Probably the Presence and blessing of Jesus.
Probably the Presence and blessing of Jesus.
To this point I may have included enough references to "grace" that the reader can get an understanding of its use in the New Testament. I have limited the references principally to the writings of Paul in the Book of Romans, since to Paul was given the explanation of the transition from Moses to Christ.
I would like to add four more items of interest. The following passage often is used to reinforce the concept of "grace" as an permanent pardon of everyone who professes to believe in Jesus Christ:
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. (Romans 10:9,10)
If we have read nothing else that Paul wrote, we might agree that this is all there is to the Christian salvation. All we do now is to wait to die and go to Heaven.
This passage is part of Paul's exhortation to the Jews to turn from the Law and place their faith in Christ. It is not intended to be a formula in which all of the aspects of our salvation are included.
Another item of interest. Some theologian of the past century, I suppose, came up with a theology termed "A Dispensation of Grace." The name may be derived from the following verse:
If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: (Ephesians 3:2—KJV)
Paul is referring to the commission and enablement of the teaching of Divine grace that was given to him, not to a "Dispensation of Grace."
There is no such thing as a "dispensation of grace." If I am not mistaken, it is one of the deadliest corruptions ever to enter Christian thinking.
From the impressions I have received, this theology espouses the following notions. If I am mistaken, then I stand to be corrected:
We are in a new dispensation, a sort of parenthesis, different from previous covenants issued by God.
"Grace" is a dispensation of eternal forgiveness on the basis of a profession of belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, in which our behavior is inconsequential. We are saved by the grace of forgiveness alone.
There will be a Gentile Church in Heaven and a Jewish kingdom on the earth.
There will be a "rapture" of Gentile believers to Heaven prior to the return of Christ to the earth.
I am not a student of dispensational theology, so I hope I have not attributed to it something which it does not teach.
If the four notions I have just written are in fact included in dispensational theology, then this is a deadly error. I do not wish to be too dramatic; but it seems to me that if Satan wanted to destroy the Kingdom of God, these ideas would enable him to do just that.
A third point of discussion has to do with the venerable Ephesians 2:8,9:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
I have heard Ephesians 2:8,9 preached since I first became a Christian. It was not until many years later as I began to notice the numerous passages of the New Testament that exhorted us to righteous behavior that I began to study the context. Ephesians 2:8,9, as it was taught, did not seem to fit the remainder of the New Testament.
Lo and behold! Guess what I found! The next verse:
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
WE HAVE BEEN CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS TO DO GOOD WORKS.
A different idea from that of reclining a couch in our mansion in Heaven doing nothing of significance for eternity.
As I stated previously, I do not wish to be melodramatic. Bur why have I never heard anyone quote verse ten?
Am I getting paranoid? Am I seeing demons behind every bush?
I honestly think there is an agenda here. There seems to be a concerted effort to ignore the passages in the New Testament that command righteous behavior.
A fourth point is one I do not particularly wish to bring up, but it might help someone in the future.
There are good Christian people who are zealous to keep God's commandments, who point out to us that we are breaking God's commandment by going to church on Sunday rather than on Saturday. Saturday is the seventh day of the week and the Jewish Sabbath.
I am aware that the Sabbath commandment was instituted at the time of the creation. It is included in the Ten Commandments, but it did not originate there.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:2,3)
There were no evening and morning associated with the seventh day. Also, there was no eighth day. This tells us that the seventh day is an eternal day, a "day" that continues forever—eons after the earth and heavenly bodies of today have passed away, and the Bride of the Lamb, the new Jerusalem, has descended through the glorious new sky to be installed forever on the colossal new earth.
We understand there will be no churches, no religion, in the new world of righteousness. The former things have passed away. God and Christ Themselves have become our religion. So there will be no day on which we "go to church."
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. (Revelation 21:22)
Also, there will be no "seventh day" as such in the new world of righteousness, since there is no sun.
Let us now reason together. If the seventh day is an eternal day, persevering for eternities after the end of the present creation; and if there will be no churches in which to assemble in the new world of righteousness, then the seventh day, the day of eternal rest, symbolizes something more than going to church on Saturday.
Indeed it does. It symbolizes the eternal "rest" of God, which is the thesis of the Book of Hebrews.
The "rest" of God is the eternal Sabbath in which the Lord Jesus always has and always shall live. Jesus kept the earthly Sabbath in order to fulfill all righteousness, His righteousness that is ascribed to us when we faithfully follow and obey the Spirit of God.
When Hebrews exhorts us to labor to enter the rest, it is referring to that place in Christ that supersedes all earthly religious ordinances. We are crucified each day, as we turn away from our earthly desires and plans. We are raised into eternal life each day as the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, which are our resurrection Life, are issued to us because we have, with His help, chosen to serve Him rather than our sinful nature.
To be crucified and yet live is the eternal Sabbath. It begins now and continues forever. We always and forever will live by the Life of the Lord Jesus, just as Christ lives by the Life of the Father. We have to "labor" to enter the eternal Sabbath because there are so many "works," even religious works, that our adamic nature is always prompting us to perform.
We labor to enter the Divine rest by looking to Jesus for all we are doing at all times and in all circumstances, so we are not living just by our human inclinations. We will be living like this when churches and religions, have long ago passed away.
We are coming a new creation, in which the old is passing away and all is becoming new in Christ. The new creation supersedes all previous covenants, and directs and enables us to perform the righteousness that is the intent of all previous covenants. The new creation is the new covenant between God and man.
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. (Galatians 6:15)
By no means is Sunday the Sabbath day, although it is a strong tradition in Christian nations. Based perhaps on the fact that the Lord Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, that is, on Sunday.
I commend these dear folks on their desire to keep God's commandments. The Sabbath commandment is similar to the equally important commandment of the circumcision of a child.
Both of these commandments are, in my opinion, equal in importance. Circumcision is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments and was instituted prior to the Ten Commandments, at the time of Abraham.
All of the Jewish statutes and ordinances are a shadow of Christ, and all are fulfilled under the new covenant. Christ observed them all, and so when we are obeying the Spirit of God, Christ's righteousness is ascribed to us (Romans 8:4).
Paul told us clearly in the Book of Galatians that circumcision in the flesh has nothing to do with our salvation.
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:15,16)
The expression "the Israel of God" refers to all who are part of Christ, to the one "new Man."
Likewise Paul told us of the true Sabbath of God:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
The above is what the Book of Hebrews means by the "rest" of God. I refer to it as living by the Life of Jesus. It is the eternal Sabbath in which the Lord Jesus always lives.
Whether we attend church on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday has nothing to do with the Sabbath ordinance of the Ten Commandments. The purpose of the Jewish Sabbath was to give people one day of the week in which to focus their attention on Go and to honor Him.
Jews were forbidden to work on Saturday but to give their attention to God. It was not ordained, as far as I know, that the Jews had to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, although their custom was to do so.
We, however, are to give our attention fully to the Lord Jesus Christ every moment of every day of the week. There is no day in which we are to focus our attention on Christ more than any other day.
When we are crucified with Christ we are dead to the Law of Moses. The Law has no authority over the dead.
By the same token, if Christ is living in us, and we are living by His Life, He will guide us when we are to assemble. In the days of persecution that are coming to America, we may be forced to meet in hiding on some day other than Saturday or Sunday.
I have been a disciple of my Lord Jesus Christ for over 65 years. During the past five I have been more conscious than ever of living by His Life. Christ never once impressed on me throughout 65 year of commitment to His will that there was anything special about Saturday.
God's will to me is everything. I seek the face of Christ continually that I might do His will. I do not seek His will more on Saturday than on any other day. Hopefully, every day that follows, as I learn to live one day at a time, is holier than the preceding. I would not have it any other way.
I do not want the six days that preceded the seventh day to be less holy than the seventh day. I cannot accept that idea!
I am crucified every day. Every day I am raised to do the will of God.
Being a pastor, Sunday is not a Sabbath of rest for me, nor do I ever refer to it as such. Rather, I work harder on Sunday than on any other day. Saturday afternoon is a time of rest for me as I prepare for the Sunday sermon.
But I do not regard Saturday afternoon as being more holy than any other time. I could not seek Christ more fervently on Saturday afternoon because I seek Christ fervently at all times—and more so as the days go by and He teaches me to live by His Life.
I certainly have no quarrel with anyone who desires to go to Church on Saturday. By doing so he is showing his love for God and is worshiping Him with other saints.
My only concern is that God's people have such a difficult time letting go of Moses! The truth is, Moses is dead. Christ now is Joshua. We do not know where Moses is buried, so we cannot raise him up and find righteousness by doing what God commanded through him.
I personally would inveigh against setting aside one day a week as being more holy than the other six, in that we might let down our consecration on those lesser-holy six days.
Everyone should worship God in a way that is meaningful to him or her, and I refuse to judge someone because he or she gathers with the saints on Saturday, or on Sunday for that matter.
But I think we can live more fully by the Life of Christ when we give our attention wholly to Him at all times, rather than ignoring Him on Saturday by not looking directly to Him to see what He wants us to do right then—just taking it for granted that He wants us to assemble on that day.
As Paul said about the ordinances of the Law, when we look to something other than the cross of Christ for our righteousness, it is loss for Christ.
We have a new commandment, referred to as the Law of the Spirit of Life. This means we are commanded to follow the Holy Spirit and obey Him diligently every hour of every day of our life.
I have noticed in the Bible translations the expression "free gift." (What other kind of gift is there?). This is a redundancy intended to emphasize that there is nothing for us to do other than to believe the facts about Christ. Is this nothing more than undisciplined writing or is there something in the Greek language that adds the term "free" to "gift"?
I have concluded that the philosophy of Humanism has altered Christian preaching. We want everyone to be pleased. They won't accept Christ if they are not pleased, will they?
I remember the account of two young people in Southeast Asia who wanted to join a church. The elders asked them if they were ready to be tortured and slain for Christ. Their response was, "Yes."
We ought to try that in America.
How long has it been since you have heard that to be a Christian we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ.?
Well, I may have made a case in this essay for the truth that Divine grace is more than a "free gift" to people so they have to do nothing but profess to believe in Jesus, and then wait to die and go to Heaven where they can recline forever on their sofa in their mansion and do nothing of significance for eternity.
Even though they have not done well they will hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter the joy of your Lord." You see, even Jesus has been affected by Humanism.
So we cannot do as a Muslim might and say, "God is merciful," after we have broken His commandment. Our God has told us every idle work we speak will be brought before us in the Day of Judgment. Our God has warned us that as we sow we are going to reap.
We can come before our God, confess our sin, and ask Him to forgive us. God can do that on the basis of the atoning blood shed by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.
But confession alone will not bring deliverance. We have to turn away from our sin and walk in the light of God's will. Then the blood of Christ will cleanse us from all sin.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (I John 1:7)
I sincerely wish that every Muslim person could come to the Lord Jesus and receive the forgiveness and righteousness that He lovingly paid for on the cross. Christ then would be so pleased to see these new friends that now were receiving the benefit of the terrible suffering He bore for them.
I certainly am not referring to joining the Christian religion. I am speaking rather of knowing Jesus personally as a friend and talking to Him all the time.
I think I see the problem clearly. Perhaps sometimes after my death, and America has been ravaged by destruction until it has become a third-class nation, there will arise prophets who will proclaim to the Christian people that they must confess and turn from their sins if they are to enter the Kingdom of God.
May our dear Lord in His mercy and kindness return the fear of God to the United States of America.