I have no excuses

Anyone with teenagers knows that merely telling someone to do something has no bearing on whether or not they will do it. I can hardly berate young people though, because I am no different. The speed signs declare the law about how fast I must go. Do I always obey them? Good health rules say that I should not overindulge in certain foods. Do I always obey those laws? My own conscience will even whisper, “Don’t” but I do.

God commands spiritual laws governing life and death. Disobedience means judgment and eternal separation from Him. Does anyone fully obey His laws? I know that I don’t.

God knows it too. He could rescind His laws, but that would make Him unrighteous. I don’t think much of our government when it goes easy on lawbreakers. How could I worship a God who simply patted violators on the head and told them to motor on?

However, if God didn’t do something drastic, His law would put everyone into eternal damnation because everyone sins. So, in grace and mercy, He figured out another way that is righteous and just, but also merciful to sinners.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)

These verses say that even though God’s law pronounces judgment on sin, this law cannot do anything about sin itself. It has no power to put sin to death in a person’s life, and even provokes sin.

Yet God accomplished what the law could not do by sending Jesus. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh in that He, as God, took on our human nature, a nature that was susceptible to temptation, but even as Jesus was tempted, He never gave in. He never sinned.

Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law, and because I believe in Jesus, I have gained the righteous standard of the law, not by keeping it, but because Christ lives in me. He is my righteousness. Not only that, because of Him, I am able to walk according to the Spirit.

This is so amazing that I need to restate it. The law of God has an odd effect on people, on me too. It seems to irritate and provoke my sinful nature into rebellion, just like many people step on the gas when they see speed limit signs. This is what it means to be weak in the flesh. My sinful nature is corrupt, and that tendency to want my own way is too strong to be influenced by mere commands, even by threats.

The amazing thing about Jesus coming is that He came only in the likeness of my sinful condition. He took my nature just as it is, compassed with infirmities and having nothing to distinguish Him as a human being from me or any other human being. What a delight to think that sin isn’t even a property of pure humanity. Jesus was perfectly human except that He was without sin. I don’t need sin to be human, and I cannot say “I’m only human” as an excuse.

To be restored to being “perfectly human” took an act of God who alone can remove sin. The law cannot do it; it only aggravates my sinfulness and shows me how deeply sinful I am. I’m also aware that sin is not from God and not what He originally intended in creating human beings.

God’s solution to my sinfulness is not excuses but substitution. Jesus died in my place for my sin, yet He also lives in my heart to attain the righteousness of the Law for me. As Chinese Christian Watchman Nee once said, “The Lawgiver on the throne has become the Lawkeeper in my heart.”

Walking in the Spirit is about the bent of one’s life, whether I’m moving in the direction of godliness or the other way. The flesh would have me in continual rebellion, but the Spirit can move me toward God in obedience.

Before Christ came into my life, sin was ever present and I had no choice. Now I do, and as I concluded once already this week, when I sin, I have no excuses.