Works - Part 2 of 4

I don't believe that God created Adam and Eve (the first humans) and the rest of the human race for the purpose of living by instructions. In fact, wasn't it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God told Adam not to eat from? We all know what happened (sin entered the world, and death through sin), but as we fast-forward to the Cross, and the Resurrection of Jesus we see that Christ came to take away sin, and through faith in Christ, man can be restored to LIFE. Through faith, man now has righteousness, holiness, completeness, goodness. God has taken away the sinful spirit that we were born with in Adam and has given us a new spirit that is alive together with Christ. By faith, we can walk according to this newness of life.

Rom 6:4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The "baptism" above isn't water baptism, but it's a death and burial of our old sinful nature - the spiritual person we were in Adam. It's now dead and gone, and we've been raised together with Christ into new life! The natural result of growing and maturing in who we now are in this new life is a life of goodness. And the growing process is lifelong. It's by no means instantaneous.

This new life - which is nothing less (or more) than the very life of Christ in us - is where holiness and goodness and righteousness and good works flow from. This new life - Christ-in-me - is the foundation of the Christian life.

Trust Him to keep you

Back in the day (really not too very long ago) I was involved in a lot of "Can a Christian lose their salvation?" discussions. The number of Christians who fear, at least a little (and sometimes a lot), about whether or not they'll remain "saved" is probably more than you can imagine.

While I haven't participated heavily in discussions like that in quite a while, and while it would take too long to share all of what was discussed in those discussions, I'll highlight one of the main questions I used to ask people who worried or feared about the "loss" of salvation: "What exactly is it that saves a person in the first place?"

Paul put it quite simply:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph 2:8-9)

How much of that is your work? How much of it is "of yourselves?" None of it! It's "the gift of God, not by works..."

So then, once we're saved, does it suddenly become "of ourselves" to keep ourselves saved? For the many people who are so worried about Christians losing their salvation, it would seem that there's more than just an ounce of that type of thinking going around in their heads.

To lead up to where I'm going with this, let me relate that type of thinking to receiving some sort of gift that doesn't come with the batteries. Sure, the gift is free, but it's up to you to continuously provide the batteries to make sure the gift remains in working order.

But that's not the type of gift God has given us! God has not simply given us the gift of salvation, and then left us alone to try to maintain it our own. He has included Himself - His very Life - in the package!

It was His life that saved us, and it's His life that keeps us!

Unfortunately a very deficient "gospel" has been spread, and keeps on being spread, in which grace and salvation are depicted merely as a matter of our sins being forgiven. It's great that our sins have been forgiven, but if you are forgiven and yet remain in the same condition, what good is that? What's missing from the gospel message that's commonly taught is the issue of LIFE! We've not only been forgiven of all sin, but our sin has been taken away and we died to our old life in Adam, and we were raised up and made alive together with Christ Himself! Not only have we been forgiven, but our condition has changed! In Adam we were dead to God, but in Christ we are now fully alive to God.

Paul's words that follow the words quoted above say that we are God's workmanship. It's all of Him. Getting saved is of Him and not of us. Remaining saved is also of Him and not of us. If you couldn't get yourself saved, what can you do to keep yourself saved??? Trust Him to keep you.

"God... even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ..." (Eph 2:4-5). If He made you alive even when you were dead in your trespasses, do you think for a moment that He's going to not keep you alive when you sin now? While you can do nothing to keep yourself, He can and does continuously supply you with His very life, because as a branch is continuously sustained, not in and of itself but by the life of the vine, you are also continuously sustained by the very life of the One who calls Himself the Vine, Jesus.

Alive

Look over there. The tomb is empty. The body is not there. It has risen. It is alive again!

I'm not talking about Jesus 2000 years ago. I'm talking about YOU right now!

YOU are alive! Why do you keep living as if you were still dead!

Are you still trying to eek out an existence through the letter of the law? Why not fully trust in and embrace the life given FREELY by the Spirit through the new covenant?

2 Cor 3:4-6
And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Rom 8:32
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

Col 2:13-15
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Eph 2:1-10
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

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, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Col 3:3-4
For you died, and your life [your new life] is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

In order to live to God I had to die to the law

The short version:

Gal 2:19-21
For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."


The extended version (Note: The following passage has nothing to do with any rules for Christian marriage. Paul was using the Jewish law pertaining to marriage to help his readers understand why those who were under the law could only be released from the law in one way - they had to die to it. If we try to be married to [joined with] both the Law and Christ, we are spiritual adulterers):

Rom 7:1-6
Do you not know, brothers - for I am speaking to men who know the law - that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3 So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.

4 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

And a little more:

Col 2:13-14
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Saved by His life

This morning I've been traveling around the blogosphere and I've been reading some very wonderful posts from various people all about Easter and the resurrection of Christ. The birth of Jesus as a human being and His death on the cross are very important parts of God's plan so I'm thankful for the entire ordeal of Christ becoming a man.

But if not for the resurrection, there would be no life for us! There would be no eternal life. We would not have been able to die with Him and to also be raised again with Him, as so many of you have pointed out. We were reconciled by His death, but we were saved by His life.

Rom 5:10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

The cross is wonderful and it a vital part of the entire plan, but Christ's death was not enough. His resurrection made it possible for anyone who believes to be made alive with Him! We can sit around all day, knowing that we're forgiven, but unless we have LIFE, so what if we've been forgiven!

I thank God today, not only for the coming of Jesus as a man, and for His death on the cross, but for His life with which I've been made alive together with Him!

Big Difference 4 - Under the Law vs. Freed from the Law

Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law , so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another — to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. (Rom 7:1-6 NKJV)

The first thing I want to point out here is that I've heard this passage used time and time again in the context of rules for Christian marriage, but yet it has nothing to do with that! Paul was using an example from Jewish Law to make a point about our need to be freed from the Law in order to be "married" to Christ.

The Law was given to charge the world with the guilt of sin. Rom 5:13 says that sin was in the world before the Law, but without Law sin could not be imputed (charged) to man. That was the purpose of the Law, to charge sin to man's account. The Law was never given as a way that man could get right or stay right with God, and it wasn't given as a "moral compass." If it was meant to be a moral compass... it didn't work!

Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded , grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 5:20-21 NKJV)

Through the Law, sin abounded. The Law never has and never will curb sin. It produces exactly the opposite of what the carnal mind logically thinks it should.

And so the problem, as presented in the first passage above from Romans 7, is that if we are under the Law, we cannot be joined to Christ. The Law only leaves us guilty, and through it sin abounds. Even a little Law will do this. Speaking in the context of the Law, Paul warned the Galatians that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Gal 5:9). Paul had just finished speaking about the bondage of the Old Covenant (Gal 4). The Law can never and will never set us free. It only keeps us in bondage. That's it's "job," so to speak. That's it's purpose.

So... how do people who are "married" to the Law gain freedom from the Law? According to the example in Romans 7, one of two who are bound in marriage has to die in order to legally be unbound (freed) from the other. Well, the Law wasn't going to die. The Law is holy and perfect and has no obligation or need to die! So... the only solution left is that we had to die! Only when we died to the Law, were we able to be raised again with Christ. We are now dead to the Law. Having been freed from the Law through our very own death, we have been made alive together, once and for always, with Christ.

Paul exhorts the Galatians, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Gal 5:1). He is speaking to believers who have been set free from the Law and have been made alive together with Christ. I'll paraphrase what he goes on to tell them. "If you think the Christian life has anything to do with keeping the Law, then you are obligated to keep the whole Law. If this is really what you think it's about, then Christ is of no benefit to you!" (see Gal 5:2-4)

In this life in Christ, we must stand firm in our freedom! We don't keep going back to the Law (that we died to!) in order to improve our performance in our Christian life. That's bondage! A little leaven means bondage for the whole lump of dough.

Our guide, our "moral compass," our way of living is no longer found in Laws but is found in a Person with whom we've been made alive together! This Person resides in us. He is not a set of external rules, principles or laws. He is freedom personified! We have been made alive together with Him. He (Jesus, the person who dwells in us) is the way, the truth and the life!

*For an explanation of this Big Difference series, see the original post.*