Wings

I sat among other members of my faith-family in Sunday school class as we moved through the highly significant chapters of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. We discussed terms like justification and its implications. We discussed how the law highlights our powerlessness to meet the righteous demands of a holy God.

“The law” or religion, no matter what form it takes, presents a ladder of steps we must climb if we aim to be pleasing in God’s eyes. There are basic steps, and then greater, more demanding steps for those who aspire to be among His favorites or His list of MVPs.

However, what the ladder of religious activity makes starkly apparent is that even the most devout among us fall tragically short of meeting the righteous demands of a holy God. All our striving and adherence to prayers, codes of conduct, or religious rituals, even in pure-hearted piety, fall dreadfully short. God is holy and cannot allow sin in His presence. We are fallen, and even well-meaning attempts remain hopelessly tainted by our fallen nature. 

Isaiah 64:6 says it this way: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”

Our plight is stark. We cannot make ourselves right before God despite our best efforts at religious adherence. Our religious striving, even in its noblest form, rises to His nostrils like the foul stench of a sour dishrag. We are powerless, justly condemned under the righteous demands of a holy God.

Our class dismissed, and like others, I loitered around the coffee pot, mingled in the church lobby, and meandered to our regular pew in the sanctuary. The service began, and the choir director introduced the lyrics to the choir’s new song, a choir rendition of Run and Run, by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa. The lyrics seemed directly plucked from the Scripture text we had just explored in our Sunday school class, and strikingly describe our plight:

“Run and run the law demands, but gives me neither feet nor hands.”

Religion cruelly demands I keep futilely striving, yet gives me no power to do so, and no reward for my effort. The second line of the song, however, breaks through the darkness in a burst of light.

“Better news the gospel brings, it bids me fly, it gives me wings.”

Romans 8:3-4 declares the good news in these words: “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Jesus Christ met both those righteous demands and laid down His human life in our stead. Yet, as God in human form, He remained outside the power and control of death, and could therefore drive a stake through the heart of sin and death, in our stead, once for all time. “Tetelestai!” He declared from the cross. Paid in full! My sin-debt, and that of all mankind, was paid in full as God in human form gave His life in my place.

In Ephesians chapter 2:1-10, Paul points out how we were like dead men walking, forever alienated from God, the One source that could restore us to wholeness. In so doing, He lifts our eyes to greater possibilities, to the great works He had prepared for us to accomplish in His name. He then infuses us with His Spirit that empowers us to carry them out for our ultimate good and His glory. He summarizes in verses 8-10 in this way:

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

As the song lyrics say, “Better news the gospel brings, it bids me fly, it gives me wings.”

 As a result of this great salvation, we lift our voices in victorious joy and belt out among the throng of the redeemed:

“Praise the Lord, oh my soul, praise the Lord. Now and forever more, my soul confess, Christ is all my righteousness!”