Just a Thought "55"

I do not know if you grasp the full scope of what predestination means? God did not predetermine to cause some individuals to belief unto eternal life, he predetermined to conform everyone who believes to his son. 

God in his infinite wisdom pre-decreed that every believer would be joined to his son, fully identified with his son. God also pre-decided that you the believer would be blessed with all the blessings and privileges of an adopted son.

God also decided in advance that you the believer are to be to the praise of the glory of his grace. These are not something that could happen, something that should happen, something might happen, this is something that will indeed happen and it is guaranteed, God predetermined it, his mind is set.

God wants us to rejoice in these things. You see he wants us to praise him for all these things and he certainly wants us to thank him for all these things, because he’s pre-determined these outcomes for you, for every believer, he wants us to rest in these things.

Reconciliation has to do with God’s justice being satisfied for sins, and that means all of them and that means for all the world, reconciliation is a sin issue. Justification is something entirely different, it has to do with a judicial decree of the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to the believer’s account.

Who took you sin debt? Jesus Christ! Who paid it? Jesus Christ! How much of it did he pay? All of it before you were ever born! Reconciliation had to do with sin debt. Justification has to do with righteousness.

Circumcision, or the setting aside of the flesh was simply the sign, according to the apostle Paul, that God gave to Abraham to point out that Abraham had placed his faith in God and in God alone, and not in himself. 

Abraham was given the picture of the setting aside of his own flesh, in that Abraham had already placed his dependence entirely upon God. God counted Abraham to be righteous for doing so. God counted Abraham to be righteous solely on the basis of Abraham’s belief in what God told him, God would do.

Abraham learned that it would not be his own fleshly production that would accomplish God’s purpose for him. It is significant when we think about Abraham’s faith, that God wanted Abraham to place no confidence in his flesh.

What Paul wants us to see here in Romans chapter 4, is that God justified Abraham (declared Abraham to be righteous) solely on the basis of Abraham’s belief. Paul wants to make it crystal clear that Abraham was not justified according to a ritual, a ceremonial observance, even the ritual of circumcision that Abraham was given to perform.

Abraham was not considered righteous in accordance with any law-keeping system whatsoever, because God declared Abraham to be righteous approximately 25 years before he was circumcised and at least 400 years before the Law of Moses was ever instituted.

In other words, throughout the ages, God has declared to be righteous those who believed the message he was giving them at the time. When a person believed the good news that God was dispensing, God credited that person’s account with righteousness.

God transferred the sin debt of the entire world, to his son’s account. Yours were all future when that transfer took place, so God had to know about every one of those sins, and God collected the payment for those sins from his son, rather than collect that debt from a world of sinners. That means Christ satisfied God’s justice for your sins, rather than God exacting from you, what was rightfully yours to pay. 

The law had authority over us before we found out that we had our discharge papers. It was tormenting us. It still torments many people as they think that God is relating to them on that basis. It was hounding us and goading us, and it was threatening us, and now we are discharged from the law.

We have been set free. Christ issued the discharge papers and Paul delivered those papers. 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 rulership. I know the condemnation you bring because of the emotions you stir up in the weakness of my flesh.

The law was our Marine Sergeant, always working on a programmed conscience that we better be law-keepers, and we have got the 10 commandments in our mind. Why, because it is significantly tied to how God will relate to us in our minds.

We are good for God because we want God to bless us, and are we not taught that if we slide back into a life of sin, we have lost our fellowship with God. Certainly if you lose your fellowship, you lose your blessings.

Well, our blessings 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 do we have according to the apostle Paul? All blessings in Heaven, the place of our citizenship.

All things are lawful unto me now. I am going to stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith I have been made free, and I will not be entangled again with your yoke of bondage. God did away with the law-husband relationship through the death of his son.