1:29
“So that none may boast before Him”. It is a fundamental truth that we owe our very existence to God. If He had not chosen to bring us into existence, then we would not exist. We are utterly dependent upon Him. Yet we rebel against this, we engage in a futile attempt to “prove” that we can live on our own. This is a fundamental lie and one we need to give up. Even if we come to Christ because of His mercy, our flesh will then try and find reason after reason why our salvation actually had something to do with us, something to do with some worthy aspect of our character. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we need to have all such notions stripped out of us. That is why God has chosen a way of salvation “so that no one may boast before Him”, one that denies us any possibility of having contributed.
1:30,31
“It is because of Him that you are in Christ”. It is not because of any wisdom of our own, it is not because of any position we may hold in society, it is not because of any wealth we may have. It is purely because of the goodness of God. Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. He is our righteousness, He is our holiness and He is our redemption. We are made right with God because of Christ, he is the one who makes us holy, and He is the one who has redeemed us from slavery. As he loves to do, Paul rounds things off with a quote from the Old Testament, Jer 9:24. We are to boast in Christ alone, for He is the only grounds we have for boasting.
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