17.What do those who are "Jews by nature" and not "sinners of the Gentiles" understand?

That a person cannot be declared righteous by observing the Law of Moses but by faith in Christ.

In several of our writings we have emphasized what we believe to be an important understanding of the new covenant, concerning the relationship of works to grace and faith.

In many instances Paul pointed out that we cannot be declared righteous by our own works, only by placing our faith in God’s righteousness that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many devout, distinguished teachers of the Scriptures over the past one hundred years have preached and taught that an individual cannot save himself by behaving according to Christian principles. He must receive God’s righteousness through faith in the Lord Christ.

There is no human being who can go through life without sinning on numerous occasions. The Scripture declares that the soul that sins shall die. If a human sins one time he shall die. The Divine scales of righteousness will register an imbalance. Sin has been committed. The inviolable Word declares that death must follow. There is no waiving of this law.

Only through the blood of Christ can our sins be forgiven, can the scales of Divine righteousness be brought back into balance. This is why no person can please God apart from receiving the Lord Christ. We cannot redeem ourselves. Only the blood of Christ can cancel the guilt of the sins that we have committed. This is the teaching of the holy Scriptures. It is the foundation of the Gospel of Christ. Let God be true and every man a liar.

But a serious problem has arisen. The teachers of the Scriptures have misapplied this foundational truth by overemphasizing it, by not balancing it with the greater part of the writings of the New Testament. The greater part of the writings of the New Testament do not emphasize the forgiveness of sins that comes to us through the blood of our Lord Jesus. Also, the four Gospel accounts have little to say about salvation by grace.

What, then, is the substance of the four Gospel accounts and the writings of the New Testament?

One of the main topics—perhaps the main topic—is righteous behaviour along with holiness toward God. The Kingdom of God is revealed in righteous, holy, and obedient behaviour. Apart from such behaviour there is no Kingdom of God.

We are of the opinion that one of the main reasons for the current neglect of the many passages of the New Testament that set forth the role of righteous behaviour in the Christian discipleship is a misunderstanding of such verses as Galatians 2:16. Notice the opening clause:

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, . . . .

There are several such statements, particularly in the early chapters of Romans. Not enough attention has been paid to the meaning of these statements, that is, to the manner in which they are related to the New Testament emphasis on holy and righteous personality and behaviour.

As a result of our simplified interpretation, there has arisen an overemphasis on the doctrine that "we are not saved by works but by grace." This statement is scripturally correct. The problem is what we mean by works; for what we mean by works and what Paul meant by it are very different. The difference is affecting adversely the manner in which Christian people are behaving in our day.

Paul’s meaning—and nowhere is his thinking more clearly presented than in the Book of Galatians—is that we cannot be saved by the works of the Law of Moses. Now that Christ has been offered on the cross, the Law of Moses has been fulfilled. We are not to add circumcision, dietary laws, and the observance of days to our redemption. We have been redeemed by receiving God’s offering, the Lord Christ.

It is true also that an individual of virtuous behaviour cannot excuse himself from the cross of Calvary on the basis of his own goodness. The only righteousness God will finally accept, whether imputed (assigned by faith) or demonstrated by righteous behavior on our part, is the righteousness that flows directly from the Virtue of the Lord Christ.

All of our lasting righteousness comes from Christ.

This is correct thus far.

However, the common understanding of today has gone far beyond the above statement. The meaning today of "we are not saved by works but by grace" is that there is no critical necessity for attempting to serve the Lord. It is held that the laws of the Kingdom, such as the Sermon on the Mount, were only given to show us we cannot save ourselves but must have a Saviour. (Now it is being claimed that the Sermon on the Mount and the other commandments of the Lord were addressed only to Jews, so great is the current deception!)

Paul was speaking about freedom from the works of the Law; but we have included freedom from godly behaviour. The current teaching is that Christ came to forgive our sins and bring us to Heaven. We ought to try to behave in a godly manner "because we love Jesus," but we are "saved by faith alone" and our behaviour cannot affect our standing with God.

This is an incorrect interpretation of the meaning of Divine grace. Such an abomination never entered the imagination of Paul or any other man of God. We believe that this error of interpretation has rendered the New Testament writings, including the four Gospels, irrelevant as well as incomprehensible. It has destroyed the testimony of the Christian Church.

We can quickly show from the Book of Galatians that Paul never taught that the only purpose of the laws of righteousness present in the Scriptures, the rules of godly behaviour, is to show us our need of a Saviour. The laws of righteousness, of the Kingdom of God, are to be kept. If we do not keep them we will not enter the Kingdom of God. The keeping of them is the Kingdom of God.

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