Homer wrote:I also believe this. You seem to believe that those of us who trust in Christ for our justification will somehow not live for God as those do who believe they must earn their justification by their own efforts, aided by the Spirit. I am probably misunderstanding your position, and I respect and agree with your insistence on living right, as Jesus would have us live. However, apart from grace, and that is what imputed righteousness is, it seems your own righteousness is all you have. And how can you ever be assured that is enough? Certainly not by "doing your best" - no one but Jesus has done their best.
Ahhh. Now I understand better where you are coming from. But I want to assure you that I don't believe that anyone "earns" salvation in any sense. I think our difference in understanding arises, at least partially, from different concepts of "grace". I suspect that you think of the grace of God as His "the unmerited favour", a definition we have all learned from our association with evangelicals and fundamentalists. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with that definition, but I am saying that it is insufficient in itself. We may appreciate the fuller depiction of grace of which Paul writes in Titus 2:
For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensible, righteous, and pious lives in the present age, expecting the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; encourage and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Titus 2:11-15
We see from this passage that grace is not only God's unmerited favour, but is an enablement, a means of training us to live righteously. In this passage, the reason for Christ's death is given as 1) to redeem us from all lawlessness and 2) to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
This same Paul who supposedly teaches "imputed righteousness" in the book of Romans doesn't mention it at all, with respect to grace and righteousness, in this passage. This leads me to suspect that his teaching in Romans has been misunderstood. For example, in most translations we read that Abraham's faith was counted (or imputed) to him for righteousness. Most of us think this means that Abraham's faith was counted to him
instead of righteousness. No doubt this understanding arises from our background of having been taught the Latin concept of the atonement, that the purpose of the sacrifice of Christ as a human to God was to appease Him (For God, because of His holiness requires human sacrifice in order to make forgiveness possible: "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins"). Thus Jesus paid for our sins by being punished in our place (penal substitution). But actually, the Greek indicates that that Abraham's faith was counted to him
into righteousness, that is with righteousness as a GOAL. Reading it this way gives us a quite different understanding of Paul's words. It is also the case that though the word translated as "justify" sometimes means "shown to be righteous", it can also mean "made righteous".
Here is my attempt to faithfully translate the passage from which the "imputed righteousness" doctrine is primarily derived:of
[Abraham] did not waver in unbelief against the promise of God, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, fully convinced that He was able to do that which He promised. And that is why it was counted to him into righteousness (with righteousness as the goal). Now it was written, not only for him, but also for us, to whom it is about to be counted, to the ones trusting in the one who was raised from the dead, Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for the sake of our sins and was raised for the sake of our righteousification. Romans 4:20-24
Okay, so I coined the word "righteousification".
As I see it, the whole idea of the passage is that Abraham's faith was counted to him as the means toward the ultimate goal of righteousness. So it is with us. Through faith we can appopriate the enabling grace of God so that we will move in the direction of righteousness. For He who began a good work in us will "complete it until the day of Jesus Christ", that is will work on completing it until that day when it will actually have been completed. For Jesus died for the sake of dealing with our sins, not our past sins, but our present live sins. He was raised so that we might become righteous persons. And that goal will ultimately be realized. If we think this is impossible, then it is unlikely that we will even set out on the narrow path which leads to life.
We cannot become righteous through self-effort. Such attempts have proven futile. Nor will God thrust righteousness upon us unilaterally. It is necessary for us to coöperate with the enabling grace of God which has been made possible through the magnificent sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.
Working together with Him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2Corinthians 6:1
