How are we righteous?

 Video commentary:

Christianity fosters self-hate in mankind (sometimes tastefully called "conviction of sin") so that it can offer its own special answer (salvation) to an entirely artificial problem. The real solution begins by understanding that there is nothing wrong with you just as you are - that man is not a "fallen" being.

If you consider yourself a christian, does it strike you as strange if people say christianity is a self-loathing religion? After all, you think christianity is about God loving us unconditionally, even the worst of us. Yet I realise there is something amiss with the presentation of the gospel by mainstream or traditional christianity. The doctrine of "original sin" tends to paint a picture of how sinful and fallen we once were, and a holy and righteous God could not stand being around us for a second more and had to come up with a plan to send His Son to die and cleanse us with His blood to make us acceptable before Him, and even then, those who are seen as "rejecting this good news" will continue to fall out of favour with God and will continue to suffer misery and separation for ages and ages in a place called hell without end after they die. What a miserable existence, is it not?

Another common refrain I have heard in the evangelical christian circles goes something like "We are nothing without Jesus" or "It is all about Jesus, not about me". It is as though to love ourselves the way we are is a terrible sin and can cause us to become proud or puffed up, and so we must see ourselves as originally dirty and condemned, and only Jesus' blood can wash us clean. I also hear believers say things like "All glory to Jesus", as if Jesus is somewhere up there and we are down here, and the only way to defeat pride and demonstrate humility is to try to make ourselves nothing and make Jesus everything.

Why is this important? Well, for a start, it keeps us from actually loving and accepting ourselves the way we are if we think God is constantly trying to change us into something we are not. Secondly, it may cause us to see others as lost and miserable creatures if they do not profess to believe in Jesus. No doubt, some of us may say Jesus saw people as sheep not having a shepherd, but I believe it does not mean that Jesus saw people as being destined to go to a so-called place for hell.

Thirdly, it can create a sense of false humility when people insist on saying that it is all about Jesus and not about them. The question is: How can it be only all about Jesus when He is already one with us? We are inseparable from Jesus, so if Jesus is glorified, so are we glorified together with Him. It is impossible to glorify Jesus without us sharing the same glory that He had, so it might as well be better for us to be truly humble and accept the fact that we are as perfect and complete and righteous and beautiful and powerful as Jesus is.

1 Corinthians 6:17 says "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him."

"Yes, but that is referring to believers", someone might say. Really? When Jesus died on the cross, who died with Him? When Jesus was raised from the dead, who rose with Him? Only believers? No, every one of us rose together with Him and we are united with Him.

"If we are already righteous, why did Jesus shed His blood then?" Good question. The interesting answer that I have come to learn is that God is not the one who requires the blood sacrifice. The religious sacrificial system is actually a pagan practice, which the Israelites borrowed from the pagan cultures in the old testament times. God does not need to appease His anger because He was not angry with us at all. "What? This is blasphemy! Heresy!" I hear some of you say.

Wait a minute, folks. Why would the Israelites think God was angry with them whenever something bad happened to them? Has it occurred to us that they interpreted events based on their concept of God or Yahweh, thinking that God must be punishing them whenever they were attacked by enemies or harmed by natural disasters like earthquakes? I believe before Jesus came on the scene 2,000 years ago, people back then felt separated from God. It began in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and after that, they felt alienated from God. It was interesting to note that God was all the while with humankind, and yet humankind thought their sins had separated them from God.

To cut a long story short, the Jews in the new testament times needed to be saved from sin-consciousness because they had been under the law for so many years (about 430 years). The law of Moses could not save them; it only condemned them. The only way for them to be saved from the religious mindset is to understand that Jesus came to be the perfect offering. Again, it is not to appease God's wrath, but rather to silence the roaring of the lion that accuses them day and night in their own conscience.

"For the worshippers once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins" (Hebrews 10:2)

This blood sacrificial system is never for us today. Why? Because we are never under the law in the first place. We are living in the new covenant of grace already. The law system ended officially in AD70, marked by the destruction of the temple by the Roman army in Jerusalem. So, since we are under not law, and by the law is the knowledge of sin, it means that sin has never been imputed to us.

So let's fast forward to the main question - How are we righteous? Is it by believing in Jesus or is it by Jesus' obedience? Some might say, "well, it is definitely not by our works, because the Jews sought to be righteous by obeying the law to obtain their own righteousness and have not submitted to the righteousness of God, according to Romans 10". I agree we are righteous not by our performance, but it is also not by believing in Jesus either. "What?" I hear you say. Yes, you read it correctly, we are righteous not by believing in Jesus, but by Jesus' obedience.

Romans 5:19 says "For by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous".

"Fine" you might say. "That happens when Jesus did the divine exchange at the cross, for God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That means before Jesus died on the cross, no one was righteous."

Well, not really, because the cross is outside time - Jesus is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Therefore, by the time God created humankind, He created us to be righteous and innocent and perfect and complete. We were originally beautiful and good and perfect - that is our true identity, and Jesus came to restore that identity to us. Our part is simply to renew our mind with this wonderful good news.

"And be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:23-24)

So, the heart of the gospel is that we are created righteous and holy and beautiful, and it is not by our doing but by God's doing. We are crowned with glory and honour. Christ in us is the hope of glory. And Love is who we are because we are made in Love's image.