Grillin' Season

As we enter into May, we enter into one of the most glorious times of the year: Grilling Season.

In this beautiful image of charcoal flaming up for a grill, we can see some of the coals are in the pit but not catching the spark. Other coals are slowly but surely burning, sending low heat up into the air. Still other coals are ablaze, sending luxurious and potent heat into the cool sky above.

This pit of charcoal showcases a representative image of all of us who are followers of Jesus Christ. (Have mercy, I know all analogies fall apart.)

Often in our pursuit of Jesus and living out God's will, we Christians fall short. So many times we are only the outer coals, not drawing near to the source of the flame which is God the Holy Spirit. At other times, we are dwelling in middling proximity to the LORD, at our lives reflect a relative consistency. Yet still at other times, we find ourselves markedly ablaze, guided by God's hand and blessed by his power to live close to him as the source of our lives in Christ.

The Christian life is one of ups and downs for most of us. When we are struggling to walk with God, our lives seem to be hypocritical and non-sequitur: We know we are called to be holy and we have God's power in the Holy Spirit working within us, but in our struggle to overcome sin it seems like we keep falling face down and coming up short.

And yet in our seasons of coldness and our seasons of flame, one thing remains: we are still coals in the grill - we are still in Christ Jesus!

So then, you may ask: How can we 'Christians' continue in sin? Shouldn't we be perfect?

The theologian Martin Luther is credited with Latin phrase:

Simul justus et peccator

The meaning of this phrase is this: At once we are just (or righteous) while still being a sinner. 

Those in Christ are at once righteous before God and simultaneously we remain sinners. One of the most hard-to-understand, amazingly true things about God's plan of salvation is that we don't work our way to our standing before God. Our salvation is a gift, given by God. We accept this gift by putting our faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God qualifies us to be a saved people, we don't qualify ourselves, we simply trust in what he has done in Christ Jesus.

This is why Paul reminded the ancient church in Ephesus:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV)

Because God's grace is a gift, it isn't something we can earn.
God's grace in Jesus Christ is something we are given, something we must accept. The fact of the matter is, we should be counted unworthy of receiving the gift because of our sin. 

Salvation from God is a gift to be accepted by faith which is the reason why we so often seem unworthy of our salvation. 

The reason why we are in Christ is because we are justified before God because of our faith in Jesus Christ. Despite our shortcomings and hypocrisy as we struggle and fall, God deems us as righteous in Christ.

This is some of the best news of the gospel!

The idea of justification by faith, otherwise stated as: Simul justus et peccator, creates some of the hardest to understand for non-believers. Maybe that's you, and I encourage you to keep asking the hard questions.

You might say, "I'm fine, I'm a good person, why would I need to be seen as righteous before God?" 

The issue comes down to God's character.

God is holy, which means he is infinitely perfect in moral actions. Because God is holy he must also be just. God cannot allow evil deeds to go unpunished because that would go against his holy nature. This means that even one sin of ours that violates our law requires the satisfaction of God's justice. God's justice must be satisfied with blood, because sin violates his justice and must be punished.

The bad news is, we are all sinners!

The good news is, God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world. Jesus never sinned. 

I repeat, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the human man and incarnate Son of God NEVER SINNED. Because Jesus never sinned, he is righteous before God. Jesus never sinned and violated God's holiness. Jesus was perfect, and he was perfect as a man. 

Jesus was the perfect man in the eyes of God and according to God's holy standard. 

Despite the fact that Jesus was perfect, he went to the cross. The Old Testament sacrificial system and the Prophets always pointed to the hope that God's servant would come to be the sacrifice that would make many righteous. 

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11 ESV)

Jesus went to the cross so that we could be accounted righteous.

1. Jesus was holy and satisfied God's justice by living the holy life and dying in his flesh as the sacrifice for sin. 

2. Jesus' resurrection shows that God accepted the sacrifice of his own holy life that Jesus made. 

3. The fact that God accepted Jesus' sacrifice means that we can be forgiven of our sins. We can be just because by faith we are in Christ. Yet we who are in Christ, while being forgiven, remain sinners.

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:22a-26 ESV)

God in his character remains holy because Jesus was punished for our sin, in our place, on the cross. God can view us as just, as righteous, because we are in Christ. 

How do we become people who are 'in Christ?' 

By faith! By accepting the gift of God's grace! By placing our faith in the risen Lord! We who deserved wrath have been brought into the presence of our God by the blood of Jesus!

So then, we are not 'Christians' who have perfected moral behavior. We are a blood-bought people who are radically loved by God because we are in Christ! We are a people who in the eyes of God are just, even though we struggle and wrestle with our own sins, impurities, and imperfections on a day to day basis. 

Simul justus et peccator - at once just yet a sinner!

This is the reason why you see followers of Jesus Christ sing with joy from the bottom of their souls every Sunday! We are those who have seen the glory of God's gift, we have tasted and seen the beauty of Jesus Christ! We acknowledge that in our futile ways, we have wronged God and continually need his mercy - and we worship because we know that in Jesus we have received God's mercy!

This is why the apostle John wrote with great joy and intensity of Jesus:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:14-18 ESV)

For those of us in Christ, we have all received grace upon grace. Perhaps we are a cold coal, still in the grill pit but not living out our faith. Maybe we are numbered among those who feel like they are ablaze or "on-fire" for God. Either way we must remember that we are sinners and life and our hope is Jesus Christ! Let us draw near to him and receive anew his merciful love!

Maybe you are one of those non-believers I mentioned earlier and you are thinking about how you fall short of holiness, or maybe how you don't even live up to your own standards for yourself. I encourage you to look to the cross where Jesus died so that you could be seen as just before God despite your sin. I encourage you to draw near to God, because even at this moment, the blood of Jesus shows that he wants to draw near to you.