Category: Theology Page 52 of 67

The world is in eager pursuit of perfecting this life by their own means, by creating some form of salvation on their own works and merit. This is the same story for both the religious and the secular. For the religious, their salvation is themselves, their self-righteousness and their works; for the secular, their salvation is their pleasure and pursuit of their own happiness apart from God. But we as believers in Jesus Christ know that everything in this life will inevitably fade, that we will ultimately die, and that we are completely hopeless to save ourselves by anything we can do, pursue any lasting happiness, or provide any meaning for ourselves outside of the Person (relationally) and Work (objectively) of Christ.

Yet, our hope, and our only hope from now until all eternity, is that Christ has risen from the grave, to proclaim to all that He is Lord, God, King, Savior, High Priest, the great I AM, through which all things came into existence, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish forever but have everlasting life in Him. And we know that because He has indeed risen from the grave as the “first fruits” of those He has purchased (meaning He is the first of many who believe in Him to rise from the dead), that we who have trusted Him alone for salvation, will too rise from death to life on the last day when Christ appears to setup His throne. Praise God the Father for sending His Son to redeem those who could not redeem themselves! Praise Christ that He has overcome death by the life that is within Him! Praise the Holy Spirit for no longer dwelling behind the curtain in the Most Holy Place, inaccessible to us, but now He is dwelling within us through faith, and that itself (faith) provided by the atoning sacrifice of Christ to give us the ability, strength, and power to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, the only one who ultimately matters. What a merciful God.

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you–unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

1 Corinthians 15:1-8 (ESV)

The Lord has risen from the grave, this is our future hope and is exactly why we can embrace suffering in this life as the molding work of God to conform us to Christ. We should in fact take joy in suffering because it is the mercy of God to make us like Christ, but we can only do this by rejoicing in the hope of the Gospel, that we get God Himself forever. Our hope lies not in this life, but in the next, the future resurrection where we will be forever blessed by Christ Himself, the main hope and gift of the Gospel. What a Savior and God!

“The cross work of Christ is central to the Christian faith and its proclamation, because of who it was who died on the cross and what it was he did there. With the apostles the church affirms that it was the eternal Son of God, the Word who became flesh, the Lord of glory, who died on Calvary (Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1; John 1:1, 14; 20:28; 1 Cor. 2:8). Accordingly, in its best moments, the church has “gloried in nothing but the cross” (Gal. 6:14) and has “resolved to know nothing among [the nations] except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). It has done so even though it knows that the preaching of the cross is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). It has done so, not only because it knows that “God was pleased through the foolishness of preaching [the message of the cross] to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:18, 21), but also because it recognizes that the cross of Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). For Paul to characterize the cross of Christ the way he did in 1 Corinthians 1:24—”the power of God and the wisdom of God”—implies that God accomplished a truly great salvation through the cross work of the Lord of Glory. One can sketch the momentous outlines of that “so great salvation” simply by surveying what the New Testament epistles affirm about the “body,” “blood,” “cross,” and “death” of Christ, words which taken in their contexts represent that great work in terms of a sacrifice (see also 1 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 7:27; 9:26, 28; 10:10, 12, 14).”

– Robert R. Reymond A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith

I’m currently reading the book Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen which is actually a collection of three of his classic works on sin and temptation, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, Of Temptation: The Nature and Power of It, and Indwelling Sin. I’ve only scratched the surface of what Owen has to offer as far as his insights are concerned; so much can be gleaned from him expounding the scriptures.

One particular insight that has really hit me is the quote for this entry: “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” Sin has waged war on the souls of men. And for the regenerate in particular, those who profess to be saved, there is no neutral place. There is no where to hide for a time from sin and its evils. Every day, every moment even, sin is at work, waging war on the members of our bodies. If we are not in a daily practice of mortifying sin by the Spirit, it is very conceivable that sin will gain such a foothold in your life and direct you to do things you never thought you would do, taking you further than you ever wanted to go. And so either you are killing sin or it is killing you. There is no third option, as many suppose, that if you just stop pursuing Christ and think of yourself as neither progressing nor backsliding, you are actually backsliding. Sin is so deceitful, that just like novocaine, it numbs your soul to the injury it is actually inflicting on it to where you cannot feel the damage it is causing to your soul. If every day we are not pursuing the mortification of sin in our lives, it is harming our souls, whether we see it or not.

“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6) How do we daily mortify sin in our lives? I mean we believe it is impossible for us in our flesh to conquer sin, do we not? The verse above clearly asserts this fact. Owen’s answer: we mortify sin by means of the Spirit alone. If we attempt to mortify it by our own means, we may for a time hold sin back, but it will not get at the root problem in our hearts, where only the Spirit can go. Any attempt by man to mortify sin in his own strength is futile, which is why people grow weak and tired over time of pursuing holiness: they are doing it in their own strength, not by the Spirit. Romans 8 makes this clear. We can restrain sin for a time on our own, but simply restraining sin doesn’t fix the problem; it will not supernaturally change us from the inside out and cut out the root sin has grown in our hearts. And eventually sin will quickly find its place right back where it was. The Spirit is the only means by which we can mortify sin. We will not eradicate it in this life, but by the Spirit, we can pursue true righteousness that gets at the heart of our sin problem. The Holy Spirit alone effects change in the life of the believer. All other forms of change will not last. But the Spirits’ change lasts forever, unto eternal life even. “For the mind set on the flesh is death.” Employing our own means of conquering sin, produces death, because it is self-righteousness, which fixes nothing, but in fact produces more sin. “But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” However, by employing the means of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us by the work of Christ on the cross, we can mortify sin by striking at the root.

This may sound abstract and distant from real life, but practically speaking, what this looks like is simply coming to an utter end of yourself, realizing you fix nothing of yourself and your works, but trust solely on God’s work, by the Spirit, to change you. We are totally dependent on Him to change us. “Go on to maturity … And this we will do if God permits.” (Hebrews 6:1,3) We will grow in grace, if God permits. We are at His mercy. And how He desires us to grow, but not by our own works, rather His work, through His Son, in the work of the cross. We are at the mercy of God to change into godly people. And He is full of mercy, displayed clearly in the work of the cross. Throw yourself at the the feet of Jesus in desperation, because you are inadequate to cure your disease infested heart. I am a sinner of the utmost kind, and everyday, if I’m not fighting against sin by means of the Spirit, it is fighting me, and winning. And man do I feel it. Oh how we need Christ to change us! May we all fall on our faces before God, plead with Him to have mercy on us to change, and then look to the cross to see that mercy has already been given us in the Gospel. “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” But do this by the Spirit, not yourself.

Why is it that though I have been saved by such amazing grace through Jesus’ death and resurrection do I continue to be a bitter, or irritable, or irate, or frustrated, or petty person? Why do I still struggle with things that I should have moved past by now? Most importantly, why do I not have the peace of God? I have asked myself these questions many times because I’m a sinner and continue to sin, hurting people I love, though I hate the sin that is there. You may have asked yourself this too. And the answer is that at the core of your being you need the peace of God reigning in your heart to change you from the inside out, the peace given by the Holy Spirit, given freely to us through Christ’s work alone.

However, we are met with a problem, because all of us naturally want to merit the peace of God through our own works and make a right-standing for ourselves on our own strength and power (which fails all the time). But in our most quiet, intimate moments when we are alone, even if we think we’ve done things “right” for the most part, we still know that we fall infinitely short, that we must continue to work to make ourselves right, to give ourselves meaning. There’s despair, fear, and no peace, but some form of turmoil, unsettledness within our souls. So how is it that we obtain the peace of God? It is through seeing that in Jesus Christ through His perfect life and work on the cross on your behalf, He has given you peace with God by bearing the weight of guilt for you, through faith. And this itself is the heart of how we change: by continuing to keep our eyes fixed on Christ and His work and letting that reality change you. Once you give up working to try and be your own savior and fix your broken, messed up, sinful heart, and instead see Christ as sufficient, only then will you begin to change. You change through giving up on yourself and your works and your righteousness and asking for the mercy of God to come and change you from the inside out, through Christ’s work, the Gospel.

Romans 5:1-2 shows us exactly how it is we are changed to live lives in glory to God. It states:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Notice that Paul doesn’t say we have the peace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ (though that is true), but he specifically says we have peace with God. Before we were saved, we were all naturally objects of wrath, God’s face was turned against us, and we were without hope. But then Christ intervened with His blood as an offering to turn away the wrath of God that was against any who believe in Him. Once you see the value of this work in Scripture and through spending time in relationship with the God of the universe, this itself is what produces true heart change, your own works will never save you or change you into a godly person. “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ … and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” The glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, through His perfect moral record on your behalf and His perfect sacrificial death to give you peace with God, is the only thing that will save you and change you. Never take your eyes off of Christ, because as soon you do, just like Peter walking on the water and sinking because he took his eyes off of Him, so you will sink and give into your flesh that still desires sin and wickedness and become a person of fear, pettiness, and wickedness. There will be times that you will sin, but never give up that fight to keep Christ’s work central and remember to preach the Gospel to your heart every day, because it wants to stray at every opportunity.

Seeing that you have peace with God through Christ’s work is what will give you the peace of God and thus change you, and nothing else.

http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/arti … il.php?654

Although this teaching can sound correct in appealing to the character of God as being so full of love that the Father couldn’t, and in fact did not, pour out His wrath on Jesus at the cross, it absolutely guts the heart of the Gospel, substitutionary atonement, and ultimately strips Christianity of all its unique meaning. Every heresy that has emerged in the history of the church is full of just enough truth to make it look palatable (this is the craftiness of the work of Satan), and yet it is the few drops of poison that are administered that make it spiritually deadly (in the eternal sense). Substitutionary atonement: that is on the cross, Jesus bore the guilt and blame (the wrath of God) for the sins of anyone who would believe in Him and are given the very righteousness Christ earned for them in His life and death, sealed with power in His historical resurrection.

Steve Chalke would have us believe the work of the cross was merely an expression of how far God was willing to go for us; now, it is that, and yet infinitely so much more! Of course it is that, but when the work of the cross is explained as we see it in Scripture, we see that it is redundant to even say that. This guy, Steve Chalke, is attacking the heart of the very divine act that has brought us peace with God, Christ actually and effectually bearing our eternal guilt, in our place, and giving us His perfect record so that we may stand before God and love Him for eternity. And this heresy is spreading like a wildfire among many who call themselves evangelicals even. He is quoted as saying in this article, how have we “‘come to believe that at the cross this God of love suddenly decides to vent his anger and wrath on his own Son?'” This is a blatant attack on the very Gospel itself. If Christ did not bear the wrath of God in our place (might I add, willingly), we would still be under eternal condemnation. This picture of God that emerges from theology like this is a picture simply of a God of love and not a God of justice. In addition, the picture of God he is painting is of a God who simply sweeps our sins under the rug and doesn’t deal with them. He is both fully a loving God and a just God, with all of His attributes reconciled in the work of the cross. O The Wonderful Cross!

This error has crept up once again as it has in the history of the church, just in our postmodern cultural context. We would all do well to pay very close attention to what we have seen and heard in the Scriptures, testified to us by the Holy Spirit.