You know how giving earnest money works when it comes to making a purchase today. When a person gives earnest money in connection with a purchase, that person is guaranteeing, through that which is given in advance their intention of following through on that which they have promised.
Well, according to the apostle Paul, the indwelling of God’s power from on high is both God’s seal and his deposited pledge that all believers are forever his and are destined to inherit eternal life. The security all believers have in that the indwelling of God’s power from on high guarantees that those who have believed Paul’s good news can never be lost, they belong to God.
The word “sealed” means sealed for preservation. The seal is the safeguarding device, the securing device, used to preserve the contents. God’s power from on high is the seal that God uses to secure all who believe in this dispensation of grace.
The word “earnest” means a pledge in the sense that an advance deposit has been made as the security guaranteeing the fulfillment of that which has been promised to those who have been sealed. We were not sealed on the basis of our behavior, but upon the basis of (and at the point of) our belief, that is a seal we can fully depend upon.
Understand that repentance in the earthly kingdom program was not about turning away from their sins and not sinning anymore. Repentance was about changing one’s mind when it came to earning a righteous standing with God through their performance.
God wanted them to change their minds about how faithful they had been and how faithful they could hope to be, when it came to meriting his acceptance through adherence to the law contract. We can see how how mixing the two programs along with improperly interpreting the Scripture for that program, can lead to misguided thinking when it comes to the issue of eternal security.
The fact that mankind is unable to do anything to alter their sinful condition, human reasoning would say, “Give us something that we can do. Give us some way to perform. Give us a few balls of our own to hit, so that we might earn back what we lost through Adam.”
God’s reasoning said, “Impossible!” The Law that God gave to Israel was a measure of what mankind would have to perform to be accepted by God. God did not give Israel a law they could keep. God gave Israel a law impossible for those with a sin-nature to obey perfectly, in order to teach them their need of a Savior.
Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. If they do not want to undergo the penalty of death as the law demands, they had better obey the law. They are out there trying and sometimes with much sincerity to obey in order to gain the victory.
Well, that is not how it is done according to the apostle Paul anymore, it is about what has already been done for them, and why continue to wallow in the mud from which they have been rescued. Paul takes us away from chastisement and judgment and he leads us toward the reality of our position.
You see, the victory belongs to us right now. It’s always belonged to us. It’s something we have always had. It is not something we have to strive for, something we gain through our performance through time. Paul wants us to know that our position in Christ means that we are already victorious!
Nothing in the law can stake its claim on us, the believer ever again. Being joined to the perfectly righteous Savior means that the law can never again point to our lack of righteousness. Victory over the law, victory over sin and victory over death are ours to enjoy right this very moment.
We cannot become more victorious than that through anything we do, we cannot add to that. There is no greater victory over sin that can be gained by mankind than the victory already achieved by Jesus Christ.
For those who have a knowledge of sin, death is particularly painful. What is it that gives sin its power to generate this heightened fear in those who understand their lack of righteousness before God? The Law!
In fact, the law is the exact measure of the righteousness required by God through performance in order to gain righteousness through performance. It is the law that proves people’s unrighteous condition. When the law is held up against the best that any person can do, the law proves all people are lacking the righteousness necessary to dwell with God.
Paul moves those who are believers away from condition and takes us to position. It is the law that gives death the power to bring heightened pain to those who understand their sinful condition. God designed the law to make sin show its hand, to make sin abound, so that people could look at that picture of the law and look at themselves and could see that their sin was exceedingly sinful.
The truth is, the law brought forth sin, it incites the pride-nature to rebellion. Performance of the flesh must be removed from the picture when it comes to the righteousness necessary for a relationship with God. It is a person’s knowledge of their sinful condition, that makes death such a fearful event for the non-believer.
A person must trust that their sin issue was resolved in its entirely in order for God’s power from on high to baptize (identify) that person into Christ with the righteousness that belongs only to the Savior. There can be no further payment for sin as that payment was made by Jesus Christ and it was made once for all, the sin issue became a son issue.
To be justified means to receive that gift that came to all mankind, the gift declaration of the very righteousness of God, no one can receive that unless that person is placed into Christ. Being placed into Christ, joined to Christ is the method whereby God justices a person, or righteousifies a person. The issue at the Great White Throne Judgment will be those standing there in their own righteousness.
Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? There are two reasons given in response in the hallways of religion, judgment and chastisement. Those are the traditional answers as to why Christians should not think they should continue to sin.
Yet, Paul gives two entirely different reasons to that very same question, identity and slavery, Paul does not side with religion. If we continue to yield the members of our body to serve the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we can fall into a snare in that we become addicted to the manner in which we satisfy those lusts.
We are going to become enslaved to that which we choose to put ourselves in servitude. Choose to serve sin, and we can soon become addicted to the manner in which we have chosen to serve sin, is the principle. Paul is not talking about a believer losing salvation, he is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts, we reap what we sow, not from God, but through that to which we are reaping.
The sin nature within us loves sin. There is something attractive about sin to mankind, something that is pleasin’ for a season when it comes to that issue of sin, something that appeals to the flesh.
Does God want us to set ourselves apart unto righteous behavior in order that he might have cause to consider us to be righteous? A quest for righteousness before God through performance is the wrong motivation for doing the things that Paul calls on every believer to do and for abstaining from the particular behavior Paul would have us avoid.
We all miss the mark, we all come short, some of us may come closer to it than others, but none of us completely and consistently eliminate sin in our lives. Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. We that believed Paul’s good news, our being set apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart.
Is Paul telling us to turn from our wicked ways, and get back to the law, or to promise God that we will do our very best to turn from our wicked ways, or that we must be willing at least, in our minds to turn from our wicked ways in order to get God to make the decision to save, we have not hear that from our apostle.
If a person hears Paul’s good news, and that person refuses to believe Paul’s message, choosing instead to believe that their works can add something, that their works can do something to do with getting them save, or keeping them saved, that person does indeed need to change their thinking, they need to repent.
All who are believing the messages presented by the ministers of righteousness today, they need to change their thinking and accept Paul’s message as being the truth in order to receive justification unto eternal life by being placed into Jesus Christ, so repentance, or a change of thinking is necessary in that sense, even in this age of grace.
Many of the people preaching Paul’s words and proclaiming them to be true, are doing so without fully understanding what Paul has just said, they say the words much like they would say the words of the gospel - for Christ died for our sins - without really fully understanding or ever coming to comprehend what happened to the sins Christ died for.
Paul’s message is unique and distinct from the message of Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles, there is difference in God’s earthly program and God’s heavenly program, what traditions of people must be left behind if we take the doctrine of Paul seriously?
The mindset of the religious of Paul’s day and the religious of ours, the pride nature is the root cause of that rejection, pride insists upon attributing success to self, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, it is a fearful thing to think they may have been wrong all along.
Paul was continually fighting against a mixed message (Galatianism), same false religious systems are operation and being promoted in our day.
The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against the enemy, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that the enemies blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ. Two dangerous edges of the enemies broadsword are discouragement and doubt.
With the helmet of salvation firmly on, we see ourselves for who we really are, and when our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for the enemy to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Our enemies are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas.
They are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt, and worry in our direction, but the only time they can his us is when we let our shield of faith down. A shield deflects, it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack.
Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns.
It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusation of the enemy, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another.
Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what we have or do not have, what we have done or have not done, we are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who we are in Christ. The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace because every believer is without blame before him in love.
If we fail to understand that we are blameless and what being blameless is all about; God sees us in Christ and Christ was blameless. To be positionally in Christ makes a person a saint, because we have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to our account.
It is difficult for the human mind to lay hold of the magnitude of what the grace of God is all about and what that grace has accomplished on behalf of every signal person who has trusted what Christ accomplished.
For a person to have to make his own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. To say that any person could make their own peace with God would be to limit God to his mercy.
Every miss deed, every miss step, if we are making our own peace with God, every failure no matter how large or small to our way of thinking would require a new act of mercy on the part of God. Mercy simply withholds that which is due, mercy simply withholds that which we deserve.
Grace on the other hand, bestows freely that which we could never earn and could never deserve. We need to cease attributing our righteous standing before God to our performance and keep our mind focused solely on how God views us IN Christ, that is what grace-life is all about, and we will be victorious in that God’s power can now produce it’s fruit in our life.
There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished. What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. God has a purpose for those who believe, he predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son.
Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? There are two reasons given in response in the hallways of religion, judgment and chastisement. Those are the traditional answers as to why Christians should not think they should continue to sin.
Yet, Paul gives two entirely different reasons to that very same question, identity and slavery, Paul does not side with religion. If we continue to yield the members of our body to serve the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we can fall into a snare in that we become addicted to the manner in which we satisfy those lusts.
We are going to become enslaved to that which we choose to put ourselves in servitude. Choose to serve sin, and we can soon become addicted to the manner in which we have chosen to serve sin, is the principle. Paul is not talking about a believer losing salvation, he is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts, we reap what we sow, not from God, but through that to which we are reaping.
The sin nature within us loves sin. There is something attractive about sin to mankind, something that is pleasin’ for a season when it comes to that issue of sin, something that appeals to the flesh.
Does God want us to set ourselves apart unto righteous behavior in order that he might have cause to consider us to be righteous? A quest for righteousness before God through performance is the wrong motivation for doing the things that Paul calls on every believer to do and for abstaining from the particular behavior Paul would have us avoid.
We all miss the mark, we all come short, some of us may come closer to it than others, but none of us completely and consistently eliminate sin in our lives. Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. We that believed Paul’s good news, our being set apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart.
The fact that every believer is set apart by God as being holy at that point of that person’s belief, God is the one who is performing the setting apart, God accomplishes this sanctification by joining all who believe to his son.
Paul even tells the carnal saints at Corinth that the reason these detestable deeds (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) had not and could not result in a lost of their salvation or their fellowship with God for that matter, is because as carnal as these Corinthians happen to be, they had a holy standing with God through their union with his son.
Paul is not bringing this list to their attention in order to frighten them, he wants to remind them that God no longer sees them in that light, he’s bringing to their attention the fact that God is now, no longer viewing them apart from righteousness that belongs to his son.
The gift decree of righteousness belonging to the son had been totally and permanently credited to the account of these carnal believers, to their account in heaven at the point of their belief.
The law pointed to sin, and then required death for the sinner, can the law now stake a further claim against the one who has already satisfied that claim, will the law ever again have a future claim where Jesus Christ is concerned, he satisfied that claim once and for all.
We are joined to Jesus Christ, fully identified with his satisfying the law’s claim, it only stands to reason that once a person is joined to the one who has satisfied the law’s requirement for sins, and is now standing only in Christ’s perfect righteousness, that believer’s sinfulness can never be used as proof of that believer’s lack of righteousness.
Paul moves us away from the realm of condition, and he takes us straight into the realm of position, the law can make no demand on the world of the lawlessness, because Christ met the law’s demands for the world of sinners for which he died. Today, the law can only serve the purpose of proving people’s need for a righteousness that no person is capable of gaining through performance.
Thanks for separating your text into readable parcels. I find myself really enjoying much of what you've put here. I'm so glad you read what we wrote and realized the merit of our suggestions. I'm not only reading them, but finding some of them thought provoking. I've just now gotten back to this board, otherwise you would have heard from me sooner.
No one needs to be told how to live the Christian life, it’s not about trying to change something, it’s trying to understand something, and then work with that understanding. Paul calls it a labor of love, the members of the Body of Christ are to be the supporting cast of the Body of Christ.
There are times when the physical presence of another believer is helpful to a suffering saint, there are times when it is not. There are times when holding the hand of a suffering saint is welcomed, there are times when it is not.
Just being there in times of distress can be comforting to a suffering saint who is seeking that type of support, some saints would rather have solitude. Sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not living under the law program, we are living under grace, the victory has already been won, because Christ won it, sin shall not have dominion over us, because believers are not under the law, but under grace.
The Body of Christ is not about program, but about judicial position. The hope for both programs is the same, and that hope is a new body and resurrection from the among the dead unto eternal life, that hope is true for both programs.
The saints of both programs are promised that hope, but the residential destinations promised the believers of the two programs are entirely different, the earthly calling and the heavenly calling refer to the program to which believers have been called in their destinations.
The earth was the only realm of which God’s earthly nation Israel had been given inheritance, Heaven was not the issue for the nation Israel, they were never promised Heaven. Since there was resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead, the entire human race can be assured they will be resurrected as well, both believers and non-believers of both programs will be resurrected from the dead, but the unbelievers of all ages will be raised at the end of the Millennium time to be be judged by the one who has been given all authority to judge.
Thanks for separating your text into readable parcels. I find myself really enjoying much of what you've put here. I'm so glad you read what we wrote and realized the merit of our suggestions. I'm not only reading them, but finding some of them thought provoking. I've just now gotten back to this board, otherwise you would have heard from me sooner.
The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against the enemy, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that the enemies blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ.
Two dangerous edges of the enemies broadsword are discouragement and doubt. With the helmet of salvation firmly on, we see ourselves for who we really are, and when our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for the enemy to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Our enemies are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas.
They are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt, and worry in our direction, but the only time they can hit us is when we let our shield of faith down. A shield deflects, it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack.
Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns.
It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusation of the enemy, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another.
Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what we have or do not have, what we have done or have not done, we are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who we are in Christ. The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace because every believer is without blame before him in love.
If we fail to understand that we are blameless and what being blameless is all about; God sees us in Christ and Christ was blameless. To be positionally in Christ makes a person a saint, because we have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to our account.
It is difficult for the human mind to lay hold of the magnitude of what the grace of God is all about and what that grace has accomplished on behalf of every signal person who has trusted what Christ accomplished.
For a person to have to make his own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. To say that any person could make their own peace with God would be to limit God to his mercy.
Every miss deed, every miss step, if we are making our own peace with God, every failure no matter how large or small to our way of thinking would require a new act of mercy on the part of God. Mercy simply withholds that which is due, mercy simply withholds that which we deserve.
Grace on the other hand, bestows freely that which we could never earn and could never deserve. We need to cease attributing our righteous standing before God to our performance and keep our mind focused solely on how God views us IN Christ, that is what grace-life is all about, and we will be victorious in that God’s power can now produce it’s fruit in our life.
There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished. What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. God has a purpose for those who believe, he predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son.
What a ludicrous way for us to be thinking, placing ourselves back under the law for righteousness before God. The lunacy of desiring to be under the law, in order to perfect our righteousness in God’s sight.
Is it not a foolish notion to suppose that our righteous works can enhance the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ, to whom we have been joined. Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness belonging to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior.
Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need. Pride insists upon attributing success to self, we are either under the jurisdiction of the law which requires performance for righteousness or we are under the jurisdiction of Jesus Christ and our position in him is our righteousness, we can not have it both ways.
We are discharged from the law all together according to the apostle Paul, we have been set free, Christ issued the discharge papers and Paul delivered those papers. Why did God put that performance-based merit system in place in the first place, because God was proving to weak and sinful flesh, the inability of the flesh to fulfill its righteous demands, we can look back at the law now, and we can say, you can not touch me anymore, your condemnation will have no effect on me whatsoever!
I know the parameters, I no longer fear the repercussions of your ruler-ship, I know the condemnation you bring because of the emotions you stir up in the weakness of my flesh. Our blessing are not based on our performance in any way, shape, or form, our blessings are based on Christ’s performance, because we are members of his flesh.
How many blessings was God free to shower upon those who are joined to the flesh of his son according to Paul, all blessings in Heaven, the place of our citizenship, in Christ! We are waiting for our new bodies, the body God has in store for each of us, a body that will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body with that eternal life as its source of life, and all the while, we are seeking deliverance from the suffering circumstances we face and we are seeking it all the time.
We want a deliverance that we can see, if God is miraculously delivering here and there from the problems that come along believer’s way in these old earthly tents, those people will be more absorbed in the deliverance of the old man, than they are focused on the hope of the new man.
When we get our new bodies, we will be delivered from the suffering circumstances that adversely affect the old tent in which we must dwell until we die or the gathering together occurs, whichever is first, it is not the deliverance of the old, it’s the hope of the new, today.
Emotion can lead us down the path, and will oftentimes, most likely lead us down the wrong path, when emotion becomes the governor of our intellect, rather than the doctrinally governed intellect becoming the ruler of our emotions, emotion should never be the fuel, we should never be emotionally driven, but doctrinally driven.
Each of us struggles with an inner sense of right and wrong, and the difficulty we face in doing the right thing, in light of the inclination that all of us had to do that which we deemed to be wrong. We cannot say that only believers struggle with sin, because disobeying our conscience is coming short, in our mind, as to what we know to be the right thing to do, that’s the sin nature working in opposition to the conscience to have a person go in a direction contrary to that inner sense of right and wrong, that’s common to all humankind.
Unbelievers and believers alike struggle with the innate sense of right and wrong, and the are drawn toward that desire to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
The direction within the Word of God enlightens us as we take it in, it is not for people in order to get them saved, or for keeping them saved, or to keep fellowship, it is for people who are already saved and sealed saints, the direction is in the written Word of God, it’s the Word of God that gives us or sheds that light on us.
Light in the sense of understanding, so that people might gain that understanding of who God is, and his plan for us, and who we are, and the relationships we should have between one another. Direction within the Word of God was addressing those words not just to pastors in the pulpits, but to the people in the pews, because God’s direction was addressed to the saints, not to the pastors.
What is religion all about, it is called, walking after the flesh. When Paul talks about walking after the flesh, he’s not talking about continuing a sinful lifestyle, as most suppose that he has in mind, to walk after the flesh, is to attribute to the flesh the ability through performance to earn a righteous, or more righteous standing before God.
All who think that their performance can gain them heaven are proving their lack of understanding, when it comes to Paul’s use of the term “flesh”, rather they sit in an assembly where sin is being continually hammered in some manner, to keep people on the right track. To walk after the flesh is to suppose that righteousness comes from or sourced from what we do, or what we refuse not to do, what we commit or promise not to do again.
Faith, we learn the necessity of a total abandonment of any notion, that any person can merit righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh, and that we must place our trust solely in the fact that God accomplished our salvation for us through his son’s death, when he judged his son for our sins.
When ungodly people are willing to simply take God at his Word, abandoning any notion that they can merit a righteous standing with God through their performance, and trust solely in what Christ accomplished for them, having resolved that issue of their sins, God’s power from on high performs a miracle in those people’s lives by uniting those believers with Christ himself.
I love the truth of no longer being judged, I am all that all is and I have it all.
So, where does the concept of a better place in the palace come into play. You know, the so called rewards for deeds done since there is no longer any tracking of deeds.
Yes, quite selfish if I do say but what if that concept is correct?
OR, if not in this current life but when we come back with the other angelic beings that we fight with them against the forces of darkness - is that where we gain those rewards?
Hey, teachmevp, at what point in time do I need to dig in my heals and fight?
I can do the "deeds" for nothing and that is O.K. with me (I owe alot)but if I have read the Bible correctly, there are rewards (and I deserve nothing) but I am willing to work for nothing.
So, sit on my hands or not, what's the difference?
I am not around to gain but if I have the opportunity to gain, what's the process - eternety is a long time and I am more than willing to fight for what gains me in that afterlife; I think there is more than what I am currently doing.
It's hard to say if it's just plain greed on my part or just preparing for the best future.
All this discourse is not directed at only teachmevp but all other readers of this post.
If there is an older doctrinal forum/thread that I can be directed to, please provide that reference.
WOW, it's not enough to be saved and have everlasing life, I want even more once I get there - how is that possible?
It's not ego or pride, it's comfort and best opportunity: you know, good fishing, a view of the lake or whatever.
I am willing to work/fight for it.
Now, with questions like this, folks here may not have the answers but I well know (as I have said before), Jesus knows my every keystroke and thought. What I do is to just keep on doing what I do and do it more extensivly.
Now, if all that was not a mouthfull of figures of speech.
Oh, to read Greek is one thing (even if poorly), to think in and speak it another.
Written in the fleshly heart - that's the best starting point.
These are only personal comments inspired by the previous posts and not documented by any text in any way.
Paul did not want to lose rewards at the Beam Seat of Christ, he wanted to do what was befitting a person who believes the good news, not for his righteous standing before God, but for his testimony before others. Paul did not want those to whom he was preaching to look at his life, the manner in which he lived his life, and then reject the message he was preaching.
According to Paul, we have how much forgiveness, total forgiveness! If we want God to view us today, we got to be in his son. At the point of our belief in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, we are as closely associated with Christ as anyone could be, we are joined to him.
God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do, many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. God views us in our glorified identity, he sees us as being joined to his son.
Remember, we were given our righteous standing as a free gift. It’s a grace gift given by God, and we receive it the instant we place our faith in Christ having resolved God’s justice for our sins. This gift decree of righteousness comes totally apart from any and all human promise or all human performance or all human production.
No human merit whatsoever for this free gift, God will never consider our works as a payment for God’s justifying declaration. When a person changes their lifestyle after salvation, it is because that person is attempting to set themselves apart from their former lifestyle.
Unbelievers are fully capable of setting themselves apart, people are doing that every day and to varying degrees. The flesh is never capable of performance to the standard of the perfection belonging to God himself, no matter how set apart we try to become.
Some believers quit drinking, some say when they quit drinking that God took it away from them. Non-believers quit drinking, did God take it away from them? God sets every believer apart, not some more so than others, but everyone who has believed what his son accomplished is set apart by God himself.
God is the sanctifier, not the person, and it comes regardless of how those believers set themselves apart. Our righteous standing before God is accomplished through our being set-apart, the only way we can ever be made totally and perfectly as righteous as God himself is for that believer to be joined to God’s son.
God has set us apart and he calls us righteous based not upon what we do or what we abstain from doing where he’s concerned, or not upon any promise we might make along those lines, but upon Christ’s righteousness and our faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice on our behalf, because it is at that point of our belief that God’s power from high set us apart.
God alters our identity be removing us judicially in God’s mind from an identification with Adam, and now we are judicially identified with Jesus Christ. God places us into Christ, we have been made part of Jesus Christ’s body, part of his flesh, and part of his bones according to Paul.
One serving of self, leads to another serving of self, words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words to further harmful words, we serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self, rather than the Body of saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior.
Apart from trusting Jesus Christ as Savior, human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying, and while it may be of earthly benefit, that will not cut it when it comes to meeting the demands of God’s perfect justice.
Paul is just bringing this to our attention, and he is not taking us to judgment and chastisement, he is taking us to position and obligation, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another.”
My service to God, is no greater than my service to you. Jesus Christ’s faith in the Father’s will, and Christ was faithful to do the Father’s will, so it was ultimately Christ’s faith that allowed God’s justice to remain intact, as God declares an unrighteous believer to be righteous, apart from Christ’s faith and his faithfulness to carry out the Father’s will based on that faith, there would not be anyone perfectly righteous, to whom God could join a believing sinner.
Just as Christ never doubted the will of the Father, the Father never doubted the faith and faithfulness of his son, it was God’s plan to use the faith and its resultant faithfulness of the son of God, in the ultimate glorification of human-kind, the union of believers to Christ, is that which allows God to remain just, when he credits those with righteousness with that which belongs to the one who is absolutely, perfectly righteous.
When Paul talks about a new creature, old things being past away, all things become new, he is not talking about sin in an individuals life, he is talking about all that we were prior to salvation, in Adam. Once saved, we are no longer in Adam, we are at the initial point of our belief, in Jesus Christ.
In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now the new creation, being forever joined to our savior. Paul is not talking about a believer gaining sinful perfection at the point of their belief, or at any other time for that manner, a person who believes that sin in others proves a lack of salvation, is a person who is over looking the sin in themselves, that individual is thinking more highly of themselves, than they ought.
Paul did not say eliminate our sin nature all together, instead, Paul said mortify it, render it functionally inoperative, do not allow it to reach it’s final culmination, which is separation and division, while it will always be present with us, we do not have to allow it to rule and reign in our life, or to fracture others who happen across our path.
Why we need to believe, why it is we believe, what happens when we believe, it’s faith presented in the Book of Romans, it’s not how we become more righteous practically, that is something different, it’s how God declares us to be righteous judicially as a gift and how God’s able to do that.
All our sins were future, when Jesus Christ died for them, so God had to know about them, and they all went on his son, never to be judged again.
When we place our trust in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, we are joined to the Savior himself, the baptism by God’s power from on high into Christ, immersed not into water, but immersed into Jesus Christ, and it’s in that sense and it’s through that method that God can declare unrighteous believers to be as righteous as God himself, what belongs to the son, belongs to us, we are joint-heirs with Christ.
When we look back to Israel’s program, we will see the prayer of faith. James in his Epistle, he leaves no doubt about the power of prayer in Israel’s program, they walked by sight, and God allowed their prayer life to work in connection with sight, when that earthly kingdom is on their doorstep again.
We do not need to be too discouraged, as we watch the times unfold and the worries come, they just bring us ever closer to what we would call, our blessed hope. The one-world government architects of our day are steering us ever closer, and at an ever more rapid pace toward that time, when the entire world will need an answer man.
Rest assured, an answer man will arrive on the scene, once God has called his ambassadors of the age of grace home, yet, as the world will learn when that answer man comes along, he will not really have the answers at all, he will be the false fixer.
Satan’s goal is to counterfeit Christ’s reign on earth with his own reign, but when Christ is reigning on the throne, there will be a one world government system in place, and Christ will be the supreme archon of that governmental system. Satan, in his attempt to be like the most high God, also, wants a world-wide governmental system, but without Christ.
The Gospel of the Kingdom was about the nearness, the proximity of the kingdom of God on earth. The Gospel of God was about the identity of the earthly king, the Gospel of God had application to both programs of God, the program of God with Israel, the earthly program, and the program with us in an age of grace for the heavenly realm.
The 12 apostles were teaching the identity of Jesus as the messiah after God raised him from among the dead, Paul also teaches the identity of Jesus Christ (Christ means messiah), he did teach the Gospel of God, but the issue in eternity in Heaven will be to which man are we related, do we have our identity in the first Adam, or do we have our identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
We have to believe that Christ died, and not just died for our sins, but what was accomplished when he died for our sins, what was accomplished where those sins were concerned.
The goal of the apostle Paul is to establish us and every believer in the knowledge of our sanctified standing before God, our being placed into his son. Justification and Sanctification are “much more” assurance that Paul is giving us, as to the security that we as believers have, being placed into Christ.
We see Paul using this term “much more” over and over again, these are “much more” security passages that we find in Romans. The “much more” idea that Paul had in his mind when he was writing Romans, Paul wants to establish our minds in the “much more” assurance that we have, so we can have that stability of mind and stability of emotions, if the will is the governor of the emotions.
When it comes to the establishment of the mind of the believer, and the truth of their secure position in Christ, this is security, this is who we are in Christ, we can not lose it. This is why our faith in Christ’s faithfulness is essential!
How many people not understanding Justification or Sanctification will say, “See there, if you do not live right, if you just let that flesh run wild, you are going to be a castaway, you are going to lose your salvation.”
1 Corinthians 9:27, people not understanding this passage, a passage out of its context is a pretext, and so their pretext is you can lose your salvation, which is foolishness.
Paul did not want to lose rewards at the Beam Seat of Christ, he wanted to do what was befitting a person who believes the good news, not for his righteous standing before God, but for his testimony before others. Paul did not want those to whom he was preaching to look at his life, the manner in which he lived his life, and then reject the message he was preaching.
Paul is telling us not how he set himself apart in order to gain a greater righteousness before God through his performance, but how he made his life-style, to the best he could conform to who God had already made him to be in his sanctified position being joined to the Savior, that he might more affectively reach others, that was Paul’s key motivation.
Paul is letting us know here in the book of Romans, that God did not make Heaven for good people, God made Heaven for sinners who are justified freely by his grace. How many of us share Paul’s concern today, when it comes to the life we live out of appreciation, not out of apprehension, or out of an attempt to earn a more righteous stranding before God.
We have a self-sanctification in the positive sense of separating ourselves from those things we know that are not good for us or not good for others, not in order to merit any more righteousness before God through that performance, but in light of all that God has already made us to be in Christ.
Motivation is the key component when it comes to self-sanctification, for what reason do we set ourselves apart, is it to be more holy, so God can see us as more holy, that is self-sanctification negatively.
A lot of people suppose that becoming more righteous in practice will make them more righteous in God’s sight, faulty thinking, Paul called it foolish, it will not gain them Heaven, there are a lot of misconceived notions out there concerning the book of Romans.
Krys, I don't know if TMVP is editing this stuff into paragraphs (and correcting spelling) but it's certainly a lot more readable and accessible. I think it's Raf continuing to combine and edit all TMVP's multitude of posts. TMVP isn't really engaging with the few posters that there are.
You might be correct, Twinky, but I don't think so. Here's why:
Raf is a busy man! He's a newspaper columnist (I think) for the Miami Herald. Plus, he has a wife and family. He's involved in other things.....the man's got a life!
TMVP has responded to those of us who have made a comment. Raf is a good man, but in view of his other responsibilities (above), there are only 24 hours in a day.
I'm giving TMVP the benefit of the doubt at this time.
A lot of people suppose that becoming more righteous in practice will make them more righteous in God’s sight, faulty thinking, Paul called it foolish, it will not gain them Heaven, there are a lot of misconceived notions out there concerning the book of Romans.
Jesus and Paul had very different ideas about what gets one into heaven. Jesus was of the "lose your salvation" camp. (reference the millstone around the neck verse). One can argue that it was said before the gift of holy spirit, and one can argue that Jesus did speak of everlasting life, but one can also argue that the gospels were written after Acts, so anyone writing them would have known what Paul was spouting - assuming anyone writing what became the gospels actually cared or knew what Paul was writing and teaching. That is not clear. What is clear if you bother to do a straightforward comparative analysis, is that Paul's notion of grace (and pretty much everything else) differs significantly from Jesus'. I have my theory as to why, but that's really beside the point.
We learned very little about Jesus in The Way. Most of what we examined was based on the Pauline epistles. I think that's fairly typical of modern Christianity, at least based on my limited observation. As Tzaia pointed out, the epistles were written before the gospels and the cannon reversed the chronology. That makes it seem like the gospels were written before the epistles. Dispensationalism and inerrancy handily deal with the problems that generates. So here's the thing----If the religion is called Christianity, why is so much of it focused on someone other than its namesake?
I'm a reporter, not a columnist (although hope abounds).
It's the Sun Sentinel, not the Miami Herald (although a shared content agreement means they get to run my stuff, the Herald does not pay me anything. We are what historians call "competitors").
But most importantly, TeachMeVP voluntarily broke his posts up into paragraphs and followed my request that he confine his posts to one thread instead of creating 10,000 threads with one post each.
He did this, I must say, graciously, without putting up a fight, without complaining about the dozens of threads that I hid and am unable to get back to. He's been nothing but gracious about all of this.
Give him the credit he deserves. It took a jarring bit of action, but he clearly got the message, I think.
Definitely an improvement over what it was. Thanks to Raf for the suggestion. Thanks to TeachmeVP for being nice enough to comply. The achingly hard to read part stems from the content, not the formatting.
Thanks everyone, but God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do, many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. God views us in our glorified identity, he sees us as being joined to his son.
When we do not understand the doctrinal truths Paul taught pertaining to our sealed position in Christ, we have no ground for success in the practical arena. We are capable of transforming our thinking, it is a new operating system, day by day renewal of the mind as to who we are in Christ.
Paul did indeed teach a different teaching from what the 12 were taught, because it’s a gift decree of perfect righteousness put on our account immediately at the point of our belief, it’s a judicial transaction that is all of God’s doing, none of our doing, it’s not something we become through practice, it’s a gift decree of righteousness given us by God.
Paul also showed that we are not an extension of believing Israel time past carried on over in some spiritual form to the age of grace, can not be. We are not now, nor will we ever be spiritual Israel, God has designed believers to be a brand new unique organism operating as a living breathing manifestation of Christ’s Body right here on planet earth.
Paul also showed that Grace and Law are polar opposites and God will share no one joined to his son with the law. Human righteousness comes from self-interest motivation, it’s self-glorifying, and while it may be of earthly benefit, that won’t cut it when it comes to meeting the demands of God’s perfect justice.
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teachmevp
I like to reason out of the word, the way and their chapter and verse attitude was a stubbling block for me, how does one chapter and verses a figure of speech. These posts are just thoughts.
Tzaia
Definitely an improvement over what it was. Thanks to Raf for the suggestion. Thanks to TeachmeVP for being nice enough to comply. The achingly hard to read part stems from the content, not the format
teachmevp
The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against Satan and his forces, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the
teachmevp
You know how giving earnest money works when it comes to making a purchase today. When a person gives earnest money in connection with a purchase, that person is guaranteeing, through that which is given in advance their intention of following through on that which they have promised.
Well, according to the apostle Paul, the indwelling of God’s power from on high is both God’s seal and his deposited pledge that all believers are forever his and are destined to inherit eternal life. The security all believers have in that the indwelling of God’s power from on high guarantees that those who have believed Paul’s good news can never be lost, they belong to God.
The word “sealed” means sealed for preservation. The seal is the safeguarding device, the securing device, used to preserve the contents. God’s power from on high is the seal that God uses to secure all who believe in this dispensation of grace.
The word “earnest” means a pledge in the sense that an advance deposit has been made as the security guaranteeing the fulfillment of that which has been promised to those who have been sealed. We were not sealed on the basis of our behavior, but upon the basis of (and at the point of) our belief, that is a seal we can fully depend upon.
Understand that repentance in the earthly kingdom program was not about turning away from their sins and not sinning anymore. Repentance was about changing one’s mind when it came to earning a righteous standing with God through their performance.
God wanted them to change their minds about how faithful they had been and how faithful they could hope to be, when it came to meriting his acceptance through adherence to the law contract. We can see how how mixing the two programs along with improperly interpreting the Scripture for that program, can lead to misguided thinking when it comes to the issue of eternal security.
The fact that mankind is unable to do anything to alter their sinful condition, human reasoning would say, “Give us something that we can do. Give us some way to perform. Give us a few balls of our own to hit, so that we might earn back what we lost through Adam.”
God’s reasoning said, “Impossible!” The Law that God gave to Israel was a measure of what mankind would have to perform to be accepted by God. God did not give Israel a law they could keep. God gave Israel a law impossible for those with a sin-nature to obey perfectly, in order to teach them their need of a Savior.
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teachmevp
Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. If they do not want to undergo the penalty of death as the law demands, they had better obey the law. They are out there trying and sometimes with much sincerity to obey in order to gain the victory.
Well, that is not how it is done according to the apostle Paul anymore, it is about what has already been done for them, and why continue to wallow in the mud from which they have been rescued. Paul takes us away from chastisement and judgment and he leads us toward the reality of our position.
You see, the victory belongs to us right now. It’s always belonged to us. It’s something we have always had. It is not something we have to strive for, something we gain through our performance through time. Paul wants us to know that our position in Christ means that we are already victorious!
Nothing in the law can stake its claim on us, the believer ever again. Being joined to the perfectly righteous Savior means that the law can never again point to our lack of righteousness. Victory over the law, victory over sin and victory over death are ours to enjoy right this very moment.
We cannot become more victorious than that through anything we do, we cannot add to that. There is no greater victory over sin that can be gained by mankind than the victory already achieved by Jesus Christ.
For those who have a knowledge of sin, death is particularly painful. What is it that gives sin its power to generate this heightened fear in those who understand their lack of righteousness before God? The Law!
In fact, the law is the exact measure of the righteousness required by God through performance in order to gain righteousness through performance. It is the law that proves people’s unrighteous condition. When the law is held up against the best that any person can do, the law proves all people are lacking the righteousness necessary to dwell with God.
Paul moves those who are believers away from condition and takes us to position. It is the law that gives death the power to bring heightened pain to those who understand their sinful condition. God designed the law to make sin show its hand, to make sin abound, so that people could look at that picture of the law and look at themselves and could see that their sin was exceedingly sinful.
The truth is, the law brought forth sin, it incites the pride-nature to rebellion. Performance of the flesh must be removed from the picture when it comes to the righteousness necessary for a relationship with God. It is a person’s knowledge of their sinful condition, that makes death such a fearful event for the non-believer.
A person must trust that their sin issue was resolved in its entirely in order for God’s power from on high to baptize (identify) that person into Christ with the righteousness that belongs only to the Savior. There can be no further payment for sin as that payment was made by Jesus Christ and it was made once for all, the sin issue became a son issue.
To be justified means to receive that gift that came to all mankind, the gift declaration of the very righteousness of God, no one can receive that unless that person is placed into Christ. Being placed into Christ, joined to Christ is the method whereby God justices a person, or righteousifies a person. The issue at the Great White Throne Judgment will be those standing there in their own righteousness.
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teachmevp
Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? There are two reasons given in response in the hallways of religion, judgment and chastisement. Those are the traditional answers as to why Christians should not think they should continue to sin.
Yet, Paul gives two entirely different reasons to that very same question, identity and slavery, Paul does not side with religion. If we continue to yield the members of our body to serve the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we can fall into a snare in that we become addicted to the manner in which we satisfy those lusts.
We are going to become enslaved to that which we choose to put ourselves in servitude. Choose to serve sin, and we can soon become addicted to the manner in which we have chosen to serve sin, is the principle. Paul is not talking about a believer losing salvation, he is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts, we reap what we sow, not from God, but through that to which we are reaping.
The sin nature within us loves sin. There is something attractive about sin to mankind, something that is pleasin’ for a season when it comes to that issue of sin, something that appeals to the flesh.
Does God want us to set ourselves apart unto righteous behavior in order that he might have cause to consider us to be righteous? A quest for righteousness before God through performance is the wrong motivation for doing the things that Paul calls on every believer to do and for abstaining from the particular behavior Paul would have us avoid.
We all miss the mark, we all come short, some of us may come closer to it than others, but none of us completely and consistently eliminate sin in our lives. Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. We that believed Paul’s good news, our being set apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart.
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teachmevp
Is Paul telling us to turn from our wicked ways, and get back to the law, or to promise God that we will do our very best to turn from our wicked ways, or that we must be willing at least, in our minds to turn from our wicked ways in order to get God to make the decision to save, we have not hear that from our apostle.
If a person hears Paul’s good news, and that person refuses to believe Paul’s message, choosing instead to believe that their works can add something, that their works can do something to do with getting them save, or keeping them saved, that person does indeed need to change their thinking, they need to repent.
All who are believing the messages presented by the ministers of righteousness today, they need to change their thinking and accept Paul’s message as being the truth in order to receive justification unto eternal life by being placed into Jesus Christ, so repentance, or a change of thinking is necessary in that sense, even in this age of grace.
Many of the people preaching Paul’s words and proclaiming them to be true, are doing so without fully understanding what Paul has just said, they say the words much like they would say the words of the gospel - for Christ died for our sins - without really fully understanding or ever coming to comprehend what happened to the sins Christ died for.
Paul’s message is unique and distinct from the message of Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles, there is difference in God’s earthly program and God’s heavenly program, what traditions of people must be left behind if we take the doctrine of Paul seriously?
The mindset of the religious of Paul’s day and the religious of ours, the pride nature is the root cause of that rejection, pride insists upon attributing success to self, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, it is a fearful thing to think they may have been wrong all along.
Paul was continually fighting against a mixed message (Galatianism), same false religious systems are operation and being promoted in our day.
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teachmevp
The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against the enemy, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that the enemies blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ. Two dangerous edges of the enemies broadsword are discouragement and doubt.
With the helmet of salvation firmly on, we see ourselves for who we really are, and when our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for the enemy to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Our enemies are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas.
They are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt, and worry in our direction, but the only time they can his us is when we let our shield of faith down. A shield deflects, it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack.
Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns.
It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusation of the enemy, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another.
Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what we have or do not have, what we have done or have not done, we are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who we are in Christ. The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace because every believer is without blame before him in love.
If we fail to understand that we are blameless and what being blameless is all about; God sees us in Christ and Christ was blameless. To be positionally in Christ makes a person a saint, because we have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to our account.
It is difficult for the human mind to lay hold of the magnitude of what the grace of God is all about and what that grace has accomplished on behalf of every signal person who has trusted what Christ accomplished.
For a person to have to make his own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. To say that any person could make their own peace with God would be to limit God to his mercy.
Every miss deed, every miss step, if we are making our own peace with God, every failure no matter how large or small to our way of thinking would require a new act of mercy on the part of God. Mercy simply withholds that which is due, mercy simply withholds that which we deserve.
Grace on the other hand, bestows freely that which we could never earn and could never deserve. We need to cease attributing our righteous standing before God to our performance and keep our mind focused solely on how God views us IN Christ, that is what grace-life is all about, and we will be victorious in that God’s power can now produce it’s fruit in our life.
There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished. What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. God has a purpose for those who believe, he predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son.
Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? There are two reasons given in response in the hallways of religion, judgment and chastisement. Those are the traditional answers as to why Christians should not think they should continue to sin.
Yet, Paul gives two entirely different reasons to that very same question, identity and slavery, Paul does not side with religion. If we continue to yield the members of our body to serve the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we can fall into a snare in that we become addicted to the manner in which we satisfy those lusts.
We are going to become enslaved to that which we choose to put ourselves in servitude. Choose to serve sin, and we can soon become addicted to the manner in which we have chosen to serve sin, is the principle. Paul is not talking about a believer losing salvation, he is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts, we reap what we sow, not from God, but through that to which we are reaping.
The sin nature within us loves sin. There is something attractive about sin to mankind, something that is pleasin’ for a season when it comes to that issue of sin, something that appeals to the flesh.
Does God want us to set ourselves apart unto righteous behavior in order that he might have cause to consider us to be righteous? A quest for righteousness before God through performance is the wrong motivation for doing the things that Paul calls on every believer to do and for abstaining from the particular behavior Paul would have us avoid.
We all miss the mark, we all come short, some of us may come closer to it than others, but none of us completely and consistently eliminate sin in our lives. Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. We that believed Paul’s good news, our being set apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart.
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teachmevp
The fact that every believer is set apart by God as being holy at that point of that person’s belief, God is the one who is performing the setting apart, God accomplishes this sanctification by joining all who believe to his son.
Paul even tells the carnal saints at Corinth that the reason these detestable deeds (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) had not and could not result in a lost of their salvation or their fellowship with God for that matter, is because as carnal as these Corinthians happen to be, they had a holy standing with God through their union with his son.
Paul is not bringing this list to their attention in order to frighten them, he wants to remind them that God no longer sees them in that light, he’s bringing to their attention the fact that God is now, no longer viewing them apart from righteousness that belongs to his son.
The gift decree of righteousness belonging to the son had been totally and permanently credited to the account of these carnal believers, to their account in heaven at the point of their belief.
The law pointed to sin, and then required death for the sinner, can the law now stake a further claim against the one who has already satisfied that claim, will the law ever again have a future claim where Jesus Christ is concerned, he satisfied that claim once and for all.
We are joined to Jesus Christ, fully identified with his satisfying the law’s claim, it only stands to reason that once a person is joined to the one who has satisfied the law’s requirement for sins, and is now standing only in Christ’s perfect righteousness, that believer’s sinfulness can never be used as proof of that believer’s lack of righteousness.
Paul moves us away from the realm of condition, and he takes us straight into the realm of position, the law can make no demand on the world of the lawlessness, because Christ met the law’s demands for the world of sinners for which he died. Today, the law can only serve the purpose of proving people’s need for a righteousness that no person is capable of gaining through performance.
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krys
Thanks for separating your text into readable parcels. I find myself really enjoying much of what you've put here. I'm so glad you read what we wrote and realized the merit of our suggestions. I'm not only reading them, but finding some of them thought provoking. I've just now gotten back to this board, otherwise you would have heard from me sooner.
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teachmevp
No one needs to be told how to live the Christian life, it’s not about trying to change something, it’s trying to understand something, and then work with that understanding. Paul calls it a labor of love, the members of the Body of Christ are to be the supporting cast of the Body of Christ.
There are times when the physical presence of another believer is helpful to a suffering saint, there are times when it is not. There are times when holding the hand of a suffering saint is welcomed, there are times when it is not.
Just being there in times of distress can be comforting to a suffering saint who is seeking that type of support, some saints would rather have solitude. Sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not living under the law program, we are living under grace, the victory has already been won, because Christ won it, sin shall not have dominion over us, because believers are not under the law, but under grace.
The Body of Christ is not about program, but about judicial position. The hope for both programs is the same, and that hope is a new body and resurrection from the among the dead unto eternal life, that hope is true for both programs.
The saints of both programs are promised that hope, but the residential destinations promised the believers of the two programs are entirely different, the earthly calling and the heavenly calling refer to the program to which believers have been called in their destinations.
The earth was the only realm of which God’s earthly nation Israel had been given inheritance, Heaven was not the issue for the nation Israel, they were never promised Heaven. Since there was resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead, the entire human race can be assured they will be resurrected as well, both believers and non-believers of both programs will be resurrected from the dead, but the unbelievers of all ages will be raised at the end of the Millennium time to be be judged by the one who has been given all authority to judge.
Thank you.
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teachmevp
The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against the enemy, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that the enemies blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ.
Two dangerous edges of the enemies broadsword are discouragement and doubt. With the helmet of salvation firmly on, we see ourselves for who we really are, and when our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for the enemy to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Our enemies are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas.
They are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt, and worry in our direction, but the only time they can hit us is when we let our shield of faith down. A shield deflects, it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack.
Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns.
It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusation of the enemy, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another.
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teachmevp
Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what we have or do not have, what we have done or have not done, we are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who we are in Christ. The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace because every believer is without blame before him in love.
If we fail to understand that we are blameless and what being blameless is all about; God sees us in Christ and Christ was blameless. To be positionally in Christ makes a person a saint, because we have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to our account.
It is difficult for the human mind to lay hold of the magnitude of what the grace of God is all about and what that grace has accomplished on behalf of every signal person who has trusted what Christ accomplished.
For a person to have to make his own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. To say that any person could make their own peace with God would be to limit God to his mercy.
Every miss deed, every miss step, if we are making our own peace with God, every failure no matter how large or small to our way of thinking would require a new act of mercy on the part of God. Mercy simply withholds that which is due, mercy simply withholds that which we deserve.
Grace on the other hand, bestows freely that which we could never earn and could never deserve. We need to cease attributing our righteous standing before God to our performance and keep our mind focused solely on how God views us IN Christ, that is what grace-life is all about, and we will be victorious in that God’s power can now produce it’s fruit in our life.
There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished. What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. God has a purpose for those who believe, he predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son.
What a ludicrous way for us to be thinking, placing ourselves back under the law for righteousness before God. The lunacy of desiring to be under the law, in order to perfect our righteousness in God’s sight.
Is it not a foolish notion to suppose that our righteous works can enhance the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ, to whom we have been joined. Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness belonging to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior.
Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need. Pride insists upon attributing success to self, we are either under the jurisdiction of the law which requires performance for righteousness or we are under the jurisdiction of Jesus Christ and our position in him is our righteousness, we can not have it both ways.
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teachmevp
We are discharged from the law all together according to the apostle Paul, we have been set free, Christ issued the discharge papers and Paul delivered those papers. Why did God put that performance-based merit system in place in the first place, because God was proving to weak and sinful flesh, the inability of the flesh to fulfill its righteous demands, we can look back at the law now, and we can say, you can not touch me anymore, your condemnation will have no effect on me whatsoever!
I know the parameters, I no longer fear the repercussions of your ruler-ship, I know the condemnation you bring because of the emotions you stir up in the weakness of my flesh. Our blessing are not based on our performance in any way, shape, or form, our blessings are based on Christ’s performance, because we are members of his flesh.
How many blessings was God free to shower upon those who are joined to the flesh of his son according to Paul, all blessings in Heaven, the place of our citizenship, in Christ! We are waiting for our new bodies, the body God has in store for each of us, a body that will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body with that eternal life as its source of life, and all the while, we are seeking deliverance from the suffering circumstances we face and we are seeking it all the time.
We want a deliverance that we can see, if God is miraculously delivering here and there from the problems that come along believer’s way in these old earthly tents, those people will be more absorbed in the deliverance of the old man, than they are focused on the hope of the new man.
When we get our new bodies, we will be delivered from the suffering circumstances that adversely affect the old tent in which we must dwell until we die or the gathering together occurs, whichever is first, it is not the deliverance of the old, it’s the hope of the new, today.
Emotion can lead us down the path, and will oftentimes, most likely lead us down the wrong path, when emotion becomes the governor of our intellect, rather than the doctrinally governed intellect becoming the ruler of our emotions, emotion should never be the fuel, we should never be emotionally driven, but doctrinally driven.
Each of us struggles with an inner sense of right and wrong, and the difficulty we face in doing the right thing, in light of the inclination that all of us had to do that which we deemed to be wrong. We cannot say that only believers struggle with sin, because disobeying our conscience is coming short, in our mind, as to what we know to be the right thing to do, that’s the sin nature working in opposition to the conscience to have a person go in a direction contrary to that inner sense of right and wrong, that’s common to all humankind.
Unbelievers and believers alike struggle with the innate sense of right and wrong, and the are drawn toward that desire to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
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teachmevp
The direction within the Word of God enlightens us as we take it in, it is not for people in order to get them saved, or for keeping them saved, or to keep fellowship, it is for people who are already saved and sealed saints, the direction is in the written Word of God, it’s the Word of God that gives us or sheds that light on us.
Light in the sense of understanding, so that people might gain that understanding of who God is, and his plan for us, and who we are, and the relationships we should have between one another. Direction within the Word of God was addressing those words not just to pastors in the pulpits, but to the people in the pews, because God’s direction was addressed to the saints, not to the pastors.
What is religion all about, it is called, walking after the flesh. When Paul talks about walking after the flesh, he’s not talking about continuing a sinful lifestyle, as most suppose that he has in mind, to walk after the flesh, is to attribute to the flesh the ability through performance to earn a righteous, or more righteous standing before God.
All who think that their performance can gain them heaven are proving their lack of understanding, when it comes to Paul’s use of the term “flesh”, rather they sit in an assembly where sin is being continually hammered in some manner, to keep people on the right track. To walk after the flesh is to suppose that righteousness comes from or sourced from what we do, or what we refuse not to do, what we commit or promise not to do again.
Faith, we learn the necessity of a total abandonment of any notion, that any person can merit righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh, and that we must place our trust solely in the fact that God accomplished our salvation for us through his son’s death, when he judged his son for our sins.
When ungodly people are willing to simply take God at his Word, abandoning any notion that they can merit a righteous standing with God through their performance, and trust solely in what Christ accomplished for them, having resolved that issue of their sins, God’s power from on high performs a miracle in those people’s lives by uniting those believers with Christ himself.
Paul did not want to lose rewards at the Beam Seat of Christ, he wanted to do what was befitting a person who believes the good news, not for his righteous standing before God, but for his testimony before others. Paul did not want those to whom he was preaching to look at his life, the manner in which he lived his life, and then reject the message he was preaching.
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teachmevp
According to Paul, we have how much forgiveness, total forgiveness! If we want God to view us today, we got to be in his son. At the point of our belief in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, we are as closely associated with Christ as anyone could be, we are joined to him.
God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do, many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. God views us in our glorified identity, he sees us as being joined to his son.
Remember, we were given our righteous standing as a free gift. It’s a grace gift given by God, and we receive it the instant we place our faith in Christ having resolved God’s justice for our sins. This gift decree of righteousness comes totally apart from any and all human promise or all human performance or all human production.
No human merit whatsoever for this free gift, God will never consider our works as a payment for God’s justifying declaration. When a person changes their lifestyle after salvation, it is because that person is attempting to set themselves apart from their former lifestyle.
Unbelievers are fully capable of setting themselves apart, people are doing that every day and to varying degrees. The flesh is never capable of performance to the standard of the perfection belonging to God himself, no matter how set apart we try to become.
Some believers quit drinking, some say when they quit drinking that God took it away from them. Non-believers quit drinking, did God take it away from them? God sets every believer apart, not some more so than others, but everyone who has believed what his son accomplished is set apart by God himself.
God is the sanctifier, not the person, and it comes regardless of how those believers set themselves apart. Our righteous standing before God is accomplished through our being set-apart, the only way we can ever be made totally and perfectly as righteous as God himself is for that believer to be joined to God’s son.
God has set us apart and he calls us righteous based not upon what we do or what we abstain from doing where he’s concerned, or not upon any promise we might make along those lines, but upon Christ’s righteousness and our faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice on our behalf, because it is at that point of our belief that God’s power from high set us apart.
God alters our identity be removing us judicially in God’s mind from an identification with Adam, and now we are judicially identified with Jesus Christ. God places us into Christ, we have been made part of Jesus Christ’s body, part of his flesh, and part of his bones according to Paul.
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teachmevp
One serving of self, leads to another serving of self, words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words to further harmful words, we serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self, rather than the Body of saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior.
Apart from trusting Jesus Christ as Savior, human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying, and while it may be of earthly benefit, that will not cut it when it comes to meeting the demands of God’s perfect justice.
Paul is just bringing this to our attention, and he is not taking us to judgment and chastisement, he is taking us to position and obligation, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another.”
My service to God, is no greater than my service to you. Jesus Christ’s faith in the Father’s will, and Christ was faithful to do the Father’s will, so it was ultimately Christ’s faith that allowed God’s justice to remain intact, as God declares an unrighteous believer to be righteous, apart from Christ’s faith and his faithfulness to carry out the Father’s will based on that faith, there would not be anyone perfectly righteous, to whom God could join a believing sinner.
Just as Christ never doubted the will of the Father, the Father never doubted the faith and faithfulness of his son, it was God’s plan to use the faith and its resultant faithfulness of the son of God, in the ultimate glorification of human-kind, the union of believers to Christ, is that which allows God to remain just, when he credits those with righteousness with that which belongs to the one who is absolutely, perfectly righteous.
When Paul talks about a new creature, old things being past away, all things become new, he is not talking about sin in an individuals life, he is talking about all that we were prior to salvation, in Adam. Once saved, we are no longer in Adam, we are at the initial point of our belief, in Jesus Christ.
In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now the new creation, being forever joined to our savior. Paul is not talking about a believer gaining sinful perfection at the point of their belief, or at any other time for that manner, a person who believes that sin in others proves a lack of salvation, is a person who is over looking the sin in themselves, that individual is thinking more highly of themselves, than they ought.
Paul did not say eliminate our sin nature all together, instead, Paul said mortify it, render it functionally inoperative, do not allow it to reach it’s final culmination, which is separation and division, while it will always be present with us, we do not have to allow it to rule and reign in our life, or to fracture others who happen across our path.
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teachmevp
Why we need to believe, why it is we believe, what happens when we believe, it’s faith presented in the Book of Romans, it’s not how we become more righteous practically, that is something different, it’s how God declares us to be righteous judicially as a gift and how God’s able to do that.
All our sins were future, when Jesus Christ died for them, so God had to know about them, and they all went on his son, never to be judged again.
When we place our trust in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, we are joined to the Savior himself, the baptism by God’s power from on high into Christ, immersed not into water, but immersed into Jesus Christ, and it’s in that sense and it’s through that method that God can declare unrighteous believers to be as righteous as God himself, what belongs to the son, belongs to us, we are joint-heirs with Christ.
When we look back to Israel’s program, we will see the prayer of faith. James in his Epistle, he leaves no doubt about the power of prayer in Israel’s program, they walked by sight, and God allowed their prayer life to work in connection with sight, when that earthly kingdom is on their doorstep again.
We do not need to be too discouraged, as we watch the times unfold and the worries come, they just bring us ever closer to what we would call, our blessed hope. The one-world government architects of our day are steering us ever closer, and at an ever more rapid pace toward that time, when the entire world will need an answer man.
Rest assured, an answer man will arrive on the scene, once God has called his ambassadors of the age of grace home, yet, as the world will learn when that answer man comes along, he will not really have the answers at all, he will be the false fixer.
Satan’s goal is to counterfeit Christ’s reign on earth with his own reign, but when Christ is reigning on the throne, there will be a one world government system in place, and Christ will be the supreme archon of that governmental system. Satan, in his attempt to be like the most high God, also, wants a world-wide governmental system, but without Christ.
The Gospel of the Kingdom was about the nearness, the proximity of the kingdom of God on earth. The Gospel of God was about the identity of the earthly king, the Gospel of God had application to both programs of God, the program of God with Israel, the earthly program, and the program with us in an age of grace for the heavenly realm.
The 12 apostles were teaching the identity of Jesus as the messiah after God raised him from among the dead, Paul also teaches the identity of Jesus Christ (Christ means messiah), he did teach the Gospel of God, but the issue in eternity in Heaven will be to which man are we related, do we have our identity in the first Adam, or do we have our identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
We have to believe that Christ died, and not just died for our sins, but what was accomplished when he died for our sins, what was accomplished where those sins were concerned.
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teachmevp
The goal of the apostle Paul is to establish us and every believer in the knowledge of our sanctified standing before God, our being placed into his son. Justification and Sanctification are “much more” assurance that Paul is giving us, as to the security that we as believers have, being placed into Christ.
We see Paul using this term “much more” over and over again, these are “much more” security passages that we find in Romans. The “much more” idea that Paul had in his mind when he was writing Romans, Paul wants to establish our minds in the “much more” assurance that we have, so we can have that stability of mind and stability of emotions, if the will is the governor of the emotions.
When it comes to the establishment of the mind of the believer, and the truth of their secure position in Christ, this is security, this is who we are in Christ, we can not lose it. This is why our faith in Christ’s faithfulness is essential!
How many people not understanding Justification or Sanctification will say, “See there, if you do not live right, if you just let that flesh run wild, you are going to be a castaway, you are going to lose your salvation.”
1 Corinthians 9:27, people not understanding this passage, a passage out of its context is a pretext, and so their pretext is you can lose your salvation, which is foolishness.
Paul did not want to lose rewards at the Beam Seat of Christ, he wanted to do what was befitting a person who believes the good news, not for his righteous standing before God, but for his testimony before others. Paul did not want those to whom he was preaching to look at his life, the manner in which he lived his life, and then reject the message he was preaching.
Paul is telling us not how he set himself apart in order to gain a greater righteousness before God through his performance, but how he made his life-style, to the best he could conform to who God had already made him to be in his sanctified position being joined to the Savior, that he might more affectively reach others, that was Paul’s key motivation.
Paul is letting us know here in the book of Romans, that God did not make Heaven for good people, God made Heaven for sinners who are justified freely by his grace. How many of us share Paul’s concern today, when it comes to the life we live out of appreciation, not out of apprehension, or out of an attempt to earn a more righteous stranding before God.
We have a self-sanctification in the positive sense of separating ourselves from those things we know that are not good for us or not good for others, not in order to merit any more righteousness before God through that performance, but in light of all that God has already made us to be in Christ.
Motivation is the key component when it comes to self-sanctification, for what reason do we set ourselves apart, is it to be more holy, so God can see us as more holy, that is self-sanctification negatively.
A lot of people suppose that becoming more righteous in practice will make them more righteous in God’s sight, faulty thinking, Paul called it foolish, it will not gain them Heaven, there are a lot of misconceived notions out there concerning the book of Romans.
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Twinky
Krys, I don't know if TMVP is editing this stuff into paragraphs (and correcting spelling) but it's certainly a lot more readable and accessible. I think it's Raf continuing to combine and edit all TMVP's multitude of posts. TMVP isn't really engaging with the few posters that there are.
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krys
You might be correct, Twinky, but I don't think so. Here's why:
- Raf is a busy man! He's a newspaper columnist (I think) for the Miami Herald. Plus, he has a wife and family. He's involved in other things.....the man's got a life!
- TMVP has responded to those of us who have made a comment. Raf is a good man, but in view of his other responsibilities (above), there are only 24 hours in a day.
- I'm giving TMVP the benefit of the doubt at this time.
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Tzaia
Not Raf. I doubt if he cares enough to put the time into it. I Still find it achingly difficult to read.
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Tzaia
Jesus and Paul had very different ideas about what gets one into heaven. Jesus was of the "lose your salvation" camp. (reference the millstone around the neck verse). One can argue that it was said before the gift of holy spirit, and one can argue that Jesus did speak of everlasting life, but one can also argue that the gospels were written after Acts, so anyone writing them would have known what Paul was spouting - assuming anyone writing what became the gospels actually cared or knew what Paul was writing and teaching. That is not clear. What is clear if you bother to do a straightforward comparative analysis, is that Paul's notion of grace (and pretty much everything else) differs significantly from Jesus'. I have my theory as to why, but that's really beside the point.
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waysider
We learned very little about Jesus in The Way. Most of what we examined was based on the Pauline epistles. I think that's fairly typical of modern Christianity, at least based on my limited observation. As Tzaia pointed out, the epistles were written before the gospels and the cannon reversed the chronology. That makes it seem like the gospels were written before the epistles. Dispensationalism and inerrancy handily deal with the problems that generates. So here's the thing----If the religion is called Christianity, why is so much of it focused on someone other than its namesake?
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Raf
For the record:
I'm a reporter, not a columnist (although hope abounds).
It's the Sun Sentinel, not the Miami Herald (although a shared content agreement means they get to run my stuff, the Herald does not pay me anything. We are what historians call "competitors").
But most importantly, TeachMeVP voluntarily broke his posts up into paragraphs and followed my request that he confine his posts to one thread instead of creating 10,000 threads with one post each.
He did this, I must say, graciously, without putting up a fight, without complaining about the dozens of threads that I hid and am unable to get back to. He's been nothing but gracious about all of this.
Give him the credit he deserves. It took a jarring bit of action, but he clearly got the message, I think.
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Tzaia
Definitely an improvement over what it was. Thanks to Raf for the suggestion. Thanks to TeachmeVP for being nice enough to comply. The achingly hard to read part stems from the content, not the formatting.
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teachmevp
Thanks everyone, but God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do, many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. God views us in our glorified identity, he sees us as being joined to his son.
When we do not understand the doctrinal truths Paul taught pertaining to our sealed position in Christ, we have no ground for success in the practical arena. We are capable of transforming our thinking, it is a new operating system, day by day renewal of the mind as to who we are in Christ.
Paul did indeed teach a different teaching from what the 12 were taught, because it’s a gift decree of perfect righteousness put on our account immediately at the point of our belief, it’s a judicial transaction that is all of God’s doing, none of our doing, it’s not something we become through practice, it’s a gift decree of righteousness given us by God.
Paul also showed that we are not an extension of believing Israel time past carried on over in some spiritual form to the age of grace, can not be. We are not now, nor will we ever be spiritual Israel, God has designed believers to be a brand new unique organism operating as a living breathing manifestation of Christ’s Body right here on planet earth.
Paul also showed that Grace and Law are polar opposites and God will share no one joined to his son with the law. Human righteousness comes from self-interest motivation, it’s self-glorifying, and while it may be of earthly benefit, that won’t cut it when it comes to meeting the demands of God’s perfect justice.
Thanks everyone.
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