A Necessary and Comforting Reminder

From @Liberate

Righteous Boast

"Boasting in God is perfect and complete when we take no pride in our own righteousness but acknowledge that we are utterly lacking in true righteousness and have been made righteous only by faith in Christ."

                 - Basil the Great (4th century AD)

Awakening Faith, page 26

Just As If I'd....

“Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. All I need to do is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart.”

The Heidelberg Catechism   Q&A 60

HT: Of First Importance

Not Our Identity

I am a firm believer that Martin Luther got it right when he said that Christians are "simul justus et peccator" (Latin for "simultaneously righteous and sinners") I believe that so much, I wish I had a T-Shirt with those Latin words blazoned upon it. However, it is important to remember that this statement describes our present walk in the "now and not yet," but not our identity before the presence of God. I like this clarification by Jono Linebaugh at Liberate:

...In light of this, it’s important to clarify that simul iustus et peccator is NOT a description of our Christian identity; it is NOT a description of who we are before God. What it is, however, is a description of the both/and that characterizes the Christian life as lived.

The pastoral payoff here is that it enables us to affirm (without crossing our fingers) that in Christ—at the level of identity—the Christian is 100% righteous before God while at the same time recognizing the persistence of sin. If we don’t speak in terms of two total states (100% righteous in Christ and 100% sinful in ourselves) corresponding to the co-existence of two times (the old age and the new creation) then the undeniable reality of ongoing sin leads to the qualification of our identity in Christ: the existence of some sin must mean that one is not totally righteous. This is acid at the very foundation of the peace we have with God on the other side of justification. To say simul iustus et peccator is therefore not to say that “sinner” is our identity; it is to say that while we remain sinful in ourselves we are, in Christ, totally righteous.

That's what it means. That's how we live. That's what He has done.

Putting On Batman - A Parable of Righteousness

From Matt Schneider at Mockingbird comes this story of a modern day want-to-be super-hero.The material below is his stuff, not mine.

Perhaps you’ve seen the recent viral images on Facebook and the like of Batman being pulled over on Route 29 in Silver Spring, Maryland for having no tags. The images made me laugh, but I didn’t think much of it until my wife sent me an article published earlier this week in The Washington Post titled, “Who is the Route 29 Batman?” Believe it or not, the curious case of Lenny B. Robinson sheds some light on the topic of imputed righteousness.

The article is worth reading in full, but the skinny is that Robinson is an independently wealthy divorced man who spends his free time and spare money on dressing up like the Caped Crusader, driving his black Lamborghini made to look like a Batmobile, visiting sick children Washington and Baltimore area hospitals:

Batman began visiting Baltimore area hospitals in 2001, sometimes with his now teenage son Brandon playing Robin. Once other hospitals and charities heard about his car and his cape, Batman was put on superhero speed dial for children’s causes around the region. He visits sick kids at least couple times a month, sometimes more often. He visits schools, too, to talk about bullying. He does not do birthday parties.

His superhero work is limited to doing good deeds, part of a maturation process in his own life. In his earlier years, he acknowledges that he sometimes displayed an unsuperhero-like temper and got into occasional trouble with the law for fights and other confrontations. Putting on the Batman uniform changes and steadies him.

“Eventually, it sinks in and you become him,” Batman told me. “It feels like I have a responsibility that’s beyond a normal person. And that responsibility is to be there for the kids, to be strong for them, and to make them smile as much as I can.” He understands that might sound corny, but he doesn’t care.

Of course, the metaphor ultimately is only partial; obviously I am not talking about God declaring us righteous on account of Christ. But there are parallels: putting on Batman (compare to “putting on Christ”) allows Robinson—who is then recognized as the real Batman by everyday people, children most especially—to become righteous in the ways the character Batman is regarded as righteous despite being an ordinary and undeserving guy underneath all that fancy black leather and neoprene.

This happened in Montgomery County, MD, where I used to live. Holy Parable of Righteousness, Batman! And no Joker anywhere in sight.