But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

The acronym RSS in internet lingo means “Really Simple Syndication,” and it allows people a standardized way of accessing content for blogs and news feeds. It allows summaries of content from multiple sources into one feed. Christ, to use this as an analogy, is God’s RSS feed to convey His wisdom in summary form. God’s actions toward us can be summarized as Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption. And it is all “His doing,” nothing we have done. Nothing could be simpler. It was all about what Christ became (past tense), not what we promise to become (uncertain future tense). And the result is that no one can legitimately boast about any of these things.

We do not gain our own wisdom. Rather, we have all sided with Adam and Eve, who ignored God, seeking the fruit of the tree that “was desirable to make one wise…” (Gen. 3:6). They discovered that, “[p]rofessing to be wise, they became fools…” (Rom. 1:22). We have all inherited that proclivity to pursue wisdom apart from God. We all must hear the chastisement God had for Job: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! (Job 38:2–3). We dare not boast that our wisdom gains us a standing with God!

We do not merit our own righteousness. “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment …. (Isa. 64:6). Our only, I repeat, only recourse is to “be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…” (Phil. 3:9).

We do not evolve our own sanctification. Too often Christians believe that although we are justified by faith, our sanctification comes through human effort. One might be tempted to rebuke the Corinthians for not trying harder. But our progress toward holiness, exactly like our gaining righteousness, is something God does. Does not the Bible teach this clearly? “[A]s you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6), for “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

We do not, therefore, earn our own redemption. How then can the Corinthians, or we today, divide into groups thinking we are better than other groups?

Lord, may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. (Gal. 6:14).