That’s Bananas!
Meditation for the week of September 23, 2012
"But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. (Luke 15:22)
The fact that a believer in the Lord Jesus has “Christ in Him (Colossians 1:27, Romans 8:10) is a precious truth. One would think that having the Holy Spirit take up a permanent residence in a person would be seen in their faces and in their actions. A person’s face should glow much like Moses’ did when He came out from the presence of the Lord (Exodus 34:29). While it is true that often we who preach the Gospel can tell when a person has trusted the Lord by their happy countenance, it seems that the shine wears off after a while. In addition, those who say that they have trusted the Lord often do not “look” any different in their lives after their “conversions” than the unsaved look. Statistics seem to show that those who call themselves Christians have as many moral problems as those who do not. So what people see in Christians is often a problem when we preach the Gospel. Unsaved people who are clean living often wonder why they would want to be saved if the saved and the unsaved are living the same way and if being saved seems to make some Christians so judgmental of others while living hypocritically themselves. In other words they see others sins, but they don’t seem to see their own. Fortunately what people see in Christians is not what God sees.
Before we were saved we were “in our sins (John 8:24, Ephesians 2:1).” We were dead or separated from God because all He could see was our sin. We were immersed in it. Some of us were “in” the moral religions sins of those who are trying to get to heaven by their good works. Some of us were “in” the immoral sins of a world that has rejected God’s authority. But all of us were seen by God as being “in sin”. After we are saved we are “in Christ (Romans 8:1, Ephesians 2:13)”. All God sees is Christ when He sees us. He sees His righteousness and His beauty. He does not see our sins.
We get a little glimpse of this great truth when Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. God clothed her and Adam with skins of animals to cover the nakedness that their sin had exposed (Genesis 3:21). The clothing required the death of the animal and the clothing had to be put on to be an effective covering. Our clothing that God sees is provided by the death of the Lamb of God and it must be “believed in” or trusted to be put on. But when it is is put on, God sees the righteousness of Christ instead of the ugliness of our sin. The same truth would be seen in the story of the prodigal son. He had gone his own way and had “made his own decisions.” His wayward life had led him to a pig farm where he fed the swine—an animal that religious Jews could not eat. But when “he came to himself,” he threw himself on the mercy of his father who was waiting for him to come home. When he got home they put on him the “best” robe. I don’t know if he had taken a bath or not, but whatever marks the pig farm and his profligate life might have left were now covered. This is a picture of the righteousness of Christ that covers every person who is saved. We are “in Christ” and not “in our sins.”
In Revelation 19:8 we see the bride in all her glory. She is clothed in fine linen, clean and white and the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. Some newer translations say that the fine linen is the good deeds of the saints. But that’s banana’s! All the way through Scripture we display the righteousness of Christ when we are saved. We don’t offer God our good deeds we offer Him Christ. We don’t display our good deeds, we display Christ. We don’t preach our good deeds, we preach Christ. Now in heaven supposedly we are going to be displaying our own good deeds!? At least to me that makes no sense. I believe the fine linen represents the righteousness of Christ which is our righteousness. Obviously, that fine linen will be cleaner and more beautiful than any thing that we as Christians could offer God. Our fine linen would have holes, rips and stains in it. Christ’s is perfect.
If we are saved, we have Christ in us. We have Christ covering us. We really do have it made.
He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Bruce Collins