ALL INCLUDED

In Philippians 3:6 we see Paul saying what he did while in the process of following God’s law. He persecuted the church and killed Christians. His desire to keep God’s law was so ingrained in him he was actually killing people thinking he was doing God a favor. There are still people out there that do the same and they think going out and killing people because they are breaking God’s law is ok.

What comes to mind right now is those that go about killing those that may be involved in abortions and other things as well because they feel so strongly that what these people are doing is against God’s laws. They think they are justified by doing what they are doing because of God’s laws being broken. This would be the modern day version of what Paul was doing in his time.

In verse 7 we see that all the things listed in the previous verses were something that brought gain to Paul. All the thing he did under law were counted as gain to him and he did receive financial gain from this because in Galatians he says he prospered by this. But now we see that what he counted as gain he now counts as loss so he may have knowledge of Jesus Christ.

All of Paul’s works counted as nothing after the cross was revealed to him. He saw grace and he counted all other things as dung. He did not continue on and try to do the best he could and then trust the grace of God to make up for what he could not do. No, he saw all his works as dung, not just a few.

It is not our agreement with God on certain things that makes us right with God. It is not our works that gain us favor with God. It is Jesus’ agreement with God and His covenant with God that makes us in agreement and in covenant with God. It is not because we work at it. It is because of the cross and totally the cross. Paul saw why he was now in covenant with God and he then saw all his works were worth nothing. He had to see those as loss so he could see the knowledge of Christ.

If any of this had been left up to us it never would have nor could it ever have been accomplished. Being humans makes us very flaky when it comes to keeping promises. Most of the time we will have difficulty keeping our word. Those are some of the reasons God did not make a covenant with us but He made it with Jesus as He knew His Son would totally and fully keep His word. There was no doubt He was entrusting something this huge to Someone that would fulfill it to the end.

In Hebrews 7:26 it says our High Priest “became us” because God knew “us” would not be able to ever meet the requirements to be right with God. Jesus became you and I and took upon Himself humanity and did the work no human could do and then erased all rules and regulations in relationship to God. It was then that man was united to God through the power of Jesus Christ. This was all done by one man, Jesus Christ. It’s not our works or belief that does this, it has already been done.

The one man theory is difficult to grasp by many but it was by one man Adam that all became sinners and it is by one man Jesus that all became righteous. Neither one of these things had anything to do with us. We did not choose the first Adam to become sinners and we didn’t choose the second Adam (Jesus) to become righteous. All in Christendom believe the one man theory when it comes to Adam but have problems when it comes to the one man theory when it comes to Jesus. After looking at what Paul taught we see that is exactly what he saw and that is what he taught throughout the New Testament.