Jesus is Our Rightousness

From Romans 1:18 through Romans 3:20, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul has expressed and exposed to man his condition as a helpless sinner under wrath, under judgement, unjustified, guilty, condemned, and under the death penalty. This is what man is prior to confessing Jesus Christ as Lord and receiving Him as Savior. However, further into Romans, Paul turns to what God is and what God has accomplished through Jesus Christ as man's Substitute. God through Jesus Christ, has provided, on absolute legal ground, the way to give man eternal life. The gospel message for the unsaved generally provides the listener with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for man's salvation. Here in Romans 3:21-26 Paul expounds on what this all means as he begins to lay out by the Holy Spirit man's new identity when one comes to Christ. This is what I call the believers gospel.  

"But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets." (Romans 3:21) First, understand that man's basic need was and is righteousness, that is, the ability to stand in the Father's presence without the sense of guilt, condemnation, unworthiness or inferiority. Paul declares that God has unveiled a new source of righteousness which is witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even though God has revealed His righteousness apart from the law, that righteousness is not contrary to the law or against it. Moses, who through the Holy Spirit, wrote the Books of the Law, and the Prophets, who also spoke through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, revealed God's righteousness in every scripture that speaks of the Messiah. As far as God is concerned, the Law, Prophets and especially Christ set forth His righteousness. 

"Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:22-23) Paul tells us in Romans 1:17, "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith." As we see, now we know where or to whom our faith is applied, Jesus Christ. This is very important, because our faith in Christ goes beyond the day one is born again. I say this, because most believers tend to have more faith the day they received Christ than they tend to have the rest of their Christian walk. This may be the main reason why so many live under guilt, condemnation, unworthiness or inferiority. For believers to live free of these enemies, we must apply faith to what God said as being absolutely true and then apply, or act upon His Word.

Notice, the righteousness of God is “to all and on all who believe.” This is an open invitation to the entire world, all men everywhere who believe. This believing, or faith, in Jesus Christ is not just mere mental assent, or intellectual knowledge. To believe in or on the Lord Jesus Christ is; to adhere, cleave to, trust in, to have faith in, to rely on. Acts 16:31 (AMP) says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ give yourself up to Him, take yourself out of your own keeping and entrust yourself into His keeping and you will be saved." This applies across the board with every area of life as a beliver, because the word saved is pregnant with meaning beyond simply regeneration.   Remembering Romans 1:18 through Romans 3:20, all are guilty; all have transgressed; all are lawless; all have fallen short; none measure up to the perfection of God, the glory of God and the divine standard of God's righteousness, however... 

"Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:24) Justified means "made righteous, acquitted; made and declared right; freed from guilt and blame, and therefore, freed from the penalty and punishment of sin's guilt. At Calvary, the law was honored, sin was judged, death was dealt with, and pardon was made available. Therefore, we see that God is gracious without being unjust, and He is just without be ungracious. This redemption, this buy back, the purchasing of man, has been provided in and through Jesus Christ only. 

"Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed." (Romans 3:25) God Himself had foreordained Christ to be the Lamb from and before the foundation of the world. Jesus was set forth to be a sin substitute, on the ground of faith and His blood. God did this to show His righteousness because He had been passing over the sins of Israel for fifteen hundred years but not only Israel but also all mankind, including Gentile. Now it is demanded that the penalty be paid. Jesus met that penalty and paid or redeemed the promises that were made each year by the High Priest on the great Day of Atonement. In effect, Jesus cashed in 1500 years of promissory notes and brought redemption to every person who had been blood-covered under the First Covenant. The writer of Hebrews also covers this in detail... 

"Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption." (Hebrews 9:12) Note that this redemption is an Eternal Redemption. When Christ carried His blood into the Most Holy Place of heaven and the Supreme Court of the Universe accepted it, man’s redemption became a completed, eternal thing. Next we see, "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, 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 9:13-14) Notice that the blood of bulls and goats only cleanses the flesh, the outward man. It did not cleanse the heart, it did not make man a New Creation. Continuing... 

"And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." (Hebrews 9:15) Now we see that Jesus also died for the sins of those living under the First Covenant that had been covered by the blood of animals from year to year, that they might have their share in the inheritance of redemption through Christ. Finally, we see, "He (Jesus) then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." (Hebrews 9:26) Therefore, God has dealt with the sin problem. The sin problem is ended and the sinner, Jew and Gentile, through repentance, confessing with the mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believing with the heart that God raised Him from the dead, has given mankind the legal right to eternal life because God so loved him that He gave him His only begotten Son. And now... 

"to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:26) God is righteous and the righteousness of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. The only way that a person can become righteous in the eyes of God, is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and His blood. It is upon simple faith in Jesus Christ, that is, acting upon what God has said in regard to His Son that turns an unrighteous, God opposing convict into a righteous child of God. Now we can understand that we were justified, declared righteous, freely by his Grace, through the redemption God worked in Christ. So then, if Christ has fulfilled the law and the righteousness of the law, then whosoever believes and receives Christ, (in the biblical sense), the righteousness of the law is also fulfilled in him or her. PTL. This is the gospel for the believer. Amen...

Stepping Out

If you have raised a child, have siblings or have been around children, chances are that you have witnessed a child taking its first steps. How exciting it truly is. Usually, a child's first steps are taken by someone coaxing the child over and over until they are walking on their own. The writer of Hebrews deals with Christians that are "Babes", "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe." (Hebrews 5:12-13) He tells them to, "...move on to maturity..." (Hebrews 6:1) The Apostle Paul tells the church at Corinth the same howbeit in different words, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1 Corinthians 13:11)

There comes a time in a believers life where they need to step out and walk by faith in the things of God. Simply put, Paul is comparing infancy with that of manhood in the sense of when we advance in years, we lay aside many of the views, feelings, and plans which we had in childhood, for the true values of life which we now esteem important due to maturing into adulthood. In the same way, new believers see the world from a different perspective than older believers, or do they? 

One of the things that I remember in my own life when I first received Christ that I still see in some new believers today, although not as often, is their zeal to tell others of their new life in Christ. Although new believers do not have a grasp on foundational Christian doctrines or how to live by faith, they tend not to have inhibitions when it comes to telling others about their new life in Christ. But after some time passes the zeal to witness Christ seems to die out. You would think that the opposite would happen as they grow their faith through the Word of God. But Christian researcher have found that nearly seventy percent of people attending a church daily have not witnessed Christ in the past year (2014) although most say that they pray for the lost. Another statistic reveals that nearly fifty percent of Christians who regularly attend a church have never invited a non-believer to church.

What has happened to the last command that the Lord has given to all believers, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20) "And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:15-18) "Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." (Luke 24:46-47) "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8)       

Whether you believe in the doctrine of election or not (the belief that God has elected only certain people for salvation and others not) it is still our (every believer) responsibility to preach the gospel to every creature. Born again believers cannot blame the state of the country on politicians, lobbyist, and other non-believers. They are only doing the deeds of their father the devil in the same way that you and I did before we were saved. Remember, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)  It has been said, "the gospel is good news, only if it reaches a person before they die", "Lost people matter to God our Father, so they should matter to us His children", "Believers often talk of the Lord's second coming, when most of the world has not heard of His first" "God save us from living in comfort while sinners are sinking into hell", "Christ died for all men not just the ones you know and like", "It is better to have people hate you with the knowledge that you tried to save them, than to love you and perish in hell never telling them the good news", "Where passion for God is weak, zeal for the lost will be weak." These are but food for thought. Hopefully, they will provoke us into action. 

Unfortunately, many church leaders today have adjusted the "Great Commission" because they themselves do not witness Christ beyond a classroom or a pulpit. They rarely train the saints in evangelism mostly because they themselves are not passionate about winning the lost for Christ. They have determined that Jesus' words to, "Go make disciples" is out dated for the church today, so to justify this, they have determined that the church service should be short and adjusted to make it "comfortable" for those who may visit, in hopes that the visitor is unsaved. We call it "seeker sensitive church". Isn't interesting that the Bible tells us, "...There is none who seeks after God." (Romans 3:11) Why is this? Jesus tells us, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him..." (John 6:44) Based on scripture we must consider that we should not expect anyone showing up at a church service who is lost by luck, chance or coincidence. However, if someone does show up who is lost, even if they were invited by a believer, they are not seeking on their own, it is the Father who is drawing them. If the Father is drawing them, then it should stand to reason that the length of the service should have no bearing whatsoever upon this person as to whether they "had a good time" or not. Why? Because we are talking about a spiritual encounter with God that He has set up to save them and transform their life, not a good time that pleases only the flesh. 

Most certainly we want to see visitors stay beyond one or two visits. Let's keep in mind, "But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased" (1 Corinthians 12:18) not us. For most unbelievers, they probably have no concept of what a church service consists of. But shouldn't we be creating an atmosphere, especially through praise and worship, no matter how long it takes to bring God's presence? Isn't it God's presence that will have people say "God is here?" Then how do we expect such a thing to happen if we put a time restraint upon God? Frankly, it won't happen. Churches who have this worldly mind set towards the lost actually do them a disservice by keeping God on a leash, so to speak, and not letting Him have His way in a church service because He is only given a certain amount of time to show up. You  may want to read the last chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke and the Book of Acts. This is God's Word and work through the church that brought unprecedented success for nearly three hundred years. 

The difference is, they obeyed the command of the Lord to "Go make Disciples" which transforms lives, without reducing it to "come to us, we promise we won't take much of your time, but we will help you feel good about yourself so that you will come back." In other words, congregations who do this, although not in word, see God's Word as having no effect today. They also miss the main purpose of the church, "...that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light", (1 Peter 2:9) the praise and worship of the Most High God. The early church understood this, "praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." (Acts 2:47) Please stop and meditate on this verse of scripture. This has nothing to do with mans worldly ways to grow a congregation but fully upon God. It is the responsibility of every believer to be witnesses for Christ and let God do His work through us His way. This takes faith not formulas.  

The point is, let us step out of the fort (church building) and be the salt and light that you truly are. The Bible tells us, "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27). No one knows the day or time that they leave this life for the next, so let us all make evangelism a life priority, making it difficult for any one to go to hell by telling them the Good News of Jesus Christ. Let's witness Christ and bring the new believers into a church service where there is no time limit so they can have and encounter with God. Let's praise Him until the Holy Spirit moves us to worship and worship until His glory (presence) falls. This is what will transform lives, not comfortable services with time restraints that only cater to the flesh. Sure, the seeker sensitive way of church may grow large congregations, but what's the point if the glory of God is not present, "Then she named the child Ichabod, the glory has departed from Israel." (1 Samuel 4:21) All people want to experience God, including the lost. It is the scheme of Satan to have us think that somehow we have a better plan than God. So let's get out of churchianity and get back to Christianity so the Lord can "transform us (those just saved also) into His image from glory to glory." (2 Corinthians 3:18)