How can we, as poor sinners, stand acquitted before a just and holy God? Who has met our Lord’s demand, when He insisted: “By holy, as I the LORD God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2)?
There are two ways sinful humans have tried to be right before God. One way fails to comprehend how sinful we truly are, that we can’t do anything to save ourselves. That’s not to say such a mindset doesn’t strive to please God. But in the end, the focus becomes a matter of degree on what “we do for God,” instead of trusting in “what God has done for us” in Jesus.
The second way? People redefine sin and twist God’s word to support their flawed view. Such a practice “lessens” the wrong; it “minimizes” sin. That’s their pathway to “make right” all wrong so God will accept them.
In the end, both ways of errant thinking are not biblical. They harm faith and endanger one to lose salvation. How thankful we remain that God the Holy Spirit has brought us to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as succinctly summarized by the apostle Paul when he declared: “So we also believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law” (Galatians 2:16).