...By the Law...

April 8

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.” Romans 3:19-21

“There is none righteous, no not one,” Romans 3:10. None of us, no matter how good we think we are, no matter how well we compare to others (“They who compare themselves among themselves are not wise,” II Corinthians 10:12), no matter how highly we may be thought of—none of us—can stand before our Holy God in the merit of who we are or what we’ve accomplished.

Even if who we are and what we’ve accomplished has been oriented around the purposes of the Kingdom of Christ, we have no credentials that entitle us to enter the presence of God. None.

The only way for us to enter into the Holy of Holies, the only way for us to stand before the King of kings and Lord of lords is through the shed blood of Jesus and the robe of righteousness He places over us when we lay our lives at His feet and receive His salvation.

If we choose to cling to our obedience to the law as our ‘ticket’ to salvation, we will be disappointed. If we elect to place our meritorious deeds before God as our claim to His eternal blessings, we shall fail utterly.

As Paul says so succinctly in the passage quoted above, all the law can do for us is make us aware of our own inadequacy.

As Paul laid aside all the accomplishments of his long and devoted service to the religion of his youth in order to lay hold on the salvation Jesus supplied to him (see Philippians 3:4-8), so must we. Until we abandon every other claim to heaven—every claim but Christ crucified in our behalf—we cannot enter the portals of glory.

With that truth before us, must we not hold out our arms to receive Him who allowed His arms to be stretched out on a cruel cross to receive us!