What the Law cannot do

"For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." (Rom. 8:3).

There's a huge distaste in mankind for righteousness. What is the best definition of righteousness? Self-sacrificing love. Not just any kind of love. Not just any kind of self-sacrifice. But both--always and forever.

Self-sacrificing love might look proper. 

It might look ethical. It might look moral and upstanding. Self-sacrificing love might seem right, as in "the right thing to do". Yet we won't feel like doing it. Nothing like self-sacrificing love opens the private chambers of the soul to the public. The human, either religious/moral or irreligious/amoral, we don't like the scrutiny by strangers. Being humiliated, shamed, guilted, made suspect, these are less objectional to the unregenerate soul, but still impossible to swallow.

Here's the difficulty: Righteousness might look lovely, but it's not loving. This is a tricky distinction, but a real one.

Righteousness must come after love have laid a claim on the heart(s). Righteousness must, for our sakes, come in the form of a deliverer, a rescuer. He must show weak, corrupted sinners His beneficence in their behalf. Thus he gains their confidence, casts down their prejudices, and then offers them righteousness.

Righteousness must come in the form of a deliverer, a rescuer from lingering catastrophes and/or sooncertain disaster. He shows weak, corrupted sinners His beneficence in their behalf, gains their confidence, casts down their prejudices, and then offers them righteousness.

Now the sinners have a new attitude towards the professed friend. The unknown agenda of the benefactor is known, and it's a good agenda. It benefits the sinners for good, the new acceptance of goodness being the result of the beneficence proffered them.

The human race needs to see love. It needs to touch the hand that initiated the contact. In that contact life flows. How great a fire a little touch kindleth!

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." (1John 1:1-3).