What does the Scripture state concerning the Lord Jesus Christ?...

"Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed [disappointed; confounded]." Our own attempts at righteousness may end in disappointment and confusion. When we rest our faith on Christ we always emerge in success and victory.

A caution may be introduced here. It often is stated, in an attempt to prove that our own righteousness will not save us, that all human righteousness is as filthy rags.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness's are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:6).

This verse is being taken out of context. Notice the preceding verse.

Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we will be saved (Isaiah 64:5).

Isaiah is not saying whenever a person strives to be righteous, God considers his actions to be filthy rags. In fact, God meets the individual who "rejoiceth and worketh righteousness." Rather, Isaiah is proclaiming that God willingly accepts the righteous individual; but the Jews of Isaiah’s day were practicing uncleanness.

When a person, Christian or not, seeks to tell the truth, to act on principle, to behave honourably, to be trustworthy, faithful, conscientious, dependable, God does not consider his efforts to be filthy rags!

If, however, an individual hears the good news of Christ, and then rejects Christ in favour of attempting to please God by righteous actions or religious observances, God will not accept his attempts to save himself.

The problem of today is, many Christians are under the impression that God does not expect decent, honourable behaviour from them because "all our righteousness's are as filthy rags." Obviously, Paul’s doctrine of grace has been wrested until it produces moral destruction.

There is a deeper truth here. As we mature in Christ, we come to realize every part of our original, adamic personality is treacherous. Also, all of our religious accomplishments are loss for Christ if they have not been performed by His motivation, wisdom, and strength.

We are to keep on allowing the Holy Spirit to bring down our adamic personality to death until every aspect of our personality and behaviour is of Christ, in Christ, by Christ. In this sense, all of our own righteousness and accomplishments are filthy rags by comparison.

But it is destructive to tell the new Christian that it isn’t necessary that he strive to behave uprightly because all our righteousness's are filthy rags. Also, we ought not to despise people who are not of God’s elect but who are honourable in their behaviour. Indeed, their conduct may save them in the Day of Judgment when every person is judged according to his works (unless they knowingly have rejected the Lord Jesus).

Current Christian theology, in its effort to prove there is salvation only in the name of Christ, has produced a kind of moral bubble in which the believers are to float. They often are cut off from the real world of moral behaviour and from God’s readiness to bless the righteous and condemn the unrighteous whether or not they are Christians.

The salvation that is in Christ, instead of being a force to create righteous individuals, has become an alternative to godly character and behaviour. The goal has become eternal residence in the spirit realm rather than moral transformation. We have embraced fables in place of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

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