You believe God requires sinless perfection, but that requirement is not found in the Bible.
Perhaps you are misunderstanding me.
I do not believe that any regular person has any ability to be sinlessly perfect except in the sense that Jesus' sinless perfection has been imputed to them.
But even though it isn't our perfection doesn't change the fact that perfection is indeed God's standard. Otherwise, there would have been no need for Jesus to live a perfect life and then offer His life in exchange for the imperfect lives of mankind.
Who is to judge a person's righteousness?
It is not you, with your standard of sinless perfection.
It is God, Himself, who will judge according to His own standards for each of us.
2 Samuel 22:25
Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight. |
Any relationship that God had with anyone prior to the cross was only made possible by God looking forward to the cross. David had no concept of God offering His Son on a cross for his sins but God certainly did. And so even though David's faith wasn't in Jesus' death specifically, it was still His death, while yet furture, that made David salvation possible.
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Romans 3:21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God set forth
as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
According to God's own words (see the OP), He will not remember a person's wicked acts if the person has turned from wickedness to righteousness, and He will not remember a person's righteous acts if the person has turned from righteousness to wickedness.
That is the opposite of God requiring sinless perfection.
Of course!
Again, I do not say that regular people (i.e. people who are not Jesus) need to, or even can, live perfect lives. It is Jesus' perfection that makes grace possible.
That doesn't make any sense.
I have no idea what you think "grace" has to be for you to make such a statement.
Grace is God finding you pleasing in His eyes.
God will not "grace you out" if He does not find you pleasing in His eyes.
What?
That isn't grace, that's law! Grace is about God giving you something you didn't earn and that you don't deserve.
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Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised
us up together, and made
us sit together in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus,
7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in
His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Besides that, I am hidden in Christ! Can Christ be displeasing in God's eyes?
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Colossians 3:3 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Paul goes on from there to explain that BECAUSE these things are true, therefore don't do evil things and instead do righteousness. The point being that you have it backward. It isn't that we are pleasing in God's eyes because we refrain from sin but we refrain from sin because we are pleasing in God's eyes. More than being pleasing in God's eyes, we are in God Himself. He is our very life! For we have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live but Christ lives in us, and the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. (Gal. 2:20 - just a few pages prior to the Galatians 5 passage you quoted.)
If you are opposed to the law of God, you are "in the flesh" and cannot please God.
Romans 8:7-8
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. |
Again, you have the entire point of the passage, and Paul's entire ministry backward! The very chapter you cite directly contradicts your doctrine...
The law is of the flesh!
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Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin.
Romans 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God
did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Colossians 2:13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And
He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Ephesians 2:14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity,
that is, the law of commandments
contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man
from the two,
thus making peace,
16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
Notice the distinction Paul makes in Romans 8:2. The law of sin and death is the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, Circumcision, et al. were you were approved by God if you did good works. Now its just the exact opposite! We do good works because we are approved not in order to win that approval. We are approved when we believe, works come as result of salvation and are not requisit to it.
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Romans 4:5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,
Galatians 2:16 knowing that a man
is not justified by the works of the
law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the
law; for by the works of the
law no
flesh shall be justified.
Galatians 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being
made perfect by the flesh?
Thus, it is perfection that God requires and which only God Himself can meet and which He has met on our behalf and imputed to us.
Resting in Him,
Clete
