Day 275

Isaiah 66:1-24; Philippians 3:4-21; Psalm 74:1-23; Proverbs 24:15-16

IF YOU ARE married, chances are that you’re wearing a wedding ring. Look at that ring for a moment. Is it your marriage?

Whether extravagant or simple, none of us could call our wedding ring our marriage. Rather, it is a symbol representing the fact that we have entered into marriage. Being married is quite different from having a symbol wrapped around our finger.

This was fundamentally Paul’s point in today’s reading —and throughout his entire ministry. The covenantal relationship that God offered His people had become an empty ritual —like a ring without a marriage. The heart and soul of the relationship had become rules.

For Paul, obeying the rules in order to be made righteous before God had proven unfruitful. Lest we assume that Paul was only a nominal participant in his faith, that was not the case. He had made every effort to obey the rules and yet could not find a relationship with God. He articulated this clearly in our reading from Philippians today. Paul was convinced that only the righteous could ever hope to see God, so prior to meeting Christ, he applied himself to becoming righteous through the rituals and ceremonies of his faith. Unfortunately, this didn’t make him righteous. It only revealed his inability to be righteous. Then someone fulfilled the law: Jesus.

Through diligently searching the Scriptures and through receiving direct revelation from Jesus, Paul realized that faith could make a person righteous, but law could not. This compelled Paul to put all of his faith in Jesus, believing that God was doing a new thing in the world and restoring humanity to full fellowship with Himself through Christ. The paradigm shift was so monumental for Paul that he considered all his previous efforts at righteousness a colossal waste:

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.

We’ve covered these fundamental truths of the Christian faith before. They permeate Paul’s writings. But we need this repetition because we often mistake the ring for the relationship, striving to obey the rules so God will notice us.

Was Paul simply on a campaign to do away with the rules, though? Do the tenets of our faith have any value? If our salvation is a gift that we can never earn, then what is the point in trying to live by any rule of life?

Let’s look at that wedding ring again. Can you make your spouse love you? You cannot. Their love is a gift. Since it’s a gift, are you then permitted to do whatever you want in the marriage? Hardly. The exchange of love between two people involves much risk and much loyalty. If the relationship is healthy, then the rules become apparent. We don’t follow them out of coercion. The rules define our love.

This was always Paul’s point, and he was deeply convinced that we were on a journey to wholeness and restoration through this relationship we’ve been offered through and with Christ. If we’re going to be in love with Jesus, however, then we need to act like it.

MEDITATION:

The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.