Jim McGuiggan (00:05)
So he said, let me tell you about the righteousness of God. Do you know what it’s based on? No, where is that? Is it based on the law? No, no. Is it based upon some good guys and some good girls in the Jewish world and in the Gentile world? No, no. What’s it based on then? And he points to Jesus of Nazareth.
and says it’s all based on his faithfulness.
so that God shows his faithfulness in one place, in one person, nowhere else. Well, see that phrase, nowhere else, is an overstatement. But it’s not an overstatement in this respect, that it’s in Jesus Christ, altogether, flawlessly, perfectly.
He shows his faithfulness. He showed his faithfulness, for example, when ⁓ he brought Israel into the promised land as he said he would. So he showed his faithfulness. But that’s not what Paul is dealing with. Paul is dealing with, and here’s a funny word, I’m not even going to develop it. Paul is dealing with eschatological matters End Time issues.
He’s not denying that God loved people way back then. He’s not denying that God kept His word way back then. But He sums the whole thing up in one big, all-encompassing, overarching purpose.
And it all depends on, one, Jesus Christ. And in his faithfulness, God was showing how he was keeping faith to the human family. Yeah. And if you looked at Jesus and rejected him,
you are rejecting God. So that God is faithless. God is not faithful. He says I’m doing it in Him, but I don’t believe that, so…
1 Peter 1: 21 says, God, God raised Him, Jesus, from the dead. That through Him, the one God raised from the dead, you might believe in God. That’s 1 Peter 1: 21. Take a good look at that and reflect on it for a while at some point. Will you do that? So, it’s Jesus who is the faithfulness of God embodied.
And anyone who embraces him ⁓ in faith, he experiences. Nah, not fully, Mark you, for fully is for another day when the Lord returns. But in Christ Jesus right now, one experiences it in life and transformation and new vision and all of that kind of thing. But we’re all waiting, says Paul, as we’ll see if we’re still alive when I’m done here.
⁓ In Romans chapter 8, Paul says, we wait for the redemption of our bodies. I mean, there’s stuff to come, even though it’s happening right this minute. So those who by faith lay hold on Jesus Christ are embracing the faithfulness of God. And we put our arms around him when we whisper in his ear, is God faithful? And he says, yeah. And we say, how? ⁓
How do we know? And he says, do you know me? We say, yes. He says, I am the faithfulness.