MONDAY May 13th
1 Corinthians 1:30–31
‘And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”’
‘Because of him’, takes us back to verse 29, because of God, although we are saved because of what Jesus has done for us at Calvary, it all took place because of God—in the words of a well-known hymn—’God sent his Son, they called him Jesus’. In Galatians 4:6, Paul says ‘But when the fulness of time came, God sent forth his Son . . . to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons’. God sent, therefore because of him, you (we) are in Christ Jesus. I have mentioned a few times over the last four years while preparing the devotions something about these two words ‘in Christ’ and it would make a good study to consider who we are, and what we have received as we are found in Christ. Obviously for me, my favourite verse immediately comes to mind, in Christ we have become new creations. I wonder what comes to your mind.
But that is not where we are going today, but rather to see from these verses what Christ has become to each one of us. Paul lists four things—wisdom, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The result being that we of ourselves have absolutely nothing to boast about. It is all of Christ, all from Christ, we are found to be in Christ, not through any merit or effort of our own, but solely upon what Christ has done for us, therefore Paul concludes, ‘let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’.
I can imagine Paul as he is writing these words, thinking back over his spiritual journey, pre-conversion, he had reached great heights as a Jew, as a Pharisee, he probably even thought he was doing God a favour when he went about persecuting those who had begun to follow Jesus, until he had his life transforming conversion on the road to Damascus, then as he set out on this new journey, he began to realise that not a single one of his achievement counted toward who he had become in Christ. It was all from God and through Jesus. Therefore, he counted everything else as loss, or dung, worthless, he stood no longer under condemnation only by and because of the amazing grace of God through Christ Jesus.
And the same counts for each one of us, my father-in-law used to say, ‘It is all of grace and not of Chase’ (Chase being his surname), Now my surname doesn’t rhyme with grace, and it will be the same for most who will read this devotion, but each one of us must come to the place of recognising that it is nothing of us or from us but it is all because of his grace. I think of the words of the hymn, ‘Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling’.
I have also mentioned this before, but when I was a youngster, it was lethal for the leader of the service in the church I attended to ask for a choice of a hymn, for I wouldn’t hesitate to give out a number and it was nearly always the same hymn, (it was also the same if he asked for a choice of Chorus—that would have been ‘His name is the best name’) it would have been from the Redemption Hymnal, number 642, ‘Jesus Christ is made to me’ and the chorus of this hymn, well, it is based on our verses today, ‘Wisdom, righteousness and power, holiness for evermore; my redemption full and sure, He is all I need’