Unrighteous and Righteous

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

UNRIGHTEOUS AND RIGHTEOUS

Rom 3:5-8

5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? 7 Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" 8 Why not say — as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say — "Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved.

NIV

We have already concluded that God is the only one who is faithful and right and we understand that we are not always faithful and right. However, Paul continues his argument about the behaviors of those in the church in Rome. We can apply this truth to our lives as well. The fact is that we cannot take advantage of the faithfulness and rightness of God, which includes his forgiveness for our sins through our faith in Jesus. When we read these words, we cannot help but think of what Paul says later in this letter asking that should we continue to sin so God’s grace will abound, and he answers, “God forbid”. This is the same truth here. Because our unrighteousness is unmistakable for, we know and admit that we have absolutely no righteousness within us, in and of ourselves. Christ is our righteousness and as long as we are in Christ then we are declared holy and blameless in the eyes of God. However, if we ever think that we can be righteous, we are sadly mistaken, and we are engaged in a sinful unrighteous attitude. Thinking more highly of ourselves is sinful for we are admonished not to think in that manner, not to be prideful and boastful about all that we do in our own name, for that is the reason for the pride and boasting. The fact is we cannot think that anything we do, any of our unrighteousness is acceptable because it shows how righteous God is. When we fall short of perfection, which is certainly how we live, which includes sin, we cannot say that it is a good thing because it will result in good, that is showing the goodness of God, the grace of God, the faithfulness and rightness of God. Jesus is the exact representation of the invisible God and thus if we are in Christ than we are to be a representative of God to the world. We are transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory. Then we must say that our sin does not cause God to look better, or enhances his glory, as our sin only shows our flawed humanness and enhances our need for Jesus. Just as the law showed the Jews their need for the Messiah; our sin shows our need for the Savior. There is nothing good about sin, except it shows us our needs. It is true that when we repented of our sins the first time and accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior we were saved from the penalty of sin and were given eternal life. However, that did not mean that we no longer have any sin in our lives. We have a daily struggle with attitudes and behaviors that are not pleasing to the Lord. Our desire is to be right before God, but we fail, yet our reason for failure is not to show how good God is, it is simply our humanness that is the cause, and we must admit our need for our Savior. Our sin does not make God look better; it only makes us look needful.