Just a Thought "35"

Is Paul telling us to turn from our wicked ways, and get back to the law, or to promise God that we will do our very best to turn from our wicked ways, or that we must be willing at least, in our minds to turn from our wicked ways in order to get God to make the decision to save, we have not hear that from our apostle.

If a person hears Paul’s good news, and that person refuses to believe Paul’s message, choosing instead to believe that their works can add something, that their works can do something to do with getting them save, or keeping them saved, that person does indeed need to change their thinking, they need to repent.

All who are believing the messages presented by the ministers of righteousness today, they need to change their thinking and accept Paul’s message as being the truth in order to receive justification unto eternal life by being placed into Jesus Christ, so repentance, or a change of thinking is necessary in that sense, even in this age of grace.

Many of the people preaching Paul’s words and proclaiming them to be true, are doing so without fully understanding what Paul has just said, they say the words much like they would say the words of the gospel - for Christ died for our sins - without really fully understanding or ever coming to comprehend what happened to the sins Christ died for.

Paul’s message is unique and distinct from the message of Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles, there is difference in God’s earthly program and God’s heavenly program, what traditions of people must be left behind if we take the doctrine of Paul seriously?

The mindset of the religious of Paul’s day and the religious of ours, the pride nature is the root cause of that rejection, pride insists upon attributing success to self, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, it is a fearful thing to think they may have been wrong all along.

Paul was continually fighting against a mixed message (Galatianism), same false religious systems are operation and being promoted in our day. 

The fact that every believer is set apart by God as being holy at that point of that person’s belief, God is the one who is performing the setting apart, God accomplishes this sanctification by joining all who believe to his son.

Paul even tells the carnal saints at Corinth that the reason these detestable deeds (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) had not and could not result in a lost of their salvation or their fellowship with God for that matter, is because as carnal as these Corinthians happen to be, they had a holy standing with God through their union with his son.

Paul is not bringing this list to their attention in order to frighten them, he wants to remind them that God no longer sees them in that light, he’s bringing to their attention the fact that God is now, no longer viewing them apart from righteousness that belongs to his son.

The gift decree of righteousness belonging to the son had been totally and permanently credited to the account of these carnal believers, to their account in heaven at the point of their belief.

The law pointed to sin, and then required death for the sinner, can the law now stake a further claim against the one who has already satisfied that claim, will the law ever again have a future claim where Jesus Christ is concerned, he satisfied that claim once and for all.

We are joined to Jesus Christ, fully identified with his satisfying the law’s claim, it only stands to reason that once a person is joined to the one who has satisfied the law’s requirement for sins, and is now standing only in Christ’s perfect righteousness, that believer’s sinfulness can never be used as proof of that believer’s lack of righteousness.

Paul moves us away from the realm of condition, and he takes us straight into the realm of position, the law can make no demand on the world of the lawlessness, because Christ met the law’s demands for the world of sinners for which he died. Today, the law can only serve the purpose of proving people’s need for a righteousness that no person is capable of gaining through performance.

No one needs to be told how to live the Christian life, it’s not about trying to change something, it’s trying to understand something, and then work with that understanding. Paul calls it a labor of love, the members of the Body of Christ are to be the supporting cast of the Body of Christ.

There are times when the physical presence of another believer is helpful to a suffering saint, there are times when it is not. There are times when holding the hand of a suffering saint is welcomed, there are times when it is not.

Just being there in times of distress can be comforting to a suffering saint who is seeking that type of support, some saints would rather have solitude. Sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not living under the law program, we are living under grace, the victory has already been won, because Christ won it, sin shall not have dominion over us, because believers are not under the law, but under grace. 

The Body of Christ is not about program, but about judicial position. The hope for both programs is the same, and that hope is a new body and resurrection from the among the dead unto eternal life, that hope is true for both programs.

The saints of both programs are promised that hope, but the residential destinations promised the believers of the two programs are entirely different, the earthly calling and the heavenly calling refer to the program to which believers have been called in their destinations.

The earth was the only realm of which God’s earthly nation Israel had been given inheritance, Heaven was not the issue for the nation Israel, they were never promised Heaven. Since there was resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead, the entire human race can be assured they will be resurrected as well, both believers and non-believers of both programs will be resurrected from the dead, but the unbelievers of all ages will be raised at the end of the Millennium time to be be judged by the one who has been given all authority to judge. 

We are discharged from the law all together according to the apostle Paul, we have been set free, Christ issued the discharge papers and Paul delivered those papers. Why did God put that performance-based merit system in place in the first place, because God was proving to weak and sinful flesh, the inability of the flesh to fulfill its righteous demands, we can look back at the law now, and we can say, you can not touch me anymore, your condemnation will have no effect on me whatsoever!

I know the parameters, I no longer fear the repercussions of your ruler-ship, I know the condemnation you bring because of the emotions you stir up in the weakness of my flesh. Our blessing are not based on our performance in any way, shape, or form, our blessings are based on Christ’s performance, because we are members of his flesh.

How many blessings was God free to shower upon those who are joined to the flesh of his son according to Paul, all blessings in Heaven, the place of our citizenship, in Christ!
We are waiting for our new bodies, the body God has in store for each of us, a body that will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body with that eternal life as its source of life, and all the while, we are seeking deliverance from the suffering circumstances we face and we are seeking it all the time.

We want a deliverance that we can see, if God is miraculously delivering here and there from the problems that come along believer’s way in these old earthly tents, those people will be more absorbed in the deliverance of the old man, than they are focused on the hope of the new man.

When we get our new bodies, we will be delivered from the suffering circumstances that adversely affect the old tent in which we must dwell until we die or the gathering together occurs, whichever is first, it is not the deliverance of the old, it’s the hope of the new, today.

Emotion can lead us down the path, and will oftentimes, most likely lead us down the wrong path, when emotion becomes the governor of our intellect, rather than the doctrinally governed intellect becoming the ruler of our emotions, emotion should never be the fuel, we should never be emotionally driven, but doctrinally driven.

Each of us struggles with an inner sense of right and wrong, and the difficulty we face in doing the right thing, in light of the inclination that all of us had to do that which we deemed to be wrong. We cannot say that only believers struggle with sin, because disobeying our conscience is coming short, in our mind, as to what we know to be the right thing to do, that’s the sin nature working in opposition to the conscience to have a person go in a direction contrary to that inner sense of right and wrong, that’s common to all humankind.

Unbelievers and believers alike struggle with the innate sense of right and wrong, and the are drawn toward that desire to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.