Know: Explain the only way by which we can stand justified before God in judgment.
Feel: Sense the rest that comes both from abandoning our own qualifying works and also from depending on Christ’s righteousness.
Do: Identify completely with Christ’s death, and live Christ’s life rather than our own.
Learning Outline:
Know: Made Righteous in Christ
A Why is it impossible to become righteous by working hard, denying self, and obeying God’s commandments?
B How can God be just in assigning Christ’s record of righteousness in place of our own? What does our faith have to do with this transaction?
Feel: None of Me
A Why is it so important to abandon all claims to our own righteousness, and instead put our faith completely in Christ’s?
B What emotional, physical, and spiritual benefits come from resting completely in what Christ has done?
C Does resting in Christ result in lazy living? Why, or why not?
Do: Living Christ’s Life
A How does identifying with Christ’s death and living His life make a difference in how we live?
B What choices do we make, moment by moment, that make dying Christ’s death and living Christ’s life possible?
Summary: Faith makes it possible to come before God and accept His provisions, provided through Christ’s death, for our forgiveness and restoration to a righteous standing before Him. Through faith we may die to self and let Christ live His life in us.
Learning Cycle
STEP 1—Motivate
Key Concept for Spiritual Growth: Becoming justified in God’s sight comes only from having faith in Christ’s death in our behalf and by accepting His righteous record as our own.
Just for Teachers: Use this opening activity to help your class to identify with the theme of justification on an emotional as well as a spiritual level.
Opening Activity: Philip P. Bliss was a young missionary evangelist and songwriter who worked with Dwight Moody during his campaigns. Philip and his wife, Lucy, left their four-year-old child and one-year-old baby with friends and family and took a train to an engagement at the Moody tabernacle in December of 1876. As the train was crossing the Ashtabula River in Ohio, the trestle bridge collapsed, dropping the train into the icy river. Philip escaped, but he returned to the train for his wife, who was trapped in the fiery wreckage.
Neither Philip’s nor Lucy’s body was recovered, but Philip’s trunk survived. In the trunk was a manuscript for the lyrics to what became his best-known song, “I Will Sing of My Redeemer” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Bliss). Ask someone to sing this song for your class or sing it together. You can find it in The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, no. 343.
Consider This: Does it seem like a paradox to be so joyful about Christ’s death on a cruel cross? Why is it such a wonderful thing to contemplate the story of the cost that Jesus paid for our salvation? How might this song have been a source of comfort to the children whom Philip and Lucy left behind?
What songs in Revelation are raised on the same theme as hymn 343— the cost that Jesus paid for our salvation? (See Rev. 5:9–13, 7:9–17, 12:10–12.) List the reasons in these songs that made worshipers around the throne so eternally grateful.
STEP 2—Explore
Just for Teachers: Use this study to help your class examine the relationship between faith, obedience, and justification.
Bible Commentary
I. The Origins of Faith (Review Genesis 12:1–8 and 15:5, 6 with your class.)
The story of Abraham (formerly Abram) and his walk with God comes a short 12 chapters into the opening book of the Bible, although Abraham was born several hundred years after the Flood and some two thousand years after Adam. While others had relationships with God, Abraham is the first person to whom the author of Genesis devotes much time to in order to develop his story. In the course of Abraham’s lifetime, he has many firsthand experiences and conversations with God, and we are able to picture a developing relationship of faith in the man who has become known through the ages as an example of true faith.
We first learn about Abram when God asks him to leave his country and his father’s household and then gives him the promise of a blessing to make him the father of many nations. Eventually, we find out, as Abram did sometime later, that this promise won’t be fulfilled in his lifetime. When Abram notes that he is childless, God promises a family that will rival the stars in number. The Lord promises possession of a land of inheritance, and “Abram believed the Lord, and he [the Lord] credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6, NIV). Then God mentions that this land of promise in which Abram is wandering won’t be his or even his family’s for some four hundred years.
Abram has to wait until he is 100 before he has the son God promised—a miracle baby. It’s a far cry from the uncountable numbers God promised, but it’s a start. Finally, in a closing drama of Abraham’s life, he is asked to sacrifice that longed-for, long-awaited-for boy on a lonely mountaintop with only the angels and the universe as witnesses.
Abraham had demonstrated a checkerboard pattern of faith. Sometimes he showed faith; other times he took matters into his own hands. However, Abraham grew in faith. When he was asked to offer up his beloved son, he did not stop to reason or make excuses or question. “He knew that God is just and righteous in all His requirements, and he obeyed the command to the very letter.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 153. “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23). This act of faith shines like a great beacon of light, illuminating the pathway of faith for those of us, Abraham’s children, who also are learning how to walk in faith.
Consider This: What lessons in the long-term nature of the development of faith does the story of Abraham demonstrate? How do his failings help to encourage and admonish us when we are tempted to create our own answers to prayer?
II. Faith and Obedience (Review Galatians 2:15–21 with your class.)
Through faith, Abraham was strictly obedient to God’s request to offer up his son. He believed God, took Him at His word, and acted upon it. That belief and action (based on belief) were what was accounted to him as righteousness. “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did” (James 2:21, 22, NIV).
However, it isn’t by following the law that Abraham or anyone else is considered justified before God. Paul doesn’t have a problem with obedience to the law; faith in Jesus makes true obedience possible. Abraham, responding to God’s request to sacrifice his son, “strengthened his soul by dwelling upon the evidences of the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness.” —Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 151. He recalled the promise that from Isaac would come children as countless as the grains of sand on the shore and as the stars in the sky. Faith gave him strength to obey, and it was that faith that was counted to him for righteousness.
Consider This: How is faith strictly obedient, even in the face of great unknowns and tragedy? What other scriptural examples illustrate obedient faith despite obstacles and tragedy and what seemed to be a bleak future?
III. Faith and Obedience and Justification (Review Galatians 2:15–21 with your class.)
Paul makes it clear that it is not possible to be justified before God by observing the law. Christ Jesus, in His righteousness, justifies us—a righteousness that we claim by faith, a faith that results in obedience. When we have faith in Jesus, we hold nothing back from Him, even unto death. If we die to self daily, laying everything that we value on the cross and accepting Christ’s life in place of our own deeds and merits, then the only way we can live is by faith in the Son of God. Although living through faith in Jesus results in obedience—for Jesus Himself “became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:8, NIV)—obedience is not the means by which we become justified before God. Our record of goodness can never match that of Christ’s. His record was one of perfect obedience, and that is what we need in order to be justified. The only way we can receive that perfect record of obedience is by faith, laying hold of Christ’s promises to give us His perfect record of righteousness as a substitute for our broken, faulty record of misdeeds.
Consider This: In the face of such an incredible gift of goodness as we can never imagine, much less merit, why are we tempted to ignore our need for Jesus’ gifts and attempt to justify ourselves based on our own good deeds? What are the results of such attempts? What scriptural examples inform us about the consequences of trying to gain God’s favor by following our own ideas of what is right?
STEP 3—Apply
Just for Teachers: Use this role play as a means of helping your class picture themselves as crucifying self and choosing to live by faith in Christ.
Role Play: Give a volunteer from the class two large nails to hold, as if they were on the cross. Pose this situation: someone in your church family, whom you have been trying to help, disparages you to another church member. You have determined to be crucified with Christ and live only His life. What will you do?
Ask for several other volunteers to carry the nails and pose these and other situations to them: (1) you have a difficult time turning down food, even though you have had enough; (2) you are tired, and your children are getting on your nerves; (3) you are embarrassed to give the real reason for being late to an important meeting: you simply didn’t leave on time to make your appointment. It would be easier to mention traffic as an excuse.
STEP 4—Create
Just for Teachers: Suggest the following ideas to do during the week.
Create a list of the reasons for which the worshipers of Revelation praise Jesus for what He has done. Post this list where you can see it for a week.
Research a number of songs that bring joy to our redemption. Memorize them and sing them during private devotions and for others.
Fill a small basket with reminders of Christ’s gifts of redemption and place it where you can see it often.
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Key Texts: Galatians 2:20
The Student Will:
Learning Outline:
Know: Made Righteous in Christ
Feel: None of Me
Do: Living Christ’s Life
Summary: Faith makes it possible to come before God and accept His provisions, provided through Christ’s death, for our forgiveness and restoration to a righteous standing before Him. Through faith we may die to self and let Christ live His life in us.
Learning Cycle
STEP 1—Motivate
Key Concept for Spiritual Growth: Becoming justified in God’s sight comes only from having faith in Christ’s death in our behalf and by accepting His righteous record as our own.
Just for Teachers: Use this opening activity to help your class to identify with the theme of justification on an emotional as well as a spiritual level.
Opening Activity: Philip P. Bliss was a young missionary evangelist and songwriter who worked with Dwight Moody during his campaigns. Philip and his wife, Lucy, left their four-year-old child and one-year-old baby with friends and family and took a train to an engagement at the Moody tabernacle in December of 1876. As the train was crossing the Ashtabula River in Ohio, the trestle bridge collapsed, dropping the train into the icy river. Philip escaped, but he returned to the train for his wife, who was trapped in the fiery wreckage.
Neither Philip’s nor Lucy’s body was recovered, but Philip’s trunk survived. In the trunk was a manuscript for the lyrics to what became his best-known song, “I Will Sing of My Redeemer” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Bliss). Ask someone to sing this song for your class or sing it together. You can find it in The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, no. 343.
Consider This: Does it seem like a paradox to be so joyful about Christ’s death on a cruel cross? Why is it such a wonderful thing to contemplate the story of the cost that Jesus paid for our salvation? How might this song have been a source of comfort to the children whom Philip and Lucy left behind?
What songs in Revelation are raised on the same theme as hymn 343— the cost that Jesus paid for our salvation? (See Rev. 5:9–13, 7:9–17, 12:10–12.) List the reasons in these songs that made worshipers around the throne so eternally grateful.
STEP 2—Explore
Just for Teachers: Use this study to help your class examine the relationship between faith, obedience, and justification.
Bible Commentary
I. The Origins of Faith (Review Genesis 12:1–8 and 15:5, 6 with your class.)
The story of Abraham (formerly Abram) and his walk with God comes a short 12 chapters into the opening book of the Bible, although Abraham was born several hundred years after the Flood and some two thousand years after Adam. While others had relationships with God, Abraham is the first person to whom the author of Genesis devotes much time to in order to develop his story. In the course of Abraham’s lifetime, he has many firsthand experiences and conversations with God, and we are able to picture a developing relationship of faith in the man who has become known through the ages as an example of true faith.
We first learn about Abram when God asks him to leave his country and his father’s household and then gives him the promise of a blessing to make him the father of many nations. Eventually, we find out, as Abram did sometime later, that this promise won’t be fulfilled in his lifetime. When Abram notes that he is childless, God promises a family that will rival the stars in number. The Lord promises possession of a land of inheritance, and “Abram believed the Lord, and he [the Lord] credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6, NIV). Then God mentions that this land of promise in which Abram is wandering won’t be his or even his family’s for some four hundred years.
Abram has to wait until he is 100 before he has the son God promised—a miracle baby. It’s a far cry from the uncountable numbers God promised, but it’s a start. Finally, in a closing drama of Abraham’s life, he is asked to sacrifice that longed-for, long-awaited-for boy on a lonely mountaintop with only the angels and the universe as witnesses.
Abraham had demonstrated a checkerboard pattern of faith. Sometimes he showed faith; other times he took matters into his own hands. However, Abraham grew in faith. When he was asked to offer up his beloved son, he did not stop to reason or make excuses or question. “He knew that God is just and righteous in all His requirements, and he obeyed the command to the very letter.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 153. “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23). This act of faith shines like a great beacon of light, illuminating the pathway of faith for those of us, Abraham’s children, who also are learning how to walk in faith.
Consider This: What lessons in the long-term nature of the development of faith does the story of Abraham demonstrate? How do his failings help to encourage and admonish us when we are tempted to create our own answers to prayer?
II. Faith and Obedience (Review Galatians 2:15–21 with your class.)
Through faith, Abraham was strictly obedient to God’s request to offer up his son. He believed God, took Him at His word, and acted upon it. That belief and action (based on belief) were what was accounted to him as righteousness. “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did” (James 2:21, 22, NIV).
However, it isn’t by following the law that Abraham or anyone else is considered justified before God. Paul doesn’t have a problem with obedience to the law; faith in Jesus makes true obedience possible. Abraham, responding to God’s request to sacrifice his son, “strengthened his soul by dwelling upon the evidences of the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness.” —Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 151. He recalled the promise that from Isaac would come children as countless as the grains of sand on the shore and as the stars in the sky. Faith gave him strength to obey, and it was that faith that was counted to him for righteousness.
Consider This: How is faith strictly obedient, even in the face of great unknowns and tragedy? What other scriptural examples illustrate obedient faith despite obstacles and tragedy and what seemed to be a bleak future?
III. Faith and Obedience and Justification (Review Galatians 2:15–21 with your class.)
Paul makes it clear that it is not possible to be justified before God by observing the law. Christ Jesus, in His righteousness, justifies us—a righteousness that we claim by faith, a faith that results in obedience. When we have faith in Jesus, we hold nothing back from Him, even unto death. If we die to self daily, laying everything that we value on the cross and accepting Christ’s life in place of our own deeds and merits, then the only way we can live is by faith in the Son of God. Although living through faith in Jesus results in obedience—for Jesus Himself “became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:8, NIV)—obedience is not the means by which we become justified before God. Our record of goodness can never match that of Christ’s. His record was one of perfect obedience, and that is what we need in order to be justified. The only way we can receive that perfect record of obedience is by faith, laying hold of Christ’s promises to give us His perfect record of righteousness as a substitute for our broken, faulty record of misdeeds.
Consider This: In the face of such an incredible gift of goodness as we can never imagine, much less merit, why are we tempted to ignore our need for Jesus’ gifts and attempt to justify ourselves based on our own good deeds? What are the results of such attempts? What scriptural examples inform us about the consequences of trying to gain God’s favor by following our own ideas of what is right?
STEP 3—Apply
Just for Teachers: Use this role play as a means of helping your class picture themselves as crucifying self and choosing to live by faith in Christ.
Role Play: Give a volunteer from the class two large nails to hold, as if they were on the cross. Pose this situation: someone in your church family, whom you have been trying to help, disparages you to another church member. You have determined to be crucified with Christ and live only His life. What will you do?
Ask for several other volunteers to carry the nails and pose these and other situations to them: (1) you have a difficult time turning down food, even though you have had enough; (2) you are tired, and your children are getting on your nerves; (3) you are embarrassed to give the real reason for being late to an important meeting: you simply didn’t leave on time to make your appointment. It would be easier to mention traffic as an excuse.
STEP 4—Create
Just for Teachers: Suggest the following ideas to do during the week.