WE PASS ON to another phase of being in every way enriched in Him. The next passage in 1 Corinthians, emphasizing the result of being in Christ, says: “He [God] is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1:30). This passage adds a phase of our being enriched in Him and an important one. We are enriched culturally in Him.
Back of Greek culture lay the desire for wisdom, and back of the Jewish culture lay the desire for righteousness. Paul here said that in Christ we inherit both—He is “made our wisdom” and “our righteousness.” The Greeks had missed wisdom, for the wisdom had turned into pride, which destroyed itself. The philosophy of Greece philosophized and spun theories about everything while their civilization rested on slave labor. That slave labor destroyed their wise civilization. They were not wise enough to be just—to man as man.
The Jews wanted righteousness, but their righteousness became self-righteousness; the Pharisee was the end product. It destroyed itself because it became a legal righteousness, obeying laws, instead of a life righteousness, obeying principles.
Both of these failed, but in Christ these two things are fulfilled. In Him we become wise and we become righteous, for He is both, and both in a living blend. The wisest person in the world is the person who acts upon the principles and mind of Jesus. He is always wise in every situation. The most righteous person is the person who is righteous according to His righteousness—a righteousness of love to all.
O Father God, we thank Thee that in Jesus nothing is lost. In Him we gather up the fragments that remain—the fragments of many cultures. They are all ours in Him. What a heritage Thou dost give us. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption—all in Him and in me for I’m in Him.
