hat does it take to be right with God? That is the central question of human existence. What are God's criteria for eternal life with Him? What does He require?Job had this question on his mind. The Book of Job is likely the oldest book in the Bible, so it is fitting that in it Job asks the question the Bible is written to answer: "How then can man be in the right before God?" (Job 25:4; also 4:17; 9:2). The correct answer determines the fate of everyone for all time. And because this is so, the correct answer is not only the most pondered and debated topic by humans, it is also the most undermined and attacked by God's number one enemy, Satan.
God's Perfect Standard
So what is the Bible's answer to this most fundamental question? What is God's demand upon those who would be received by Him? Answer: perfection. God's bar for His approval is perfection. Anything less brings eternal condemnation as the price of disobedience. Ezekiel writes what God has determined: "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:4, 20).
This is God's consistent standard throughout Scripture. When God created the first humans, Adam and Eve, His instruction to them was straightforward: if you disobey Me, you will die (Gen. 2:17). When God delivered His Law to the people of Israel, His oft-repeated injunction—"Be holy, for I am holy" (Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7)—remained the same. And what was God's threat for all who fail in this? "Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them" (Deut. 27:26). Be perfect, or be cursed. Those have always been God's two options.
This righteous standard was on David's heart when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write, "O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks with truth in his heart" (Ps. 15:1-2). In another Psalm, David continues on this theme: "Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, and does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully" (Ps. 24:3-4).
When God came to earth in the Person of Jesus Christ, His condition for acceptance was unchanged and explicit: "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Earlier in the same sermon, Jesus warns those who would listen, "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:20). In the Book of Hebrews, the Holy Spirit reiterates through the writer, "Strive for peace with everyone, and for holiness, without which no one will see the LORD" (Heb. 12:14).
So the standard of God for those who would commune with Him is consistent throughout Scripture and unequivocally clear: holiness. Moral perfection. A life lived flawlessly before God, free of even the slightest taint of sin. That is the Bible's daunting yet unambiguous requirement for fellowship and eternal life with God. Then the Bible dooms its reader even further, declaring that on one's own, such perfection is impossible. According to the Bible, no one can live in such a manner, in perfect obedience before a righteous and holy God. David moans, "No one living is righteous before you" (Ps. 143:2). And in the New Testament, Paul concurs when he writes, " . . . all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23a). Therein lies the fundamental predicament of mankind: God demands holiness to match His glory, and everyone throughout all time falls short of this standard.
Imputation: God's "Robe of Perfection" Applied to Penitent Sinners
Most fortuitously, God has provided a manner by which sinners can acquire the holiness necessary to commune with Him: through the imputation of Christ's righteousness to those who repent and believe in His saving work. Imputation means the transfer of condition from one account to another—in this case, the transfer of Christ's perfection to the unworthy. This imputation comes from God's provision of penal substitutionary atonement, wherein through faith God attributes the righteous life of Christ to the penitent sinner, and places that sinner's sins upon Christ, for which He was punished once and for all time upon the cross (Isa. 53:10; 2 Cor. 5:21). This is exactly what Isaiah was expressing when he says of Christ (Isa. 53:11), " . . . by His knowledge shall the Righteous One, My Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities."
The Bible uses a number of images to depict all that occurs in redeeming the sinner via imputation through substitutionary atonement, including speaking of being clothed with the righteousness of God (Job 29:14; italics added). The prophet Isaiah was beside himself at this possibility, exclaiming, "I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness" (Isa. 61:10; italics added). Zechariah elaborates on this sartorial makeover: "He [God] spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, 'Remove the filthy garments from him.' Again He said to him, 'See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes' " (Zech. 3:4; italics added).
This transfer of Christ's righteousness to sinners—pictured as a holy robe, given in exchange for their sinful soiled garment—is the most extraordinary transaction imaginable. It is almost beyond our ability to conceive that God would punish His own Son for the sins of others in order to provide this holy vestment, by which the sinner can stand perfectly righteous—and thus accepted—in the presence of God. Substitutionary atonement and its provision of a righteous robe to unworthy sinners is thus the pinnacle demonstration of God's grace and mercy and love. As such, it is the supreme feature for which He deserves their highest and ceaseless praise.
But the prideful human heart is wired to reject God's offer of Christ's righteous robe, and to come up with one of its own. Ever since Adam and Eve made garments of leaves in the vain attempt to cover the shame brought on by their sin, it has been mankind's nature to reject the covering God would apply, and endeavor instead to apply an alternative. This, in fact, is the impetus behind every false religion. Every false form of belief in the world is predicated, at its core, upon developing some alternative garment that might cover the sin and shame of its converts and somehow still allow them to stand acceptable before God.Here is how Pastor John MacArthur describes this tendency:
What did Adam and Eve do? "They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings" (Gen. 3:7). That is the launch of false religion . . . that is the symbol of false religion. That is the first act of man to create a way in which he himself could deal with his own shame, in which he could cover his own iniquity. And then he hides, because he hasn't yet found a way to face God.Isaiah confirms the futility of these efforts: "For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away" (Isa. 64:6). According to the prophet, these "righteous deeds" not only fail to cover one's sins and deliver the righteousness God requires, but are actually fetid waste which bespeak of the sinner's unrighteous core and augur his demise.
This is the birth of false religion: men make ways to cover their own sin. But it does not salve their guilty conscience, and so they hide from God. False religion is a form of hiding from God, hiding from His true presence. That is the symbol of all false religion, that a guilty, dying sinner can make a covering for his own shame, and that somehow he can cover his shame and hide himself from God. He hides himself in his own self-made coverings. [John MacArthur, from the sermon, "The Danger of Adding to the Gospel: Gal. 2:11-12," delivered at Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA, June 4, 2017.]
With such straightforward and consistent biblical instruction on God's righteous standard for acceptance, the gracious and singular manner He has arranged for this to occur, and the failure of all substituted human effort, one might think God's prescription for His approval would be immune to dispute. But if that is your conclusion, guess again. We'll cover the modern day assault against God's standard of righteousness in our next post, "What Are You Wearing? Part 2."
Dr. Colin L. Eakin
Guest Contributor
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Dr. Eakin is a sports medicine orthopædic surgeon in the Bay Area and part time teacher at Grace Bible Fellowship Church's Stanford campus ministry. He is the author of 
2 comments:
Wow! Well said.
Dr. Eakin, I once had a discussion with a well-known conservative New Testament scholar regarding NT Wright's view of imputation. Although this scholar certainly has points of disagreement with Wright, on the subject of imputation, this is what he said to me:
"There is for Wright a declared righteousness and rendering of the judgment not guilty that is forensic, but there is not a clear text in his view that covers the imputation of Jesus' moral righteousness (only 2 Cor 5:17-20 is a possible text making that point). I think he is mostly right on that. In my mind, this moral provision is what the Spirit does for us, making us holy and covering us with Jesus by incorporating us into him so we are in him and (have put on Jesus). In my mind, thinking as a Jew, the forgiveness cleanses, rendering us clean outside of ourselves and anything we do, then the Spirit is the provision by which holiness is present and enabled. It is all a gift of God's grace."
What he said makes sense to me. How about you?
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