“Though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.”-Philippians 3:4-7
To the circumcised believer it was hard for them to understand that circumcision of the flesh, was no longer the sign of being in covenant with God, but rather a life surrendered to Christ was true circumcision.
It wasn’t long before a contingency arose within the church (influenced by these circumcised believers) that began to elevate tradition over a relationship with Christ. They began to pervert the gospel by teaching that you can put your faith in Jesus, but you still must be circumcised. Paul’s obvious frustration and strong words with them were directed towards the fact that they were perverting the truth of God’s Word and causing people to believe that somehow our human effort helps bring us into a right relationship with God.
If we embrace this thinking we will soon begin to believe that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t enough on its own, that we must perform by human effort something to make our salvation complete.
Paul, goes on to make the argument that is anyone had reason to believe that “human effort” could gain us heaven or salvation then he would have the pedigree for it. Paul admits that he, too, used to place a lot of value on those things, but now compared to what Christ has done, he counts it all worthless.
Paul then emphasized how important it was that he release that way of thinking so as not to relapse into that religious mindset:
“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!”-Philippians 3:8-11
God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith! Paul saw nothing of value to hold onto aside from complete faith in Christ.
I just want to say, that I am not anti-tradition, but we must not allow our tradition to take away the necessity of complete dependence and faith in Christ alone. The first sign of a relapse is that we begin to believe that our human effort is necessary for salvation. When we begin to weigh our own righteousness on the scales alongside Christ’s, we have devalued the sacrifice Christ made at Calvary.
Scott Burr
Dayspring Community Church
No comments:
Post a Comment