Galatians and Righteousness (3) Pride

I presume that a desire to be justified before God is driven by human pride. Paul suggests in Galatians 2:17 that seeking to be declared righteous is sinful, even if it is by the Messiah.

If, in seeking to be justified in Christ,
we find ourselves also among the sinners,
doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin?
Absolutely not!

This verse is odd, because if we are justified by faith, then we are no longer counted as sinners. I suspect that Paul might be suggesting that it is sinful to worry about being justified. If we are forgiven then we do not need to be concerned about being justified to God.

Paul then asks if our seeking to be justified by Jesus makes him an agent of sin. The answer is an emphatic “No!”. Paul goes on to suggest that if he builds up his own justification, which he tore down to follow Jesus, he proves that he is a transgressor (Gal 2:18). If I am worried about my justification, the problem is mine, not Jesus’.

Paul declared that he had been crucified with Jesus. He no longer lives, but Jesus lives in him (Gal 2:20). Paul’s life does not count, so his justification does not matter. The only thing that matters is Jesus the Messiah, and being united with him.

Paul explained to the Corinthians that he is not interested in his own justification.

For I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this. It is the Lord who judges me (1 Cor 4:4).

Paul explained to the Romans that the Gentiles were not seeking righteousness, but they gained it freely. In contrast, the Jews pursued righteousness, but they failed to achieve it. Pursuing righteousness is pointless (Rom 9:30-31).

Imputed Righteousness

The other side of original sin is imputed righteousness. Some of the reformers argued that because Adam’s sin was imputed to us, Jesus righteousness can be imputed to us too. We share the guilt for Adam’s sin though we did not do it, so we can share Jesus righteousness, even though we are sinful.

The flaw in this argument is that justification is a legal term associated with the courtroom. A judge who has led a good life cannot make a man he has found guilty of a crime to be innocent by giving him some of his own goodness. The goodness of one man cannot cancel out another man’s crime. The judge’s goodness cannot be imputed to the criminal to nullify his crime.

What the judge can do is pay the penalty for the crimes of the guilty man. He could agree to pay the fines for the criminal. In the extreme case, he could offer to die in the criminal’s place, if the sentence was the death penalty. A judge cannot give a criminal his goodness, but he can pay the penalties for his crime.

This is what Jesus did. He could not transfer his goodness to us, but he could pay the penalty for our sin. The accuser and the rest of the spiritual powers of evil demanded blood for human sins. Jesus offered his blood shed on the cross. They had to accept it, because it was human blood.

Once the penalty was paid, our sin is cancelled out and we become righteous again, because there is no charge of sin against us. The accuser has no basis for accusing us, because all past and future sins were covered by Jesus’ blood. God the judge can declare us to be righteous.

“Impute” is an accounting term, not a legal term. It means that something is counted as if it were something else. Once the penalty for our sin has been paid, we are counted as being righteous, because Jesus has paid the penalty, not because his righteousness has been put into us.

Note: Jesus death was directed primarily towards the spiritual powers of evil. Hey demand blood, so God gave it to them to salience them. God was happy to forgive humans because he loved us, but the spiritual powers of evil, and especially Satan, demanded the implementation of full justice.