At some point throughout mankind’s history God has given the law through His servant Moses, and it was a law that regulated every aspect of Jewish life. The initial purpose of the law was to show men how sinful they were in the sight of a holy and perfect God. The importance of the law had to do with what God wanted to bring out of it in the sense of preparing the way for His only Son to be sent in order to fulfill what the law couldn’t have done.
Apostle James says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). Therefore, we can conclude substantively that it was impossible for men to have been able to keep the law unless they would have been able to live a sinless life as Christ did, which we all know is impossible because we’re fallen and polluted being with serious sin issues.
Since there was no way men could have kept intact the Law given to them, God’s ultimate purpose with it was to drive them to a desperate situation until they yearned for a much better alternative that could have eased the process. The truth is that men could have tried their very best within their own human power, effort, and will, but they would have still come short as far as meeting God’s holiness standard is concerned due to that heavy weight being exerted on them by their fallen nature. Bear in mind, there is absolutely nothing we can do in our human effort that can ever satisfy the standard of the Lord, not even the sincerest endeavor.
God deals with us according to whom He is. By nature, we know that God is eternal while we are just finite and fallen being. Additionally, God’s holiness standard correlates whom He is. We would have to have an ability to be as holy as He is in order for us to have been able to earn both His acceptance and loving favor. Unfortunately, as humans, we’re not even close to that.
Try to earn God’s acceptance on that basis would literally be like a highly desperate journey with no destination in sight. This is where the need for a Savior comes heavily into play because Christ is the only person who lived on this earth and kept that law completely, and He never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). Thus He’s the only One who is able to grant us qualification to get to heaven by exchanging His own righteousness for our unrighteousness.
Christ Has Made Us Become Acceptable in God’s Sight.
His main mission was to come and lay down His life in order to set men free from their sins through His own blood, so that men can be equipped to do what they had never been able to do in their own human power and will. There are many self-righteous people when presented with the message of the Gospel who somehow think that they are worthy of God’s acceptance, or to get to heaven on the ground of being good and decent individuals.
You see, the focus is set on themselves and their own goodness not on Christ. That’s pride at its best. Sadly, the tragedy is that they’ve failed miserably when it comes down to understanding that sinful people have no ability to be good before God on their own, nor are they able to do spiritual good or work for their own salvation from sin.
Even the deeds that they’ve done apart from God are considered as filthy rags in His sight (Isaiah 64:4) because good deeds must be done with the sole intent of glorifying God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, sinful people are nowhere to be close. Let’s read that powerful passage of Scriptures which clearly demonstrates that salvation is all about God, His character, and His unending love.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Consequently, our human righteousness is unacceptable before God unless we could be perfect like He is (Matthew 5:48). If there was a way men can become righteous aside from Christ, the excruciatingly painful death of Jesus Christ was unnecessary. Therefore, in order for us to become righteous God has imputed Christ’s righteousness into us and our sins upon Him. This is done the moment that we accept Christ as our Savior and Lord by faith.
God sees us as holy, worthy, righteous, and acceptable not because of what we’ve done, but it’s all about what Christ has done on the cross on our behalf. Let’s put that in perspective, it’s like being behind a glass which is covered with filth and dirt which are symbolic of our sins. Therefore, we can’t be seen through by God on the other side. The moment we get saved, Christ comes with His own blood and cleans up that glass. This then makes it possible for God to see us through clearly as who we are in Christ.
When God looks at us through the lens of His Son Jesus Christ, He sees us as righteous and holy people. To put it clearly, our holiness and righteousness are completely dependent on our Savior Christ Jesus, not on human works as many falsely believe. The point is that since the grace of God is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9), no human work is needed. We’re then left with the sole responsibility to allow that holiness and righteousness to be preserved in our lives by the power of God in us manifested through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
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