Certainly, in a general way, the best mere moral characters are only what any one may be, and all prudent person at all times would be, if Christ had never come into the world. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
One question that each person should ask him or herself is whether s/he is living in such a way that s/he could live if Christ had never come into the world. In other words, are we living by mere human strength and motives in being moral? Are we doing what we do out of a desire to appear moral in the eyes of other people or perhaps simply not to have a bad reputation? Do we refrain from sin because we don’t want to go to pay the costs of the court or of going to jail?
Even some of the pagan philosophers wrote about moral laws and lived outwardly moral lives. The devil is not concerned about morality and prudence in the world, but what he fights is the glory of God in the world. As long as people are living moral lives, even extremely ordered moral lives, he does not care and will even encourage that. After all, the Pharisees were very moral and very religious and Jesus told them that they were children of the devil. The devil fights the gospel of grace alone rather than a gospel that allows for works and human decisions. The devil fights against true holiness because in it the glory of God is shining forth. But the devil loves it when people live in their own strength and wisdom while living moral and prudent lives.
What an awful question it is, but each person must ask him or herself if s/he is living in such a way as to require grace and supernatural power to do so. If people are doing nothing but living within the power of human nature and that is all the morality they have and do, even if it is a lofty morality above the common mortal, it is nothing but what the devil is pleased with and is nothing but sin. Jesus told the people in the Sermon on the Mount that unless their righteousness exceeded or surpassed that of the scribes and Pharisees, they would not enter the kingdom. How can one surpass the righteousness of the stringent scribes and Pharisees? It takes an inner righteousness that can only come from God.
The scribes and Pharisees were children of the devil and yet they strove in terms of outward morality. It must be shouted from the rooftops that outward morality will not do it in the slightest, but in fact one of the greatest forms of immorality that can be found is a person proud and arrogant enough to think that s/he is moral in his or her own strength. Human beings must learn to define evil as God defines evil and when they do they will see that all outward righteousness apart from a heart cleansed by the blood of Christ and the power of the Spirit in the soul is nothing but the foulest and blackest sin.
Whatever it is that people do that is not to the glory of God and not out of a true motive of love for God, that is sin. For a true moral action to occur by a human being that human being must be born again, be cleansed by the blood of Christ, have the imputed righteousness of Christ, and then have the work be the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is utterly impossible for a person to do one good deed or work apart from Christ being in that person and the life of Christ by His Spirit flowing out of that person and the good deed coming from that.
A person that is living in the natural human strength, even if it is strongly moral and strongly religious, is one of the most vile people on earth. It is a terrible thing to find people, even very religious people who are crying out ‘Lord, Lord” day after day, living in their own strength and as if Christ had never come to the planet to save sinners from themselves. This is something like Paul telling people that they were living without God in the world. Apart from living by grace in reality and not just as a religious figment of our imagination, we live as without God in the world and as if Christ had never come into the world. Yet that is precisely what false religions really teach. They teach a religion that in reality does not depend and rely upon Christ coming into the world. That is also what many do who have the true doctrines of Christianity, attend church, take the Lord’s Supper; and yet they live in and by their own strength. How sin and evil blinds the mind and soul to what sin and evil truly are.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment