Is God insane?
A man with cancer is undergoing chemotherapy. There seems to be progress for the tumor seems to be decreasing. But, before the tumor disappears he finds out that his oncologist has put an order to end the patient's therapy. Puzzled and bewildered, he asks himself, "Why would his doctor do that? Was he missing something? Was this regular protocol? Had things worsen and he did not know? If this was the case how long did he have to live?
The patient asked to speak to the doctor. The patient was given an appointment. At the appointment the patient asked for an explanation of, "why the therapy was stopped?" The patient could not believe what the Doctor said, "You do not need more chemotherapy because I declared your cancer in remission. As far as I am concerned you have no more tumors, I declare you, 'healed.'" The patient's face turned from curiosity to disbelief to anger. As the Doctor finished talking you could hear the patient yell out, "Are you insane? This begs the question, "would you rather be declared healed or actually be?"
The popular interpretation of justification by faith is that we are declared righteous, not made. How does God really work this, something is true because He declares it or He declares it because it is true? Does God declare something without being true? Unlike our Doctor from the story above, God is not insane. God does not declare things unless they already are. One example of this is in Genesis 1. At almost every stage of Creation (almost each day) God saw that what He did was good. At the end, in Genesis 1:31, He declared it again,
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
This concept of only declaring could be in part from the definition of righteous. According to our lesson,
What is this idea of "justifying," as found in the text? The Greek word dikaioo, translated justify, may mean "make righteous," "declare righteous" or "consider righteous." The word is built on the same root as dikaiosune, "righteousness," and the word dikaioma, "righteous requirement." Hence, there is a close connection between "justification" and "righteousness," a connection that doesn't always come through in various translations. We are justified when we are "declared righteous" by God.
Before this justification, a person is unrighteous, and thus unacceptable to God; after justification, he or she is regarded as righteous, and thus acceptable to Him.
You will notice that the author of the lesson chose "declare righteous" instead of "make righteous." The question again is, would you rather be declared righteous or made righteous? Especially, since God is fully capable of making us righteous. Ellen White makes reference to this issue in the following quote,
"Righteousness is obedience to the law. The law demands righteousness, and this the sinner owes to the law; but he is incapable of rendering it. The only way in which he can attain to righteousness is through faith. By faith he can bring to God the merits of Christ, and the Lord places the obedience of His Son to the sinner's account. Christ's righteousness is accepted in place of man's failure, and God receives, pardons, justifies, the repentant, believing soul, treats him as though he were righteous, and loves him as He loves His Son."—Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 367.
Being that God can make us righteous we can interpret this week's memory text as, "Therefore we conclude that a man is made righteous by faith without the deeds of the law" (Romans 3:28). The question is will we let Him?
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Raul Diaz
www.wolfsoath.com
