Jesus does it for me. . . .

 

This week a man was found not guilty and released from prison after being locked up several years for something he did not do. Imagine a twist to this story; the man was guilty but released because another person was willing to serve his sentence for him. This twist illustrates the gospel and the grace of God.

Just as our laws require obedience and punishment for those who break them, God’s laws are even more exacting. The law must be fulfilled. Both its requirements of righteousness and justice must be satisfied. The only way fallen, sinful men can ever fulfill the law and be saved is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinner’s Substitute.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:3–11)

This passage is for those who believe the gospel and trust Christ, our Substitute as our law-keeper. Yet how easily this is overlooked. The church at Galatia did that, either through simply forgetting, but more likely because false teaching made a strong appeal to their pride.

Put it this way: Christ is my righteousness. I cannot save myself or do anything that warrants His amazing grace. My pride balks at this. I have some goodness, don’t I? So I begin an effort to be righeous without depending on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That fails, but spiritual blindness can make me think I’m doing just fine as I walk in the flesh, ignoring what I’d once learned, or just not seeing my efforts as fleshy. Reread the above passage!

So Paul wrote to the Galatians, and his words are for anyone who falls prey to the idea that there is some goodness in that old nature. . . .  

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1–3)

If this happens, along with it comes the rating of sin. Some are totally intolerable, like most of the lists in Scripture, but God put in enough for me to realize that simply ignoring Him and doing my own thing, as good as it might seem, is sin. I might even start telling Almighty God how He should rule the universe, or at least the events of my life, as if I know better than He does. It may take years for some of us who trust Christ to realize the meaning of “in everything” and actually do it in everything.

PRAY: Father, I know that all believers struggle with the noisy demands of our hostile flesh and I know how much I need a daily reminder to trust You with everything, the messiness of the world and the trials that keep popping up in my world. Thank You for Jesus. When I fail and listen to the flesh, You are listening to my Savior and Substitute interceding for me. Like a prisoner set free, I’m deeply thankful that Jesus stands for me and for the grace and love that motivated Him to take my place and do what I cannot do.