What an astounding truth to ponder and really come to understand; a gift declaration of righteousness to those who could never gain that declaration through performance. We need to look at sanctification from the standpoint of who is doing the setting apart. God has already set every believer apart as holy. To be perfectly righteous is to be perfectly holy. Every believer stands perfectly righteous or perfectly holy, justified according to God’s gift declaration of righteousness.
If you have believed Paul’s gospel, you have the very righteousness of Jesus Christ himself credited to your account. That means that you are perfectly holy in the eyes of God IN Christ. That is an amazing judicial transaction to ponder, it is an accomplished fact. God is not making you progressively less sinful, progressively more holy until that time when he can admit you to Heaven. Your setting apart is not contingent upon the degree to which you set yourself apart.
We are IN Christ, Christ’s test score is written on our paper. This is an amazing truth to understand and just as Justification itself is an amazing truth to understand, and one that needs to firmly settled in our minds. Sanctification is another one that needs to be firmly settled in our minds and then we will not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine that comes our way or by way of some debilitation or painful circumstance that comes our way. Truth will be the governor of the Intellect and the Intellect will be the governor of the Will and the Will will be the governor of the emotions.
There are to many preachers holding over the heads of their congregations a little law mixed with the possibility of losing their salvation, this is how they keep people in line! They feed their congregations a little fear of missing heaven! Frighten them a bit with the possibility of hell fire and brimstone and they will keep on doing the do’s and avoiding the don’ts, that will keep them straight! They will live properly in order to merit heaven and miss hell!
Paul called the carnal believers at Corinth saints because even though they were carnal, they had believed Paul’s good news. Saint is God’s word for a believer, he sets us apart. Jesus Christ’s death was sufficient to satisfy God’s righteous demand for justice. When God looks at the believing sinner, God sees his very own son and what does Paul address every believer, even the carnal saints at Corinth? He calls them Saints! God’s attitude towards a believer does not fluctuate in response to action, it is not condition on our behavior.
Three idol obstacles stand in the way of our growth and maturity of Paul’s good news. These obstacles hound each and every one of us each and every day of our lives. None of us can say that the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life have not hammered our walk wherewith we are called. Sin is alive and well in an ever present force that must be understood and reckoned with on a daily bases. We can never escape sin, but we can indeed deny it’s outward expression. If you have come to a point of sobering, you have come to a point of total agreement with the apostle Paul, as he examined his own life from a fleshy prospective.
God could only grant a gift decree of the very righteousness of Jesus Christ, to those God would be joining to his son, this is why our faith in Christ’s faithfulness is essential. There are people in the church, the overall visible church today, that are lost, those who falsely believe they are saved. The most common view in the religious world today is that God actively chooses who he wants to save and who he does not want to save, and they think it is absolutely impossible to have faith, to believe, unless God steps in and gives it to them.
Preachers teach the idea that a person has to be saved in order to be saved. That God has to do a work in the person before belief by the person is even a possibility. They teach God would have to give them saving faith in order for them to believe, and God gives faith only to those he’s so chosen to be believers. God did not predestinate us to believe, he predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son, because he knew who would believe. God has given everyone the opportunity to be saved, but only he knows for sure who will accept that opportunity.
Flesh wants to say if I broke it I can fix it. God is not asking us to turn from anything to be saved. God is asking us to believe Christ accomplished salvation for us and we are simply to believe it. Christ did it all, there is nothing left for us to do. God did all the giving, we do only all the receiving. You who say you believe in Jesus Christ, is there any sin that can be put to your account now? If you really believe that, then you do not believe that Christ paid for all of them. We can take God at his word, why can’t we stand with God on what he accomplished through Christ, that is FAITH.
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