Today we are burying my dad. Burial for loved ones of the person who has died can be an incredibly difficult time. It’s so final, so sad, grim even. But today won’t be as hard for me as it could be. It has to do with one of my dad’s last coherent sentences before he passed away,
“Righteousness…… .is a gift . . …from God”
Dad managed to get those words out in a tone of voice that caught my attention. He mustered extra strength to say it. As I reflect on this moment, those words sum up so much of what dad lived for, and they make today much easier.
Whether it was in the halls or classrooms of L.I.F.E. Bible College during the 60’s, or from the pulpits of places like Hillsboro, Oregon’s Evergreen Christian Center in the 70’s, and Escondido Christian Center in the 80’s and 90’s, or in the classes of Escondido Bible College, or out on the golf course, or at the dinner table, or at Spires Restaurant, or in the car, or on the phone, or just hanging out with me on Wednesdays getting ready to eat our notorious bacon, tomato, lettuce, and peanut butter sandwiches, dad would talk about righteousness.
Not some stuffy, works-based righteousness, but righteousness that is imputed to us by God through Jesus Christ. Nor some loosey-goosey, anything-goes grace, but grace that imparts a new nature in us through the Holy Spirit. This is what dad lived for, died speaking about, and will today be buried with the hope it gives.
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)
Although my dad’s health has been failing for the last few years, he’s actually been dying for the last 65 years. He’d been dying to the flesh, the old man, to sin, and the old nature.
“We have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by…” (Romans 7:6)
This is not done through some kind asceticism or self-denial, but by faith. Faith is the only thing that vindicates our spiritual and moral failures. Paul said that we are “justified by faith apart from the law” (Romans 3:28). We are told that without faith we cannot please God (Hebrews 11:6). Yet the most profound and wonderful thing is found in a verse that my dad referenced all the time,
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
Dad’s determination to teach these things to me was not to prepare me to be emotionally strong for the day of his burial, though it certainly helps, but to prepare me for everyday. To help me understand that sin cannot be controlled in my life until I consider myself dead to it and alive in Christ. To realize, and to teach, that the most powerful truth in the world is the one he died saying, “righteous is a gift from God.” Thanks dad. See you soon.
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