Hi to my Forum Friends,
In the discussion begun by Hammerhead titled "Dear Winnie the Bill" -- I responded to VP's post, "The Bible tells us believers are covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ -- and God no longer sees our sins, but, only the righteousness of Christ. Is the Bible wrong? If a person takes this to be a "get out of jail free" card -- then, that person does not truly understand God's Word -- or that person does not believe God's Word."
And, O No asks, "Bill, could you show us which Bible verse(s) say that God no longer sees our sins? Thanks."
Thank you for asking this question. This all boils down to two basic questions. Let's examine those two questions before proceeding to O No's question.
1. If YOU were to die today, do YOU know for sure that YOU will go to heaven?
2. If YOU were to stand before God today and He asked YOU, "Why should I allow YOU to enter My heaven?" -- how would you answer Him?
Alone in your private room, how will YOU answer those two vital questions, today, right now? Tomorrow may be too late. An hour from now may be too late. These two eternally important questions you need to resolve right now -- for no one knows when that last breath in this mortal body will come.
Next, how does God views the "works" that some folks believe will get them into heaven?
Isaiah 64:6, "For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds (works) are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away."
This Scripture verse is telling us that folks can work themselves to death -- but, they CANNOT work themselves into heaven. Then, how can one attain heaven? How can one enter into God's heaven? Glad you asked.
Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Here we learn that our works, no matter how extensive, cannot save us -- yet, God is offering us a "gift" -- the gift of eternal life to all who will believe and receive His "gift." A "gift" by it very nature is free. If it were not free, if we had to earn it -- it would be "wages" and not a "gift." So, are you seeking the gift of heaven? Or, are you seeking the wages of heaven? If wages, how will you know when you have worked enough to earn your way into heaven?
No one can earn eternal life with God; but, He is willing to give it to you -- FREE -- if you will, by His grace, through faith in Jesus Christ -- believe and receive this gift of eternal salvation. How much easier can He make it?
On the other hand, once a person has become a Christian believer -- by grace, through faith alone -- then, all his/her works for the kingdom of God are greatly blessed by God. To summarize that thought: Works are the result, the fruit, of our salvation. Works are not the cause of our salvation.
So, let's once again summarize the situation. We want to go to heaven for eternity, but we, and our works, look like filthy rags to God. And, God cannot look upon such evil, such filth. How do we know this?
Habakkuk 1:13, "Your (God) eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor."
Matthew 27:46, "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'"
When Jesus Christ went to the cross to pay our sin debt to God, He had all of my sins, all of your sins, and all the sins of the entire world, past, present, and future -- placed upon Him. And, because of our sins, our unrighteousness, God could not even look upon His own Son. Can you imagine the pain of having your own father turn from you, turn his back upon you in your time of great suffering -- not even able to look upon you? Then, multiply that pain by a quadrillion times -- and that is the pain of Jesus Christ when His Father, God, turned away and could not look upon Him hanging on the cross, bearing our sins.
Why? Because, as we are told in Habakkuk 1:13, God cannot look upon wickedness, i.e., sin or unrighteousness. And, when Jesus Christ took our unrighteousness, the filthy garments of our self proclaimed "righteous deeds and works" (Isaiah 64:6) -- upon Himself on the cross -- the Father turned His back upon Him, not being able to look upon such sin.
So, O No, my Friend, when you ask, "Bill, could you show us which Bible verse(s) say that God no longer sees our sins? -- this should answer that question. If God could not look upon His own Son because of our sins; how can He look upon us who own those sins?
If God could not look upon His own Son, Jesus Christ when He bore our sins -- how can WE ever expect God the Father to look upon us, covered as we are in sinful unrighteousness?
What we need is a shield, or umbrella, which will hide our unrighteousness from the eyes of God -- so that when He looks at us, He does not see our filthy righteousness -- but, instead He will see a righteousness which is perfect.
Where do we find such an Umbrella of Righteousness to cover us? We have to look no further than Jesus Christ. He is standing at the door of our hearts, waiting for us to open the door, our hearts, and invite Him to come in and be our Best Friend and to be our Righteousness (Revelation 3:20).
This is another area where we Protestants differ from our Roman Catholic Friends. We believe the righteousness of Jesus Christ is "imputed" or attributed to us the moment we become a believer. We believe that, at that moment of believing and inviting Him to come into our hearts and to be Master of our lives -- the Holy Spirit indwells us and seals us for the day of redemption (Ephesians 1:13, 4:30) and the Righteousness of Jesus Christ becomes our Spiritual Umbrella, as we will see in Scripture passages below. In other words, we do not become righteous; instead, we have the righteousness of Jesus Christ covering us.
So, while we believe that His righteousness is "imputed" to us as believers -- our Roman Catholic Friends believe that His righteousness is "infused" into the believer, making the believer himself/herself righteous. However, this belief conflicts with Isaiah 64:6 which tells us our righteousness is like filthy garments -- and, in Isaiah, there is no suggested method of cleansing those filthy garments. Those garments, according to Isaiah and the rest of the Bible, will always be filthy as long as we are in these mortal bodies.
Therefore, there is no way that we can have righteousness "infused" into us making us righteous. But, we can be "covered" by the righteousness of Jesus Christ so that when God looks at us -- He sees only Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ died and went to the grave bearing our sins. He arose, resurrected, as the glorified, immortal God Incarnate and ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father, continually interceding for all Christian believers. He is our sole Mediator, our Shield, our Divine Advocate/Attorney before God the Father.
He stands before the Father, for us, in His righteousness. We do not stand before God for ourselves in our righteousness -- for He could not look upon us -- just as He could not look upon Jesus Christ hanging on the cross; but, turned His back.
O No, you asked which Bible verses or passages tell us that, as Christian believers, we are covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ -- and because of His righteousness God does not see our unrighteousness. You asked me to show you why I wrote, "God no longer sees our sins, but, only the righteousness of Christ." Let's examine some of those Scripture passages.
Romans 4:4-7, Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered.'"
Rom 4:20-25, "He (Abraham) did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore 'it was accounted to him for righteousness.' Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification."
Based upon this Scripture passage, I believe that righteousness in "imputed" to believers -- not "infused" into believers.
Romans 5:17, "For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ."
1 Corinthians 1:30, "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption."
Philippians 3:8-9, "More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."
To O No, and to all my Forum Friends, I pray that this will help all of us better understand the role His righteousness plays in our salvation, in our eternal security, and in our justification, by which we sinful mortals become "forgiven sinners" and are made acceptable in the eyes of our holy God.
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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