FAITHFUL CHRISTIANS
by A. Gene Veal

Perhaps this should be titled The Faith of Christians.  The Scriptures declare that in ourselves “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”   Jesus said, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”   We will never live in the victory that is ours in Christ Jesus unless we believe or have faith in the Word God gives us about our being “the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.”

We know that “without faith it is impossible to please God” and that we are “saved by faith.”  We must understand the “teaching about righteousness” before we know what we are to believe regarding our everyday life as a Christian.  Do you realize that right now, right this moment, you are righteous?

“For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”  The words “live by faith” are a reference to every day life.  Does it take faith in who God says you are for you to live today?  If not, you are not being who God says you are.  You will never live the Christian life except by faith in what God tells you about whom you are in Christ.

You will encounter challenges in your day that will not be met well unless you are by faith standing into your identity in Christ.  When the accuser comes against you, when certain burdens seem too heavy to bear, when you need to know the will of God in a matter, when you are facing decisions, being tempted, or whatever we may list here; nothing is going to give you peace and comfort, nothing is going to give you victory apart from your faith in what God says.  It may not look or feel like what the Word declares, but you will stand in what you know God has said because you know God’s Word is true.  That is faith.

Why are we admonished to “put on the full armor of God”?  The answer: “so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”  Stand?  Why stand?  Because standing is a way of taking the position that you have nothing left to do. 

And where do you stand?  “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” We stand in “this grace.”  We were introduced into this grace.  You are to stand in the finished work of Christ.  You stand as a victor in Christ, in what He has accomplished for you.  You resist the temptation to doubt and fear.  You believe what God has said is true, even if you don’t FEEL like it is. That is being a FAITHFUL CHRISTIAN.

Have you ever been enraptured by the peculiar way in which Paul describes our being in this state?  “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.”  Why did he not say, “By whom also we have had our introduction into this grace in which we are”?  That would be quite true.  But he did not say that: he says that we ‘stand” in it.  We are not just passively in it.  We determinedly stand in it by faith. 

What does the word ‘stand’ mean?  The real meaning of the word from any Bible Dictionary is ‘stand fast’, ‘stand whole’.  “We have had our introduction into this grace in which we stand fast” or ‘in which we stand firm or firmly’. What he is talking about is the certainty, the finality, the absolute assurance of faith; so he is careful to remind us that we are not only in this grace, but that we are firmly set in it, that we stand in it.  If you like, we are planted in it; we are set in it; we are established in it.  The word implies stability and security.  It means, therefore, continuance and establishment.  It is a very strong word.

He says it to the Corinthians, too, “I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand.”  Also, he states this in his second letter to the Corinthians, saying that he, Silvanus and Timotheus “are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.”  He says this again in his classic statement we have already quoted in Ephesians, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” And he repeats it twice a few verses further, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.  Stand therefore ….”   This is not only Paul’s expression, it is Peter’s also, “I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand.”

We do not cower into this grace; we are introduced and presented, standing erect upon our feet.  You say, “But I have been a vile sinner, I have been a terrible sinner, how can I possible go into the presence of God with boldness?”  If you do not go in with boldness you do not enter by faith.  Realize that you go in Christ’s hand, that His righteousness is upon you and that He leads you in.  You should hold up your head with boldness.  You stand in grace; you do not slink into it; you do not creep into it; you do not crawl into it!  Christ justifies us and we walk into this grace and we stand in it.

This is the same idea presented in the first Psalm: “Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.”  They will not be able to stand, but the righteous will stand “like a tree planted.”  The child of God, the godly and righteous man, will be able to stand.

Peter did not stand in this grace and was not a faithful Christian in Galatia when he pulled away from the Gentiles to eat with the Jews, implying that what Jesus did for us was not enough and certain laws have to be observed.  Paul “withstood him to his face.”  Paul said, “when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.”

To make it clear that we are righteous by faith in what Christ has accomplished and completed, Paul said, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified (declared righteous) by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified (declared righteous).”  And as he says in Romans regarding this righteousness, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”  This righteousness is either yours by faith or “without faith it is impossible to please God”. 

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”  If you are a Christian, YOU ARE RIGHTEOUS.  This righteousness is not because you did something, or you deserve something.  It is because God said it.  You believe it.  And that settles it.  Now STAND in that.

In Romans Paul uses Abraham as an example of  “the righteousness which is of faith” and he says, “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness-- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

When Paul speaks of the conclusion of his life, he does not contemplate how his good works will make him acceptable before God, but that he would “be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

How do you get this faith?  You have it.  Peter tells us that we have “obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”  With the righteousness comes the faith.  You will be put into situations throughout your life that will manifest the faith that God has given you.  James says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.”  Why is that “testing of your faith” so precious?  Because by it you will discover faith you didn’t know you had.  The trial showed you the faith He has given you.  The trial didn’t show God, for God, knowing all things, couldn’t be shown anything.  The trial was for your discovery, not His.  He knows what He has given you, but you are just coming into the knowledge of it.

Therefore, by the trials and testings that Father takes you through, you are “predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son” and “are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”  You are “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  This is what He is doing, not you.

Well, you ask, “What am I to do?”  You are to labor, yes, “labor to rest.”  Rest in His promise, in His Word, in what He tells you that you are in Christ Jesus whether you FEEL like it, or it LOOKS like it, or not.

As we rest in the truth of who we are in Christ, we will “be found in him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”

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