From Jim McGuiggan... Righteusness and Electronic Banking

Righteousness & Electronic Banking

I heard an experienced preacher say, “I am not a righteous man but God regards me as though I were righteous.” He went on to explain that Christ’s personal righteousness was laid to his account—that it was “credited” to him. This meant, I think, that when God looked at him he really didn’t see the preacher’s moral character or state but the moral character or state of Jesus.

It would appear that crediting Jesus Christ’s personal righteousness to this preacher made no moral difference to him because he assured us he wasn’t righteous. That suggests that he was still in the same moral state now that he belonged to Jesus Christ as he had been when he didn’t belong to him.

And it would appear that it makes no difference to God whether the man was righteous or not for God credited Jesus personal moral record to the man.

It was also appear that God’s central concern is with quantitative righteousness; that is, with a certain amount of good performed and evil avoided. I say that because it wasn’t the moral character that was credited to the man—it was Christ’s moral achievement. For if God had transferred the moral character of Jesus Christ to the preacher, the preacher couldn’t have insisted that he was not a righteous man.

It all comes back, I fear, to this judicial and legal view of our relationship with God. God’s law needed to be sinlessly met, we didn’t meet it, Christ did and satisfied its demands and then God transferred Christ’s perfect record to preachers who are morally unchanged. It’s a bit like electronic banking with sin and righteousness in the place of money.

Hmmm.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.