It has recently been reported that Elon Musk could pass the trillion-dollar mark in personal wealth. In part due to an incentivized pay package from Tesla should the company meet some lofty milestones, and part due to SpaceX going public, which will increase the value of his shares in that company. That’s so much money that it is hard to comprehend. But still, it is not enough.
Sure, 1 trillion, even 1 billion, is more than anyone needs. They can buy anything they desire. Well, almost anything. The Bible says in Proverbs, “Wealth is not profitable on a day of wrath, but righteousness rescues from death.” (Proverbs 11:4, CSB) No amount of money can cheat death, delay it perhaps, but not avoid it. Neither can money buy anyone’s way into heaven. On the day of judgement, money will mean zip, zero, nada.
If wealth is worthless, then what is valuable? The proverb points to righteousness. You could define righteousness as doing the right thing at the right time with the right attitude and motive. We may pull that off every now and again, but no one, with the exception of Jesus, as every lived a truly 100% righteous life. The prophet Isaiah put it bluntly, “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.” (Isaiah 64:6, CSB)
Paul in Romans reminds us that “as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10–12, CSB) And, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23, CSB). It seems that we are in a pickle since neither having wealth nor being “good” person will mean anything on that final day or rescue us from death.
There is, of course, an answer that most of you already know. “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, CSB) Our righteousness is worthless, but Christ’s righteousness covers us. The proper term is imputed. His righteousness is imputed to us. It is His righteousness that rescues us.
Nothing we have, nothing that we do, none of our talents or abilities, not one drop of our personality, none of our sacrifices or alms giving makes us anything special in God’s estimation. Callings, positions, and titles mean even less. Sure, He knows all those things about us and cheers us on when we do well. But Paul put it best.“But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.” (Philippians 3:7–9, CSB)
May that be true for us all.
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