Jesus isn’t aiming to make bad people good, but to make dead people live. We aren’t about morality, but about abundant life.
Of course, those who receive this abundant life from Christ will be good, but that’s not the point. In several of his letters, the Apostle Paul writes that we are supposed to “take off” evil deeds and “put on” a righteous character because of the new life we have from God. These are the result, however, not the cause. The cause is the new life we have in Christ. The upshot is that we are to be involved in helping others find this life as well.
John 10:9-11
9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Gal 2:20-21
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
2 Cor 5:17-21
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
