The church is appointed to be slaves of righteousness

 

e.       The church is appointed to be slaves of righteousness

From the moment one is delivered from sin, he/she becomes a slave to righteousness, for it is written; “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:16-18).

 One is either a slave of sin, or a slave of righteousness, and when one is a slave of sin he/she is free in regards to righteousness. In like manner, when one is a slave of righteousness, he/she is free in regards to sin. Now one becomes righteous by practicing the act of righteousness, for we have been admonished saying; “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”

We have been further admonished saying; “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous” (1John 3:10-12).

The righteousness of Abel came as the result of him offering to the Lord an offering that was acceptable to Him, For it is written; “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4).

We also have been imputed with righteousness; because of the acceptable sacrifice which Jesus Christ offered to the Father on our behalf, and it is this same acceptable sacrifice that we are required to offer to the Father continually in order to be righteous even as Christ Himself is righteousness.

For it is stated that; “For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life: For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:17-19).

 Now, to those who despise the law and seems not to be able to understand the correlation between law and grace, I beg to ask the question, why is the law not made for a righteous person, but it is for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine (1Timothy 1:9-10)?

The answer to this seeming paradox to some is quite simple. The law is not made for a righteous person simply because the righteous person is already living within the confines of the law because, when we were slaves of sin (transgressing the law with impunity); we were free in regard to righteousness.

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To be continued

With brotherly love

Lucius Joseph