Romans 3:21-24
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus
The incarnation, life death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus puts a new perspective upon our inability to keep the law. It’s not that anything has changed about the basic realities of sin and death or the reality of the need for faith. What has changed is that we now know the name of the promised and prophesied Messiah. We can be sure of it by the testimony of two witnesses.
The first witness is the Law of Moses. The Law testifies that Jesus is The Christ because He is the only one who ever kept the whole law. The second witness is the prophets that testify that Jesus is the Messiah because He is the only one who fulfills their prophecies. Deuteronomy 19:15b, “on the testimony of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.” By these two witnesses we have assurance that Jesus is The Christ.
Hebrews 1:1-4
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
Philippians 2:9-11
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Because the name of Jesus is above every other name His rights are without limit. He is the righteousness of God. This is what was revealed by the Law and the Prophets. It was righteous of God to send Jesus to the cross and righteous of Jesus to rise from the dead. Further it is righteous of God to assign the punishment for our sins to the cross of Christ.
Our attainment of this righteousness is not at all by the works of the Law but, as it always was, by faith. Genesis 15:6, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” From the beginning of the old covenant it was a covenant based on faith, not on law. What changed is that we now know in whom we believe
Formerly, the Law was given to the people that Moses led out of Egypt and applied to them. The new covenant is for all who believe without respect to language, borders, national origin, gender, or any other way we have devised to divide ourselves into groups. Now the only group that counts is the group that consists of everyone who believes.
The other group that matters is the group of lawbreakers. This group consists of everyone who has ever experienced a moral shortfall whether of commission or omission. Basically, it includes everyone. All have sinned.
This shortfall is not as if our deeds were measured out good deeds against bad deeds and the balance determined our eternity. No but the measure is God’s righteousness against our unrighteousness. Again, it’s not a pound of gold weighed against a pound of feathers but a single tiny down feather weighed against a mountain. It’s not even close. We fall utterly short and are found to be in moral penury, a slave to sin with no rights whatsoever.
The seriousness of the situation is addressed by C.S. Lewis in his book The Weight of Glory.
It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.
It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.
We must play.
But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.
Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. –
The root for the Hebrew word translated glory means weight. Let’s think in terms of value before paper money when transactions were literally weighed out. Whoever held the most weight, in gold, had the most glory. And creating a thing means ownership of that thing. Therefore God, who created everything, owns everything and holds the most weight or the greatest glory. Continuing with our analogy, wealth is the ability to project our will upon the world around us. Since God owns everything His will is the irresistible, unlimited weight of omnipotence.
If glory means weight then let’s take justified to mean, ‘made to weigh the same as’. Since the weight of glory on one side of the scale was the unlimited weight of God the only way to balance the scales was to put that same unlimited weight of glory on the other side (our side) also. This is the work accomplished by Christ Jesus.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
This justification is given to us as a gift. Now a gift is by definition unearned. An earned gift would be as nonsensical as a married bachelor. What then is the motivation for giving such a magnificent gift? It is God’s favor towards us who believe. It is His grace. He wanted to do this for us and since he has all the weight, all the right and power to project His will on creation, He did exactly what he wanted to do. He saved us.
Since we were sold into slavery under sin and had no power to redeem ourselves Jesus, in the incarnation, became one of us, our kinsman. This way he had the right of the kinsman redeemer. He also had all the weight/ glory/ wealth of heaven and the redemption of mankind was his express will and so, He redeemed us who were otherwise irredeemable.
Galatians 3:13-14
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
brotherpayne 