In the Name of God

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
(Exodus 20:7 – ESV)

Yes, terrible things have been done in the name of religion and for supposedly religious reasons. This has led many to declare that religion is the source of all man’s problems. Yet it is not religion itself, but men themselves whom are the cause. It is men who don’t truly know God but who are under the influence of their own dark hearts that use their religion to do their own will in destruction. It is the heart of mankind that wants to use some idea of a god to manipulate and control people, whether they are the masses or a relative few.

However, the answer is not to ban all religion, but to become more discerning. The problem is false religion held by false men. They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain! (Psalm 139:20) It is men who use religion as a cloak for their devious schemes. If society were actually interested in sorting through this mess and finding out the truth, they would take the time to properly understand and make the effort necessary to therefore represent what each religious system of belief actually teaches, and then they would have the information necessary to find the right one. Of course, that is but a vain hope.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Single Issue Voter

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
(Romans 3:28 – ESV)

Paul anticipated what critics might say and then answered the charges. In perhaps similar fashion, when speaking of the glory of the great doctrines, you might hear someone say something like this. “Well this all just too abstract for me, what does doctrine do for me right now, how can I get a grip on what it means for today?” Okay, lets “go there”.

Let me start by saying that doctrine is the tool that helps you grow. It is a process, and it becomes applied as we live out life, not as we take them like a pill, but as we plant them like a seed. We see the doctrine, and what it says about Christ and about us, and we meet that with our faith, and it blooms as fruit in our lives. We don’t just look at it and then write it down or fill out some form, we believe it and become conformed into His image, from glory to glory as we see and believe it more and more (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It happens best within the context of a local church community but it is not an impersonal thing, but a very personal thing where the great doctrines make a great difference in our everyday living. And these particular doctrines are all-important, not only for our justification, but for our sanctification, our growth in grace, and we must understand that Jesus is the source of your life, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30). Now let me just bring these doctrines right into your personal life right now, okay? So how does this filter out into giving God glory in my life? I’ll just apply this to one area that many have trouble with, perhaps all of us at times.

Many people measure their spirituality based solely on their self-control in one area or another. If they are “being good” in that one area that they are struggling with, then they feel spiritual, if not, then they feel like a failure spiritually. It is all or none, in a sense. It can be hard to help people find balance when they gauge the health of their relationship with Christ on a single issue – such as their sexual purity, anger issues, their thought life, or something else. Now we don’t want to give license to licentiousness or to excuse or encourage a lack of effort to control the self life, but instead of thinking solely about one issue as a measure, consider the whole life, are you advancing anywhere at all, in many areas, perhaps even in most areas?

If you are a “single issue voter” this may be why you fail to see your relationship with Christ as it is, a growing and complex dynamic of repentance and faith, based on His works, His love, His steadfastness. When a single issue carries so much weight the guilt and shame of failure can overwhelm a person. It also may be the reason why you neglect other areas, and as a result the whole life, spiritual and otherwise, suffers. Pay attention to your failings, sure, but don’t give them any more weight than they ought to have, and keep thanking God for the victories He has given you, and pray for more, all the while counting on this fact: it is not what we did, it is what He did that counts. The single issue has been forever settled in your favor.

Yes the sin is a problem, but it can lead to a greater problem because it can lead to more failure. The greater tragedy is not the failure of the individual sin, but when it leads to the failure to get back up, to be so swept away with guilt and shame that we let it bring us back down, away from any chance of victory. We settle for settling into a rut of routine spirituality, thinking that this is all there is, and we let the devil win, keeping us from becoming more solid in other areas as we lose the fight with this one issue. However, we must realize that the mark of faith is not that I don’t fail but that I do fight.

God makes a way where there is no way. There was no way for a man to be perfect and the Law pointed that out. By the deeds of the Law no man will be justified, but by faith in the person and works of Christ any man may be justified. This is the one necessary thing to salvation; you see it is God who is a single-issue voter, and He always wins the election. Have faith.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Above the Law?

He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
(Romans 3:30 – ESV)

Although we are not under the Law we are not above it either, but rather we are more in tune with its spiritual components, a heart circumcised to believe and obey, trusting in Him and glorifying His name through our obedience; not being saved by it but being saved we fulfill it. Justification does not mean to be righteous or to make righteous but to declare righteous, for the Christian we are declared righteous based on the perfect righteousness of Jesus the Messiah. He has fulfilled the Law for us and by our faith we establish that fact.

The Law still has purposes, for the non-believer and also for the believer. It is designed to lead people to the gospel of Christ (Galatians 3:19-23) and also to indict what is not in accord with the gospel (Galatians 2:14). Using the Law lawfully (1 Timothy 1:8-9) means using it to convict people of living out of accordance with the gospel. It is for those that don’t know it and for those that should know better. That is why we use both, we give the Law to the proud and grace to the humble, both Christian and non-Christian.

Through faith or by faith means that our faith is not the ground or that we are saved on account of our faith, but that it is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). God is absolutely holy and just, and so any justification, any declaration of righteousness, any acquittal of guilt, must be on a just basis; it must be right to do so. The penalty of the Law had to be satisfied and Christ paid that for us, and so God declares us righteous not on some whim, but because of Christ, and it is a just declaration. We are guilty but Christ pays the penalty, and then God is just in justifying the ungodly (Romans 4:5), declaring us righteous, because of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to our account (2 Corinthians 5:21).

As we see in Romans 3:24-26, the substitutionary atonement is the reason we can be justified by faith. It is faith in the person of Jesus and His finished work on the cross. With the wonderful doctrines of substitutionary atonement and justification by faith you can rest assured of your salvation, and as you cling to Christ in faith, you can conquer those voices that tell you tomorrow morning that you are a hopeless case. You don’t have to remember the names of the doctrines to remember who and what they are about. Jesus Christ dying for your sins and giving you a right standing before a satisfied God. By abiding in Christ by faith, you are not above the Law; in Christ you have fulfilled it.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Anti-Establishment Clause?

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
(Romans 3:31 – KJV)

Paul says none of our own works can save us, and that the Law has no power to save because men are unable to keep it. Because of this he had been accused, wrongly, of promoting a “religion” which had no morality. In answering this, Paul says that we don’t abolish the Law but that by our faith we actually establish it. How can this be, you might ask?

What he means by this is very important, because he also says in Romans 10:4 that Jesus Christ is the end of the Law to all who believe in Him. So they might say he is abolishing the Law, but Paul says we establish it by faith. That is an amazing statement, and what does Paul mean we establish the Law when he says we aren’t justified by it? How can Paul say we establish the Law when he also says we don’t have to do it? Again, how can these things be?

He means that we establish the purpose of the Law, to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:21-24). He means that by our faith we establish that the Law is righteous, but that it cannot provide righteousness because of the weakness of mankind (Romans 8:3). We establish that its demands must be met, but that we cannot meet them. We establish that it cannot be met apart from faith in Christ, who did meet them (Matthew 5:17). We establish that people of faith now pursue the spirit of the Law by faith, as those who are already justified, and not by works, in order to be justified. By faith we establish the power of the Holy Spirit who is living in, and we can now be living out the spirit of the Law, as opposed to the mere letter, as Jesus spoke of it in the Sermon on the Mount, not in order to justify us, but to show the fruit of being justified.

We live in the love, the acceptance, and the justification that Jesus provides us as our safety, our satisfaction, our rest, and our all in all. Jesus fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the Law, and we establish that fact in our lives and in our world by our faith. Faith does not produce disobedient, lazy Christians; it produces obedient, loving Christians who follow Jesus by the Spirit from the heart. Romans 13:8-10 – love is the fulfilling of the Law. In other words, love fulfills or establishes the Law. And where does love come from? It is a fruit of the Spirit in our lives, and the fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of faith.

Being justified by faith is not an anti-establishment clause for religion; indeed it establishes the true religion. The Law points to that fact and we establish that fact by faith.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

EVERYTHING!

Christians do not observe the Jewish Day of Atonement.

Asking for an “Atonement Offering” flies directly in the face of Jesus' atonement for our sins on the cross of Calvary. Offering God money for atonement is a form of denying Christ's sacrifice.

The old covenant was with the Jews, not with “you’s”.

People think that modern day Judaizing doesn’t happen today but here we have a clear example of it. No it isn’t asking for circumcision to become a Christian, but that isn’t all Judaizing was about, it was also about doing Jewish works in order to be a better Christian as we see typified here. When Paul was writing Galatians, some were saying that you had to be Jewish to be saved, or that you had to do Jewish customs to be an advanced disciple. Wrong, dead, damningly wrong. Jesus was and is the substance that filled in the shadows. The tabernacle, feasts, and all those ceremonial trappings, customs, rituals, and offerings were all symbolic of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:3-4 / Luke 24:27 / John 5:39, 6:29-58 / Galatians 4:9-10 / Colossians 2:17 / Hebrews 10:1,14). They were types, and Christ is the antitype. You don’t go back to the type when the antitype has come. You don’t then go back to the type or try and reinvigorate or reinvent the type as a new form of blessing. Feasts, etc., don’t bring a new or extra blessing. “Jesus plus” types of false gospels elevate man and diminish God. If we have to do something then Jesus’ payment wasn’t enough, His value wasn’t great enough to fully pay for my sin, or to secure blessings or sanctification.

Yes, we can give the benefit of the doubt and say they aren’t trying to get you to give for forgiveness of sin, but they are trying to get you to give to them in order to receive a special blessing, and they are doing it based on a false teaching, false teaching of the worst and first sort to the Christian world, Judaizing. We don’t go through the steps anymore that is the old covenant which pointed to Christ, and to do it again, that is to retrace and rework the steps Jesus fulfilled, that isn’t what following Christ is about.

Those seven blessings, whatever they are, have been obtained in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). To go back and try to get them now for yourself is blasphemous and again saying Christ’s atonement was insufficient for you to have them, or that you must “work” to obtain them (which would be modern day Judaizing). Christ is the fulfillment of the tabernacle and IS our tabernacle; He is the real Tabernacle in heaven (Revelation 21:3).

You will not honor God with your atonement offering, and you will not receive some extra seven fold blessing other supposedly less informed or less spiritual believers will not get. Instead you will blaspheme His Son, Jesus Christ, and if, like this sign, that atonement is money well, then Acts 8:20 speaks plainly to you. Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Of course they might say, “no we love God, it is all about Jesus, that is why we are doing this!” Look at the teaching at face value. It is as if they believe that Jesus has given them all the spiritual, or eternal blessings, but they obtain the material, or temporal blessings by their works. And they believe that if they have faith in them they will get what they think they are promised. You do NOT please God apart from Jesus, and Jesus does NOT go back with you to try and re-fulfill the types and shadows. If you turn back to types, you have turned away from Christ.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

The Gospel Road

…since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
(Romans 3:20b – ESV)

The Law of God brings the knowledge of sin (Romans 7:7-8). It reveals the rebellion and it stirs up resistance. It doesn’t show how to be righteous it shows that we haven’t been righteous and we cannot in our own power be righteous. The Law stirs up resistance wherever the Holy Spirit is not ruling the heart.

Now here are some incredibly important things to consider. As Paul said earlier in our study of Romans, we know instinctively that we aren’t justified that is why we have such a guilty conscience, and so some try everything they can in the religious world to appease it, and then since they can’t they say that sincerity is enough, and that all roads lead to God. Well sincerity is no substitute for truth, and the truth is, all roads do lead to God, but only one road will lead to God justifying us, all the other roads lead to God condemning us.

People are trying to justify themselves any way they can. “Be all you can be and God will accept you based on that.” No way. People try and justify themselves in their own eyes or the eyes of their parents or their peers and the eyes of the world, as if that were enough, the praise of others quiets their fears. That is why they chase fame, fortune, and even faithfulness to some cause. But they are looking to be justified by the wrong person. They may achieve their dreams but they won’t achieve justification, and they know it. Now many don’t even achieve their dreams, and so they sear their conscience by medicating it with their favorite drug of choice be it sex, drugs, rock and roll, or whatever.

Hearing the truth reminds us that we are guilty that is why before you were saved you didn’t want to hear bible preaching. You didn’t want to hear the good news because it meant that you had to come face to face with the bad news. The Law points out your sin and everyone knows it is ugly, they just want to avoid it and say “not me”, but then they look at all that is in the world and talk about how bad it all is. Well friends it is all of us, and it is obvious.

Acts 13:38-39 – no religious system will make you righteous before God
Hebrews 9:9 – the Law and the priesthood was a symbol of righteousness not the substance
Hebrews 10:1 – no sacrifice you can do will make you perfect
Hebrews 12:23 – God does it He justifies you He makes you perfect in His sight
Romans 10:3-4 – Jesus is the end of man made religion
Hebrews 7:24-26 – A shadow to show our sinfulness we could stay religiously busy our entire lives and it would not be enough but Christ is a perfect high priest for us
Hebrews 10:10 – once for all. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus
1 Timothy 2:5 – there is only one thing that God will accept

People don’t want to believe that man cannot save himself. They want to believe that men can warrant eternal life, that they can come to deserve the kingdom of heaven, but they question is why, why would that be so, why should God justify you? Personal righteousness is not enough. Practicing religion cannot offer you a full free pardon from sin. How are you going to justify yourself before God, the bible just told you that your works cannot do it. Who are you following, who is leading you, Oprah; is she going to save you? It is time to stop trying to justify yourself and time to just-deny yourself, and follow Christ. Get on that gospel road.

Yes, all the other roads lead to God too. However, the road Jesus is on leads to justification by God and a place in heaven. All other roads lead to damnation from God and a place in hell. When you can say that you aren’t good enough and that Jesus is, that is how you get on Redemption Road. I am not good enough so I can’t trust me but Jesus is and so I’ll trust Him. Everyone is trusting in something; what are you trusting in, your sacrifice or God’s sacrifice? Your road will get you to God, but what road are you on, the road to heaven or the road to hell?

Shadow Boxing

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
(Colossians 2:17,23 – ESV)

After Paul spoke about Christ and His work in Colossians 2:9-15, he gave some practical application. Because of and through Christ, God has taken away any subordinate means as essential to being accepted by Him. He goes on to explain in verses 16-23 of the things we are therefore not to succumb and submit to, stating in essence that legalism, mysticism, and asceticism (monasticism) do not work.

Spiritual maturity is not gained through the methods often employed by some in the church, but a measure of maturity is the sense of your own sinfulness. Humility is the seed of holiness, and holiness starts in the heart not the hands.

The legalism that takes a matter and makes it a must or at least a higher standard of spirituality is typified by the idea of Sabbath keeping and the like. Christians are free to keep the Sabbath day if they so desire, but this doesn’t make them more spiritual, give them special blessings or bring them closer to God. They can’t bind the consciences of other’s with their convictions; it is a matter of liberty, not a binding legality.

No rigorous self-imposed devotion to types and shadows will make you more spiritual. It is Christ’s life being formed in you by abiding in Him. It is not done by formula or ritual. One aspect of legalism is that the doctrines of men are promoted as the laws of God.

Paul also says that it isn’t some mystical experience that will get you to grow; it is God’s life in you that is growing. These movements often appeal to elites or an elitist notion, not something for the whole body. Jesus wants us all to grow together.

Galatians 4:17 – some will shut you out from the elite so that you will strive to become a member of the elite. The gnostics had a type of higher knowledge theory, and so, too, many today sell a deeper life or a higher level or whatever, so as to get others to come after them and their new improved doctrine and not after Christ (Acts 20:20-32).

Some so-called spiritual disciplines and contemplative prayer are simply self-made religion. We are not called to be monks but missionaries. Self-made religion is man reaching to God, trying to justify himself by keeping a list of rules. Christianity is God reaching down to man in love through Christ.

Gnosticism places the emphasis on the individual outside any real context of community (solipsism – for knowledge, my mind is the only thing that matters). What is noteworthy is the lack of any uniformity apart from its elitist notion that salvation comes by special knowledge. As the Christian community of the early centuries started to become established, they codified common belief in creedal statements and councils. Gnosticism knows nothing of this because it rests upon an elitist, intellectual, and self-centered sense of what their religion should be. It is easy to see modern reflections of this idea. Of course, all of these are just some more reasons why it is vital to be in fellowship and growing with people of like precious faith.

No Way To Work It

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight…
(Romans 3:20a – ESV)

The Jews tried to keep it but they couldn’t and so they tried to reinterpret the standard so that it could be met. But the righteous requirements of the Law only awaken resistance not responsiveness, it doesn’t bring justification, it brings condemnation (Galatians 2:16, 21). The Law keeps us in chains so that we may be set free in Christ (Galatians 3:21-22).

Now people want to say they are more good than bad, but no one will be justified by their own good works, their works are not enough (Isaiah 64:6). For those that would try and say that they have followed the Law, Jesus showed up and shows us the true standard and interpreted the spirit of the Law as He did for the rich young ruler. Jesus said unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, and be ye perfect. The question is not are you as good as the next guy but are you as good as Jesus? You have got to keep it all (Galatians 3:10 / James 2:10).

The Ten Commandments are not some ten-step stairway to heaven they are proof positive that no one could climb up to God even if it were only one step. The Ten Commandments are just the preamble to the Law and no one can even do them. Jesus also gave us the true sense of the Law, which upped the spiritual ante so high that no one dare lay claim to a perfect righteousness.

But no one else seems to think you have to be perfect. All the other religions of the world say you can do it if you do this or that but God says no matter what you do it isn’t good enough because you aren’t Me. Romans 3:23 – the question is are you God, not are you good. Most of us realize we aren’t good compared to someone else we know, we are not the best person we have ever known. What then is the median point between good and bad? Who determines this, who decides this? If you are hoping your good outweighs your bad and that this will justify you, how do you know you are better than half or whatever standard you set for yourself?

God doesn’t leave us to guess He gives us His Law and then He gave us Jesus and we all realize that none of us are good compared to God, and we are not even close to being the kind of person Jesus Christ was in morality, in character, and in power. We cannot be justified by our own deeds they will never be enough.

We must be justified to God not justified by men, not justified by your parents or your wife or your husband or your family or your peers or your priest or your guru or your whoever else. God is the one to whom we are responsible, it is God to whom we have to answer to, and it is God whom justifies us, and here through the Apostle Paul and throughout scripture God tells us that no man can be justified in His sight by things that they can do.

Man cannot even keep one law, Adam and Eve proved that even without a sinful nature, and the Law magnifies that. It is like seeing a “do not open” sign. It isn’t that the words are evil but that they reveal what is in our hearts. If the sign weren’t there we wouldn’t have seen our desire to do what we ought not to do. The Law is a signpost folks, a signpost to sin, not a signpost to salvation, and you can replace the Law with any man made religious system that tries to earn its way to heaven or merit the mercy of whatever god it might serve.

Nothing to Say

…so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
(Romans 3:19 – ESV)

The Jews were the “test case”, the object lesson about man and his ability to truly worship, serve, and love God, as He requires. They failed, miserably. People think they could do it, they think they wouldn’t have eaten the forbidden fruit in the first place, or they think that they would obey if they had seen those miracles like the Jews did, but that is pure nonsense. Plenty of people would say they aren’t guilty but compared to what? That is why we have the Law and that is why Jesus gave the spirit of the Law. Looking at the Law we can see that we have not kept it either, and besides, Jesus shows us the spirit of the Law (Matthew 5) and there is no way we are doing that. We see that there is no way we compare to Him and He says we must be perfect. We must be like the Father and like Jesus; we must be perfect.

No one is doing good enough anyway, read the paper, look at TV, the Internet, or you can walk outside, or just look in the mirror and know that the world is a sinful place. Why do we have suffering, because of sin, and suffering doesn’t prove there is no God it proves that we all need God; the problem isn’t God the problem is you. See how we have distorted it all now? The Jews had the rules and they couldn’t do them either. After all Paul has shown us and seeing all we see around us, what will it take before you realize that you are sinful?

The test case failed showing representatively that no one can get the job done. Even the privileged people couldn’t make it. Their priesthood became tarnished with the very first high priest and these people kept on rebelling even though they saw many mighty miracles. From start to finish the flaws of man were obvious, and so they, and by extension we, have nothing to say.

When Paul says every mouth it is present tense. Just because you are not under the Law doesn’t mean you are above the Law. We are guilty and we are responsible before God for that guilt. Your works cannot justify you. Paul has already stopped the mouths of the Jews as we see repeatedly in Romans 1:18-3:18, and he has shown us all that we are guilty. Paul has said that there are no excuses before God.

Still we hear the excuses being made. “This preacher one time did this and that or that church did so and so”. Well that just means they are like everyone else on the planet, a flawed sinful human being. They aren’t good enough. Besides we aren’t asking you to trust religious people or a religious system we are asking you to trust the one priest on this earth who never strayed and the only one who can say anything to God on your behalf (1 Timothy 2:5). There is no hope in anyone or anything else. Why would you stand before God and claim your own righteousness?

The mouths that raise objections against God now will one day be silenced. Every mouth will be stopped. Confident are the declarations of defiant men these days. "Where is God?" they say. Where is yours, I say? How is he doing, how is humanity doing, where is the power, where is the purity? Your man made god has no righteousness; your man made god cannot save you. Man can never climb his way out of his own heart. "Where is God?" they may say, but only for a short season. Then they die, and then they meet Him (Hebrews 9:27), and their mouth is stopped. All boasting will be silenced (Isaiah 2:17). People can trash talk now but really when they look at the Law what have they got to say? Nothing except to explain it away or dumb it down, which you can do now, but then, in the presence of Almighty God, you will have nothing to say.