Faith That
is Solely in Jesus Christ
I think a
lot of us have a spoken faith; a doctrinal faith -- and I am not putting that
down. It is a start.
Perhaps that is where we are in our walk.
Or maybe our faith in Christ is, “propped up,” by other considerations.
Scripture reveals that God wants more – He wants our faith to be solely
in His Son because it is then that we will fully come to experience His Son.
Faith that
is solely in Jesus Christ is really the outcome of a work that God Himself has
to do in us. He has to get us to
the place where our faith in other things -- especially our faith in ourselves
-- is brought to a complete collapse.
Then we will begin to recognize what it means to have a faith that is
solely in Jesus Christ.
There are
two sides to this work of God – God doesn’t simply dismantle our false faith,
but God also builds true faith. He
has to expose our fake faith, but likewise He must begin to bring us into an
inward realization of Jesus Christ.
Indeed, it is a realization of Christ that exposes our fake faith.
Fake faith then decreases, as Christ increases in us.
Herein we
find a key Truth: Instead of asking
God to give you more faith, ask God to give you a greater revelation of Christ
-- and real faith will be there – and it will be the faith OF Jesus Christ.
There is a
common misconception about faith – we tend to think of faith as a THING, or
think of faith as a FORCE. And so
we think that in order, “to get more faith,” God merely needs to, “zap us” – act
upon us – and infuse us with this THING we call, “faith.”
But this is NOT how faith comes to be.
Again -- what we need is to open our hearts for a greater revelation of
Jesus Christ. The more we come into
a greater revelation of Jesus Christ, the more our faith will grow.
Sure. “Faith comes to be by
hearing the Word of God.” (see Rom.
10:17) Jesus is the Living Word,
and to the extent that we HEAR Him, that is, SEE Him and know Him, the faith of
Jesus Christ will come to be, and grow, in us.
As noted,
faith is NOT, “a force.” Kenneth
Copeland, and some of the other Word of Faith heretics, teach that faith is a
force that we muster up out of ourselves and generate up to God -- to get Him
moving or to convince Him to do what we want Him to do.
No. Faith is a relationship.
It is not a force. Neither
does faith create reality or Truth.
Faith, or speaking, does not bring into existence what we speak.
Actually, faith creates NOTHING.
Faith comes about and grows because of the Truth that already exists in
Jesus Christ.
Again, read
Romans 10:17. It says, “Faith COMES
(to be in me) by hearing…” In other
words, real faith is not in me to begin with – real faith must COME TO BE.
But how does faith, “come to be in me?”
By hearing – faith comes to be in me through a revelation of Jesus Christ
given by God and embraced by the believer.
And if that is the case, then the faith that comes to be from out of
Christ is the faith OF Jesus Christ – and can be operative ONLY for that which
is OF Christ.
Removing
Oneself From Christ
The epistle
of Paul to the Galatians is an epistle that speaks directly to the necessity of
the Christian having faith that is solely in Jesus Christ.
The Galatian churches had, in fact, failed on this essential.
That is why Paul, after greeting them in this epistle, quickly begins to
rebuke them. He says:
I marvel
that you have so rapidly removed yourself from Him that called you into the
grace of Christ into another gospel.”
(Gal. 1:6)
Now, what
does it mean to, “remove yourself,” from Christ unto another gospel?
It was what the Galatians were guilty of according to the apostle Paul.
Well, to remove yourself from Christ, in the NT Greek, means, “to switch
your allegiance.” That is what the
word, “remove,” means – so Paul is talking about switching your allegiance from
Christ to something else. But our
relationship with Christ is based upon FAITH.
Therefore, “to remove yourself,” from Christ is to remove your faith,
that is, it means to NOT have your faith solely in Christ.
This speaks of a faith that is divided; compromised; a faith that is
something OTHER than a faith in Christ alone.
There are
two important points here worth noting.
First, in order to remove yourself from faith that is solely in Christ
means that your faith WAS solely in Christ to begin with.
Otherwise you can’t have removed yourself and switched allegiance.
The entire tone of the epistle, indeed, the direct words of Paul, suggest
that the Galatians once did have their faith solely in Christ – were walking in
the Truth. But they had, “fallen
from grace.” You cannot FALL FROM
grace unless you were once standing by faith in Christ alone.
For most
believers, it may not be a matter of, “switching allegiance,” but a matter of
never having a faith that is solely in Christ to begin with.
Regardless, the spiritual principle and Truths Paul is teaching apply.
Paul says to
them, in chapter 3, “Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should
not obey the Truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ has evidently been set forth
as crucified among you?” Then he
says, “Only would I learn of you, did you receive the spirit by the works of the
law or by the hearing of faith? Are
you so foolish, having begun in the spirit -- he has already said that they had
received the spirit -- are you now made mature by the flesh?”
This rebuke clearly shows that the Galatians had abandoned what they had
received – they once had faith solely in Christ, but not any longer.
But again – even if I have not abandoned what I have received, I
nevertheless must receive it in Truth and refuse to abandon it.
The second
point worth noting is that the Galatians had not abandoned Christ completely –
at least not in their own minds.
There is nothing in this epistle to even remotely indicate that the Galatians
had rejected Christ. No.
They had been deceived; bewitched; mesmerized.
What emerged was a false Christianity wherein their faith was NOT solely
in Christ – but their faith was in Christ PLUS their own works.
Isn’t that
the condition of many believers – to proclaim faith in Christ, but to, in fact,
NOT have a faith that is solely in Christ?
Sure. These issues are not
theological. They are spiritual –
they find both their root and solution in the INWARD relationship we have with
Christ. That is why we are so
easily deceived about this matter of faith.
The
Galatians were a case in point.
They were believers, who after being saved by grace through faith, were now
trying to live a Christian life -- and to grow and become mature -- through
works. That is why Paul asked them,
“Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit, are you now made mature by the
flesh?” The false gospel under
which the Galatians were now living did not deny Christ, or suggest that
believers are SAVED by works. No.
This false gospel apparently celebrated salvation, “by grace through
faith,” but then taught that the means of becoming mature in Christ – taught
that the way a Christian was to walk with God – was by works.
Of course,
this was a gospel of self-righteousness.
Any presentation of the gospel that states that we become mature through
works, earn blessings by works, avoid curses by works – these are all, “another
gospel.” All of these false
teachings are essentially saying we must maintain our own righteousness by
works. Sure.
It is the achievement of righteousness by works that maintains access to
God; that keeps us in His grace – according to this false gospel.
It is righteousness that is the goal through these works – with all of
the desired results supposedly resulting from achieving that goal.
The sad fact
is, millions upon millions of Christian people are living under such a false
gospel right now. This is why we
have been given the epistle to the Galatians – to alert us to the possibility,
or to wake us up to the fact. So
many of us easily and gladly proclaim that we are saved solely by the grace of
God, “by grace through faith,” but then when it comes to living and moving with
Christ, we abandon, “by grace through faith.”
We walk in religious flesh.
We walk in self-righteousness by works.
In effect, we abandon and desert Him, “who has called us into His grace.”
This is the same deception – the same false gospel – under which the
Galatians had come to live.
Christianity
IS grace, because Christ IS the personification of grace.
God has FREELY given us ALL things in Christ.
(Rom. 8:32) We cannot
receive what is FREELY given except we FREELY receive.
And then we FREELY give it out to others.
It is ALL grace. That is
contrary to natural thinking. But
it is the Truth.
The Solution
to Error
The Body of
Christ has never escaped, through faith in Christ, the CURSE of righteousness
through works. And it IS a curse.
Paul said, “For
as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.”
(Gal. 3:10) Does that sound
serious, or not? Yet everywhere
today, this deception abounds in one form or another.
Why? Because of bad
theology? No.
Rather, because believers have not been taught the purpose of God –
because leaders have not travailed over that which Paul travailed over:
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in
you. (Gal. 4:19)
Paul did not tell the Galatians that they needed a better theology – although
they did need it – and Paul did spend much space explaining to them the Truth of
grace in Christ from out of the OT.
But more so than theology, the Galatians needed to experience Jesus Christ.
His solution to the Galatian deception is given in a sentence:
That Christ be formed in you.
The word, “formed,” here means, “to be inwardly realized and expressed,”
in the NT Greek. That is the only
solution to ANY deception -- because Christ is THE TRUTH, and if we could simply
come to realize Christ in the way Paul desired, our faith would grow to be
solely in HIM.
Today, few believers even know that Christianity, at the core, is CHRIST IN US.
And many who have heard this Truth have never been taught the meaning,
much less the possibility of actually experiencing the Person of Christ.
For example, the Bible states that Christ is our life (Col. 3:4) and this
has been made to mean, “Christ has given us eternal life.”
The Bible states that we have been crucified with Christ, and this has
been made to mean that we need to put our faith in the fact that Jesus died for
us. And the Bible states that we are
raised in Christ, but this has been made to mean that we have a new start with
God. The Bible clearly states that
God has made Christ to be unto us RIGHTEOUSNESS.
(see I Cor. 1:30) This has
been made to mean that God makes US righteous.
Teaching today states that believers are to come, “to look like Jesus.”
The Bible teaches that we are to be crucified so that Christ might be
seen in and through us. The Bible
teaches, “by grace through faith UNTO good works.”
So much teaching within the church states that it is through works that
we enter into grace through faith.
The Truth and reality -- and living presence of Christ in the believer -- has
been replaced with false religion – replaced with something WE can do; replaced
with some form of religion we can practice – in order to create the Christian
experience found ONLY in Christ.
It should not be surprising that if Christianity is CHRIST IN US – and that,
“the life we now live ought to be by the faith of the Son of God,” (see Gal.
2:20) – it should not be surprising that above all else Satan wants to blind
believers to the essential of realizing Christ within.
Satan wants to offer us a substitute for Christ as the means by which we
now live. Rather than the faith of
the Son of God, most often the substitute will be some form of religion that
will satisfy our desire for self-value; self-righteousness; self-importance.
Some form of works, law-keeping, or standard keeping.
And if we buy into these deceptions, we will not even realize what is
happening to us.
False Teachers
There have
always been so-called Christian ministries that teach, “another gospel.”
Some of these are more subtle than others.
For example, in 1970’s and 1980’s, legalistic heretic and false teacher
Bill Gothard gained great popularity and influence.
He would stand before an audience of thousands -- in front of overhead
projector -- and list out, “basic principles,” that Christians MUST obey in
order to stay under God’s, “umbrella of protection.”
Chief among these principles was Gothard’s, “principle of authority.”
He warned people that they need to submit to authority or they would be
exposed to the realm of Satan. All
of this was a denial of Jesus Christ as our sole Mediator unto God – as the sole
object of our faith.
Many people
did not recognize that this was the same heresy that controls people who belong
to cults. It is the lie that for
centuries kept people in the Roman church under the authority and, “spiritual
protection,” of the pope. Gothard’s
teaching – the authority teaching being only one of his many false teaching --
is, “another gospel,” and destructive heresy.
And yet thousands believed what he taught, and passed it on to their
church, and to their children.
Principles and laws replaced Christ as our life.
(Col. 3:4) In the meantime,
people had the epistle to the Galatians right in front of them that speaks
directly to such false teaching.
Tens of thousands were blinded to that Truth; blinded to Christ as our life .
THAT is spiritual deception.
Spiritual
deception is amazingly awful.
People can read the Bible and will read into it the deception they are under.
And the fact is, the deception, or blindness, is found in us – that is
why folks respond to error. It
affirms, resonates, or matches something IN US.
I even knew a person who used the epistle to the Galatians to prove
Christian MUST be under the law!
Sometimes,
“another gospel,” of legalism does not come in the form of a big belief system
like Gothard’s – it simply comes in bits and pieces.
Sometimes it exists as teaching that is so traditional and long-standing
that few question it. One example
is TITHING. The standard teaching
on tithing is that if you tithe, you will be blessed of God, but if you do not,
you will be under a financial curse.
That is legalism. In fact,
we would be hard pressed to find a more clear example of legalism.
Churches by the millions teach that.
But many of those same churches get up every Sunday and teach that the
gospel is the gospel of grace -- and that God is the God of all grace -- but
then turn right around and teach laws like tithing.
Again -- is
this merely a deception based in false theology?
That is part of it – people do support a false faith with scriptures,
don’t they? But the glue that holds
it all together is the error that is in us – which the enemy uses to blind us,
“mesmerize us,” and deceive us.
And then
there is Christian television. We
hear it every day: “Plant a seed of
money in this ministry, and God will bless you.
“Plant a seed and God will give salvation to a family member; plant a
seed and God will heal you; plant a seed and God will give you what you want.”
That is LAW – it may not be a commandment, but it is LAW that people are
putting themselves under.
This cannot
be overemphasized -- the reason that these teachings are able to deceive people
is not simply because the teaching itself is convincing – or that the teacher
manages to read it INTO the Bible.
No. The reason any error is able to
lead me astray is because of the error that is already IN ME.
There is a basis of appeal – an inner basis.
And that basis of appeal – my personal bias, fears, ignorance, pride, and
religiosity – will have nothing to restrain it if I do not KNOW JESUS.
If I am blind to Christ – if I am not coming into an inward realization
of Jesus Christ – I will more easily be mesmerized and led astray into falsehood
by, yes, the teaching, but by my own corrupt, natural man.
In short, if
my faith is not solely in Christ, then I am going to be vulnerable to the
approach of the enemy. He will try
to use my divided faith to deceive me.
The good news is that if I will keep close to Christ and recognize this,
the ploy of the enemy can be used by God as a wakeup call, and opportunity to
bring me to repentance of a divided faith – and an opportunity for God to build
in me the faith of Jesus Christ.
Embracing
God’s Revelation
Faith is the
outcome of God revealing Christ and a person HEARING, or embracing, what God
reveals. We already have enough
faith to embrace what God reveals.
But a religious faith that is based upon emotions, intellect, or
self-righteousness is NOT faith that is solely in Christ.
And unless I open myself to Christ for whatever it takes to crucify my
religious faith I am not going to have faith solely in Christ.
You will
note that Paul does not say that he marveled that they were so rapidly removed
from a message, or from a list of teachings, or from doctrines ABOUT Christ.
No. He is astounded that they have removed themselves from the PERSON
Jesus Christ. How does a person do that?
We are beginning to see how:
Instead of faith that is solely in Christ, a person begins to put their faith in
Christ PLUS something about themselves – which will result in SELF
righteousness.
There are a
lot of folks who do not have their faith solely in Christ because they have
never arrived at that point yet.
That can happen through ignorance and can happen through resisting God.
In the case of the Galatians, they began with faith solely in Christ, but
had fallen from grace – because they had removed their faith from Christ.
So Paul was dealing with people who should have known better.
Paul makes
it clear that the Galatians had come under the teaching of those who were
teaching an OT form of Christianity.
These false teachers preached Christ – but taught that you had to
maintain your righteousness through works.
Evidently, there was a basis of appeal within the hearts of those at
Galatia, or they would not have been deceived.
But they were deceived – and had removed their faith that had been solely
in Christ because they had become convinced by these false teachers that faith
in Christ was not enough – you had to keep laws and principles to keep righteous
before the Lord.
Paul’s
Journey to Faith in Christ
No believer
will get far in faith that is solely in Christ unless we LOSE OUR LIFE to
Christ. Jesus said, “If any man
would come after Me, let him pick up his cross daily, for whosoever would lose
His life would find true life in Me.”
(see Matt. 16) He is pretty
clear that this is conditional. “IF
any man would follow Me…” You
cannot follow Jesus Christ any other way.
The Truth
is, we will not live by faith that is solely in Christ except to the extent that
we have lost ourselves to Him. In
other words, we must lose faith in ourselves; faith in our own righteousness;
faith in all other objects – and if we do that – then what will remain is faith
that is solely in Christ. This is,
of course, progressive. AS we lose
ourselves to Christ, we will more and more realize Him – and the only outcome to
a realization of Christ is to believe Him, trust Him, rely upon Him – the only
outcome to losing our lives to Him is a realization of Him that will make it
possible to live solely by the faith of the Son of God.
Paul, in
Philippians 3, tells us about his journey – he relates his story of losing
himself to Christ and how it resulted in faith that was solely in Christ.
He starts right at the beginning of this chapter, where he says,
“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
To write the same things to you is not grievous to me, but for you it is
safe.” It is not a bad thing to
keep hearing the same Truth over and over because most of the time when we think
that we really get it, we don’t. If
we do get it, well, we need to get it more.
It needs to be deepened.
In verse two
he says, “Beware of dogs…” Now in
scripture, dogs are always symbolic of unbelievers, gentiles as compared with
the Jews -- but it could be anybody who is not a believer in Christ; someone who
is not in Him. Paul says, “Beware
of the dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.”
Then verse 3:
For we are
the circumcision that worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Jesus Christ, and
have no confidence in the flesh.
(Phil. 3:3)
Now, Paul
says, “WE are the circumcision….”
Who is WE? He means those who are
in Christ, yes, but from a practical standpoint, he means those whose faith is
solely in Christ. If your faith is
solely in Christ, you can be called, “the circumcision.”
But why? Because in the OT,
circumcision – which was THE SIGN that a person was under the Old Covenant --
was a type and a shadow of the CROSS.
Thus, if your faith is solely in Christ your old life has been cut off.
You no longer live upon that basis – even religiously.
Your life is now Christ.
We see this
by looking at what literal physical circumcision was.
It was a cutting off of the foreskin from that body part that produced
natural life. It was the cutting
off from that which was able to reproduce the Adam life – the cutting off
symbolized the END of the Adam race.
Therefore, in type and shadow, circumcision represented what the Cross of
Christ FULFILLED. On the Cross,
Jesus Christ fulfilled that END to the Adam race -- Jesus bore the Adam race in
His body -- and as, “The Last Adam,” he took the Adam race down into death.
The death of Jesus on the Cross is the New Testament counterpart of Old
Testament circumcision – because the death of Christ was our death – the death
of our Adam.
Thus, when
Paul says, “We are the circumcision,” he is referring to those who have taken
their place in the death of Christ and have LOST themselves to Him – they have,
by faith, lost their Adam life by being crucified with Christ.
Paul is saying, “We are those who have recognized and have joyfully
embraced the fact that we have no life of ourselves.
We cannot produce life out from ourselves.
That is all ended at the Cross – which is our true circumcision.
Now, CHRIST is our life – in Christ we are raised NEW creations who are
partakers with Christ of HIS life.”
Note the characteristics of a person who is, “the circumcision:”
First, Paul
says, “We worship God in the spirit.”
What does that mean? Well,
there are really two possible ways to worship God – to have relationship with
Christ. The first way is to base
our daily access to God; to base God’s attitude towards us; to base our
Christian life UPON US. In other
words, this sort of Christian life is a matter of the believer working their way
UP TO GOD – using works, attitude, religion – using anything about ourselves to
gain status before Him. This was
the Galatian error. It amounts to
faith IN MYSELF. The other way to
worship God is to base our relationship with God upon HIM – upon His
faithfulness to us. We bypass
ourselves and put our faith solely in HIM.
That is the Truth.
That is
exactly why Paul adds, “We have no confidence in the flesh.”
We have no confidence, that is, we have NO FAITH in anything about
ourselves. Can we see how the
spiritual circumcision of which Paul speaks pictures this?
The flesh – life in ourselves – is cut off by the Cross.
In Christ, believers are a NEW creation – one with Christ in resurrection
life.
How many see
that Paul is talking about a stripping away of all faith in yourself?
It is a crucifying away of self righteousness.
To have no confidence in the flesh in the way Paul means it here means
that I have lost my self-righteousness.
The result is that my faith is solely in Jesus Christ.
After Paul
says, “we have no confidence in the flesh,” he goes on to disclose more about
his personal story. It is a story
of how God brought him to an end of himself, and to the faith of Jesus Christ –
to faith that was solely in Christ.
He says, “Though I might have confidence in the flesh…if any other man thinks he
has something about himself that he might trust in the flesh, I have more than
anybody.” Then Paul tells us why he
had, and still could have, confidence in himself.
He says, “I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of
the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee,
concerning zeal, persecuting the church.”
Those are all religious credentials – sort of like belonging to a
Christian family; belonging to a certain Church; practicing a certain religion
in a certain way. Many professing
Christians are deceived into putting their faith in these very credentials –
deriving a certain confidence before God because of them.
Without realizing it, this means that their faith is NOT solely in
Christ.
Then Paul
gets to the crux of the matter:
Righteousness. He says, “Touching
the righteousness which is in the law -- in other words having my own
righteousness based on law keeping -- I was blameless.”
That is incredible!
Blameless? In other words, if it
were possible to make yourself righteous, and keep yourself righteous, through
law-keeping, Paul did it. And yet
it was all a delusion; a lie. It
was all nothing but SELF-righteousness – all unbelief; all sin.
As
astounding as it might seem to some Christians, it is possible to be utterly
deceived by the, “other gospel,” of self-righteousness through law-keeping – and
yet to actually believe you are in God’s will.
Indeed, you can literally memorize the epistle to the Galatians, and be
able to teach others the Bible doctrines of law vs. grace, and yet continue to
be self-righteous. Why is that
possible? Because these are not
merely matters of theology. They
are matters of FAITH.
The human
heart can be extremely deceitful.
People who are deceived don’t know it, do they?
People who are blind initially do not know they are blind.
They think they see -- because darkness is their normal.
You can live in a deceitful religious system like one of being under the
law -- and because it makes you happy and confident – it can last for years.
Confidence in the flesh can make folks very happy – with themselves.
Certainly the Galatians were content in their system.
But they were under, “another gospel.”
The Jews of
that day – Paul was originally one of them -- were God’s chosen.
And yet the very Messiah, for whom they had been waiting, stood before
them -- and they called Him the devil.
Their problem was not theology -- it was in their hearts.
Their problem was a faith problem, in other word, their problem was
unbelief.
Paul is
telling us that all of those religious credentials that he thought were gain to
him – that he thought kept him righteous – were as GARBAGE.
In fact, he had to LOSE himself to Christ – included in which was the
loss and relinquishment of those personal religious credentials.
He says, “Whatever things were that were gain to me, those I counted lost
for Christ.” Again – what things
did he think were GAIN to him – gain to him in the eyes of God?
Well, read what Paul listed.
You will not find any SIN among those things – in fact, they are all religious
things.
Now, note
that those THINGS which Paul listed out were not the real issue – as useless as
they were before the Lord. The real
issue is that his faith was IN those things about himself – meaning that his
faith was not solely in Christ.
What we see
is this: When Paul talked about
losing those things which he thought made him righteous he was talking about his
losing his own self righteousness.
Sure. Indeed, herein we find a key
to how God works. When God removes
something from our life, or requires that we remove something, it is not
necessarily the THING. It is
usually the fact that our faith is in that THING – because we think it makes us
righteous, or commends us to God.
God is simply setting us free from such deception.
Paul then
makes this astounding statement:
“Yea, doubtless I count all things as loss – things I thought made me righteous
– I counted them as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my
Lord.” There is a direct relationship
being stated here between LOSING my self-righteousness and finding Christ as my
righteousness. To the extent that I
allow God to strip me of all self-righteousness I will come into a personal
knowledge and realization of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said
much the same thing in Matthew 16.
He said, “Whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find his life (in ME).
Certainly included in the life we must lose is self-righteousness.
Included is everything about ourselves in which we could put our faith.
We must lose to find. This
is what Paul is likewise getting at.
Paul goes on
to say:
may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is
of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. (Phil.
3:8)
You lose
your faith in yourself – you lose your self-righteousness -- and the result will
be that you will find and realize Christ AS your righteousness.
You will come to know what it means to live by the faith OF Jesus Christ
– come to know Jesus Christ AS your only righteousness.
But if we do not lose our own righteousness we will not know Christ as
our righteousness. We will be
hindered and blind to the Truth.
Paul says,
“When I lost everything about myself that I thought made me righteous, I was
actually losing my self-righteous.
But the result was that I won Christ, and was found in Him.”
What does it
mean, “to be found in Christ?” It
means to come into a realization of Christ – such that we are freed from our
occupation with ourselves. It means
to come into a knowledge of what it means to be spiritually united with Christ
in resurrection union. But note how
BEING FOUND IN CHRIST impacts this issue of righteousness:
“be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own -- which is of law
keeping -- but as having the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ;
the righteousness which is of God by faith.”
In short, the ONLY possible outcome of losing your life to Christ and
being found in Him is that you have lost your have been set free from the sin
and delusion of self-righteousness, and have found Christ Himself as your
righteousness.
Most
believers do not realize that God has never given anyone their own
righteousness, any more than God has ever given anyone their own life – to hold
within themselves. God has not done
this – not even because of Jesus.
God never gives us THINGS because of Jesus.
He give us JESUS HIMSELF – in Whom are ALL THINGS.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.
(I Cor. 1:30)
When we are
saved we are joined to the Lord and made one spirit with Him.
(I Cor. 6:17) This is
resurrection union – we are one with Him in HIS life.
This is how Christ IS the righteousness of the believer – we are one with
Him in spirit. Thus, the very
presence of Christ in us is the very presence of righteousness in us – Christ is
our righteousness. And once we see
Christ as our only righteousness, our faith will be solely in HIM.
Paul is
telling us, through his own experience, that God brought him, through the work
of the Cross, to the end of his own righteousness – to the end of faith in
himself. And alongside of this work
of the Cross, God was revealing Christ in Paul.
The result was, “Yet not I, but Christ.”
(Gal. 2:20) Paul began to
come into an inward realization of Jesus Christ – he came to be found in Him –
and the result was a living faith that was solely in Christ.