Before we can be judged, we need an examination. God examines our condition to see if we are “good.” This is the quickest test ever.
As Christ said, “No one is good except God alone” (Luke 18:19b).
We pass the examination if we are deemed perfect.[1] But ever since the fall of Adam from his state of innocence, not one of us has been able to claim perfect righteousness. We can only pass if we obtain Christ’s perfect goodness as a gift.[2]
Below are verses of advice relevant to every person throughout history since the fall of mankind. This is a longer test to examine our condition in comparison to the righteousness of God. Are there degrees of righteousness?
“ The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.… But Noah found favor [grace] in the eyes of the Lord.”
—Genesis 6:5–6, 8, NIV
“Can mankind be just before God?
Can a man be pure before his Maker?”
—Job 4:17, NASB
“But how can a man be in the right before God?”
—Job 9:2b, NASB
“Who can make the clean out of the unclean?”
—Job 14:4a, NASB
“What is man, that he should be pure,
Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?”
—Job 15:14, NASB
“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
“They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one .”
—Psalm 14:2–3
“ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me .”
—Psalm 51:5
“And do not enter into judgment with Your servant,
For in Your sight no man living is righteous.”
—Psalm 143:2, NASB
“Who can say, ‘I have made my heart pure;
I am clean from my sin?’”
—Proverbs 20:9
“We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.[3]
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
—Isaiah 64:6
“ This is what the Lord says:
‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.’”
—Jeremiah 17:5
“What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
‘None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good
,
not even one.’”
—Romans 3:9–12
“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.”
—Romans 3:21–24
Christ stated in Matthew 4:4 (quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3) that we are to live by the Word of God, so we need to trust his definition of our nature.
Humans cannot self-generate even a minor scale of goodness according to Scripture. By nature, our hearts are not up to the task. When God looks at our heart,[4] he sees the sin that stems from within.
But we are not without hope.
“And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul [life], that you may live.”
—Deuteronomy 30:6
“ Circumcise yourselves to the Lord
And remove the foreskins of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Or else My wrath will go forth like fire
And burn with none to quench it,
Because of the evil of your deeds.”
—Jeremiah 4:4, NASB
One of these passages summarizes grace, the other the terms of the law; our nature must be changed if we wish to live according to God’s law, and only God can make the necessary changes within us. This truth has never changed. We need to approach God with a humble and broken heart. Our “self” needs to be drowned in baptismal waters, crucified with Christ, and buried. God freely provides grace through an ongoing process in which his Spirit is poured out continually into “our” heart. He first carves out a location to live (circumcision), then by the gift of God’s Spirit we can keep his law.
Do we really have a sinful nature, or does sin change our nature? Who are we really in our innermost being? What happens to our heart when we turn to Christ? Do we still “own” it? Sometimes the Bible describes God pouring out his Spirit into our heart, and sometimes God promises to give us a new heart. Sometimes he circumcises our heart (a gift of grace), and sometimes he urges us to circumcise our own heart (keep the law).
So the heart presents us with another paradox of law and grace. As elsewhere in the gospel, grace must come first, then the law follows. All seemingly contradictory passages are nonetheless correct. Some passages speak to God’s gift of a new heart, and some speak to the law in our heart. We need to understand the proper sequence. We first need a new heart given to us; only then, through his indwelling nature, can we keep his commands.
When we analyze our heart condition, there are only two states: sinful or clean. Either our heart exists in its own human nature, or it is transformed according to Christ’s divine nature. The two do not mix.
When God gives us his heart, we become “one” with him and with each other as Christ described in the priestly prayer of John 17. We have the same heart. God’s heart becomes ours—we may call it “our” heart because it was a gift—yet it continues to belong to him to share with others. This is yet another divine paradox. Note that we can reject God at any moment and operate from our original sinful heart that still resides in us. We will have two hearts until the last day. As Adam gave us his fallen nature, the “second Adam” (Christ) gives us God’s Spirit.[5]
Because it is Christ’s nature at work that enables us to keep his law, he gets all the glory when we succeed in doing good. We can only take credit for the sin we commit when we stumble and indulge in our old sinful nature.
We don’t keep the law to obtain salvation. We keep the law because that is the natural output of God’s Spirit at work in us. God’s Spirit motivates us to love others as he loves, and as Christ showed by example—but we cannot do this through our own measure of goodness.
Many people think life is like a test where they must do some work to get a good grade. If there are more good works than bad, they pass the test or tip the scales of justice to their favor, and heaven will be their reward.
“Getting at orthodoxy (or, rather, heterodoxy) among the American population, most (55%) agree that if a person is generally good, or does good enough things for others during their life, they will earn a place in heaven.”
—The Barna Group[6]
According to another Barna survey, “a large majority of Americans (79%) agreed with the statement ‘every person has a soul that will live forever, either in God’s presence or absence.’”[7]
Barna and other research surveys have reported that these ways of thinking represent the majority views for Americans in general, not just American Christians. Culture has promoted the immortal soul myth and legalism, the idea that we can achieve righteousness through our own works.
Can we be good enough to earn our way to heaven? The biblical argument for humility says no. Will our soul live on forever? The Bible is clear regarding our mortal condition. We must take care not to believe the lies spread by our culture—even, in some cases, within the walls of our churches.
“The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick.”
—Jeremiah 17:9a
The biblical view is that we are in a desperate condition; we will die unless we undergo spiritual heart surgery. God first circumcises our heart, then through his Spirit gives us a new heart. This new heart is a gift to be believed in, not to be earned by keeping rules, making choices, or performing surgery on ourselves.
This heart transplant is part of the free, eternal healthcare program. The fees are paid out of our inheritance. Christ paid for everything, so we don’t have any dues to worry about. We simply need to believe in it; the law does not oblige us to contribute anything to the payment Christ made on our behalf. By following the prescription plan of redemption, we will receive our inheritance.
God’s Word gives us both commands and promises, based upon his nature of being just and gracious at the same time. His Word delivers the gift of baptism by the Holy Spirit. This gift bestows a new nature upon us; we are born again. In Paul’s famous words, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Here we see a distinction of the two natures in each Christian. There is a nature of life and a nature of death, and both reside in us.
The new nature we receive through the Spirit was originally God’s, but now it is ours as well; we have a shared nature with him. This does not transform our human nature but is a separate nature altogether.
Once born again, we have two hearts, two competing natures within us. We must embrace the new heart and reject the old heart, as it cannot contribute anything toward grace or salvation.
Once we believe in the promises given to us by the Spirit, faith begins to form. The next step is to act out in obedience; this completes our faith. Faith is the bridge that takes us from receiving the gift to living by the gift. Belief is not a true belief unless we act on it through the power of the Spirit given to us. Otherwise we are hypocrites, saying we believe one thing but doing another. Having received the Spirit, should we neglect to follow the Spirit?[8]
When Paul says, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ,” he is clearly talking about his spiritual life, not his physical life. He rejected his previous attempt to save himself by keeping the law, deeming it an impossible task. He drowned, crucified, and buried his sinful heart after his conversion and repented of his former self-righteousness.
Paul received grace and repented afterward. He did not take the initiative in turning to God, nor did God decide to save Paul based upon one of Paul’s good deeds. In being sealed spiritually, Paul experienced the second birth (as Christ discussed with Nicodemus in John 3:3–7). An interesting lesson to note is that God told Paul he would meet Ananias and then receive the Spirit. So Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit and reborn before he could carry out any specific righteous acts to demonstrate repentance. Paul did not “make a decision to follow Christ” in order to receive the Spirit.
“[Ananias]said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ … Then he rose and was baptized.”
—Acts 9:17, 18b
Spiritual salvation comes before physical salvation. We are spiritually sealed when we accept God’s gift of a new heart, but we do not receive physical salvation from death until the resurrection. We must continue to wait alongside all people who are kept by faith in God’s grace, anticipating the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises of redemption. Our hope is based on Christ’s fulfillment of the law, and our faith flows out of God’s Spirit within us. We do not contribute anything at all toward either the grace that saves us or the faith that sustains us.
The Scales of Justice
Many biblical concepts sound strange from a human perspective; our beliefs and biases continue to be warped by ancient mythological concepts. Yet we all have a common sense of justice; a moral code of law is ingrained into every person.[9]
As human beings, we have a figurative scale in the back of our mind that weighs the good things we do against the bad. We all feel the need to do something to earn justice or favor. According to human reasoning, good deeds must be rewarded and bad deeds must be punished. If we sense the scale tipping toward bad deeds, we may redefine what good and bad mean to get the scale back on our side. Some people go so far as to reject the very idea of evil, seeking to eliminate the counterweight altogether. But in rebelling against justice, such people cannot help but acknowledge the intrinsic nature of the concept. They use justice to remove the future need for justice.
Our mythological concept of justice says that if, upon death, a person’s good deeds tip the scale of justice against the bad-deeds counterweight, then the person’s soul can float to heaven. Reliance upon good works and belief in an immortal soul combine to form the most common belief system in America today. This is an ancient myth dressed up in modern language and sensibility, and the majority of western people, Christian and non-Christian alike, have bought in.
We all have the ability to reject God’s plan of salvation. But we have no ability to save ourselves. Through our free will, we can decline God’s offer of redemption and remain mired in eternal death. We can say “no” to God’s gift and say “yes” to our own plan of salvation. If we think we need to do even a little to help earn our own salvation, this is evidence of pride. We need to shake free from the belief that we can balance our own scales.
The world often tells children to have self-esteem and “believe in yourself.” Sometimes we deliver this message ourselves. But this is not the gospel message. From a human perspective, we want our kids to appreciate and develop their own talents and abilities, but it is even more important that they humbly believe in God and let his Spirit equip them to serve others. Promoting a child’s sense of pride is a slippery slope. God has already deemed us worthy of his love. We can’t add to our worth by our own good works, beliefs, or choices.
God places more worth on us than we can know.[10] But the devil asks, “Would God let bad things happen to you if he truly valued you?” When we adopt such a perspective, we misunderstand God’s love and justice. We often assume that we anger God with our sin, causing him to withhold blessings or deal out punishments. But God doesn’t give blessings as a reward for good behavior; these blessings are undeserved grace. And while some of our sinful actions do have earthly consequences, God’s discipline is an expression of grace, not a lawful punishment.
“Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.”
—Deuteronomy 8:5–6
It should be noted that “disciple” and “discipline” have the same root meaning relating to a student. Both words connote learning. Having received our new heart from the Spirit when we are born again at our baptism, now we need the Spirit to continually teach us how to live as God’s people and follow in his ways.
Discipline is not well understood by the one being disciplined. But we need to realize God is perfecting us through his Spirit living in us. God is holy and expects us to be holy.[11] We need to humbly fear God before we can live through him. And we need to love others to keep in step with God’s intent. We spend our lives in a transformational process (Romans 12:1–2) until we are fully transformed on the last day (Philippians 3:21).
Human thinking is not God’s way of thinking.[12] Judgment Day can’t be understood under the law of justice alone, as that seems to leave no room for grace. We think of grace as an all-or-nothing concept, but what about justice? In our earthly justice system, we expect judges to mete out sentences of varying severity based on the level of the offense. But does God judge by degrees? We first need to look at God’s nature to understand his mode of judgment. We already know we are sinful by nature and by actions, but how does God really judge us?
The Law is Love
God is love. Love is directly associated with law, righteousness, and good works. Love is not a feeling or emotion, even if we often think of it this way. So God is in fact lovingly giving of himself when he gives us his law, drawing from his just, fair, and righteous nature.
He gives us his grace and his law through the gospel; both are gifts to us. His plan has always been to transfer his nature to us so we can be givers as well. In other words, we keep his law by loving others. The devil disrupted this exchange when he came onto the scene in the garden. He continues to do all he can to promote selfish acts over the giving relationships God intended for us to experience.
First John 4–5 states God is love and he gives his love to us:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
—1 John 4:7–8
We are to love (thus keeping God’s law) because God first gave us his lawful nature:
“We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
—1 John 4:19–21
We are to believe in Christ and be born again, and then we are to love:
“ Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
—1 John 5:1–3
The law is to love; we receive this law after we are born again. Love is obedience to God.
“For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”
—Romans 13:8b
God’s gifts are unidirectional—the gospel message passes from God to us. Goodness is not inherent in us, so we need to receive it. God graciously puts a new heart within us.
But the love that flows out of our new heart is bi-directional, passing freely between all parties. The law defines how we are supposed to live in relationships. We can only love after we receive the gifts of God’s grace and the commands given in his Word.
It should be clear that God wants a relationship with us and that we are to act justly with our neighbor. The law is not a burden.[13] If we live by the Holy Spirit, we keep the law. Having already received grace, we do not have the burden of trying to keep God’s law through our own strength.
God’s promises to Abraham demonstrate his grace, while the terms of the Mosaic covenant demonstrate God’s law. Abraham didn’t have to keep any law to receive the promises, only believe and trust in God. Later, he displayed his belief by trusting God to raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham’s faith was considered complete only after he obeyed God’s command.[14] God was testing Abraham by commanding the sacrifice of his son. God tests us today by commanding us to obey his word. Our faith is not complete until God tests it.[15]
Israel needed to exhibit the same belief and trust as Abraham. They verbally agreed to love God and their neighbor, but they often neglected to rely on faith as the basis of their lawful living. They did not follow the example Abraham set forth for them.[16]
God reveals himself and his attributes through law and justice. We often do not associate love with law, but God’s primary work is to give us his loving nature—and that includes the grace-giving law. When God demands perfection under the law, he is not being unreasonable. He is perfect and requires us to be perfect.[17] We are called to be holy just as he is holy.[18] But grace precedes the command as God gives his perfect nature to us; he knows we can’t generate perfect righteousness on our own. Yet our obedience is required.[19]
Law and grace are two key elements of God’s nature—the very nature he wishes to put within us. And so we see throughout Scripture two distinct aspects of God’s gospel message:
We see in Scripture that belief in God is only the starting place of faith. Belief alone cannot complete our justification by faith. John 3:16 does not contain the entirety of the gospel message. Belief must culminate in obedience. Reading on in John 3, Jesus explains for us how the gospel message retains the law, but we tend not to memorize this part of the chapter:
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
—John 3:36
Here we see belief as a direct conduit for obedie