His Plan
His Plan
No small part of God's plan is the triumph of individual righteousness during the present lifetime on earth, in the midst of all the surrounding unrighteousness. God purposes to bring righteousness into life so that it shall be the dominating characteristic in the believer. We were "created in Christ Jesus unto good works wherein God hath before ordained that we should walk" (Eph. 2:10).
It should be understood, of course, that when we thus emphasize personal righteousness, we are not speaking of a system of salvation by that righteousness. The believer's righteousness is an effect of the reign of God's grace within his heart, and certainly not a cause of that grace. God never does anything for us because we are good, but because He is good. "We love him because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). We work righteousness because He has wrought righteousness in us. "What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3, 4).
Every day we are the objects of the grace of God. All that He does is through grace. Even the rewards that we shall receive are ultimately because of grace, for even at best "we are unprofitable servants" (Luke
17:10).
It is a very great sin, a sin of presumption, to think that it is possible to live in sin because there is a great abundance of grace. Against such a thought the Spirit cries out through Paul, "God forbid!" (Rom. 6:2). Grace is not merely to abound; grace is to reign (Rom. 5:21). To the ear of the Greeks who heard this verse the first time the message would have been: "Grace is to king it! But, note well, grace must reign through righteousness."
The world may hold the mistaken idea that the end justifies the means, but God's method is such that the means are holy. He will never work His grace through unrighteousness, though He sometimes is gracious in spite of unrighteousness. But the Lord wishes to work righteousness through us by working righteousness in us. That is His present work in His own people.
1. If we have good deeds to walk in set forth by Christ, does the unbeliever have deeds they walk in that were set forth by God?
2. What are some scriptures that back up your position?
