for an unwanted “gift”.

Diamonds are clean, translucent, rare and beautiful. Diamonds are highly valued for their own sake. So much, that we wear them on our fingers and around our necks as adornment for special occasions. They are also highly useful in all kinds of industrial applications.

Interestingly, diamonds and coal are both formed by heat and pressure. The difference is only in degree and location.

Coal is formed relatively near to the surface of the Earth, while diamonds are formed deep within the Earth. Diamonds are formed under tremendous heat and pressure over a long period of time. Coal forms relatively quickly under less heat and less pressure.

The result is that coal is full of impurities. Coal is still combustible, though it is formed under heat. Diamonds, on the other hand, undergo so much heat and so much pressure, that they are no longer combustible. All the impurities have been burned away.

I have heard that diamonds form from coal, but they don’t. Though diamonds and coal do form from the same substance – carbon – one doesn’t form from the other.

Carbon can be formed into diamonds, or it can be formed into coal. It’s one or the other. Coal never forms into diamonds, and diamonds never form into coal. The paths for the two elements are completely different, and the difference in the process under which they form results in two completely different elements – though they form from the same basic substance.

These facts that I have taken some time to gather in relation to diamonds and coal prompt some very poignant thoughts, beginning with the question: Would you rather be a diamond or a lump of coal? How do the processes of the formation of diamonds and coal, and nature of diamonds and coal, instruct us?

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We are Participants in the Resistance Against Sin

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

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“[L]et us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely….” (Hebrews 12:1)

In my slow walk through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, I am now in Hebrews. Before I was a believer, Hebrews was a book that had a profound impact on me. When read, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12), I felt the truth of that verse, though I had yet committed myself to the Word, which is Jesus.

Many years later, now, I still labor under the weight of sin that clings so closely. It can be hard reading these words, so many years after making that commitment, having to acknowledge the weight that remains, the sin that still clings so closely.

When I first read those words, and many others like them, I was convicted. I felt the sting of indictment on my life, and attitudes and condition. There was a harsh reality to them, a sharp edge. Reality can be like that.

It’s hard to read, to accept the indictment against me. It’s tempting to turn away, to ignore it. Like the person who fears he has cancer but pushes that nagging thought aside because it’s easier not to dwell on it. Even though we know that we should get a diagnosis, we find it easier, psychologically to ignore it.

But we might as well turn away from truth, from reality – from our very selves.

It’s an irrational response. If we get the diagnosis, and we don’t have cancer, we can stop the nagging thoughts. If we find out we do have cancer, we can address it. We can stop it before it gets worse. We can seek a cure. If we ignore it, we have no hope of overcoming it.

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