An incorrect assumption

Day 214
OT Reading: Psalms 68-69
NT Reading: Romans 3

Perhaps my 2011 resolution will be to blog more consistently about this whole 'through the Bible in a year' thing. Hmm. I'll have to consider that :-).

In the first portion of Romans, Paul lays out an intricate philosophy that can be summed in Romans 3:22-24, "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (NIV) To many of us, especially those of us who have been in church for awhile, this is a pretty common concept. Even to non-Christians the idea that 'nobody's perfect' is an understood concept. However to the first century audience that Paul was writing to, this was a new idea.

You see the Roman church was made up of two significant groups; the vast majority had been raised as Jews while the remainder had not. And for those who were of Jewish background, one common theme permeated their teachings, "we're God's favorite."

And it's easy to see how they'd come to this conclusion. I mean throughout their history God had been active and showing his mercy to them (see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah, etc). And when you carry this all out to its logical conclusion, the Jewish people came to the point of believing they were the righteous ones because they had God's law. Since they knew what God wanted, and they lived by the law, they were on God's good side and everyone else was not.

And that's where Paul turns the tables on them. The Jews saw themselves as righteous. They had the law and believed that because of who they were they were thisclose with God. And Paul indicates otherwise.

Paul lays out that even with the right heritage, family of origin, knowledge of the complete law or circumcision, because of the fact that all have sinned righteousness can be found only in Jesus. In other words, Paul showed that while their heritage was nice, ulitmately it did them no good.

Oddly enough I see a number of people still living under the same assumption as the first-century Jews. Because of their parents' faith or because of their church membership or because of their upbringing, or perhaps because they were baptized once long ago in the past...people seem to believe that they're all set with God. As if any of those earthly ties or actions are the thing that saved them. But ultimately, while those things are nice, our righteousness comes by nothing we do...but instead by faith in Jesus.

Hopefully as we continue through Romans, you don't get so bogged down in the details that you fail to miss the big picture. That nothing we can do can ultimately save us. And that is exactly why Jesus came.

Merry Christmas