Proverbs 15:9 ESV
The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves him who pursues righteousness.
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Christianity is antithetical to laziness. For us individuals, though, it’s easy to try and live our lives in moral equilibrium. We go from one day to the next, content in the assurance that we’re not doing worse than we did yesterday, even if we aren’t doing much better. We have our issues, it seems, but they’re under control, no need to fuss. This perspective does not comport to God’s law. He lays out two paths for us: the ‘way of the wicked’ and the pursuit of ‘righteousness’. The Christian, therefore, has not merely a negative duty to refrain from sin; he has a positive duty to pursue righteousness.
We have only two options in life: we can pursue God and His righteousness, or we can run headfirst into hell. Doubt me? Christ said that, “Whoever is not with Me is against Me,” in Matthew 12:30, and the dictum applies to all parts of life. Any act which is not good is bad, because rectitude requires perfection. Why? Because God is the standard of morality, the measure by which good and bad are determined, and God is not only perfect but the superlative and summit of perfection, infinite in goodness, anything which is not likewise superlatively perfect must be wrong, for it falls short of His infinite measure. Thus, no matter what, our actions matter morally; each action is a step towards hell or heaven.
Unfortunately for us sinful men, our actions are universally broken and flawed. We are beings incapable of the height of our nature’s perfection, for having once broken the law, our greatest effort is defiled by its doer, not to mention its content. Any man who says he does not sin is in that saying made a sinner once more (1 John 1:10). The question, then, arises: can we indeed pursue righteousness, as this proverb calls us to?
Well, no.
We can’t, not in our own efforts. Yet God’s mercy would not be mercy if it were deserved, merited, obtained by our own righteousness (Rom. 11:6). He redeems His people by His blood (Eph. 1:7), and so He gives to them a great gift: though our deeds are as filth (Is. 64:6), we may yet by those deeds praise Him (1 Cor. 6:19-20), by our thoughts, our words, by all that we do. With these sacrifices He is well pleased (Mic. 6:8). Like the sacrifices of old, they do not in themselves avail (Heb. 9:9). The sacrifices mandated in the ceremonial law could not bring salvation; the animal cannot die for the man, for the animal lacks the image of God which renders man distinct (Gen. 1:28). The sacrifices too were performed by imperfect men; they were flawed and broken in themselves. Yet by God’s grace they were a blessing to Israel and a praise to God (Lev. 17:11). So too are the good works of His saints.
See still that this is true only for those He has redeemed. Here is another binary distinction: those whom He has saved and those whom He has not saved, the elect and the damned. Man is one or the other. Even the best works of the unregenerate are a shame to him (Ps. 53:1-3). To His people, the regenerate, however, is given a new heart (Ez. 36:26), a re-born nature capable of honoring Him, if still with a thousand faults and failings, things disciplined by His mercy but already covered by His sacrifice (Rom. 3:24-25). The closest we get to a third and fourth category are those who are elect but not yet saved- whose works are still all damnation, though a damnation He has predestined to take upon Himself (Rom. 8:30)- and those who are not saved but pretend to it, consciously or unconsciously. These pretenders, those among but not of the church, are at their root actually the unregenerate, as will be seen upon the last day (Matt. 25:32-33).
God has called His people to work out their faith in fear and trembling, with good works (Eph. 6:5; Phil. 2:12). David proclaims this truth in Psalm 119:125-128, saying, “I am your servant…. Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold. Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right; I hate every false way.” Because God has redeemed us, David says, we obey Him. Of His people the Lord requires that we “do justice,… love kindness, and… walk humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8). After all, we who died with Him in our spiritual baptism (which the ritual declares to us and the world), who are raised with Him (Rom. 6:1-5), shall we not also live with Him and that according to our love for Him?
Do our works save? Most certainly not. As stated above, it is only by His grace and sacrificial work that our works have any virtue before Him; they are, in truth, His works in us, not our works to boast of (hence why Paul boasts in Him, not himself (1 Cor. 1:31)). These works, however, are a testimony to us and to the world of the truth of our faith. This is the meaning of that famous passage in James which so puzzled Luther. To quote it in part, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (Ja. 2:17). James here presents a logical conclusion of the ideas I’ve outlined already: if true faith produces good works, then faith which does not produce good works is not true faith, is not living faith, is dead faith. Dead faith, moreover, does not save.
This calling is no small thing. This call to pursue righteousness is all-consuming. In every part of our life we ought to pursue righteousness in order to rejoice in His goodness and glorify His name. This duty is the essence of the Greatest Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and in its second, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-40). It should not surprise us, but it should give us great joy, then, that He promises so great a reward as His love to those to whom He has given the grace of obedience.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
