What defines the quality of the Christian life? Many who have spent time in religious circles might instinctively answer: victory, consistency, measurable growth, less sin, more prayer, more fruit. It often feels like a report card, constantly checking grades. This is the only “quality” most religious systems recognize—the quality of one’s performance, the quality of one’s condition.
But what if this entire framework is backwards? What if the quality of the Christian life has nothing to do with the quality of behavior, and everything to do with the quality of a Person who is not oneself?
This is the heart of Pauline truth. The believer’s quality of life is not defined by earthly condition but by heavenly position. It is not found in what one does for God, but in who God has made the believer to be in His Son. As Romans 5:1-2 declares, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This peace, this access, this standing—this is the foundation. Not a feeling to be mustered, but a judicial reality to stand upon. Justification is not a ticket to heaven filed away years ago; it is the present, permanent standing before God that makes every moment of life possible.
The Foundation That Religious Systems Ignore
Institutional religion often shrinks justification down to a mere fire insurance policy. The common teaching is, “That’s just for going to heaven. That’s positional. Now, for your real Christian life today, you need to work.” Notice the switch. Justification is made a fiction with no practical bearing, so the law is smuggled back in through the side door of sanctification and reward. Galatians is dismissed as irrelevant because one is “already justified,” missing the point entirely. For Paul, justification is the only way to stand before God today, tomorrow, and forever. It is the qualification for everything.
This misunderstanding breeds confusion. All confusion about law and grace, how the Christian life should be lived, and even among those who know they are justified by faith but fear they are not pleasing to God and must work to earn His favor and avoid punishment, comes from failing to see the primacy of Paul’s teaching. Many revert to law principles when considering daily living, remaining miserable and convinced God is angry at their performance. Their quality of life is defined by fear, not freedom.
Paul’s revelation changes everything. He shows that Christ is not only our righteousness for heaven but our everything for earth. “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Sanctification is not a process to undergo; it is a Person given to the believer. God is not interested in making a holy you apart from Christ. He is interested in Christ Himself being your holiness, your sanctification, displayed in you.
Your Life Is Hidden, Not Manufactured
This leads to the core of the new identity. “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). The true life—the life that defines the quality of existence—is located in the heavenly realms, united to Christ. It is hidden. It is secure. It cannot be touched by failures or enhanced by successes. This is positional truth: what is true in God’s eyes in Christ and is supposed to be the basis for framing the outlook on the Christian life.
Consider how Paul handled the moral disaster in Corinth. He did not question their salvation or threaten them with hell. Instead, he pointed beaten, failing sheep back to who they were. He appealed to positional truth: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The solution to sin was not a new list of rules but a new recognition of reality. The quality of life was to flow from knowing they were members of Christ, not from trying harder to be good.
Condition fluctuates. Perception fails. One can walk in oldness. But position? That is as solid as Christ’s throne. The purpose of all this—justification, union, everything—is to bring the believer into God and bring God into the believer in Christ. The quality of life is the quality of that union. It is fellowship with the Father and the Son, motivated purely by love, not managed by merit.
What This Looks Like on the Ground
What does a quality life rooted in this truth look like? It looks like rest instead of striving. It is ceasing from one’s own works because the real work was finished on the cross. It looks like peace amidst imperfections, because “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). God is not angry. His face is toward the believer in Christ.
It looks like joy independent of circumstances, because the inheritance is Christ Himself, and He cannot be taken away. It is confidence before God in every area of life, knowing one is complete in Him. Growth happens, but it is growth “in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10), a deepening understanding of the riches already possessed. It is learning to “reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11).
This stands in stark contrast to performance-based spirituality that beats believers into submission. There is no grading scale. No hierarchy of “better” Christians. No condemnation for imperfect performance. No demand to “walk victoriously” to prove faith is real. The pressure is off. The burden is gone.
The End of the Old Report Card
The quality of the believer’s life finds its definition not in the subjective rollercoaster of daily condition, but in the objective, finished reality of Christ’s work. Believers are not working toward a reward; they have been given The Reward, which is Christ. They are not laboring to become sanctified; they have been given The Sanctifier, who is Christ. Their life is “hid with Christ in God.” The quality is His quality. The acceptance is His acceptance. The future is His future.
Believers are free—free to enjoy their position as sons and heirs. Free from the mixture of law that tells them their quality depends on themselves. The truth has made them free indeed. The call is to stop measuring the quality of life by the broken ruler of personal performance. Instead, look up. Life is Christ. And that is more than enough.
