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“Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

᛭ INI ᛭

You’re right with God and God’s right with you. It’s got nothing to do with you, except that God’s right with you and you’re right with God. In fact, you’re right with God because God’s right with you. That’s the way salvation goes. It’s got nothing to do with what you do or what you have done or what you will do or should do or could do. God runs the show. He runs verbs. You’re on the receiving end of it all. He acts upon you. He uses you for His glory and purposes.

You’re right with God not because of what you’ve done or because of what you know or because of your heritage or what church you belong to. There’s no reason to set up your way of being right with God, where God’s okay with whatever you do because of whatever reason you think its ok. There’s no reason to establish your own righteousness. That is to set up your own system of what’s enough to be right with God or what’s enough for Him to be right with you. There’s no reason to hold to past traditions of what’s been done to determine what you should be doing now. Nor is it just a matter of personal preferences—what you like—or that God just so happens to like everything you like.

All that died at Calvary, and, in fact, that whole way of doing things was put to death each day, every day for roughly 12,045 days—the roughly 33 years that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, lived. He lived a blameless life according to the Law of God. He didn’t establish His own righteousness. He didn’t hold to the traditions or customs or practices of His ancestors. It didn’t matter what Mary, or Joseph for that matter, or what His grandparents or great-grandparents according to the flesh did or learned from the Rabbi at their one-room Synagogue. His custom was the whole will and Law of God His heavenly Father.

The Law of God doesn’t save you. God’s Law doesn’t make you right with God. In fact, He never intended it to make Him right with you either. It can’t! It won’t! It doesn’t make you righteous. The Lord’s standard is blameless, and so His Law won’t just condemn you, it will make you unrighteous. It makes you not right with Him, and if His Law can’t make you right with Him, then no way we set up or cherish will either. Personal preferences or traditions passed down from generation to generation, practices of this pastor or that pastor, or this church or that church, even other LCMS churches—“the commandments and doctrines of men”—“These things,” as St. Paul says, “have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility…but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.” God’s Commandments and man-made Commandments don’t keep you from sinning, don’t redeem you from your sins, don’t make you right with God. In fact, “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom 8)

But God is, in fact, right with you, and because of that you are right with Him, for “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” He has “redeemed you from the curse of the Law, by becoming a curse for you, for it is written, ‘Curséd is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” (Gal 3) “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Pet 1)

So you’re free! Free from your sin and instead blameless; free from the Law’s accusation and instead righteous. All this is because God has made Himself right with you through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus. You’re free to read your Bible, and the Word of God will have its way with every aspect of your life. A life governed not by “flesh and blood that will not inherit the Kingdom of heaven,” (1 Cor 15) “nor by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man” (Jn 1) but rather as “sons of God.” (Gal 4) No longer living by the “elemental principles of this world” (Col 3), human wisdom, traditions passed on from generation to generation, but rather living by the life-giving Word of God, since you have been “born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because ‘All flesh is grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, But the Word of the LORD endures forever.’” (1 Pet 1)

There’s no reason to exert power and coercion, no longer traditions versus traditions, which is how many people wrongfully look at the differences between Christian denominations. Rather traditions informed solely by the Word of God, judged by God’s Word alone, and that teach the Word of God. Traditions that have no basis in God’s Word or fight against what God’s Word says have no place. Traditions can be viewed as a form of teaching what God’s Word says, and specifically the Gospel—the Good news of what Jesus has done.

And “What has Christ done for you that you trust in Him? He died for [you] and shed His blood for [you] on the cross for the forgiveness of [your] sins.” (Christian Questions) Or to put it another way: He’s made God right with you, and so you’re right with Him. Your sins have been forgiven for Christ’s sake. He “is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” So you have attained to the righteousness that comes by faith. It doesn’t come by what you do or what’s been done in the past. By faith alone. It is delivered to you through the ever-enduring Word of God. “This is the Word which by the Gospel was preached to you.” (1 Pet 1) Not only preached but taught. Not only Word but also Sacraments—baptism, absolution, and the Supper of Jesus’ body and blood. All these things—preaching, teaching, baptizing, absolving, eating and drinking—all FOR YOU for the forgiveness of sins.

For by the forgiveness of sins, by God forgiving you your sins, constantly and continually, you are right with Him, no sin, no law. Christ ended it all. It all died at Calvary. Yet, where flesh and sin are, there the Law is enforced. There only the Law speaks and condemns. (Rightfully so.) God will use His Law to bring judgement, misery, separation, and death. Yet, where forgiveness of sins and faith are, there the Law is lived. For that is how someone right with God lives.

And you are right with God, or rather, He’s right with you. He’s made Himself right with you, and made you right with Him. It’s got nothing to do with you, and everything to do with Jesus! He’s the way salvation goes. Not with what you do or have done or will do or should do or could do. Jesus runs the show. He does the verbs. He dies and rises. You’re on the receiving end of it all. He acts upon you. He forgives—by baptizing, by preaching and teaching, by absolving, and by feeding with His body and blood. Then He uses you for His glory and purposes. For,

“Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

᛭ INI ᛭