What is ethics?....continued

Relationship

Christian ethics are first of all relational in that they are based on the relationship that Christians have with Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord. Many times people have tried to separate Jesus Christ and Christian ethics. In so doing they try to remove God from creation, Christ from the Christian, and the perfect from the imperfect.

The essence of Christian ethics is that for an individual to live a life that meets the standards of behaviour and conduct required by God is only possible because of what Jesus Christ has done for the individual at Calvary and the relationship that is gained by that act.

We do not attempt to live to the standards for behaviour and conduct as orphans but with God as our Father and we as his children.

John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

The relationship of God indwelling us by his Holy Spirit enables the individual to change and to grow more like the person who has met God's standards for mankind and that person is Jesus. This relationship enables each of us to live a better life. I am not saying that this relationship makes us perfect, for the truth is that we are imperfect, but it does mean that the Holy Spirit is perfecting us, that we might become more and more like Jesus.

1 John 3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
1 John 3:3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

The hope that we have allows the Holy Spirit to work within us to purify us, in other words to change us to be like Jesus, which is our hope.

It is important to note that this relationship was instigated by God and not by mankind and that it is this relationship with God that reveals God's standards to us and enables us to live by those standards.

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