Should Christians be Moral- Original post by Paul Stewart

I just read my buddy Paul's post on Morality and Christianity... It is Good. Here is a re-post...

Morality is concerned with or adhering to the code of interpersonal behavior that is considered right or acceptable in a particular society. Basically morality is the attempt of humanity to justify itself before God and others.

But a Christian ethic is an ethic of the cross. It is an ethic about death – the end of striving to be moral and the beginning of righteousness.

Morality does not require death. We can be good, upright, moral people without the cross. But the problem is not that we are not good, it is that we are fallen and cast out of the presence of God.

In fact, Genesis 3 lists “striving for good” as a sign of our fallen state. Martin Luther said that the issue in ethics is not “the move from vice to virtue, it’s the move from both vice and virtue to righteousness.” Our problem is not that we are immoral, but that we are moral.

Being “good” does not repair our relationship with God and others. Christian ethics is an ethics of righteousness, and righteousness is fundamentally a relational category, not a moral category. Righteousness depends not on effort but on who we are related to.

Christian ethics begin with relationship, not keeping moral codes. Loving God and neighbor is Christian ethics. This is what God designed and created us to do. In the fall we lost our ability to be human – to do what we were created to do. Sin at its essence is separation – from God and others.

In being separate from God, we now know good and evil; in knowing good and evil we are compelled to make moral decisions in order to justify ourselves.

That is why the cross tells us that humanity must die. This is primarily and first the act of Jesus Christ, but it is important to view Christian ethics as a response to that act. To follow Christ, take up our cross, deny ourselves and to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to Him. Death with Christ is the way to life with Christ and apart from death there is no righteousness. 

The goal of Christianity is not to produce moral people. Following Christ is about relationship not about rules and regulations. It is not about adhering to lists or following certain formulas or simply trying to convince people to stop drinking, smoking or gambling.

Christianity is about helping people connect with the life-giving presence of God and to enter into that covenant relationship and beginning to live in ways that help to maintain that relationship.