Thoughts on blamelessness from evening service in 1 Thessalonians (10/8/2017):

Praise the Lord, I’m Blameless!

What this means, saints, is that at minimum, the concept of being blameless for the Christian is a matter of both justification and sanctification. It speaks, first, to what God made the believer when he accomplished their salvation. He justified them, which made them as to their relationship to the Mosaic Law, blameless. Listen to Romans 8:1-4, as Paul explained the theological realities behind this fact,

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Did you see Paul’s point. In reference to “the requirement of the Law,” it has been “fulfilled in us.” That is, as referencing the Law of Moses, we are blameless in that we are in Christ and Christ has fulfilled it perfectly. This fact, our blameless standing before God, Paul indicated was part of the believer’s gospel living in the world in Philippians 2:14-16,

Do all things without grumbling or disputing; that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may have cause to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

Justification leads naturally into sanctification. The reality of these two things, justification and sanctification, will ultimately end in glorification for the believer. A glorification in which, not surprisingly, this same blamelessness will be an eschatological fact,

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Thank God, we as Christians are blameless in our status, are reflecting more and more that blamelessness in our conduct, and will be perfected in blamelessness in our eschatological future.