Last Word: faultless!?

‘Faultless’ is a rare accolade. This summer I’ve only read the word on a handful of occasions.

Stormzy’s rap set at Glastonbury was faultless, according to one British journalist. (No, I wasn’t there for my summer holiday.) Fiona Duncan of The Daily Telegraph describes summer service at The Ritz as faultless. (No, unfortunately, I wasn’t there either.) And faultless defines Australian captain Steve Smith’s batting display against England in the first Ashes Test. (Thankfully, I wasn’t there either.)

Even in an era where superlatives are used superfluously, the word ‘faultless’ is rightly reserved for near perfection. We may see fleeting signs of perfection in a musician’s summer concert or in a sportsman’s once-in-a-lifetime redemption performance. But, we are not meant to see perfection each and every day. We shouldn’t become calloused to the wonder of something being truly faultless.

The benediction of Jude

At the end of the letter of Jude, the brother of James uses that word. And he does so not to describe a prodigy’s brief moment in the sun, but rather to describe the eternal position of ordinary Christians before their creator:

Now to him who is able to keep you from

stumbling and to present you FAULTLESS before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

For here, in these two verses, the believer discovers that not only will they ‘not fall’, but that they will stand faultless. This is remarkable for at least two reasons.

Failures are faultless

Firstly, it is remarkable that imperfect people, like you and me, should be declared faultless. We have many faults. We fail frequently. We not only wrestle with deficient personality traits. We fail in our actions. We fail in our conversations. We fail in our thought life.

I see my own failure with every passing summer. Sometimes I’d rather lazily watch Glastonbury on TV than attend the school recorder concert. (They’ll never be a Stormzy!) Sometimes I’d rather proudly penny-pinch than enjoy a five star holiday. Sometimes I’d rather selfishly read a book than teach my six-year-old to bowl a cricket ball. (He’ll never get an Australian batsman out). I am so far from faultless. We are so far from faultless.

Yet, if we are Christians, over the holidays we are also given time out to meditate on Jude 24-25. We get to remember how we stand before God – without fault. With no faults at all. Faultless!

King David, in the Old Testament, famously described such a state as being ‘washed whiter than snow’. This reality, subsequently found in the New Testament, comes through Jesus alone. In Christ we stand completely faultless, which is amazing considering who we were (before we were Christians) and who we still are now (Christians who continue to struggle with sin in every season).

Faultless before the Father

However, the second reason faultlessness is astounding comes when we consider the one who looks at us. For where will we be when we are declared faultless? Jude says we will be in the glorious presence of God. In the presence of the Holy God – the very one who is most able to see our imperfections. This is where Christians will be declared faultless.

In saying that God will see us as faultless Jude is not implying that God is not very good at spotting faults. It’s not like a messy child tricking his nearly-blind Grandma into thinking his hands have been washed. Nor is Jude saying God doesn’t care about our faults. (Did you ever ask Dad if you needed to wash your hands instead of Mum?) No, the book of Jude is all about the fact that one day all sin will be drawn into the summer rays of God’s glory and that sin will not go unpunished.

Yet on that brilliant day Christians will be presented faultless to a God who sees our many faults better than us, and yet who has punished sin completely. We are faultless before the Father because of the Son.