"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."
- Galatians 2:21
Every believer, ones who solely trusts that Christ has died for their sin, was buried, and raised again, ones who believe Christ was delivered for their offences and raised again for their justification (to be declared righteous), and the ones who God's righteousness is not only unto, but the ones on whom it is upon, should know what it is to frustrate the grace of God. The believer understood through faith that they were sinners in need of God's righteousness, that no matter what good or bad they had done they fell short. The believer came to understand that all their attempts through law keeping and service to others was not the means of their righteousness, but that their righteousness would come from a source outside themselves, who is Christ.
It seems all to common among believers today that fruit, service, and law-keeping are the focus in the life of a believer. The issue of righteousness is lost and almost unsettled in the believers life resulting in a proving of their salvation by trying to produce something they never could: righteousness. They put their flesh suits on, hit the religious treadmill, and start working and exercising the flesh all to prove something they received by faith in the first place.
Righteousness never came by law keeping or the flesh and never will for if it did or if it does Christ is dead in vain. If your trying to prove your saved, stay saved, or think your saved by works, by law keeping, by the flesh then Christ is dead in vain. The believer starts out by believing solely in the crosswork of Christ, and they continue believing in the crosswork of Christ, He remains the issue. It is then when Christ is not dead in vain, but rather the reality of Galatians 2:20, is unleashed in the inner man.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
I pray to all those that read that "as ye have received Christ Jesus, so walk ye in Him."
In Him,
Josh
