We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

—Galatians 2:16-21 (TNIV)

Here Paul cuts to the chase regarding the Good News of Jesus Christ. He reminds us that none of us can be in God’s presence because of our sin and so our attempts to earn our way into his direct Presence (heaven) are futile.

Pretty bleak stuff, don’t you think?

But then Paul delivers the punchline. We do not have to worry about earning our way to heaven anymore because we have been declared “not guilty” in God’s eyes by of the blood of Christ. By faith, we believe that in Jesus Christ, God has overcome the intractable problem of human sin and the separation from God that it causes.

I grow increasingly convinced that many people really have not made the Good News of Jesus Christ their own because they do not really believe that God is that good or gracious. I know that was the case for me for a long time. We still delude ourselves and think our salvation depends on us and our efforts. Not so, says Paul.

When we finally begin to wrap our minds around this wondrous grace and truth, it is a life-changing event and we perforce want the kind of intimacy with Christ that Paul talks about here when he says that he has been crucified with Christ so that it is no longer he who lives but Christ who lives in him. Our faith in Christ makes us want to be like him and live for him. In other words, our faith results in a life of holiness and obedience to Christ, not because we think we have to live that way but because we want to live that way.

Do you have the Good News of Jesus Christ?

Stir up [O God] the heart when people read and hear the confessions of my past wickednesses, which you have forgiven and covered up to grant me happiness in yourself, transforming my soul by faith and your sacrament. Prevent their heart from sinking into the sleep of despair and saying ‘It is beyond my power.’ On the contrary, the heart is aroused in love of your mercy and sweetness of your grace, by which every weak person is given power, while dependence on grace produces awareness of one’s own weakness. Good people are delighted to hear about the past sins of those who have now shed them. The pleasure is not in the evils as such, but that though they were so once, they are not like that now.

A brotherly mind will love in me what you [God] teach to be lovable, and will regret in me what you teach to be regrettable. This is a mark of a Christian brother’s [or sister’s] mind, not an outsider’s. [The Christian brother or sister] will take heart from my good traits, and sigh with sadness at my bad ones.

—Augustine, Confessions 10.3.4-5

Here is a little self-check for you. How do you react when you hear of others’ sins and misfortunes? Do you take delight in them, especially when it is someone you do not like, or do they make you sad for the person? Are you happy when you read or hear stories of people overcoming their sins and hardships, or do you resent it? What about people who are overcome by their body of sin? Are you sad for them or do you take secret satisfaction over their misfortunes, especially when you think they deserve it? If you need a concrete example to help you with this exercise, take the sad story of Ted Koppel’s son or Al and Tipper Gore’s separation. What is your reaction to them (and to the level of detail in the articles themselves)?

Augustine here reminds us that the very nature of Christian love is to desire the best for the other, where “best” is determined by God’s Truth and holy commandments. We are to rejoice when we see anyone, but especially a Christian brother or sister, overcome a dimension of his or her brokenness or body of sin with the help of Christ, and grieve with and for those who fail to do so. We do this because we remember that we are just like them. This is surely one of the reasons Paul wrote what he did in Romans 12:14-16.

If this is not your reaction when you read or hear about the fortune/misfortune of others, especially Christian brothers and sisters, you might ask the Lord to help you see whether you have an issue with that pride thingy going on with you. Because if you do, for one thing, you will never really be able to appropriate the Good News that is in Jesus Christ. Do you know why?

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

Love divine, all loves excelling,
joy of heaven, to earth come down;
fix in us thy humble dwelling;
all thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus thou art all compassion,
pure, unbounded love thou art;
visit us with thy salvation;
enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit
into every troubled breast!
Let us all in thee inherit;
let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
end of faith, as its beginning,
set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver,
let us all thy life receive;
suddenly return and never,
nevermore thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
serve thee as thy hosts above,
pray and praise thee without ceasing,
glory in thy perfect love.

Finish, then, thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee;
changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.

—Charles Wesley

One of the things I love about the old hymns is the theology contained therein. Can you identify the passages from Scripture on which this grand old hymn of Wesley is based?

If God brought us near to himself [through the cross of Christ] when we were far off, how much more will he keep us now that we are near [through faith]?

—John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 9

If the world is falling, and we embrace it by loving it, we are choosing rather to be overwhelmed than to live in it. Nothing separates us from its ruin insofar as our love binds us by our attachment to it.

—Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies 4.2

The human race is inquisitive about other people’s lives, but negligent to correct their own. Why do they demand to hear from me [about these confessions I make] when they refuse to hear from you [God] what they are?

—Confessions 10.3.3

Heh. Truer words were never spoken. It is much easier to be more concerned about the sins and faults of others than to deal with our own.

The Spirit is God himself, a merciful power establishing his reign over man’s heart, over the whole of man, inwardly present to man and apparent in his workings to man’s human spirit.

—Hans Küng, The Church