Underneath the blood?

This morning, while searching through some of Steve McVey's video series "101 Lies Taught In Church Every Sunday" to send some links to someone in an email, I came across the video below, "Lie #5 Our Sins Are Under The Blood Of Jesus." I thought the timing in 'rediscovering' this video was neat, since I think it goes along well with my post from yesterday, "Big Difference 6 - Sin Atoned vs. Sin Taken Away," as well as the comments there from Aida.

It's possible that it might seem to some that I'm just being picky about the use of words and phrases such as "atonement," "reconciled," "sins taken away," etc, but understanding the words makes all the difference when it comes to understanding all that Christ has done for us as well as who we really are in Him.

I used to think that when I sinned, I would have to get back "under the blood" of Jesus in order to have my sins atoned for. A song by Petra called "Underneath the Blood," which was overall a great song, had one not-so-minor detail wrong, and it added to my wrong thinking.

It went:
Where do I go when I miss the mark
And my heart starts feeling like it's stained and dark?
Only know one way to go -
Take it to the crimson flow.

It might sound good that we should take our sins to Jesus so that we could be washed and cleansed again by His atoning blood ("the crimson flow"). But it's just not sound doctrine!

In Christ, we don't keep going back to Jesus to get cleansed over and over again, or to have our sins atoned for over and over again.

We are in Him and He is in us. We have been washed. We have been cleansed. We have been justified. We have been made right with God. Note the tense of 1 Cor. 6:11. By His blood sacrifice, Jesus has put away sin. He has taken away our sin.

In Christ, we are not "sinners" who keep going back to Him for more forgiveness and more cleansing, so that we can be made righteous again and again. We are saints who have been justified (made righteous) and have become the righteousness of God in Christ. When we were sinful sinners, we did some righteous things but that never made us righteous. Now that we are righteous saints, we sometimes sin, but that doesn't make us sinners!

Our identity is solidified, and we can't receive from God what He has already given us. We simply walk in it with trustful confidence! This makes all the difference in how we view God and how we view the truth of who we are in Him.

Convicted of Righteousness

Great post from In Christ Alone yesterday! Yesterday morning I began to watch the same message from Frank (I think it's the same one ICA is referring to anyway) but was distracted by other things so I'm glad she posted some highlights!

God needs a filter to see me as righteous?

A lie that I believed for years is that I was still some filthy, dirty sinner who was fortunate enough to have a God who would look past my sin, because He was looking through the filter of Jesus when He looked at me. But the truth is that He has taken away my sin (something the blood of bulls and goats - i.e. sacrifices other than Jesus) could never do. Through the perfect offering of Jesus, God "has perfected forever those who are being sanctified." (Heb 10:14)

Do I still commit acts of sin? Well, my mind and body definitely think and do sinful things. But the person who I am inwardly - a born again spirit, a new creation of God, the core of my existence - is righteous and is indwelled by God Himself. He has joined His Spirit together with my spirit (1 Cor 6:17). The sin that I commit is "no longer I, but sin that dwells in me," that is, in my members (my body). (Rom 7:17, 20). Along with Paul, as a regenerated being (again, in my spirit), I can say that "I delight in the law of God according to the inward man." This is something an unregenerated, dirty, rotten sinner simply could never say truthfully.* And so if it is "no longer I who do it," then I can't call myself a sinner. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and God sees me that way, not because Jesus is standing in front of me making me appear righteous to God, but because Jesus is in me and God has in actuality made me righteous (2 Cor 5:21).



*Side note: Someone may want to bring up King David's claims in the Psalms about how he delighted in the law. But I would contend that he was off base in his claims, just as the Apostle Paul admits was true of himself back in his law-abiding Pharisaical days when he was known by his Hebrew name, Saul. David's claims, I would contend, were based on his lack of understanding and revelation about the true purpose and function of the law. David said things such as, "I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart" (Ps 40:8). "The proud have forged a lie against me, But I will keep Your precepts with my whole heart. Their heart is as fat as grease, But I delight in Your law" (Ps 119:69-70). "Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, For by them You have given me life" (Ps 119:92-93).

These claims were perhaps made with a sincere heart, but were far from reality. The law was given to impute sin, and to sentence people with guilt, condemnation and death. There is no law that ever gave life (Gal 3:21). The law never did one single thing to help a person live right. The law never curbed sin. Actually, the opposite is true. The law only caused a revival of sin and it caused sin to abound (see scripture below). Paul had previously thought the same way David had thought, that the law was actually beneficial in his life, but after receiving revelation from Jesus Christ, Paul's understanding was corrected.

"But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me." (Rom 7:8-11) The law is holy and just and good... but unregenerated man (man under the law, having not received the life of Christ) is not.

I am not a good person

(Added at a later date: For once in my life I posted a short blog. :) Usually I spend more time explaining myself, and in this case I think that would've been a very good idea! I meant to point out the difference between the "goodness" that we would have according to the goodness of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the genuine goodness (righteousness) that we have in Christ Jesus. I'm not trusting in my own worked-up, fleshly goodness, but rather I'm trusting in the fact that the righteousness that I have is God's very own righteousness, given to me as a gift).

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I am not a good person. I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

There's a big difference!

Rom 3:21-22
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.

2 Cor 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Big Difference 3 - Self righteousness vs. God's righteousness

(Or man's righteousness vs. God's righteousness)

For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Rom 10:3-4 NKJV (emphasis mine)

How is it that man seeks to establish his own righteousness (self-righteousness)? By the Law. By his own works. By his own self effort. In seeking to establish his own righteousness by the things he does, he lives a life that is ignorant of God's righteousness! In seeking to establish his own righteousness, he has not submitted to God's righteousness. Is there not a big difference between man's righteousness and God's righteousness?

We cannot live up to God's righteousness by what we do. It's impossible. As James said (and as I pointed out in Big Difference 2), if you keep the whole blessed thing and stumble in just one point, you wind up being guilty of the whole thing because you are a transgressor and transgressors to not inherit the kingdom of heaven. You have fallen short of Jesus' words to "be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matt 5:48). You can even do all the things that Jesus commanded... and if you stumble in just one point, you have fallen short and you are guilty.

The good news is "the gospel!" In Romans 1:17, Paul is speaking of the gospel (see vs. 16) and he says, "For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed..."

The gospel reveals God's righteousness, as opposed to man's righteousness that he tries to establish by what he does. The gospel replaces man's attempts at righteousness with the gift of righteousness.

*For an explanation of this Big Difference series, see the original post.*

What's right with you

This is the third time I've used the title "What's right with you" for a post here on Grace Roots (See the other two: 6/26/06 and 8/24/07. See also a similar post called Convicted of Righteousness).

In my mind I'm brought back to these thoughts quite often because I know that many of my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world seem to deal more with the question, "What's wrong with me?" than with the truth of "What's right with me." Teachers and preachers - even those with great intentions of helping people live better lives - tend to be focused on what's wrong with the people in their congregations and how to "fix" what's wrong. Just as examples, I can't tell you how many "giving" sermons I've heard in my life. Or how many times I've been told to be a better witness for Christ. Or "how to" do this or "steps to take" to do that. Or the five "R's" of relationships. Can I get any witnesses? ;) I've heard countless methods, steps, principles, laws, rules, plans, etc, all with the intention of having the people of the congregation work on these things so they can become more productive Christians. For a while in my walk with Jesus I thought that was the way it's supposed to be. I knew I wasn't performing perfectly for God and I wanted to improve. I wanted to fix what was wrong about me and become more and more acceptable to God.

Of course I came to find out that that way of living the Christian life is foolishness! It seems right in the eyes of man, but it really does only lead to death. I don't mean physical or spiritual death. I mean death of dreams, death of motivation, death of joy... you get the picture. You eventually find that no matter how hard you try, or what steps you take, or what principles you follow... you still always have a long way to go in order to fix what's wrong with you. Or perhaps you have some "victories," but even after your victories you see that there are twenty million other things that are wrong with you that need fixing. And not only that, but those twenty million other things seem magnified like never before. Once you take a look at God's righteousness, and take steps towards trying to live up to it, whether you fail or whether you think you succeed, your own shortcomings begin to appear so much larger than you originally thought of them.

And so I just want to ask you... Do you find yourself somewhere in the two preceding paragraphs? If so, GET OUT, because the two preceding paragraphs are filled with very bad news!!! In fact, I can honestly tell you that I was becoming slightly depressed while writing them and going back and reading them! I considered removing them and coming from a different angle because I just don't want to take the risk of getting myself or anyone else stuck in the mindset that this life in Christ is about fixing what is wrong with us.

My seven year old girl likes to take her time while getting ready for school in the morning. And that's fine. I've learned to wake her up earlier so that she has all the time she needs. But even so, she very often becomes distracted, and every 10 to 15 minutes I need to prompt her to "stay on task." If I don't, we'll be late for school. I smile when I talk to her and I make it a quick reminder, but yet she feels so bad for "getting behind" that she begins to cry and keeps repeating, "sorry daddy, sorry daddy." It makes me so sad to see her feeling so sad and guilty that she's gotten off track, because I'm not angry with her and I don't come across as angry with her! I've had to tell her over and over again that I'm not angry with her. All that I'm doing is making it so she can enjoy taking her time while not dragging her feet. And so what's happened is that I've discovered new ways to talk with her in the morning, which I'll get to in a minute.

But my example here is basically what I mean about preachers and teachers, even with good intentions, focusing on sin and on what's wrong with people. It's of course not just preachers and teachers. It's parents, authority figures, friends, other church people, etc, etc. When we focus on what's "wrong" with us, it generally yields the opposite of what we intend! We hope it will yield changed lives, fruit, righteous living, etc, but in the long run it yields guilt, despondency, fruitlessness, etc.

And of course in a large section of church society, this focus on sin doesn't come out of good intentions. It comes out of self-righteousness, Pharisaical attitudes and a desire to be in control and to keep the people dependent upon their preaching or their so-called "authority." But no matter the motive, a focus on sin will never yield the fruit that a focus on our righteousness in Christ (that we've freely received as a gift) will yield!

Over the course of this school year so far, I've learned some better ways (I think) to talk with my daughter that don't focus on how far behind she is or how late it's getting, but rather that remind her and encourage her in her current "task." For example, if she's supposed to be getting dressed, but she's instead found a Barbie to play with, I tell her something like, "after you get dressed, I'll get you a fresh cup and you can brush your teeth!" She "remembers" that she was getting dressed and she hops right back to it without even giving a thought as to whether or not daddy was angry with her. And all the time, throughout each and every day when I'm near my kids, I'm talking with them and laughing with them and hugging them and kissing them and telling them how much I love them. That's the most important thing. Even if they were to get "off task" and were late to school every day, I can't imagine for a moment that I would ever stop letting them know how much I love them.

Which leads to my next post, which has to do with God's love for us and the righteousness we have received as a gift, and how He encourages us and motivates us based upon love and righteousness rather than through guilt and condemnation.