How then do we live? Is my life lived in the Spirit of God lived ‘by works of the law’ or ‘by hearing with faith’? Is it possible that we are so influenced by others that we begin to think that we need to add something more to the life of faith in God? Have you been convinced that Jesus’s sacrifice and the LORD’s acceptance of that sacrifice demonstrated through the resurrection is not enough, that you must do more?
Really? ‘Having begun by the Spirit… now being perfected by the flesh’ doesn’t have the ring of being either Truth or Wisdom. Yet how often do we try to live out our life in Jesus by our own abilities rather than depending upon the enabling brought into our lives by the Holy Spirit indwelling us? None of us would want to claim being ‘so foolish’ yet we do slip into that trying to be godly by the flesh, an oxymoron of two opposite, contradictory possibilities.
Abraham didn’t earn his righteousness but rather ‘believed God’ who counted Abraham’s faith in the LORD as righteousness. Again, taking God at His Word is part of repenting and committing to the Truth of what the LORD says instead of our personal designs for the way life ought to be. Paul then concludes,
Are we thankful that there was no expectation that we Gentiles could live up to the Law and that we were included by the LORD in that promise to Abraham that ‘in you shall all the nations be blessed’ with the possibility of salvation by faith, the grace of being declared righteous in Jesus? Thank You, LORD, for righteousness by faith in Your full work on our behalf.