God is holy. He cannot tolerate sin. So, how can anyone make themselves right before a perfect God?
‘Well, he just forgives us’
‘It’s all about faith’
‘As long as we love Jesus, we’re fine’
‘God loves us too much to be apart from us’
All of these are part-truths. At least, they sound right. The vocabulary is there. If you’ve been around church long enough, you know the answer is Jesus. You certainly know the answer isn’t works. It isn’t about what you do. It’s about faith. Right? It’s worth taking a step back and thinking about this—what is essentially the gospel—again. Whether you’ve been a Christian for a month or many decades, whether you’ve never heard this before or you just need a reminder; the full and true good news of the gospel might surprise you. It has certainly surprised me, for the hundredth time, this week.
Whether you’ve been a Christian for a month or many decades, the full and true good news of the gospel might surprise you. It has certainly surprised me, for the hundredth time, this week.
Does God Take His Law Seriously?
Five books of the Old Testament are dedicated to God’s laws. They are lofty and perfect (Psalm 19:7). The Ten Commandments alone are sweeping; from our behaviour and habits to our relationships to worship, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). God takes his law very seriously, ‘You should diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you’ (Deuteronomy 6:17). In his Psalms, David’s understanding of God is tightly tied to his understanding of the law. Read Psalm 119 and notice how many times God’s ‘law’ or his ‘word’ are mentioned. The moral perfection of the law reveals God’s perfection.
It’s no different in the New Testament. Jesus takes the law seriously. He confirms and even intensifies many of the Old Testament commands. He tells us to love not just our neighbours but our enemies (Matthew 5:44–46). He says that it’s not just adultery that matters, lust matters too (Matthew 5:28–30). He commands his followers to become servants to all (Matthew 20:26–28). In fact, he tells us to ‘be perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matthew 5:46–48). It seems clear: God, both Father and Son, cares about his law. They care about what we do.
Does God Really Require Perfection?
When we stand before God our judge, his test will be perfection. It won’t be good intentions. It won’t be effort. It will be absolute moral perfection. In other words, he will judge us according to our works. Every word we speak and every decision we make will be held against his law. Remember:
- God is perfectly holy. He cannot tolerate anything short of that. His law and Lordship are for our good and when we reject it, there are consequences.
- God can’t lower the bar. If ‘good enough’ were good enough, how good would be enough? God’s standards are his righteousness and justice in action.
So, it looks like what we need is perfect obedience
If we want to be right with God, we need to be proven as perfect. For all of us, this is problematic. ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’. We long for right relationship from God. We long for forgiveness. God won’t—he can’t—just overlook our sin. If he did, he wouldn’t be a perfect God, he’d be morally broken, like us. Just ‘having faith’ in a vague, ‘I believe in God’ kind of way won’t work either. In fact, even ‘loving Jesus’, if all we mean by that is having affection for him, isn’t a solution. We need some way to be truly, really right before God. We need some way to be perfect before him.
The (very) Good News
Jesus is perfect before God. He swapped places with us. He took the blame, in his death on the cross, that our lack of perfection deserves. And in exchange, he gives us his perfection. That, and nothing less, is the good news of the gospel. God did all this. He did it because he can’t ‘excuse’ sin. He must be just. And, he exacted that justice on his son, Jesus. This is the sheer genius of the gospel: at the cross, God was ‘just and the justifier’ (Romans 3:26). He demands perfection. He can accept no less. And so, he gave it to us. He doesn’t need to turn a blind eye from our sin and accept ‘good enough’. Because, he has made us perfect, in Christ. That’s why Jesus said, ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them’ (Matthew 5:17).
If we want to be right with God, we need to be proven as perfect … Jesus gives us his perfection. That, and nothing less, is the good news of the gospel.
Better than Just Forgiveness
We absolutely receive forgiveness because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But, we receive more than that. It’s not that Jesus somehow evens up God’s justice tally so he can let us off the hook. No, ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). By faith in Christ, you are the righteousness of God. Get that? God doesn’t look at you and think, ‘Ah, she screwed up again but I guess I’ll let it slide this time’ or even, ‘I know he is trying his best’. God looks at you and sees perfection. He sees Christ’s perfect righteousness. The cross doesn’t just take away your sin, it gives perfection before God.
I know, this isn’t news specific to COVID-19. But, it is far better news than any vaccination invention or economic recovery will be. Right now, we are feeling the consequences of a world which is not right with God. We’re scared about illness and death and pain. We’re isolated and lonely. We’re missing our regular rhythms and church families. Now, as always, you need to hear the gospel. Every day. When you wash your hands and when you tuck your kids into bed. When you go for a run or brave the supermarket. Rejoice, dear Christian, that by faith you are not only saved from your unrighteousness but given perfect righteousness.
