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Conclusion (wis)

Salvation is deliverance from all sin and being filled with all the fullness of God. This is what salvation is. It has nothing to do with whether we are in Heaven, on the earth, or somewhere else.

In the beginning man was without sin. He had access to eternal life, that is, to immortality in the body.

Man chose to disobey God, and the result was the removal of access to the tree of immortality. Sin always results in death, both spiritual and physical.

The Lord Jesus Christ came so through Him we can throw off the chains of sin and once again have access to the Tree of Life, which is in the body and blood of Christ Himself.

We have made salvation a movement from Hell to Heaven. It is not. Salvation is a movement from the image of Satan to the image of God. The reason there is so much error in Christian teaching is that salvation is presented as a pass out of Hell and a ticket to Heaven, rather than deliverance from Satan and sin and entrance into the Entity that is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We always, it seems, are seeking a religion that delivers us from punishment and promises us joy in the future. There is no love for God in this approach, it is self-centered rather than God centered.

Current Christian teaching and preaching include many false paths, such as the pre-tribulation rapture error, the faith and prosperity deceptions, reconstructionism, and lawless grace. The common denominator of all such misunderstandings is a neglect of that which is central to the new covenant: the transformation of the believers into new creations who practice righteousness, holiness, and stern obedience to the Father.

The central message of the Scriptures is righteousness, whether in terms of the Law of Moses or in terms of the grace and truth that have come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Under the new covenant we have the imputed righteousness of justification and also the actual righteousness of sanctification and consecration. The Kingdom of God always is in actual righteousness of thought, word, and deed. Today there is far, far too much emphasis on imputed righteousness. The Scriptures, Old and New Testament, do not emphasize imputed righteousness but actual righteousness of personality and behavior.

The purpose of imputed righteousness is to bring us to Christ so we can begin the process of transformation into the moral image of Jesus Christ.

The Law of Moses then and now tells us what God regards as sin. Under the new covenant the commandments of the Law of Moses are enlarged until they include all we are and do. We pass from circumcision of the flesh to circumcision of the heart; from setting aside one day of the week as holy to the Lord to presenting our body a living sacrifice at all times.

For the true Christian there never can be a division between that which is sacred and that which is secular. Our goal, our model is the Lord Jesus Christ. As He is, so are we in this world. We are to live as He lives—in and through Him.

We have listed ten realms of personality and behavior:

The love and worship of God.

Idolatry.

Reverence for God’s Name.

Service to God.

Respect and obedience to authority.

Peaceful conduct.

Honesty.

Relationships.

Truthfulness and mercy concerning others.

Contentment.

God wants us to be perfect in each of these realms. Of course, such perfection is not possible to the fallen nature. But such perfection is required and is made possible through the Divine Nature of Jesus Christ.

One of the great lies with which Satan has filled the churches is that while we are on the earth we are obligated to sin. The idea is that once we get to Heaven we no longer will be obligated to sin.

This is incorrect. Sin began in Heaven. It is not going to Heaven that delivers us from sin. There is no scriptural support for this religious tradition. Salvation from sin comes to us through our association with Jesus Christ. First He assigns His righteousness to us. Then He creates His righteous Nature in us.

Christ came to earth to destroy the works of the devil. He does not accomplish this in Heaven but on the earth.

Weak, abridged faith tells us that Christ cannot possibly deliver us from sin while we are alive on the earth. Strong, full, victorious faith tells us that the power and authority of Christ are sufficient to deliver each one of us from the chains of sin.

We have been given all we need to overcome the spirit of the world, the lusts of our flesh, and our personal ambition and pride. The only question is that of our belief or lack of it. There is no question about the sufficiency of Christ’s power.

It appears that we have come to a new day in the Kingdom of God. Passages of the Scriptures not previously emphasized are suddenly becoming clear to us. These passages have always been in the Bible, we just couldn’t seem to perceive them.

For example, notice the following:

No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. (I John 3:6—NIV)

This verse has been there all along. But it is clear that Christian preachers and teachers do not stress that the believer who continues to sin has neither seen nor known Jesus Christ. Rather we are teaching that salvation is by grace apart from our behavior.

Today it is as though the Book has been rediscovered. We can see more clearly what Paul was talking about in the sixth chapter of the Book of Romans, for example, where he taught us that the believer must choose to be the slave of righteousness or else he will die spiritually. The Book of Hebrews, with its several solemn warnings to those Christians who do not press forward to the fullness of the rest of God, is becoming alive and meaningful.

We have misunderstood the Apostle Paul’s teaching of grace. We thought he was telling us that God no longer requires righteous behavior, when in fact Paul was proclaiming that we no longer receive righteousness by obeying the Law of Moses but by placing our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul was contrasting faith in Christ with the Law of Moses, not faith in Christ with righteous behavior. Paul would never contrast faith in Christ with righteous behavior because righteous behavior is the strongest evidence that we have genuine saving faith in Christ.

It is up to each one of us to gird up the loins of his mind and grasp the promises now being emphasized by the Spirit of God. The choice is ours to move ahead with God or to fall short of His Glory.


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