Jesus and Morality
God is eternal; and the Law of God is eternal. God’s Law is the expression of the very nature of God. Man understands the holiness of God by knowing the Law of God. The Law of God also exposes the sinfulness of humanity. Sin is lawlessness (1 Jn 3:4); and all have sinned (Rom 3:23; 5:12). Simply put, God is right; and man is wrong. God is moral; and man is immoral.
Man was not always such a sinful rebel (Gen 1–2). The first man, Adam, was innocent when God made him and placed him in the Garden of Eden. Back then, the known aspect of the Law came with a simple prohibition, “Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will surely die” (Gen 2:17).
After sin entered into the now corrupted creation, more of God’s Law was experienced. Imagine the pain, the anguish, the lament, the mourning of Adam and Eve when Cain murdered Abel (Gen 4). Our first parents had never experienced such violence, as far as we know. “Thou shalt not murder” was clearly on the conscience of people who suffered the loss of loved ones in this heinous manner. God’s assessment of man’s progress as a sinner was clearly stated, “Every inclination of the heart of man is only evil all the time (Gen 6:5).”
Man was morally bankrupt, totally depraved. Instead of attempting to reform the wickedness of evil humanity, God punished the whole of the population except for a chosen remnant…eight people from one family (Gen 6–9). The family patriarch was Noah, a man and a preacher of righteousness. This man was given the 100-year task of building the ark of salvation for the ones he loved. It was curtains (of rain) for the rest. In this, Noah was a type of Christ to come; for Jesus came to save His people from their sins (Mt 1:21). Christ, alone, remains the ark of our salvation.
In the re-population of the earth’s creatures, it did not take long for humanity to realize that sin and evil were still with them. Wickedness was in Noah’s family, who had just witnessed the purge of their fellow humans under the just wrath of Almighty God. Should they not have trembled at the prospect of sinning again? Ham‘s evil deed revealed the hardness of man’s heart toward God’s righteousness (Gen 9:22). Sinful man was still evil; and no threat of judgment or punishment could reform him.
God did not abandon humanity, however, because in the predetermined plan of God (Acts 2:23), there was a merciful and gracious salvation that would bring glory to God. The righteous would live. The problem was there was no one righteous — no, not even one (Rom 3:10).
Once again, God chose an unsuspecting man of Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 12). Abram was as ordinary as Noah his forefather had been when God chose to reveal Himself to him. God promised to bless and multiply the seed of Abram (Gen 15). Abram believed the Word of God; and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jas 2:23). In other words, Abraham was justified by faith in God’s Word (Rom 3:26, 28).
Faith in the Word of God is a grace granted from God (Gal 3:22; Eph 2:8–9; Phil 1:29; 2 Pet 1:1). A man believes in his heart because God has done a work in his heart (Ezek 36:26). This work does not remove the original sin of Adam, nor man’s sin nature, nor his practice of sin in his fleshly body of sin and death. Rather, faith is manifest in the soul when the Spirit does His work there.
The only way sin can be dealt with is an acceptable substitute blood sacrifice (Eph 1:7; Heb 9:22); and if that particular sacrifice is not permanent, sin will continue and so will the need for the next sacrifice (old covenant system). Even when God gave His Holy Law to Moses, it only exacerbated man’s sin problem. Sin actually increased after the Law of God was revealed at Mount Sinai (Rom 5:20).
No one could keep the Law of God; and so, it remained unfulfilled. Sacrifices were necessary to appease the Holy God and stave off His righteous wrath (propitiation). The prophets explained this reality. The priests performed the endless task. The blood of sacrifices continued to flow in the Temple of God at Jerusalem.
God’s chosen people always carried the hope of an end to sin and sacrifice. The Hebrew Scriptures revealed the coming of the righteous Messiah. He would deal with the sins of His people that separated them from their God (Is 53), who cannot tolerate sinners into His holy presence.
The eternal Son of God was enfleshed (Jn 1:14). He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary (Mt 1:23). In this, Jesus avoided the original sin of Adam. He was born of the Virgin Mary; and then He lived a perfect life of sinlessness (2 Cor 5:21). He was like us, yet without sin (Heb 4:15). Jesus fulfilled the Law of God (Mt 5:17), even to the point of death on a cross, where He made the final atonement for the sins of His people (Mt 26:28; 1 Pet 2:24), given to Him by God the Father before the foundation of the world (2 Tim 1:9).
Jesus is the moral Son of Man. His morality is our morality because His righteousness has been imputed to the elect of God, from every people group across history. Today, those who are “in Christ” are as righteous as they will ever be in this life. The Christian has permanent right standing with Yahweh because of the one-time sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb of God (Jn 1:29; Heb 10:12, 14), whose blood is forever upon the mercy seat of God in the true tabernacle of heaven (Heb 8:2).
In conclusion, whatever progress in moral behavior, by a Christian, must be credited to the indwelling presence and work of the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11). It is God’s will and good pleasure for Christians to be witnesses of this work of God within (Acts 1:8). Sin nature and bad days of sin remain with the Christian, who rejoices and gives thanks to God that soon He will shed this body of sin in death (Gen 3:19; Phil 1:23), and be resurrected from the dead in a glorified body, indwelt with a glorified soul (Rom 8:30). On that day in eternity future, God’s elect, redeemed, regenerated, and now glorified saints will be moral because we will be like Christ (1 Jn 3:2), the Lord our righteousness (Jer 23:6), when we see Him as He is in truth (Eph 4:21). We will have been changed (1 Cor 15:51–52). The mortal will put on immorality. The immoral will be moral.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
April 12, 2024
