THE SALVATION OF MAN.
Intro:
1. In the 1951 science fiction movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still, space traveler Klaatu, lands his spaceship in Washington, DC. He is hunted down, shot, and imprisoned. But moments before he is finally taken, he warns Helen Benson, about his avenging robot – eight-foot-tall Gort. He warns her that. “If anything happens to him, Gort will wreak revenge on the city. Therefore, she must intercept him and repeat this command: “Klaatu Barada Nikto!” Helen responds, “But he’s a robot. Without you, what could he do?” Klaatu gravely responds, “There’s no limit to what he could do. He could destroy the earth.”
2. That is just science fiction, but the reality is when it comes to the true and living God, there is no limit to what He can do! After man rebelled against Him He could have destroyed the earth, but instead He chose to do something so mindboggling that it stuns the imagination – to Pardon all sins and Impute righteousness to all who would receive it!
3. We now come to the Salvation – first step justification.
Trans: We have looked at The Situation: God’s Perfection; Creation; and Demonstration of grace. The Separation: Standard of Deity; Sin Debt; Satanic Dominion; and Spiritual Death. We looked at God’s Solution: Representation; Incarnation; Substitution; and Satisfaction. Now we come to the Salvation.
I. JUSTIFICATION.
A. Pardon. Just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned! Forgiveness is Subtraction.
Now technically pardon is not the same as justification, but we are doing a simple overview, a back to the basics. But keep in mind everything we look at is Biblically sound.
1. Meaning of forgiveness.
The Greek word means “to send away.” To forgive means to remove the accusations against the sinner, after God has been satisfied concerning his sins, by His own work.
One notes:
The literal meaning of forgiveness is “to dismiss.” “Dismiss from what?” we ask. Evidently it means dismiss from the only record that exists, that is, from the mind of God… God does not forget the fact of sin, but he dismisses it from his mind as sin. As a result of this forgiveness, God does not impute that sin to the sinner. Sin is debt. Sin causes us to be behind in our obligation… He gives us a clean sheet, so that there is no sin counted against us. God does not impute or reckon sin against us. This is a marvel! Would it not be a marvel if you should put your hand in the fire, and it did not burn you? This is the marvel of forgiveness…[And keep in mind] Without forgiveness, the door of hell is inevitably open. Without forgiveness, the doors of heaven are inevitably shut. Forgiveness is the key that shuts the door to everlasting damnation. Forgiveness opens the door to heaven, to everlasting glory, and to fellowship with God.
I bought a cheap, used suit, from eBay, when it arrived it had a big round stain on it! And even after I had it dry cleaned, the stain remained. In fact, I showed it to several of you. Then I decided to have it dry cleaned, but this time told the woman, about the stain and sure enough, she got it out!
When we acknowledge our sin-stain and receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior, He removes the sin-stain from us, sends it away!
2. Measure of forgiveness.
a. It includes All.
Not only all our sins, but the self that produces those sins!
As one noted:
So we see that objectively the blood deals with our sins. The Lord Jesus has borne them on the cross for us as our Substitute and has thereby obtained for us forgiveness… But we must now go a step further in the plan of God to understand how He deals with the sin principle in us. The blood can wash away my sins, but it cannot wash away my “old man.” It needs the cross to crucify me. The blood deals with the sins, but the cross must deal with the sinner… Our sins are dealt with by the blood, but we ourselves are dealt with by the cross. The blood procures our pardon for what we have done; the cross procures our deliverance from what we are.
Our focus for now is on our sins…
(1) It is Biblical. Col. 2:13/Heb. 10:14
13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions. Colossians 2:13
How much is all to an omniscient God? Every single one of them!
I read about a legal decision from a case in Pennsylvania, where the word “all” was defined as “All includes everything and excludes nothing.”
Our Lord cried out on the cross, “It is finished”, literally Paid in Full! The Complete Bible Library notes:
A similar use in classical Greek is to “complete” or “perform” obligations, especially taxes or tribute. The concept of perform is used to signify the execution of a dangerous feat. Teleo also refers to the carrying out of religious duties and the performing of prayers. It is often translated “to pay debts.” A final use of the word in classical Greek is “to complete” in the sense of bringing to an end. Aristotle used the word to denote the bringing to an end the years of a person’s life (Liddell-Scott). Josephus used teleo meaning to “fulfill” a promise and also to pay a tribute to masters (Bauer).
Hal Lindsey writes:
Just before Jesus gave up His earthly life and commended His Spirit to the Father. He shouted a word which is the Magna Carta of all true believers. That victorious cry was “Tetelestai!” Let that word burn like a firebrand into your mind, because that’s the exact same word that a Roman judge would write across a released criminal’s Certificate of Debt to show that all his penalty had been paid for and he was free at last. The word used in this way means “paid in full” and is translated in many Bibles as “It is finished.” In the mind of God, “Paid in Full” has been written across the Certificate of Debt of every man who will ever live because His debt to God has been fully paid by Jesus.
But if a man would be so foolish as to insist on staying imprisoned by his sins, even though their debt has been paid…Then when he comes to the end of his life, he will have to pay the penalty of death and [eternal] separation from God.
(2) It is also Logical.
Christ died in 33 A.D….I was born in 1953….born-again in 1974…one day I will die, let’s say 2050.
When the Lord Jesus died in 33 A.D., how many of my sins were future sins? All of them! God being omniscient saw every single one of them. Therefore the Lord Jesus had to die for every single one of them. If there was one sin that He did not pay for, that one sin would have kept Him from accepting me in the first place. Sometimes people say that if you commit a certain sin you will lose your salvation, but again, that so called sin, was known to God before it was ever committed. He must forgive us of all our sins or He cannot save us to begin with.
Trans: Hal Lindsey noted, “Many people have a concept of a cross that only looks to the rear of their lives, but never looks ahead. That’s only half of a cross and that’s really no cross at all. When God says He forgives us all sins, that’s a cross with two arms, one stretched back into our past and one reaching into our entire future. Anything less than an all-inclusive forgiveness on the timeline of history falls pathetically short of God’s infinite provision for sin.”
Horatio Spafford penned this blessing in 1873:
My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
b. It includes an inability to Recall.
He not only forgives, but he also forgets!
17 "AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE." Hebrews 8:12; 10:17
Charles Spurgeon writes:
This is a wonder of wonders, that God should say he will do what in some sense he cannot do. God’s pardon of sin is so complete that he himself describes it as not remembering our iniquity. The Lord cannot in strict accuracy of speech forget anything. But he wishes us to know that his pardon is so true and deep that it amounts to an absolute oblivion, a total forgetting of all the wrongdoing of the pardoned ones.
In his book, Lee: The Last Years, Charles Bracelen Flood reports that after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee visited a Kentucky lady who took him to the remains of a grand old tree in front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Federal Artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the North or at least sympathizing with her loss. After a brief silence, Lee said, "Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it."
That’s what God has done! Because He paid for our sins He can forget about them. They are gone!
I have had a program on my computer for years, it is an LP Recorder and I have used it often. But it stopped working. So I decided I would uninstall it and then reinstalling it thinking that might somehow fix the problem. Problem was, after I unistalled it – it was gone! I emailed them and they were not the least bit sympathetic! I tried everything I could to get it back. But that program was gone! I was working on this sermon and it was as if the Lord said, “Hey, that is what I have done with all your sins! They are uninstalled and neither you, the devil or anyone else can bring them back!
3. Means of forgiveness.
The means is not Divine generosity or leniency or human tears, but the blood of Jesus Christ. A life has been given in our place providing a just basis for forgiveness (Heb 9:21-22).
It is not like a presidential pardon we hear so much about today, where the president can forgive anybody for any or no reason. In fact, President Trump even talked about having the power to pardon himself!
Someone may ask, “If God is gracious and merciful, couldn't He just forgive. Sort of live and let live? Here's the problem:
Someone always eats the cost of sin. Let's say your neighbor crashes his car through your fence. When you discover the shambles, you forgive him: "Don't worry about the fence! All is forgiven." But forgiving your neighbor doesn't do away with the bill or dissolve the damage; it means you eat the cost.
During the U.S. housing crisis, shoddy banking practices, fat-cat executives, and corporate corruption threw a sledgehammer into the global economy. Now, imagine a new man is installed in the aftermath as the new CEO of one of the massive corporations guilty for the crisis. The old CEO is out the door; a new boss is in town. This new guy is personally innocent: he wasn't behind the wheel when the ship got steered into the rocks. But there's still a huge debt. Bank of America alone owed people $17 billion.
Someone has to pay the costs. Here's what actually happened: in the aftermath of the housing crisis, the banks were deemed "too big to fail," and the government forgave the debt, covering the most expensive bailout of human history. Though the banking industry had caused massive damage, the debt was forgiven. But the debt didn't go away. Someone else covered it—in this case, the American people. Someone always eats the cost.
At the Cross, God was eating the cost of our sin. God justly forgave the sin debt—by personally covering the cost. The truth is the Government did not give the most expensive bail out in history - the most expensive bailout was when the Lord Jesus took the compounded wrath of God in our place. Thus providing the most outrageous debt-forgiveness plan the world has or ever will know.
The means of our forgiveness is the substitutionary death of Christ (Eph. 1:7/Col. 1:14/1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18/etc.).
It is not our faith that forgives, but, the object of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is not our repentance that brings forgiveness but forgiveness brings about repentance. The Ragamuffin Gospel:
The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness. Thus the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace.
D. James Kennedy points out the problem:
The cross is such good news. So why doesn’t everyone embrace it? I’m convinced that the single biggest reason is our pride. Pride was the downfall of the devil and all his demons. So it is also the downfall of much of humankind. After looking at the incredible, marvelous, amazing grace of God, we can only marvel that God would provide such rich forgiveness for undeserving worms as we are in our unregenerate state… The problem is, so many people in this country assume they’re saved because they’ve never believed they were lost. But one thing is absolutely sure: You cannot be saved unless you’re lost. The Bible tells us that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4: 6). Humbling ourselves before God and acknowledging our sin and our lostness is what prepares us to receive His grace. We’re wrong if we think, I am a good person, I am righteous and holy and just, and I am going to accept God’s grace. No, His grace is for the wicked; God “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4: 5). This is a most astonishing thing, but we have to humble ourselves and say, “O Christ, I am that lost sinner, that ungodly one for whom You came and for whom You died.”
If you think that you are part of the means that God used to forgive you of your sin – you are still lost in your sin!
4. Imageries of forgiveness.
• As far as the east is from the west (Psa. 103:12).
Jerry Bridges notes, “If you start west and continue in that direction you will always be going west. North and south meet at the North Pole, but east and west never meet… He is saying they have been removed an infinite distance from us… He is saying His forgiveness is total, complete, and unconditional. He is saying He is not keeping score with regard to our sins… Because of Christ’s death in our place, God’s justice is now completely satisfied. God can now, without violating His justice or His moral law, forgive us freely, completely and absolutely. He can now extend His grace to us; He can show favor to those who, in themselves, deserve only wrath.”
• Vanish like a cloud (Isa. 44:22).
22 I’ve blotted out your sins; they are gone like morning mist at noon! Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free." Isaiah 44:22 (TLB)
• Blotted out (Isa. 43:25/Ac. 3:19).
25 "I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25
• Cast into the depth of the sea (Mic. 7:19).
• Cast behind His back (Isa. 38:17).
• Disappear and not be found (Jer. 50:20).
5. Message of forgiveness.
a. The sin debt is Paid.
This barrier has been removed!
Giles Hembrough earns a modest salary working as a railway signal tester for the Amey Railroad in Bristol, England. A recent increase in his wages pushed him into a higher tax bracket. So naturally he was curious as to know how much tax he’d be required to pay at the end of the year. Well, when he opened and read the “dreaded letter” from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), Mr. Hembrough received the shock of his life. According to “Her Majesty” Giles Hembrough owed her $ 18.7 trillion – and he had until April 5, 2017 to pay it! Now to get a handle on that figure, that’s more than $ 1.3 trillion above the net worth of the United States. That’s enough money to purchase 46 billion iPhones or 94 million Lamborghini sports cars. Giles got out his calculator and tried to figure out how long it would take him to pay off the tax bill if he dedicated every cent of his paycheck to it: 369 million years! Of course, the amount was so ludicrous that Giles assumed it was a mistake from the start. “If the bill had been for $ 10,000 or so, then I’d have been worried. But for $ 18.7 trillion? That had to be a mistake.” His hunch was right. When he called HMRC, a customer service rep commented, “It looks like someone has fallen asleep on the key board.” Our debt was higher than that, and it was no mistake, but it has been completely paid by the Lord Jesus Christ.
b. It silences the Devils accusations against God’s People.
10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. Revelation 12:10
No one can ever condemn the believer for one single sin!
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Romans 8:31-35
Hoeksema writes:
“Who can be against us?” the suggestion of powers that are against us… There is the power of the devil and his host. There is the power of the world in an evil sense: the power of temptation; the power of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. There is the power also of persecution, of reproach, of affliction… We cannot avoid them. There is in this world the power of sin and corruption. Even our nature is part of this world. The power of sin is within us. Other powers may be against us, but God is for us… The one answer here is God. That he is God means, first, that he is the supreme and final Judge. He passes sentence. He executes the verdict. From his verdict there is no appeal. If this Judge is for us, he justified us; otherwise, he could not be for us… But might it not be possible that we lose the favor of God? Scripture answers that God is unchangeable. Nothing can separate us from his love. Therefore, if we can really say that God is for us, we have no need of anything else.
Watchman Nee notes:
Since God, seeing all our sins in the light, can forgive them on the basis of the blood, what ground of accusation has Satan? Satan may accuse us before Him, but “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom. 8: 31). God points him to the blood of His dear Son. It is the sufficient answer against which Satan has no appeal. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8: 33– 34). Thus, God answers his every challenge… We have not recognized that it is God alone that can answer the accuser, and that in the precious blood He has already done so… Never should we try to answer Satan with our good conduct but always with the blood. Yes, we are sinful; but— praise God!— the blood cleanses us from every sin.
Martin Luther experienced in a dream a visitation of Satan himself. He said, “The devil had a scroll and as he unrolled it I saw all of my sins written down. He began to accuse me and I sank into depression.” Then Martin suddenly had a verse come to his mind. He then demanded that the devil unroll the scroll all the way – and the bottom was 1 Jn. 1:7, “The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin!”
c. It Purges our conscience.
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22
Watchman Nee says it well:
The writer does not tell us that the blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses our hearts, and then stop there in his statement. We are wrong to connect the heart with the blood in quite that way… The heart, God says, is “desperately sick” (Jer. 17: 9, NASB), and He must do something more fundamental than cleanse it: He must give us a new one… “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” What then is the meaning of this? It means that there was something intervening between myself and God, as a result of which I had an evil conscience whenever I sought to approach Him. It was constantly reminding me of the barrier that stood between myself and Him. But now, through the operation of the precious blood, something new has been effected before God which has removed that barrier… my conscience is at once cleared and my sense of guilt removed, and I have no more an evil conscience toward God. Every one of us knows what a precious thing it is to have a conscience void of offense in our dealings with God. A heart of faith and a conscience clear of any and every accusation are both equally essential to us, since they are interdependent. As soon as we find our conscience is uneasy, our faith leaks away, and immediately we know we cannot face God. In order therefore to keep going on with God, we must know the up-to-date value of the blood. It never loses its efficacy as our ground of access if we will but lay hold upon it… I come to God on the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. I approach God through His merit alone and never on the basis of my attainment— never, for example, on the ground that I have been extra kind or patient today, or that I have done something for the Lord this morning. I have to come by way of the blood every time… A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His blood.
14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 9:14
A dead work is anything we do to try and gain God’s acceptance apart from the blood of Christ!
Con:
1. Have you received Christ as your Savior? Then you are forgiven! Now get preoccupied with the Savior not your sin.
2. Sen. Mark Hatfield recounts the following history:
James Garfield was a lay preacher and principal of his denominational college. They say he was ambidextrous and could simultaneously write Greek, with one hand and Latin with the other.
In 1880, he was elected president of the United States, but after only six months in office, he was shot in the back with a revolver. He never lost consciousness. At the hospital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet. He couldn’t find it, so he tried a silver-tipped probe. Still he couldn’t locate the bullet. They took Garfield back to Washington, D.C. Despite the summer heat, they tried to keep him comfortable. He was growing very weak. Teams of doctors tried to locate the bullet, probing the wound over and over.
In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on a little device called the telephone, to see if he could locate the metal inside the president’s body. He came, he sought, and he too failed. The president hung on through July, through August, but in September he finally died—not from the wound, but from infection.
The repeated probing, which the physicians thought would help the man, eventually killed him.
So it is with us who dwell too long on our sin and refuse to realize that God has already removed it.
B. Imputation of Righteousness. Just-as-if-I’d-done-everything-right! This aspect is an Addition.
Pilots of supersonic aircraft must always guard against the effects of multiple G-forces. G-forces (the force of gravity multiplied) increase for a pilot when his jet aircraft suddenly accelerates, lifts up from a dive, or turns steeply. They can cause a fatal loss of consciousness. This happens when G-forces drive blood from the brain to the lower half of the body. Blood deprivation of the brain can cause a “black out” or loss of consciousness, which is fatal. So they have invented the G-Suit. It is a tight-fitted pair of pants with sewn-in bladders that inflate with gas or liquid. When powerful G-forces trigger a sensor, the G-suit counters by squeezing the lower extremities and abdomen – preventing loss of blood from the brain. The greater the G-forces that cause a loss of consciousness – and death - the greater the G-suit reacts with pressure to keep the pilot conscious – and alive.
Fallen man cannot live in the presence of, what we might call a God-force, God’s absolute Holiness. The good news is that God has provided those who trust the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior not only Pardon but a God-suit! Clothing the believer in the very righteousness of Christ. Have you ever wished that you had lived a perfect life in word, thought, deed, and nature? Bad news is it is too late for that, but the good news is the Lord Jesus lived such a life and places that on your account when you trust Him as your Savior!
Imputation means “to attribute, or ascribe to another, a crime, an act, guilt or innocence, sin or righteousness.”
An illustration is found in Philemon 18:
18 But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. Philemon 1:18
There are two imputations:
• our sins imputed to Christ (Isa. 53:5,6,11/2 Cor. 5:21/1 Pet. 2:24/etc.); and
• Christ righteousness imputed to us (Rom. 3:21-22; 4:1-6; 9:30; 10:3/1 Cor. 1:30/2 Cor. 5:21/Phil. 3:9). This second imputation is what we are now looking at.
If you go over to Scotland, or anywhere there are many sheep, sooner or later you're going to see a very unusual sight. You'll see a little lamb with an extra fleece tied around its back. What has happened is that its mother has died. If you take the orphaned lamb and try to introduce it to another mother, the new mother will butt it away. She won't recognize the lamb's scent and will know the new baby is not one of her own lambs. Therefore, the shepherd will skin the dead lamb and make its fleece into a covering for the orphaned lamb, then he'll take the orphaned lamb to the mother whose baby just died. Now, when she sniffs the orphaned lamb, she will smell the fleece of her own lamb. Instead of butting the lamb away, she will accept it as one of her own.
In a similar way, we have become acceptable to God by being clothed with Christ.
When God accepts the believer He is really accepting Himself! It is not that He merely gives us righteousness but that He Himself is our righteousness.
1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?" 3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. 4 Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And to him He said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes." 5 And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the LORD stood by. Zechariah 3:1-5
1. Let’s look at a few Definitions.
a. Secular definition.
It is the justifying of an innocent man. It is a person, who was thought to be guilty, but later proven to be not guilty. We hear about these things all the time, someone is put into prison for a crime they did not commit and then later, through DNA or something else, they are proven innocent.
I have watched the movie The Hurricane, it was about Rubin "Hurricane" Carter a middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted of murder and later freed after spending almost 20 years in prison. A few years ago, he died at the age of 76 last month. He was, in the secular sense, justified.
b. Cultural definition: In Paul’s day it was used, to justify the outrageous acts of high officials, like a king. We might call it self-justification.
We see it often in politics these days, it looks like the FBI tried to sway things to elect Hillary and get rid of Trump. After a clear bias was proven beyond doubt they justified their findings by saying those with a clear bias against Trump did not affect the process. Right!
c. Biblical definition: the one who is justified, is neither proven innocent, or able, to excuse their guilt. It is the act of God, by a Divine declaration, by which He declares righteous, by way of imputation, the believing sinner who is guilty and under condemnation.
Swindoll puts it this way:
What is justification? It is the sovereign act of God whereby He declares righteous believing sinners while we are still in a sinning state. Being justified does not mean that we will never again sin. False teachers might question our justification, saying, “You’re not righteous. Look at how you failed last week.” But the doctrine of justification is the declaration of righteousness, the imputing of Christ’s righteousness to our account. At the moment of our conversion, the Lord Jesus Christ enters our lives, and God declares us righteous.
Jerry Vines:
Justification— The Greek noun for justification is derived from the Greek verb dikaioo, meaning “to acquit” or “to declare righteous” (used by Paul in Rom. 4: 2, 5, 25; 5: 1). It is a legal term used of a favorable verdict in a trial. The word, depicts a courtroom setting, with God presiding as the Judge, determining the faithfulness of each person to the Law. In the first section of Romans, Paul makes it clear that no one can withstand God’s judgment (3: 9– 9– 20). The Law was not given to justify sinners but to expose their sin. To remedy this deplorable situation, God sent His Son to die for our sins, in our place. When we believe in Jesus, God imputes His righteousness to us, and we are declared righteous before God. In this way, God demonstrates that He is both a righteous Judge and the One who declares us righteous, our Justifier (3: 26).
Trans: This is why so few refuse to be saved, in order to be righteous in God’s eyes, you have to be guilty in yours. Righteousness is a gift and totally eliminates any pride or boasting on our behalf of the person believing, and that, is hard for fallen man to accept.
21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Romans 3:21-28
Barclay, “We must never be self-righteous in goodness. How harmful is the so-called Christian who harps on about his goodness. How little does he realize that the man who is furthest from God is the man who thanks God he is not like others.”
2. Furthermore, the Declaration.
a. It is Judicial not Experiential.
In justification, we are declared righteous, not made righteous, in our actual experience.
James Kennedy, “It is not anything done by us or wrought in us. Justification does NOT change our hearts, our souls, our lives one whit. It is something which is external to us. It is something which is declared about us by God. It is NOT God acting as a doctor or a surgeon in which He comes in and changes our hearts. Indeed God does change us, but that is regeneration and sanctification. Justification is a declaration about us; the declarative act of a Judge about a sinner. In this declaration, God declares us to be righteous.”
One observes:
You understand that this word imputed implies that I am not righteous in myself. Otherwise, imputation would not be necessary. He to whom righteousness is imputed is not righteous. If he is not righteous, he is unrighteous. There is no third possibility. We are either righteous or unrighteous. When God imputes righteousness unto me, I am a sinner, I am corrupt, I am unrighteous. Otherwise righteousness would not have to be imputed. Faith is imputed to us for righteousness. Why? Not because God imputes something that is not. Not because faith is righteousness. Not because of the fruits of faith. Not because by faith we become better men and women before God…I believe that when the apostle Paul wrote [in 2 Tim. 4:7, 8], “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,” he was not more righteous than he was when he was on the way to Damascus. Faith is imputed for righteousness because it lays hold on the only perfect righteousness that exists, namely, Christ Jesus.
When you think about it, we will be no more righteous when we get to heaven, then we are right now!
There is no better example of this, that justification is not related to our experience, than Lot, who God’s Word says was righteous:
7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, 2 Peter 2:7-9
Yet in his daily experience, he was anything but righteous!
• He Compromised with the world, he did not have to live in Sodom (Gen. 19:1-3)
• He Condoned sin, by offering his daughter to homosexuals (Gen. 19:4-11).
• He did not have one Convert, not even among his own family (19:12-29).
• He Consented to get drunk (19:32).
• He Cohabited with his own daughters (19:33-38)
Yet in spite of all of that he was righteous in the eyes of God, because Christ’s righteousness was imputed to him!
Chuck Swindoll, "You're telling me, Chuck, that by simply believing in Jesus Christ I can have eternal life with God, my sins forgiven, [righteousness put on my account], a destiny secure in heaven, all of this and much more without my working for that?” Yes, that is precisely what Scripture teaches. It is called grace."
Courson, "Lot Righteous? A guy who calls perverted people his brothers? A guy who offers his daughters to a homosexual mob? A guy who lingers when angels tell him to leave? Lot righteous? Yes, for that is what Peter calls him [under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit]. How could Lot possibly be considered righteous? Because righteousness is imputed solely on the basis of simple faith. I am righteous and so are you if you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and believed in your heart that God raised Him from the dead."
Keep in mind that Old Testament saints were also justified and regenerated as Romans four reveals. They were not all indwelt, and Spirit baptism did not take place until the Day of Pentecost.
Was Lot grieved to the bone? He was but that was not related to justification but regeneration. Because of regeneration a believer can sin, but he or she will be miserable. If you can sin and enjoy it you are not a true believer.
7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), 2 Peter 2:7-8
Justification is a judicial declaration not experiential.
b. It is Additional not just Subtractional.
As wonderful as Pardon is, it is not enough, it is a subtraction of our sins, but we need an addition of righteousness to be acceptable to God. Hal Lindsey notes:
“You see, even in light of the fact that Christ has taken all my sins away, that only leaves me in a neutral status with God. Just having no sin will never make me acceptable in God’s sight. In order to be acceptable to God, I need more than just subtraction of my sins. I need the addition of Christ’s righteousness.”
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
c. It is Scriptural not Pharisaical.
The Pharisees way, was to try to earn righteousness, by fasting, prayer, synagogue attendance, and good works. They thought that if they became righteous in their behavior, God would declare them righteous in His sight. They had it backward! Their righteousness by behavior fell short of God’s perfection. Why? Because we are all sinners by birth and behavior.
6 We are all infected and impure with sin. When we put on our prized robes of righteousness, we find they are but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves we fade, wither and fall. And our sins, like the wind, sweep us away. Isaiah 64:6 (TLB)
Elyse Fitzpatrick, writes in, Give Them Grace:
“The primary reason the majority of kids from Christian homes stray from the faith, is that, they never really had it to begin with…This is illustrated by a conversation I recently had with a young woman in her early twenties who had been raised in a Christian home and had attended church for most of her life. After assuring me that she was, indeed, saved, I asked her, "What does it mean to be a Christian?"
She replied, "It means that you ask Jesus into your heart."
"Yes, all right, but what does that mean?"
"It means that you ask Jesus to forgive you."
"Okay, but what do you ask him to forgive you for?"
"Bad things? I guess you ask him to forgive you for bad things, the sins you do."
"Why would Jesus forgive you?"
She fidgeted. "Um, because you ask him?"
[I asked], "What do you think God wants you to know?"
She beamed. "He wants me to know that I should love myself and that there's nothing I can't do if I think I can."
"And what does God want from you?" I asked.
"He wants me to do good stuff….You know, be nice to others and don't hang around with bad people."
Then Elyse noted, “[Apparently], we've transformed the holy, terrifying, magnificent, and loving God of the Bible into Santa and his elves. Instead of transmitting the gloriously liberating and life-changing truths of the gospel, we have taught our children that what God wants from them is morality. We have told them that being good (at least outwardly) is the be-all and end-all of their faith. This isn't the gospel; we're not handing down Christianity.”
Self-righteousness is not the same as imputed righteousness. The first is based on what man can do, and the later based on was has already been done through the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. The Doctrinal Framework.
a. God Initiates it.
It is all by grace! God must initiate it because we are to fallen too even want God, or merit anything from Him, even if we wanted Him. But fallen man never seeks God without the Holy Spirit drawing them.
10 as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; 11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; 12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE." Romans 3:10-12 (NASB)
I never tire of quoting Dr. Gerstner:
Christ has done everything necessary for his salvation. Nothing now stands between the sinner and God but the sinner’s good works. Nothing can keep him from Christ but his delusion that he does not need Him – that he has good works of his own that can satisfy God. If men will only be convinced that they have no righteousness that is not as filthy rags; if men will see that there is none that does good, no, not one; if men will see that all are shut up under sin – then there will be nothing to prevent their everlasting salvation. All they need is need. All they must have is nothing. All that is required is acknowledged guilt. But, alas, sinners cannot part from their virtues. They have none that are not imaginary, but they are real to them. So grace becomes unreal. The real grace of God they spurn in order to hold on to the illusory virtues of their own. Their eyes fixed on a mirage, they will not drink real water. They die of thirst in the midst of an ocean of Grace.”
Tim Keller, “When a Christian sees prostitutes, alcoholics, prisoners, drug addicts, unwed mothers, the homeless, refugees, he knows that he is looking in a mirror. Perhaps the Christian spent all of his life as a respectable middle-class person. No matter. He thinks, Spiritually I was just like these people, though physically and socially I never was where they are now. They are outcasts. (Spiritually speaking) I was an outcast.”
We are not only, saved by grace through faith in Christ, but the Bible says we are to live as we got in, by grace through faith.
6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, Colossians 2:6
Chandler notes, “The litmus test of whether or not you understand the gospel is what you do when you fail. Do you run from God and go try to clean yourself up a bit before you come back into the throne room, or do you approach the throne of grace with confidence? If you don't approach the throne of grace with confidence, you don't understand the gospel. You are most offensive to God when you come to him with all of your efforts, when you're still trying to earn what's freely given.”
This might explain why so many turn down the gospel – it is too good to be true! I ordered a Bible once from eBay to give away. As I was paging through it I saw a hundred dollar bill! No way! It was too good to be true. Must be a counterfeit. I set it aside for several months. Then I decided to check it out – I found out that a real 100 Bill has a 100 at the right bottom and when you shift the bill it shifts from green to black. My 100-dollar bill did that!
It said to take your finger nail and scratch the surface, it should feel a little bumpy because it has raised printing. Again, mine had that!
It said that borders, printing, should not be blurry – while I do not have the best sight, it did not look blurry to me.
It said if you hold it up to the light, you can see an image of Ben Franklin, they called it a watermark. My Bill had that!
It said the left side would have a security tread and mine did.
It said something about the numbers which I could not figure out what it was talking about.
But as far as I can tell, this 100 bill which I found in a Bible, was too good to be true – but it is! By the way, I finally took it down to our bank and asked the teller if it was real or counterfeit. After studying it for a bit, she assured me it was the real deal. It was too good to be true, but it was – so is the gospel of grace!
To be forgiven of all our sins – past, present, and future; to be declared as righteous as Christ! Too good to be true but it is!
I have been told all of my life that if something is too good to be true it probably is – that why people turn down the gospel or add all kinds of stuff to it – to say that God offers a gift of pardon and imputed righteousness is so stunningly good, people just shake their head and say, “That just can’t be!” But it is!
b. God supplies the Instruments [means].
As we have already established the Blood of Christ. The basis of Justification is the Substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, which has Propitiated God the Father (Lu. 18:9-14).
That Greek word for the English word translated “merciful” in Lu. 18: 13, is hilastheti which means “to be propitious.”
As Hal points out:
“When the tax-collector prayed to God and asked Him to be “propitious” toward him, he was actually saying, “I know you’re not satisfied with me. I’m nothing but a no-good sinner who only deserves Your righteous wrath. But please receive me in the light of the atoning blood of sacrifice on the mercy seat which has satisfied your judgment against me.” He may not have used those words, but when he asked God to be propitious toward him, that’s exactly what he meant…To be humble means to have a true estimation of yourself and where you stand with God. To recognize there’s nothing you can do to gain acceptance in God’s sight, but to merely allow Him to make you acceptable.”
And it is, not only the blood that saves us initially, but it delivers us continually, each and every day of our lives.
Watchman Nee, “I approach God through His merit alone, and never on the basis of my attainment; never, for example, on the ground that I have been extra kind or patient today, or that I have done something for the Lord this morning. I have to come by way of the Blood every time…A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His Blood…Do you come to Him on the uncertain ground of your feeling, the feeling that you may have achieved something for God today? Or is your approach based on something far more secure, namely, the fact that the Blood has been shed, and that God looks on that Blood and is satisfied? The Blood has never changed and never will. Your approach to God is therefore always in boldness; and that boldness is yours through the Blood and never through your personal attainment…Whether you have had a good day or a bad day, whether you have consciously sinned or not, your basis of approach is always the same – the Blood of Christ…My initial approach to God is by the Blood, and every time I come before Him it is the same. Right to the end it will always and only be on the ground of the precious Blood.”
c. It is Impossible!
13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all 17 (as it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations") in the presence of Him whom he believed--God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be." 19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. 20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. 22 And therefore "it was accounted to him for righteousness." 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, 24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. Romans 4:13-25
What is it in the context that God calls that which does not exist as though it did? Imputed righteousness!
Herman Hoeksema notes:
The text says that God is, first, the one who calls the things that are not as though they were… If we are to call a thing, the thing must be there first, but God calls the things that are not as though they were. He calls the things out of himself. He calls them because He wills them… The idea is, first, that this is characteristic of God, that God always works this way. God never calls the things that are. He always calls the things that are not… Second, the text tells us that God quickeneth the dead… What did Abraham believe? He believed the promise of God…Why did Abraham believe the promise? Because he believed God who quickeneth the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were… Abraham’s faith was this: the things he believed were contrary to all experience.
So it is with the Christian. The things we believe are contrary to all that we see and to all that we experience… this faith of the Christian is just as impossible as was the faith of Abraham. All within us testifies that we are not righteous… this promise seemed to be impossible of realization. Abraham had to hope against hope for the realization of that promise. All things testified against the possibility of the realization of this promise. At the time the promise was given to him, Abraham was dead as far as the possibility of having seed is concerned. Abraham was one hundred years old. Sarah had been barren. She was now beyond the age of having a child. According to all things that are seen and experienced, the realization of the promise was impossible… Righteousness, therefore, is not concerned with what I think of myself. Nor do I ask what you think of me…The gospel must be declared by God because it is only on the basis of God’s declaration that we can believe impossible things. I believe in such impossible things as the forgiveness of sins. That the God who is unchangeably righteous forgives sin is impossible. Yet on the basis of God’s declaration, faith is imputed for righteousness because it lays hold on the only perfect righteousness that exists, namely, Christ Jesus…Impossible is possible…In every sense of the word, salvation is impossible because righteousness is unattainable… What does the Christian believe? Of what is he certain? In general, he is certain of this: God justifies the ungodly. It is absolutely necessary that God justifies the ungodly if there is to be salvation. Yet this is impossible from every point of view… Everything in my experience testifies against this statement. My conscience testifies against the fact that I am justified. All the world testifies against me. The devil testifies against me. All my experience testifies against the fact that I am justified… Saving faith is that I am certain, against all this testimony, that I am justified. God comes to us and says, “I justify the ungodly.”… we are ungodly. And God destroys the ungodly. But now God holds before us the promise of eternal life. Our last word must be ungodly. And God’s last word is, “I justify the ungodly.”
What does all of this mean?
a. Serenity.
1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1
In 1899, Dwight L. Moody went to speak to the Penitentiary in Canon City, Colorado on Thanksgiving Day. The governor of the state wrote him, enclosing a pardon for a woman imprisoned there. The woman was unaware of this and Mr. Moody was greatly pleased to be the bearer of the message. At the close of the address, Mr. Moody produced the document, saying, “I have a pardon in my hands for one of the prisoners before me.” Calling her name, he said, “Will you come forward and accept the Governor’s Thanksgiving gift?” The woman hesitated a moment, then arose, gave a shriek, and, crossing her arms over her breast, fell sobbing and laughing across the lap of the woman next her. Again she arose, staggered a short distance, and again fell at the feet of the matron of the prison, burying her head in the matron’s lap. The excitement was so intense that Mr. Moody would not do more than make a very brief application of the scene to illustrate God’s offer of pardon and peace.
Later Moody made these comments:
Strange that men prize more highly the pardon of a fellow-man than the forgiveness of their God!
Are we really that excited about the peace that is afforded through Pardon and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness? If not we should be!
b. Certainty. Rom. 8:1, 31-39
Since it all originates with God and is sustained by God, we can be sure that God will never reject us – in fact, for God to reject the Christian, is the same as rejecting Christ! It is God’s own righteousness that is upon the believer! In our experience, we are often a royal mess, but God does not see us, in ourselves, but in Christ.
While I do not like the word luck, I read a story some years ago that I found amusing. Philip Griffin tells of seeing a lost dog sign. There was a big cash reward for whoever found a lost dog, and a description of the dog:
"He's only got three legs, he's blind in the left eye, he's missing a right ear, his tail has been broken off, he was neutered accidentally by a fence—ouch!—he's almost deaf, and he answers by the name 'Lucky.'"
That dog isn't lucky! He is a mess but He is surely blessed by having an owner who loves him and refuses to let him go. That is what salvation is all about!
c. Purity.
The reason for this is NOT imputed righteousness but, as we will later see, regeneration. This makes us a new creature, giving us a nature that always seeks to live righteously (1 Jn. 3:9). It gives us the desire, and the indwelling Holy Spirit gives us the power (Gal. 5:16). Justification always leads to sanctification and ultimately glorification.
It is important that we embrace the fact that we are already righteous in God’s eyes, with Christ’s righteousness.
7 For as he thinks within himself, so he is…” Prov. 23:7
If you think you are nothing more than a rotten sinner, then you will act like a rotten sinner. It’s like hypnotizing a person to actually think he is a dog – soon he will start barking! But with imputed righteousness, we really are righteous!
On May 1, 2009 at the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby a horse named Mine entered the race at 50-1 odds. Mine had not fared well in his two previous races. The jockey that rode him was Calvin Borel. Right at the beginning of the race Mine struggled, Calvin got squeezed between the other horses and quickly dropped into last place. At the first quarter-mile stage, Mine was still running dead last.
At one point, he was so far behind the other horses that NBC's announcer, Tom Durkin, at first missed seeing him. But at the three-eighths pole, Mine started gaining on the other horses. After passing Atomic Rain, the horse took off. He ended up winning the mile race by 6 and ¾ lengths. The victory stunned the horse racing world. The owner of the horse commented, "[The victory] wasn't something that was on our radar."
But Calvin Borel, the jockey said he wasn’t surprised at all that Mine won. He said, "I rode him like a good horse." He rode him like a winning horse – and he won!
The truth is we are already righteous, and when we get to heaven we will be no more righteous then we are now! When we begin to believe this truth, the Holy Spirit will translate that positional righteousness into a practical righteousness in our lives. But as long as our testimony is, “Lord I fall so short, I aint nothing but a sinner who sins every day.” We will remain so in our daily lives. The greatest thing about this is when we see righteousness in our daily lives God has to get all of the glory.
Con:
1. Justification as we have looked at it, including forgiveness is a mind boggling stunning treasure. A Pardon, just-as-if-I’d-never sinned; and Imputed righteousness, just-as-if-I’d-always-done-everything-right.
2. Thus the barrier of the Sin Debt has long since been removed.
3. An article in USA Today caught my attention. It noted that the American Psychological Association has published new research exploring the rise of perfectionism in young people. Compared to prior generations, today's college students are harder on themselves, more demanding of others, and report higher levels of social pressure to be perfect.
The study examined over 40,000 college students who took a special survey between 1989 and 2016. The more recent students scored higher in all three forms of perfectionism. Between 1989 and 2016, the scores for socially prescribed perfectionism—or perceiving the excessive expectations of others—increased by 33 percent. Other-oriented expectations—putting unrealistic expectations on others—went up 16 percent, and self-oriented perfectionism—our irrational desire to be perfect—increased 10 percent.
One of the researchers concluded:
"Today's young people are competing with each other in order to meet societal pressures to succeed and they feel that perfectionism is necessary in order to feel safe, socially connected and of worth." Unfortunately, perfectionism can lead to anxiety, clinical depression, anorexia, and other health issues.
We can say two things, one is in order not only to feel safe, but to be safe in the eyes of a holy God one must be perfectly righteous.
Two, the only way to reach that perfection, is not by striving, but by receiving Christ’s Pardon and Imputation of His Righteousness. The only alternative is anxiety, depression, and ultimately eternal hell.
Joseph Parker:
My age would wither away before the growing tale was well begun. I owe all to Christ. There is nothing mine but my hateful sin. He found me; he loosed my bond; he paid my debt; he sounded the depths of all my woe; he ransomed me with blood!"… How poor my best return! How mean my gifts! How weak my service! But as he met me in the helplessness of my sin, so will he meet me in the imperfection of my work. He will make it worthy with his own merit; he will complete it by his own might; he will sanctify it by his own holiness. The blood of Christ!
II. REDEMPTION.
There was a bullfighter who lived from 1917 to 1947 known as Manolete. He was perhaps the greatest bullfighter who ever lived. He killed hundreds of bulls, he himself was badly gored a dozen times. His last battle was against the bull, named Islero, who had gored a horse and nearly killed its rider. As Manolete thrust the sword over the bull’s horns and between his shoulders, the bull caught Manolete in his upper thigh, and hurled the bullfighter high into the air. Both bullfighter and bull died. When his death was announced in the newspapers, one reporter summed up the fight with these words, “He killed dying and he died killing.” Yes, even in his death, he conquered.
The Lord Jesus died on that cross, but, in the process, He defeated Satan and rose from the dead to tell about it. We are talking about our Lord removing the barrier of Satanic Dominion, or what we call Redemption. Satan is a defeated foe!
See, Col. 2:15/Heb. 2:14/Jam. 4:7/1 Jn. 3:8; 4:4.
There are various words translated redemption, redeem, etc., that are found 132 times in the Old Testament and 22 times in the New Testament. The essential idea is “freedom by payment of a price.”
Hal Lindsey:
The word “redemption” was a very familiar word in the first century since nearly half the world was involved in slavery in one way or another. The sweetest word a slave could hope to hear was the word “redemption”. Since one of the major barriers between God and man is man’s slavery to Satan, the New Testament writers have freely used the concept of redemption to describe the work of Christ on the cross which has reclaimed man from Satan’s clutches.
Christ’s death as a ransom appears (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6).
A. Person.
Note: The background is related to the laws of redemption as found in the Old Testament; you might begin by looking at Lev. 25:24-34 (related to property) and Lev. 25:47-55 (as related to persons). In addition, the book of Ruth gives us a wonderful example of this. Keep in mind, this book is a Back to the Basic, not meant to be an in-depth study.
1. The person who redeems must be Acceptable.
A kinsman (Lev. 25:48-49/Ruth 2:20; 3:12-13). The Lord Jesus fulfilled this requirement when He became Man, related to Israel (Mat. 1:1ff) and related to the whole human race (Lu. 3:23-38).
2. He also had to be Agreeable.
See Ruth 3:13, as to our Lord see Heb. 10:5-10/Jn. 10:17-18.
3. He must be Able to pay the price.
Look at Ruth 4:6, our Lord alone was able to redeem (1 Pet. 1:18-19).
One of the great heroes in African-American history is a woman named Harriet Tubman, a slave in Maryland who escaped to Philadelphia over the famous "Underground Railroad" and then became one of its most successful conductors in the years leading up to the Civil War. Mrs. Tubman became known as "Moses" for her work in helping bring slaves to freedom. Altogether, she made nineteen trips back to the South and led about three hundred slaves from bondage to freedom. It was said that she worked between trips to get enough money to pay whatever it took for these slaves to reach freedom. The work of the Underground Railroad was a process of redemption, taking people out of slavery and setting them free no matter what the cost.
She is a faint picture of what the Lord Jesus did in setting us free from Satanic Dominion.
B. Place.
Let’s get an overview picture of what we might call the slave market of humanity:
1. The Slave Maker.
As we have already seen, it was Adam who turned his God-given dominion over to Satan (Rom. 5:12). It is hard for us to believe that the entire human race is born in a broken sinful state.
In seems like another lifetime, but I was stationed in Germany for several years. I read about Polish Pottery that was popular. The Polish pottery capital of the world is Boleslawiec. At one big factory, you will see a huge pile of Polish pottery – it is damaged and discarded.
You might protest, surely in such a large pile there must be a lot of pottery worth having. But if you looked through it all day you would find that every single plate, every platter, every pitcher, every bowl, every mug, and every tea cup and saucer would have some fracture or blemish that made it only fit for the garbage heap.
The truth is that all of humanity is like that pile of broken Polish pottery. There is not a single person who is righteous, who does good, who even seeks God. Every one of us are born sinners and unfit to stand in the presence of a holy God – regardless of the self-righteous polish that we often wear.
2. The Slave Master.
Again, we have seen that it was turned over to Satan (Jn. 12:31). And the entire world, outside of believers in Christ, is under his influence (1 Jn. 5:19).
Let’s keep in mind what a terrible Master Satan is, one who is cruel and hateful!
In the early Eighteenth Century, England had what is known as the debtors prisons of this time – a time in which something as small as a debt of just two pounds could get a person thrown in jail.
The Fleet Debtors Prison in London was the very worst.
In 1728 Thomas Bambridge paid the sum of 5,000 pounds to be the warden of this prison. He charged prisoners for staying in his jail. The more they paid the better their chances of survival. If prisoners paid enough they might even get their own cell and something palatable to eat. Those who had nothing to pay were forced to live in the most horrific conditions – most of them perishing from Diphtheria, Smallpox, and other deadly diseases. Bambridge not only charged the inmates for living space, but for food and even for the shackles that the prisoners were forced to wear.
Thomas reminds me of Satan, who is called a murderer (Jn. 8:44), a liar (Jn. 8:44), a confirmed sinner (1 Jn. 3:8), and accuser (Rev. 12:10), and an adversary (Job 1:12). And just look at how he treats those he enslaves, he inflicts them with physical diseases (Mt. 9:32-33) and mental derangement (Mt. 17:15), etc.
C. Price.
1. Required a Special Birth.
A slave cannot redeem a slave! This is why the virgin birth is so important, our Lord had to bypass the sin nature. We have looked at this and you can go back and refresh your memory.
2. It also required a Sacrificial Death.
The blood of Christ was the purchase price (1 Pet. 1:18-19; 3:18). Swindoll notes:
Redemption is God’s act of paying the ransom price to release us from our bondage of sin. Held hostage by Satan, we were shackled by the iron chains of sin and death. Like a loving parent whose child has been kidnapped, God willingly paid the ransom for you. And what a price He paid!
D. Product.
1. To Buy - Agoradzo.
Agorazo, meaning “to buy in the market” (agora means “market”). Man in his sin is considered under the sentence of death (John 3:18-19; Rom. 6:23), a slave “sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14), but in the act of redemption purchased by Christ through the shedding of His blood (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; 2 Pet. 2:1; Rev. 5:9; 14:3-4).
The basic idea is to purchase or to buy.
A Caution: We must not conclude that the price was paid to Satan. God never owes Satan anything! Man is ransomed from the righteous claims of another; it is God who has satisfied God’s claims in man’s place.
This redemption is not paid for by the Lord Jesus and some sort of commitment on the believers part! It is a gift to be received not something given because of our good works, merit, or promises to live right. Again, Hal Lindsey writes:
“The redemption that Jesus made available to men at the cross is a love gift with no strings attached. We’re not used to receiving things without someone wanting something in return, so it’s hard to really grasp the nature of this fantastic offer of a free salvation. In the back of many peoples’ minds is the thought that there must be a hidden gimmick somewhere. No one gives something for nothing! But let me assure you, there’s no fine print in the contract of salvation. It doesn’t even say that we have to give Him ourselves. All we’re asked to do is to take the pardon He’s graciously offered us and then begin to enjoy our freedom.”
2. To say Bye-Bye - Exagoradzo.
Exagorazo, meaning “to buy out of the market” which adds the thought not only of purchase but removal from sale (Gal. 3:13; 4:5; Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5), indicating that redemption is once for all;
We say bye-bye to the slave market forever!
3. The Battle Cry – Lutroo!
Lutroo, “to let loose” or “set free” (Luke 24:21; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet. 1:18). The same idea is found in the noun form lutrosis (Luke 2:38; Heb. 9:12), another similar expression epoiesen lutrosin (Luke 1:68), and another form used frequently, apolutrosis, indicating freeing a slave (Luke 21:28; Rom. 3:24; 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:7, 14; 4:30; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:15; 11:35).
We are free from Satanic Dominion (Col. 1:13). We can submit to God and resist the Devil and he must flee (Jam. 4:7) based on his defeat at the cross!
Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech in 1963, at the March on Washington. At the end of that speech he said:
When we allow freedom to ring-when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the word’s of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, Free at last, Great God almighty, we are free at last."
The truth is that the gospel is offered to all – Democrats and Republicans; black, white, Hispanic, whoever; Jews and Gentiles; Protestants and Catholics; all who will admit that they are a sinner and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior – only then will a person truly be free at last, and it will all be because of the Great God Almighty!
Con:
1. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it! The Person, Place, Price, and Product – we have been bought, and have said good bye to the slave market, and our battle cry is We are free at last, free at last, thanks to the Lord Jesus, we are free at last.
2. The problem is, Satan does not want us to grab a hold of this truth, he wants to bluff us into thinking that he is a larger than life foe, who we should be terrified of.
3. I have watched many of those old scary monster movies in my day. When I was a kid they scared me half to death. I watched Frankenstein meets the Wolfman and didn’t sleep for a week! The other day I watched, for the first time in years, and to tell you the truth those monsters not only were no longer scary but I found myself laughing throughout the movie, as I wondered if these were what I was so terrified of!
12 "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' 15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.
Notice vv. 16-17
16 "Those who see you will gaze at you, And consider you, saying: 'Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms, 17 Who made the world as a wilderness And destroyed its cities, Who did not open the house of his prisoners?' Isaiah 14:12-17
Don’t get me wrong, if we fight Satan in our own strength we will get hurt, but if we claim all that is ours through Christ the Devil’s threats will appear to be ridiculous!
III. REGENERATION.
In the second century, Celsus, an adversary of Christianity, complained:
“Jesus Christ came into the world to make the most horrible and dreadful societies; for he calls sinners, and not the righteous, so that the body he came to assemble is a body of profligates, separated from good people, among whom they before were mixed. He has rejected all the good, and collected all the bad.”
The church father Origen replied:
“True, our Jesus came to call sinners— but to repentance. He assembles the wicked— but to convert them into new men...We come to him covetous, he makes us generous; lascivious, he makes us chaste; violent, he makes us meek…”
There is nothing more radically life changing as regeneration! So let’s look at this wonderful work of God that takes place within every believer.
A. Description.
1. Biblically.
The actual word is used only twice in the Bible. One is related to the Millennial kingdom.
28 So Jesus said to them, "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Matthew 19:28
The other is related to our subject today.
4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7
2. Theologically.
It is the act of God whereby He imparts new life to the one who believes in Jesus Christ as Savior.
Grudem notes, “We did not choose to be made physically alive and we did not choose to be born — it is something that happened to us; similarly, these analogies in Scripture suggest that we are entirely passive in regeneration.”
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Ezekiel 36:26-27
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13
18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. James 1:18
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, Titus 3:5
The movie The End of the Spear, tells the story of Nate Saint and four other missionaries who were murdered by the Waodani people of South America. However, in a testament to forgiveness, the families of the slain missionaries later returned to the tribe, eventually winning many of them to Christ.
Nate Saint's son, Steve, was asked: "So you've had a history of reconciliation [with the Waodani] over the years, but there wasn't a specific moment of reconciliation?" He replied:
It was a developing thing, but I think that the point of reconciliation really was with Mincaye [the man who killed Steve's father] and my Aunt Rachel. In her journal she once wrote:
"Tonight when I was sleeping in the hammock I heard a noise. Somebody was walking around in the dark." Mincaye called out to her and squatted by her fire, wanting to talk.
He said, "You said that Waengongi, the Creator, is very strong."
Aunt Rachel said: "Mincaye, he is very strong. He made everything here, even the dirt."
Mincaye said: "You said that he could clean somebody's heart. My heart being very, very dark, can he clean even my heart?"
Aunt Rachel said, "Being very strong, he can clean even your heart."
She wrote that Mincaye got up and walked away, but that the next morning he came back excited. He said: "Star, what you said is true. Speaking to God, he has cleaned my heart. Now it's waatamo—it's clear like the sky when it has no clouds in it."
Regeneration is not to be confused with some outward reformation, Robert McGee notes:
Regeneration is not a self-improvement program, nor is it a cleanup campaign for our sinful natures. Regeneration is nothing less than the impartation of new life. Paul stated in Ephesians 2:5 that we were once dead in our sins, but we have since been made alive in Christ. Paul also wrote about this incredible transformation process in his letter to the young pastor Titus (Tit. 3:3-7). Regeneration is the renewing work of the Holy Spirit that literally makes each believer a new person at the moment trust is placed in Christ as Savior. In that wondrous, miraculous moment, we experience more than swapping one set of standards for another. We experience what Jesus called a new birth (John 3:3–6), a Spirit-wrought renewal of the human spirit, a transforming resuscitation that takes place so that the Spirit is alive within us (Rom. 8:10).
It is a total inner transformation, Louis Berkhof notes:
Regeneration consists in the implanting of the principle of the new spiritual life in man, in a radical change of the governing disposition of the soul, which, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, gives birth to a life that moves in a Godward direction. In principle this change affects the whole man: the intellect . . . the will . . . and the feelings or emotions.”
Regeneration turns on the light so to speak! Hal Lindsey notes:
Every spring the whole earth gives testimony to the truth of regeneration as it emerges from its wintry slumber and comes forth with fresh, green vegetation from the soil. What has been dead for a time now comes back to life.
But as great a phenomenon as it is to put a kernel of corn into the ground and then watch new life spring forth from the dead kernel, the greater miracle of regeneration of the human spirit has been made possible because of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross. The moment we place our trust in that death in our behalf, the Holy Spirit of God impregnates our death human spirits with the eternal life of God and we’re reborn spiritually…When Adam and Eve were created, they were given a human spirit that enabled them to commune with God…[then man sinned and thus experienced spiritual death…Sometimes it’s been mistakenly thought that the human spirit doesn’t exist in us until we’ve been reborn…[But] I believe the spirit has continued to exist in men right from the day Adam sinned, but what we inherit from him is a spirit void of its ability to communicate with God so in every real sense it’s dead…Actually it’s much like a lamp to which the electricity is turned off. It doesn’t cease being a lamp just because it isn’t functioning the way it should…The Bible pictures the unregenerate man as “walking in darkness.”…But at the heart of God’s plan to regenerate men was His intention of restoring the light to the darkened spirits of men…So when a person is born again, the light really goes on inside him.
The point is that this is not a surface work but an inner transformation. The problem with religion is that it never gets to the heart of the matter – our desperately sick hearts!
Snow can be a problem, it has to be removed from parking lots, roads, etc. But what to do with all that removed snow? They just pile it up. In Massachusetts the other year they had a lot of snow and so the piles of snow were huge. But then, the weather turned unseasonably warm and those pure white piles turned out not to be so pure! I read:
The fury of the sun revealed the snow to be strewn with, literally, tons of trash. Snow plows had scooped up traffic cones, bicycles, discarded trash bags, and loads of debris in their haste to move the snow into 70-foot piles. And now, under the heat of the sun, the true character of the snow is being revealed. And it’s not a pretty sight.
That is a picture of man’s self-righteousness, it looks good on the outside but inside it is nothing but trash. So God crucifies that old self, but then does a work within and gives us a new heart that really is pure!
3. Figuratively.
a. It is compared to a Birth.
3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' John 3:3-7 See, John. 1:12-13.
They call it "the born again beach." Here's how a British newspaper described the "rebirth" of a lost beach:
An Irish beach that disappeared more than 30 years ago has returned to an island off the County Mayo coast. The sand at Dooagh, Achill Island, was washed away by storms in 1984, leaving only rocks and rock pools. But after a freak tide around Easter this year, hundreds of tons of sand were deposited around the area where the beach once stood, recreating the old 300-metre stretch of golden sand.
Local people are using the word "miraculous" to describe the beach's renewal. An official for the areas tourism board explained why pilgrims are flocking to the site:
We live in a dark world these days so I think that is why there has been so much interest in Dooagh beach since the story broke. For something like our beach to come back gives people hope. It's a good news story and one where nature has done something benign for a change.
If people would only know the miracle of the new birth! I have quoted from Hal Lindsey often, I love his testimony:
Despondently I flipped over to another part of the New Testament - John, Chapter Three. As I glanced down the page, I was intrigued by a conversation Jesus had with a man who was looking for answers about God, just as I had been for years. The man’s name was Nicodemus, and Jesus told him that unless he was born again, he could never understand the kingdom of God or enter it. “What’s all this about being born again?” I asked myself. “If there’s anything I need, it’s to be born all over again. I was surely born wrong the first time.”
The truth is that we all were, and what a thrill to be given a new life, to be born into the very family of God.
b. It is compared to a Resurrection.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Romans 6:13
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:4-6
That dead spirit, is made alive and indwelt by, God Himself! Remember God is Spirit and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jn. 4:24). We now have the capacity to fellowship with Him, a resurrected mind to know Him; emotions to love Him; and a will to obey Him.
Botanists have discovered that there is the power of ancient seeds to germinate, sprout, and produce a “resurrected” plant. Archeologists discovered the 2,000-year old seeds of the Judean date palm in the palace of King Herod at the Dead Sea fortress of Masada. From one of these ancient seeds a date palm was produced in 2005.
A hard, dead seed is resurrected to life! I don’t know all of how this works, but a dead spirit is resurrected back to life in regeneration.
c. It is compared to that of a New Creation.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
Those old things, everything we were in Adam, has been crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6-7).
London businessman Lindsay Clegg told the story of a warehouse property he was selling. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn trash around the interior. As he showed a prospective buyer the property, Clegg took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage. The new buyer said, "Forget about the repairs, when I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different. I don't want the building; I want the site."
Regeneration is not a patch up job, or some kind of improvement program for our old self, the old life is over and we are new creatures in Christ.
B. Distinctive feature.
1. It is Instantaneous.
This is revealed by the fact that these passages are in an aorist tense (Jn. 1:12-13, etc.). This is not a process or gradual thing but something that takes place at a moment in time. I was not saved the week of May 5th through the 11th, I was saved at a moment in time, instantaneously on the 7th of May, 1974, at about 8:00 p.m.
2. It is not Inclusive.
What I mean by stating that it does not remove the old sin nature (1 Jn. 1:8). We are saved from the sin nature’s power (Rom. 8:13), but not from its presence. And the old nature is NOT turning into the new nature! The old nature is never salvaged but crucified (Gal. 2:20; 6:15). Billy Graham writes:
Salvation is not just repairing the original self. It is a new self created of God in righteousness and true holiness. Regeneration is not even a change of nature or a change of heart. Being born again is not a change— it is a regeneration, a new generation. It is a second birth. “Ye must be born again.” There is nothing about the old nature that God will accept. There is no soundness in it. The old nature is too weak to follow Christ… Jesus, knowing that it was impossible to change, patch up, and reform, said you must have a total new birth, “Ye must be born again.”
C. Demonstration.
1. By an Inability to sin.
I understand that when we sin, while we are accountable for it, it does not come from the new nature (Rom. 7:17, 20/1 Jn. 3:9). The new nature always desires to do God’s will, and the Holy Spirit gives us the power to put those desires into our daily lives (Gal. 5:16). The real you never sins! Again let’s not think that this means we are not responsible or accountable when we choose to let the old nature have its way. We are and when we sin we are to confess and forsake it (1 Jn. 1:9). But it is transforming to realize that I have a new nature that has never been tainted by sin. Watchman Nee notes:
What is “in Christ” cannot sin; what is in Adam can sin and will do so whenever Satan is given a chance to exert his power. So it is a question of our choice of which facts we will count upon and live by: the tangible facts of daily experience or the mightier fact that we are now “in Christ.”
2. It gives us an Ability to perceive the spiritual realm.
As one put it:
It’s called the “sixth sense,” faith. Faith is the eyesight of the spirit. It causes us to reach out to God and to know Him. Faith enables us to believe that when God says He’ll do something for us, He will. The body has its five senses that make the material world real…But the intimate knowledge of God can only be known through the sixth sense, faith…Faith is such a misunderstood concept. I often hear people praying for more faith, but strictly speaking, that’s a wrong prayer. Once you’ve been born again and had your sixth sense restored to your spirit, you now have all the faith you can ever get…But faith needs an object in order for it to function, and Jesus is that object, revealed to us through His Word.
We will look at this later…
3. It gives us eternal Security.
It gives us eternal life, which by definition must never come to an end, or it would not be eternal. If God offered 50-year life only, I would take it, but He never offers anything but eternal life (Jn. 5:24; 10:27-28/1 Jn. 2:25; 5:11-13).
In the Military Intelligence world of Classified and Unclassified information, there is a firm rule that governs everything. It is this: Unclassified material can be bumped up a notch to Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret classifications. But, once the document has been designated “Classified,” it cannot be lowered back down to an “Unclassified” status.
I read that you can type a document on an “Unclassified” computer, save it to a compact disk (CD), and then upload the document onto a “Secret” computer. But, after you have done that you cannot remove the original CD from the secure site where the exercise took place. It is now marked “secret.”
Documents can move up in classification, but they can never move back down.
Of course, man can and does violate such rules, but the principle of eternal life is like that, only unalterable. Once you go from dead to eternal life – you can never go back to dead! Once you go from lost to saved, you can never go back to unsaved. Regeneration is irreversible! See, Phil. 1:6/2 Tim. 2:13/Heb. 13:5-6/etc.
Con:
1. So, the Salvation includes Justification; Redemption; and Regeneration. There is one more we will look at next, the Relocation.
2. Have we been transformed from the inside? Do you have new desires that really want to follow the Lord Jesus? As one put it, “If we are, what we have always been, then we are not saved.”
3. Vicki Hicks, of Sydney, Australia, has a duck, named Ducka, it apparently will eat anything. It was acting weird and Vicki was shocked to see the duck coughed up a nail! She rushed the duck to the Avian Reptile and Exotic Animal Hospital in West Sydney and X-Rays confirmed her fears. Ducka had swallowed a small toolbox-worth of nails, screws, hooks, and other metal objects – 21 pieces of metal in all.
Doctors could remove all the sharp metal objects from Ducka’s belly, but they could not remove her appetite for the wrong type of food or metal.
We have to be honest, what we desire, reveals what kind of nature we have. Regeneration gives us a new nature and thus new desires. If someone claims to be saved, but then still loves the same old sins, and are never bothered by self-centered living, that person still has the nature of sin.
Peter talking about false teachers, who were in the church, writes:
20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to his own vomit," and, "a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire." 2 Peter 2:20-22
No, these are not people who were saved and then lost, but were never saved to begin with.
IV. RELOCATION.
A. Positional Truth – In Christ.
Positional truth is true of every believer, by way of Divine declaration. There are certain truths we must know about positional truth: Hal Lindsey writes:
My new position in Christ gives me a total identification with Jesus in God’s eyes. As He looks at the Son, He looks at me in the same way because He sees me in the Son and the Son in me. If I took a grimy piece of paper and inserted it into the pages of a book and closed it, that paper would be totally identified with the book and we would no longer see it, only the book…What becomes true of the One becomes true of the other.
So, Positional truths are:
• Positional truth is Imperceptible at the time of salvation – you don’t feel it or experience it. To be set apart from sin unto God is not something you feel when you are saved. For example, one does not feel forgiven or feel like a saint, or chosen, etc.
• Positional truth cannot be Improved upon – it is not progressive, it is not related to growth or getting better. We will be no holier in heaven then we are right now positionally. It is true there is a progressive and ultimate sanctification in our experience. But that is not to be confused with positional truth.
• It is Impossible to mix any trace of human merit to Positional truth – it is not given on the basis of merit. Remember these blessings are given to every believer, and every believer is saved by grace.
• It cannot be Impaired by time or failure or sin. It is totally irreversible. Our behavior cannot undo it.
• It is imparted to our understanding only by divine revelation. We know it because it has been revealed in the Bible. We would not know that we stand perfectly holy before God, unless God’s Word declared it to be so.
• It is Imputed by God alone – without any help from the believer at all. We looked at the fallacy of the idea that “God helps those who help themselves.” We are removed from Adam and placed into Christ by God’s power alone!
• It is Imperative to count these things as true by faith, in order to enjoy them.
I go into this in my book, A Manual for Survival.
All of this is related to the fact that we are in Christ, which includes all that we have looked at and much more:
Chosen (Eph. 1:4)
Saints (1 Cor. 1:2)
Believers (Eph. 1:1)
Adopted (Eph. 1:5)
Accepted (Eph. 1:6).
Redeemed (Eph. 1:7)
Co-crucified (Gal. 2:20)
Forgiven (Eph. 1:17)
Loved (Rom. 5:8)
Complete (Col. 2:10)
New creatures (2 Cor. 5:17)
Raised and seated with Christ (Eph. 2:6)
United (Jn. 17/Eph. 4)
Regenerated (Tit. 3:5)
No Condemnation (Rom. 8:1)
Every blessing (Eph. 1:3)
Eternal life (1 Jn. 5:11-13)
Child of God (Jn. 1:12)
Righteous (2 Cor. 5:21)
Reconciled (2 Cor. 5:18)
I doubt if this list is exhaustive, and I hope you understand this book is a fly-over, just a brief look at the basics.
B. Practical Faith – Christ in you.
As we experience fellowship with God, we will actually experience some wonderful things in our daily lives:
Walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16)
Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23)
Prayer life (Jude 20)
Manifested presence of God (Jn. 14:21)
Witnessing (Ac. 1:8)
Overcoming temptation (Rom. 8:13)
Spiritual growth ( 2 Cor. 3:17-18)
Warfare (Eph. 6:10)
Worship (Jn. 4:24)
Desire for God’s Word (1 Pet. 2:2)
Inner enablement (Eph. 3:16-19)
Faithfulness in giving (2 Cor. 9:6-8)
Singing, thanksgiving, submitting (Eph. 5:18-21)
Attending church (Heb. 10:24-25)
Using our spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12)
Forgiving others who offend us (Mt. 18)
Again, this is only a limited list, but will all be experienced as we walk under the controlling power of the Holy Spirit.
Johnny A Palmer Jr.
