Submitted by: Morrissey | View Member Profile | View Other Posts
Created: 12/11/2005
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In Part A of What Is A REAL Christian?, we found that a real Christian is a CHRISTian ; and one cannot be a CHRISTian without knowing Christ ; and one cannot know Christ without knowing His Word, the Bible ; and one cannot know His Word the Bible without knowing how to study it so that it interprets itself! We found that the Bible DOES indeed interpret itself, and that it IS possible to know what GOD intends to be learned from His Word, rather than all the endless confusion in Christendom today. Also, we found some of the reasons for the lack of morals of so-called Christians, as well as part of the solution. Here, in Part B, we will conclude with studying something that could be called "cheap grace".
Most Christians today have but a partial conception of what God's grace is, and hence they believe in a "cheap" and superficial form of grace. Let me explain: most define grace to be unmerited favor, forgiveness, and cleansing. That is true, but that is not all that God's grace is and does. The rest of the definition is POWER TO OVERCOME SIN! To leave this out is to cheapen God's grace to where it is weak and powerless and unable to really fix the problem of sin. Why would we want to serve a God that merely offers forgiveness and does not offer the power to quit with any given sin so that we do not need to ask for forgiveness of it time and time again?!?
How do I know that God's grace does indeed involve power to overcome sin? 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For He hath made Him (Jesus) to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." And Hebrews 4:15 says that He "was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." In these, as well as in other passages, we are told that Jesus was subjected to all manner of temptations just like all other humans that ever live on this earth, but that He NEVER actually yielded to sin. In another verse it says, "...that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Hebrews 2:9 What? Jesus needed grace?!? If grace is only forgiveness and unmerited favor, then Jesus would have never needed any grace since He never sinned, and we all know He is INDEED worthy, and merits everything! But yet the Bible DOES say that Jesus needed grace! This, and other texts, are what PROVE that God's grace also means POWER, such that it was God's grace/power that enabled Jesus to overcome, and to taste death for every man in His sinlessness as the Lamb of God.
Think for a moment, just what an incomplete picture of grace does to people's morals: if a person thinks that God's grace is there to simply pardon over and over again, and that overcoming sin is not part of the picture, then who is going to waste their time even making an effort to really overcome any sinful habits if God will just keep forgiving over and over, and "nobody" says anything about God's offered power to really overcome? Indeed, few will make efforts to "live godly in Christ Jesus" who think this way. Since this is the way most of Christendom thinks today, it is little wonder that there is so much immorality seen even among Christians! (When I say "immorality", I am referring to all that is not morally correct according to the Bible, not simply sexual sins by any means. As I once heard in a very revealing sermon, there are churches all over the place in U.S. cities, and yet crime happens all the time near by. Why? Is it because the locals do not attend church? Or is it because they detest the powerless "gospel" that is preached - that of forgiveness without the power to stop the sin problem? The preacher who delivered the message I am here referring to used to himself be a thug and a street gang member, and he tells of how he would have nothing to do with a God Who could not really and truly deliver him from his life of sin. Thanks be to God, he did finally find a church that taught the full gospel - including the power to overcome sin and how to have it - and this changed his life. Today he is a powerful tool in the hands of God to reach others in need of help.)
Is it only out and out crime that God wants to save people from? No indeed! It is ANYTHING that He in His word declares to be something not best for His children to do. There are all kinds of sin that are not what people would call crime, but they are still sin nonetheless. Why? Because anything that transgresses or disobeys God's directions, commands, or laws is thereby defined as sin, because sin is spoken of in the Bible as "lawlessness", "transgression of the law", and other such usage. The good news is, it is a blessing to be forewarned of harmful practices or ways, such that we can avoid them by God's grace/strength. This is NOT burdensome; it is instead a great blessing! Not only that, in avoiding sin here on earth, we are thereby in training for the hereafter. Jesus said, "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels." "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne." Revelation 3:5 & 21 Also, Revelation 22:14 says, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."
There is a yet deeper matter to be addressed here in regards to the lack of uprightness among Christians today: many Christians believe that we do not even NEED to be upright - that that is not important, and that the only thing that matters is accepting Christ, asking for forgiveness regularly, and following the Spirit's leading. People who believe this way often deny the existence of any absolute moral code at all, saying that in the New Covenant, Christians are led individually by the Spirit, so an absolute moral code is not needed at all, and is in fact bondage and legalism, and the taking back into the Old Covenant.
Let's look at this briefly. Yes it is true, there are verses that seem to say this, but on the other hand there are hosts of verses that absolutely forbid the former verses from being taken literally. To illustrate, consider these two familiar passages from Paul's writings: "...Ye are not under the law, but under grace." Romans 6:14 "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea we establish the law." Romans 3:31 Are these verses contradicting each other? No they are not. They are showing two sides to the story of the same topic, thus preventing the student from settling on a conclusion that is either all faith/grace, or all law : they show that the correct conclusion lies between the two. See how that works? Further investigation of the many many texts on this subject shows that to be "under the law" means to be a breaker of it. The power of faith and grace is to enable Christians to live in harmony with the "law of liberty", as God's law is called in James 2:12. Those who live thus are not be under the condemnation of the law, but yet not disregarding it either.
It is also true that part of the law was indeed done away at the Cross, but only the blood sacrifices that foreshadowed Jesus' death were done away, in that Jesus is now the lamb, rather than a literal lamb, and His blood was shed once and then is ministered daily in the sanctuary above, rather than here on earth. Other portions of Moses' Law have been transferred over into different forms (such as the Passover transferring over to the Communion service), but only as dictated by the Bible itself. Whatever is not spelled out as being changed, is therefore NOT changed, and for Christians to regard portions of God's holy law as having been changed that He has NOT changed, is NO SMALL MATTER, wouldn't you say? The seventh-day Sabbath has not been changed to Sunday in terms of the Bible; only the feast day sabbaths were ended at the Cross, since they pointed forward to Jesus' death. The seventh-day Sabbath goes all the way back to Creation for it's origin (as it says in Genesis 2:2 & 3 AND other texts). When all texts are weighed out both for and against the seventh-day Sabbath being a constant from Creation clear down to the close of time and beyond, the evidence in favor of it is far greater than that which is against it, AND that which appears to be against it turns out to really be for it under closer scrutiny. Study it out for yourself, and you will see this to be true from the standpoint of Jesus' method of study as detailed in Part A of this article.
Note: In the Bible there are signs or seals spoken of as showing one's allegiance to God. Two of these are the seventh-day Sabbath and circumcision/baptism. Many people get these three all confused because the Bible uses similar terminology for all of them, but as we saw with the Messianic prophecies in the previous article, there are indeed very important categories that are often present when the Bible talks about several different things in similar terms! Remember how very important it is to sort them correctly in such cases? In the matter of the various seals or signs of allegiance to God, the seventh-day Sabbath goes all the way back to Creation, and as many texts show, one of the reasons given for keeping it is to show worship for and obedience to the One Who made all things and Who died and rose again that we might be recreated again into His image of sinlessness and bliss. Circumcision, on the other hand, was a more specific sign given to Abraham and his descendants, designating them as those specially chosen by God as His visible instruments on earth - His church if you will. This then transferred to baptism in the Christian era as that which would show one to be part of Christ's visible instruments - His church - on earth. Both circumcision and baptism are indeed signs - and both can be very inaccurate as to the true condition of the heart (that is, just because someone has been baptized does not necessarily mean they are a real Christian, which was the same for circumcision, as the New Testament writers showed!). Nonetheless, the seventh-day Sabbath is very important to God; and it should be important to Christians as well - not to seek to force people by law to keep it, but rather for each individual to understand how God views the matter and to love Him enough to hallow that which is so important to Him.
Another example of what ended at the Cross and what didn't, are the health laws in the books of Moses. These are still just as viable as ever, EXCEPT for that which pertained to the water of cleansing with ashes from a sacrifice. We of course do not need to use animal sacrifices anymore, because Jesus made that sacrifice once and for all on the Cross. But this in no way has changed physiology to the point that pork is A-OK to eat whereas before the Cross it wasn't. In fact, Isaiah 66:17, speaking of the end of the world, says, "They that ... eat swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord." I could write many paragraphs explaining how the verses that point to all foods being clean, when compared with all the other texts that speak in the opposite direction, all come out to show that the unclean meats listed in the Old Testament are just as unclean as ever, and that verses that seem to say EVERYTHING is OK to eat are really not saying that at all. Remember, I am basing everything on the internal testimony of Scripture itself and the distinctions that are demanded from WITHIN the Bible, not from without! Therefore this has absolutely nothing to do with the picking of and choosing that goes on in Christendom, of simply what teachings people like and don't like. See the difference?!?
Now back to the question if Christians need a moral code at all or are to simply be guided by the Spirit. What does the Bible say? Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John chapter 15:26 through 16:15 what the work of the Holy Spirit is: look up those verses and you will see that the Holy Spirit acts ONLY in harmony with the Father and the Son, and they always act in harmony with the Word which they have already spoken to mankind. In other words, the Holy Spirit is NOT something apart from the already revealed laws and ways of God, but He is the means of Jesus' being present with every human all the time to seek to guide and woo all INTO the safe paths of His will as revealed in His laws and ways in the Bible. Therefore the notion of being guided by the Holy Spirit irregardless of any absolute moral code is quite out of harmony with the Bible. Some reading this may be saying, "But there are texts that do teach we need no law and that it is a burden to have law." I challenge all who are honest seekers after truth, gather up all such verses, and then hunt up those that praise the law of God in both the Old and the New Testaments. Carefully and prayerfully compare them all, and you will see that what I have said is the truth according to what is delineated within the Bible itself.
Now comes the question, If there is an absolute moral code for Christians, what code is it? As shown some already, the laws and directions once given by God are eternal in nature and remain in force eternally UNLESS expressly replaced or modified by God Himself (read the book of Psalms, especially chapter 119, for verification of this; can also be found in many other verses of the Bible, showing that the Words of God are ETERNAL and powerful in and of themselves!). Therefore, the laws for Christians are the exact same ones as recorded in the Old Testament EXCEPT for those that have indeed met their fulfillment at the Cross. Christians quote Jesus as saying, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill;" (Matthew 5:17) and then they say, "See, He came to fulfill or do away with the whole law and the prophets". Sorry, that same language "fulfill" is used in Jesus' words to John the Baptist about baptism, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." Matthew 3:15 Was Jesus doing away with baptism? Hardly! And neither was He doing away with the law that He Himself had given in the Old Testament. ONLY those portions that are clearly shadows are ended - all the rest remains (see above).
Now some will say, "But the Old Testament calls the Ten Commandments "the covenant", does it not? and then Paul tells us that we are not under that old covenant anymore. What about that?" First of all, to call a set of laws "the covenant" is only a way of speaking; it cannot be literal since a covenant is an agreement between two parties that INVOLVES a law or code. There was a covenant made at Mount Sinai where the people promised IN THEIR OWN STRENGTH to keep God's laws. Hebrews 8:6-10 shows what was wrong with the Old Covenant made there at Sinai: it was the faulty promises of the people! It was not God's promises, and it was not God's laws, it was the promises of the people to keep the law in their own strength! This was what was wrong with the Old Covenant. A careful examination of Hebrews chapter 11 as well as many other passages, shows that the New or Everlasting Covenant has been around from Adam's day to this; the Old Covenant was only something that existed in the minds and hearts of the Jews on and off as a result of stubborn refusal on the part of many to live by faith rather than trusting in their own works to save them. (Yes it is true, the term Old Covenant is used in the New Testament as a chronological term to signify the entire time period of roughly Sinai to the Cross, but this CANNOT be used as a definition of what the Old Covenant is; to do so would contradict far too many other passages. There are many meanings for any given word as we all know, and the term "Old Covenant" is no exception!)
This leads into the matter of legalism and the idea that the Old Covenant is bondage. There IS an aspect of the Old Testament that was and still is bondage, but according to the Bible, this is not what many Christians think it is. The book of Galatians is a marvelous discourse on righteousness by faith alone, and it is this book that is at the same time most helpful and most confusing, depending on how it is studied! (If studied with the methods of Jesus explained in the previous article, then it is most helpful rather than confusing!) In it, one will find that the Jews had made a religion out of ceremonies and the keeping of the laws of God, thinking that the laws in and of themselves would EARN them favor with God if kept to the letter. One may say at this point that this is exactly what the Old Testament teaches; no, there are texts that can be taken that way, but the entire sanctuary service instituted by God through Moses was for the very purpose of showing that it is ONLY through faith in Christ the Lamb of God that anyone may be accounted righteous before God. Many Jews totally overlooked this, but this is no reason for us to think that God intended it thus! No indeed! Those righteous before God in any generation have done so through faith in Jesus alone, and have lived in obedience to God's laws through the power of God alone, not through their own strength or any of their own merit. This is what the Bible teaches as a whole. Therefore, the bondage spoken of in the Bible referring to the Old Covenant, the laws of God, or anything of the sort, is speaking of the bondage of works religion - that of trying to earn salvation by one's own merit through works. THIS is INDEED bondage and is not of God at all.
My father and I once talked in depth about the purpose of obedience in the Christian life. There are just too many texts that show oh so clearly that obedience is extremely important, and yet many others make it very clear that obedience has NOTHING to do with earning favor with God. Then one must ask the question, If obedience does not earn one the right to enter Heaven as well as God's favor here below, then why bother being obedient? My father and I concluded that the answer lies in the idea that God has two different whole systems of rules: one that DOES have to do with merit, and one that does NOT have to do with merit. Both are extremely important, but yet different. The one that DOES have to do with merit is righteousness by faith - how we take hold of Jesus and His forgiveness, cleansing and power in a life-changing way. It is His merit and righteousness ALONE that gives humans any merit in the sight of God! Obedience to God's law can never, in and of itself, earn a sinner any merit at all. But that does not make obedience less important. Why? Well, think of it this way: when you buy a car, and are careful to care for it per the manufacturer's instructions, do you earn any extra merit in the sight of the car company, or are you simply doing what is needed to get reliable service from your car? The latter is the correct answer of course! But it is no different with humans and the directions given by our Creator that if followed through His strength will give good results in this life and the life to come. I hope it is becoming clear that obeying God's directions has nothing to do with earning merit, but it is nonetheless very important so that we humans may have good results here in this life as well as in the life to come. The simple truth is, God knows what is best for us, and that is why we should trust Him enough to follow His instructions!
I mentioned earlier the concept of righteousness by faith: there is far more in this than simply trusting in God for our righteousness! Galatians makes it crystal clear that righteousness in God's eyes is ONLY that which is imparted by Jesus; good deeds do not earn us any favor with God in terms of gaining salvation by our own efforts. BUT, we ARE God's stewards both of our bodies and of the time and talents He has given us, and it is on that level that we must be faithful "employees" as it were, and follow His Use and Care Guide (the Bible) so we will know what actions and choices to make to best fulfill our mission as His stewards - both for our own present good and for the life to come. Galatians and other passages repeat over and over the theme that it must be God Who is the center and focus of everything we do and of everything we believe. Here is where lies more to the matter of faith than first meets the eye. In order to be a REAL Christian as documented in Part A, one must believe (have faith) that God is indeed real, and that He is our Creator in verity. One must also believe (have faith) in the Bible as the supreme rule of faith and practice, if we would abide by God's ways and not our own, or that of other humans (which Jesus called vain worship when He denounced the manmade traditions of the day which contradicted the teachings of Scripture; see Matthew 15:3-9 and Mark 7:6-13). Then too it takes faith to look to God for light and guidance to know the truth, rather than trying to figure it out by one's own reasoning or studying. As shown in Part A, to attempt to search out things of God by man's logical linguistic and historical means is utter folly; and it takes faith to trust God enough to use the method HE has laid down in His Word rather than the methods of men. Again, it takes faith to believe that that which the Bible dictates in and of itself is indeed the truth as God would have us see it. It takes faith to choose to believe that God knows what is best for us and that we will be better off obeying His ways than anything else under the sun!
Consider Hebrews 11 - the Faith Chapter. Notice just what those heroes of faith were doing in their actions that showed their living faith in God. Can you see how their actions correlate to us today? It is really quite simple: The just shall live by faith alone, just as Galatians and the rest of the Bible teaches - real vibrant living faith that maintains an intimate connection with the Creator, and lives by Him and through Him. Faith that works through love and purifies the soul, this is real faith. Do you see how righteousness by faith touches every area of life, from thoughts to actions?
One last point: In Galatians we hear the term "the hearing of faith" (Gal. 3:2 & 5); and Ephesians 5:26 teaches the idea of "the washing of water by the word". James 2:19 tells us that the "devils also believe, and tremble," showing that mere mental accent to the truth is not going to save anyone in and of itself. The kind of "belief" that saves is that which is taken into the heart and life by FAITH in Christ, and a key part of this is a thorough ongoing knowledge of the Bible. Can a cup of water that has a drop of black food coloring be used to make a white cloth get any whiter? No indeed! God uses the truth to sanctify and to cleanse and change His children, but if their ideas of truth are perverted by the ideas of men, then it is like they are washing a white cloth in blackened water; how is that going to make the cloth anything but dirtier rather than cleaner?!? Black food coloring is certainly not the same as non-chlorine bleach!! If we would be like Jesus, and love Him and serve Him as we should and is best for us to do, we MUST have an ongoing TRUE knowledge of the Bible, since the Bible is God's words and thoughts to everyone of us. What a treasure is the Bible, and how few realize it!
So what does all this boil down to? God is calling every human to rise to the high calling of sons and daughters of God - kings and queens if you will - by partaking of His divine nature and overcoming all of sin and it's stains through His grace imparted to us by faith. We are to be REAL men (and women) by being REAL Christians, as the Bible shows us how. We are to take hold of the real true grace of God, not cheap grace!! We are to take hold of God's strength by our ongoing choices so that He can work in and through us to will and to do of His good pleasure, lest we be among those for whom His blood was shed in vain. What will you do with Jesus, dear reader? He is standing before you, longing to be your personal Friend and Savior, the right to which He earned with His own spotless life and His inestimable sacrifice on the Cross. Will you play by His rules? Will you take hold of His full grace which includes POWER to live the exalted calling of a real child of God? Or will you cheapen His offer with the views of near-sighted men? What will it be with you?
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