In this installment of our series from his book, Why Grace Changes Everything, Pastor Chuck Smith describes how Satan uses our wrong belief—that our righteousness comes through our own works—against us. When we fail, Satan’s accusations against us can lead us to Christ as we recognize that our only hope is in the cross of Jesus.  

The Door is Open

I never need to fear and say, “Oh, I dare not go to God, because I just told a lie. I just lost my temper. I just deceived that person. Oh, I have no right to ask God to help me now because I failed in that task.” If my righteousness comes by my works, then Satan can bar the door to God practically all the time, because I am never doing as much as I feel I should. I am never as good as I know I ought to be. I haven’t achieved my superego. I haven’t lived up to my own standards of what I feel is right.

Because I have failed to achieve those ideal standards, Satan will use my failure to keep me from coming to God. “You have no right to ask God to help you when you have just failed Him again. You know your action is displeasing to God, yet you did it anyhow. Now you’re in trouble and now you want God to help you. You think He is going to listen to you? No way!”

Satan can always bar the door to God if he can cause me to look within myself and at myself. But if I am looking to Jesus Christ and I realize that I am accounted righteous because of my faith in Christ, Satan can never bar the door.

Oh, he still comes to me and says, “Chuck, you are a rotten wretch. You have no right to stand up in front of people and proclaim the glorious good news of Jesus Christ. You have no right to stand up there and teach the Word of God. You have failed in this area and you have failed in that area. You are a mess!”

I always start to smile when this happens, because I’m sure I have gotten by with a few things—I know there are a few things he hasn’t even brought up! I say to him, “Satan, you don’t scare me with your accusations; you are not going to cause me to run off and hide someplace. In fact, I know that what you say is true. I know that I have failed. I know that I have a weakness. But you don’t drive me from Jesus Christ; you are driving me to Him, because my only hope is the cross of Jesus Christ!”

And so I flee to the only place where I am safe, the only place where I have any hope at all. Surely I have no hope in my own self and in my own righteousness. But I have great hope in the work that Jesus Christ did for me by the power of His Holy Spirit as He is conforming me into the image of Christ.

Those things that I cannot do for myself, He is doing for me. Those areas where I was so weak, He has made me strong. I have recognized my weakness and I have cast myself hopelessly upon Him. In those areas where I was once weak and constantly stumbling, now I stand strong because His strength has been made perfect in my weakness (see 2 Corinthians 12:9).

Certainly, I am not yet all that God wants me to be. Far from it! But thank God, I am not what I was. Even in my present state of imperfection, God looks upon me and accounts me righteous and holy. That is why I never want to be caught anywhere except in Christ Jesus. We must never see ourselves apart from Him.

No Degrees of Righteousness

If God has imputed the righteousness of Christ to us because we have believed, then it is folly for us to try to improve on that righteousness by doing works. We can’t improve on God’s righteousness. There is no way we can improve on the right standing that He has imputed to us. We are righteous. That is God’s accounting of our life because we believe and trust in the work of Jesus Christ.

No one in heaven will be boasting about how righteous they made themselves. We will not have to listen to Abraham or David or Paul go on and on about all the wonderful things they did to achieve a righteous standing before God. These men simply believed God, and their faith was accounted to them for righteousness.

None of us will stand in heaven comparing good works with one another because there will only be one who will receive glory before the throne of God. There will only be one shining star. There won’t be some kind of spiritual caste system where some will bask in the glory of their works while others of us will stand in the corner wondering how we made it there at all. Jesus and Jesus alone will receive the glory for our salvation. If it were not for Him, none of us would be there.

As Paul put it, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14). No matter how many good deeds we’ve done for Him, no matter how many people we lead to Him or how many churches we establish for Him, our only glory is in Jesus Christ, who died for us. Our righteousness is not a question of good works, human efforts, or in keeping certain rituals or dietary laws. Our righteousness—both here and now and for all eternity—is a result of our simple faith in God’s Son, Jesus.

Righteousness by faith removes all distinctions between those who belong to Christ. I am no better than you, or you than me. We are all sinners, saved only by God’s glorious grace. There is no other way to right standing before God. There is only one kind of righteousness that God will accept, and that is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

If I am seeking to relate to God on the basis of my own righteousness or my own words, or if I expect to be blessed because I have been on good behavior this week or I have read so many chapters or prayed so much, then my relationship with God is always going to be tenuous. Sometimes I will feel that my relationship with God is good and at other times I will feel that it is bad. Why? Because I am trying to relate to Him on the basis of my righteousness.

Without grace, my relationship with God is never an established reality and it is impossible to enjoy peace. If my relationship with God were dependent on how I felt or how I was living or on my own righteousness, I would not be able to relate to God most of the time.

When my relationship with God is predicated upon God’s grace toward me, however, the door of blessing is never closed. God’s blessings are bestowed on the basis of His grace, His unmerited favor. I never deserve or earn a blessing. The blessings that come into my life are always predicated upon God’s unmerited favor to me. God loves me so much, He blesses me anyway. God is so good! The truest praise is that which rises spontaneously from our hearts as we recognize God’s marvelous grace toward us.

In the next installment, Pastor Chuck examines the difficulty of removing the deeply ingrained notion that our righteousness is caused by our own works—often leading to a struggle with guilt feelings.

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