Posted on 03/01/2015 12:50:13 PM PST by RnMomof7
6 But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows:“ DO not say in your heart, ‘ Who will ascend into heaven? ’ (that is, to bring Christ down), 7 or ‘ Who will descend into the abyss? ’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” 8 But what does it say? “ The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. (Romans 10:6-10 NASB)
Easter is approaching as I write this. It’s still over a month away, but it seems like we are already in some sort of “Easter season.” Of all the markers we celebrate as Christians, Easter was the one I had the hardest time understanding when I was a small child. It seemed so wrapped up in chocolate bunnies and Easter baskets, Easter egg hunts, dressing up in new clothes for church, et cetera. My mother tried to help me see the Biblical connection with our Lord’s Resurrection, but I failed to make sense of it until I was older. I saw it as a teen and young adult, but did not really “get it” until God had mercy on me, a sinner, and resurrected me unto new life as a Christian.
Even so, when God took me through spiritual boot camp in 2004, I found through it that I had also made the mistake after my salvation of attempting to be pleasing to God via obedience by my own will power (law keeping). After all, the Christian culture I was part of back then was that salvation was some sort of reward for believing and that that believing was within ones own faith and was manifest via one opening the heart to Christ or believing the Gospel by “making up ones mind,” et cetera. It is no wonder that those in that form of Christianity struggle so with the true nature of Christ’s Resurrection and the true impact it has on believers. One of the key passages God opened up to me during that that He used to line me up with His Word, His Truth, the true purpose of the Gospel, and how it works was Ephesians 2:1-10. Here are vv 8-10.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB)
Here we clearly see that we are not saved as a reward for believing, but our faith, through which we do believe, is part of the gift of God. We know this because in v9 Paul makes it clear that this is “not a result of works.” If we could look at our salvation and say we have it because we believed then it would be works. On the other hand, if we look at the Gospel and understand that we believed because of God’s resurrection work in us, then we have the scriptural sense right. In v10, Paul tells us that, in this resurrection from spiritual death to spiritual life, we are God’s workmanship, not our own. Also, in that verse, we see that this is a resurrection created in Christ Jesus for good words, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. What is this?
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:1-4 NASB)
Our Lord’s death on the Cross atoned for our sins. He is/was our Propitiation. His death, burial and resurrection together is a picture of our salvation. When God saves us, we are new creations. Our old spiritually dead self dies and is resurrected unto newness of life. Paul tells us in these verses that our salvation is not license to walk according to the flesh. No, the fact that some Christian leaders and so many of their followers believe that is tragic. Paul isn’t comparing the Christian walk to law-keeping here. The key for us to understand this is to see the picture of our dying with Christ on that Cross, being buried with Him in that tomb, and being resurrected with Him on the 3rd Day. We see the magnitude of it. Our hearts become filled with gratitude expressed by a joyful surrender as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto Him. We devote our lives to being transformed by the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). Living sacrifices are those resurrected unto this new life in Christ to walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:5-11 NASB)
Our Lord’s death on the Cross was purposeful. He died because He took our sin upon Himself as our Propitiation before the Father. His resurrection makes clear that He has defeated both sin and death. What does it mean for the Christian to be dead to sin? It means that we have died to our pervasive love for and ruling power of sin. The reality of its power being broken in my life came during that spiritual boot camp I mentioned above. When these truths became part of my understanding of the Gospel and who I am in Christ, I saw very clearly that the mastery of sin had been broken in my life by God’s work of resurrection there. Since then, I am saddened when I see professing Christians so patterning their lives after the world and its ways. It does not bode well for the health of the Church when this is so prevalent.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12-14 NASB)
This is talking about our sanctification is primarily accomplished as God takes us through His cleansing regimen that includes the Mortification of Sin. We go through tests and trials. We learn to walk in repentance in the power of God. We never forget that we are in Christ by God’s grace, not by our works. He has saved us unto these good works, but they are for His glory and our sanctification. I love v13. This is dying to the desires of the flesh and, instead, seeking God for His glory. He will edify us if we do this as we present ourselves to God as instruments of righteousness.
These promises for the believer in no way promise perfection in this life. They do not remove the fact that we live in mortal bodies that age, get sick, and die. My dad was a good man, but, in God’s timing, he aged, got sick, and died. He was not under the dominion of death spiritually. In God’s timing his body will be resurrected as mine will. I so look forward to that and I can with confidence because both of us are in Christ by faith through God’s grace.
Soli Deo Gloria!
soli deo gloria ping
I don’t know about that, I know an awful lot of “sinning Christians”. And then ... there is the Bible, which tells me that if I say I don’t sin, then I’m a liar.
I’ll go with “Christians sin every day!”
Sanctification is a life-long process and is not ever finished. We don’t achieve “Glorification” until we’re on the other side of death, from this present life.
There are three parts to Salvation ... Justification, Sanctification and Glorification.
All Christians has passed “Justification” and we’re in the middle of Sanctification, and we’ve yet to get to Glorification.
A concept the carnal mind will never understand.
**Mike Ratliff **
Mere men’s words?
“No one but God can overcome the devil; no man can boast of being able of himself to drive out either sin or the devil...Just as little as a house or court may withstand or contend against the tyrant who is its master, can man’s free will and natural powers oppose sin and Satan, that is, not at all. And as that house must be conquered by a stronger man and thus wrested from the tyrant, so must man also be ransomed through Christ and wrested from Satan.” - Martin Luther
Good work again.
bump
I once lived in that same culture. Thank you for posting this.
Many fail to consider the last half of The Lord’s Prayer:
“...and forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Does the author suspect those needing the benefit of the Lord’s Prayer are not genuine Christians?
In tribute to courageous Christians around the world and The God they serve. Please watch this short video of the Egyptian martyrs and The Cross to the music of the Newsboys, “We Believe.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAE8rMA66NI&authuser=0
**Mere men’s words?**
Call her out on it, it’s only right to do so.
As the writer attempts to prove again, you too can skip the commissions of the Lord (Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:16; Luke 24:47; and John 20:23), and the command of his messenger, Peter (Acts 2:38), go straight to Romans (a book addressed to people that have been born again), and tell souls that they have been born again without obedience.
Blind leaders like that writer also point to God justifying Abraham without works, failing to point out that leaving Haran was not Abraham’s idea, nor was making an altar for sacrifice at Bethel. When God made that declaration of faith (Gen. 15:6), Abraham had been following the Lord’s orders for almost ten years after leaving Haran.
The Calvinists (and those like-minded) need to take Gen. 15:6, and move it in between Gen. 12:3, and 12:4. And while they are doing a reprint, they might as well remove the detailed conversion accounts in the book of Acts as well. Especially 16:32-34. (if they are offended, know that when I believed the way they do, I too was offended by the Truth).
Notice how this blind leader of the blind stops short of Romans 6:16,17 “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being THEN made FREE from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”
The constant quoting of verses from Romans 10, without context exposes a blind leader as well.
The chapter starts with “Brethern”, and proceeds to let them know that the Jews and Gentiles can both be saved, that God is no respecter of persons.
See the context...Paul is addressing the brethern, when he says, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
People (like this writer probably has), will readily quote Romans 10:13, and not continue, using that verse as a complete instruction on salvation (when the next verses point out that the message must come from preachers sent from God).
That way of teaching is like quoting John 3:16, and ignoring the verses that define ‘believing’ leading up to it. The original preachers of salvation in Jesus Christ are his own hand picked apostles. And to see what they preached, one goes to Acts. They have to hear the gospel from a preacher sent from God, before they can know HOW to believe on the Lord
The people Paul’s addressing in Romans believed that baptism in the name of Jesus was for the remission of sins.
I find it amazing that the writer will quote the following, and not teach that the baptism spoken of in that passage is literally talking about the same baptism found in Acts 2:38:
**1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:1-4 NASB)**
The writer quotes Ephesians, where Paul opens the letter saluting those saints. Paul rebaptized 12 souls there in the name of Jesus, after which they received the gift of the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance (the ‘sound’, whose origin is not known, that the Lord said would be heard when one is born of the Spirit).
All this skipping of the Lord’s commissions, and the testimonies in Acts to preach salvation is like a pilot leading a load of passengers into a jet liner, to take them on a trip, when the plane just so happens to be waiting on new engines.
“Choose this day whom ye shall serve”.
**..that salvation was some sort of reward for believing..**
Mark 16:16 “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”.
The Lord is not playing around. We must believe HIS way.
“All Christians have passed “Justification”...”
Yet that is exactly where people who refuse to enter God’s rest—by BELIEVING IN THE ONE HE SENT—stall out. They never can KNOW they are justified because they insist on adding to the finished work of the Son.
Or, they come to Him in innocent need and by “little faith” are SAVED and are then set upon by the Judaizers and twice-the-sons-of-Hell crowd and are beaten down like a red-headed step child. They’re sheep who are treated like goats.
Such believers need strong grace and encouragement to “strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees” and STAND by FAITH in what has already been DONE BY CHRIST! The free gift of God will lift any sinner’s heart. That’s why Satan absolutely aims his fiery darts at our security in Christ, always trying to plant a seed of doubt about HIS FAITHFULNESS and HIS STEADFAST LOVE (see Psalm 107 if you think this goodness of God is only for “good” people...then HEED the last verse).
Can’t touch us, though. We have an Advocate who, by “the power of an indestructible life”, ever lives to intercede for us. Buck up, li’l ponies! If God be for us, who can be against us?
That being said Christ suffered for Our sin, He was punished for them, even the ones we have not yet committed so that we would not have to pay for them. That payment however was and is conditional, the condition, we must follow Him. His commandment is that we be perfect even as His Father in Heaven is perfect. We cannot be perfect so we have to rely on Grace. Grace is only effective if we want it to be, we must ask for it. We ask for the gift of grace by begging forgiveness for our sin.
We hopefully learn from our sin and don't continue a particular sin, we get over it as we come closer and closer to Christ and His teachings, BUT, the idea is to live His teachings. If we do not live His teachings or at least truly strive to live His teachings then we are not His and His Grace has no affect on us, we are dead to Him.
Wake up, nothing is free. We pay for grace with a contrite heart, with understanding of the horror of our sin. If we gloss over sin saying it isn't a big deal then we gloss over the suffering that Christ gave us in Gesthenemy and on The Cross. That suffering is a result of our sin, we should feel sorrow and horror at what it caused the Savior, if we don't we don't understand and don't truly follow Him. At least in my opinion.
I have no idea what you think I meant. However, I can say with certainty that salvation isn’t a reward for our belief and good behavior. That’s most definitely not “HIS way.”
Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9), it’s by grace through the means of faith in Christ alone. (Eph 2:8-9) Salvation is, from beginning to end, all of grace, it’s the gift of God. Salvation is God having mercy and compassion, not a reward for our good works. (Titus 3:4-7) He’s the author of our faith and the finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Salvation isn’t a matter of human will or exertion (Romans 9:16). Dead men don’t chose to be saved because they aren’t seeking God (Romans 3). God choses whom He will save (Romans 9:15). Actually, He chose them in eternity past (Ephesians 1:3-12).
**I can say with certainty that salvation isn’t a reward for our belief and good behavior.**
We certainly don’t earn salvation, but to ignore his commands for conversion, especially in his commissions(Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:16; Luke 24:47; and John 20:23), and those being instituted for the first time in Acts 2:38, falls into the danger zone of unbelief, imo.
**it’s by grace through the means of faith in Christ alone.**
That’s correct, as long as one is including the Lord’s will (his words) as ‘faith in Christ alone’.
For to resist his commissions, that teach conversion, is resisting his will. If one believes in predestination, then one believes that there are indeed those that do not regard his commands for conversion by pre-ordained plan.
I am glad that he chose me to be born again, as per his will, if that be the case.
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