Just a Thought "80"

1 Corinthians 3:10 - Romans is the doctrinal foundation upon which believers are to be established in the age of grace. Truth designed to give us stability, is truth designed to give us security. God did not intend that believers be insecure, so the security doctrines come first in God’s building process for his grace-age saints. God stabilizes us in the book of Romans.

Only when we come to see ourselves as God sees us and are able to fully appreciate and understand who God has already made us to be and who he has made us to be in Christ, can we become in our behavior what he wants us to be in that aspect of our lives. When a believer’s behavior is consistently inconsistent with what that believer professes to believe, the answer lies in a failure to fully appreciate one or more aspects of the foundational truths in this blueprint in the book of Romans.

If we understand the foundational concept as we see it presented by Paul here in the book of Romans, that will go a long way in our understanding ourselves and others appropriately. An insecure foundation will always show stress factorization somewhere along the line.

Sound doctrine is the means by which God transforms the thinking of those engaged in the study of his Word rightly divided. As we understand what God accomplished for us, and build upon that foundation the truths of who he has made us to be by placing us into his son, we begin to view ourselves as God views us, and there is great security to be found in doing so.

Romans 3:24 - What made Adam’s sin such a catastrophic loss for the human race is heightened by the fact that people are unable to do anything to alter their sinful condition. Human wisdom, human reasoning would say, “Give us a law. Give us some way to perform. Give us a few balls of our own to hit, so that we might earn back what we lost through Adam.”

God would have to do for the human race, what the human race was totally incapable of doing for themselves. God would of necessity have to credit the righteous faithfulness of someone else to the account of hopeless and helpless human race.

The human race was given a Redeemer and the price the Redeemer paid through the shedding of his blood to ransom the human race was a satisfactory payment to take those sins off the table of God’s justice forever! However, the fact that Jesus Christ became a Redeemer of ALL the human race, does not mean that ALL the human race will accept the gift the Redeemer purchased on their behalf.

To be justified, does not mean to BE perfectly righteous in performance. It also does not mean to become perfectly righteous or even MORE righteous in performance through time, it means having Christ’s perfect righteousness freely credited to the account of the ungodly who believe.

Christ’s faithfulness was the only faithfulness sufficient to merit God’s favor. God used our faith in Christ’s faithfulness as the means whereby he would credit Christ’s righteousness to our account.

Romans 5:8 - So, it is not a question of getting new forgiveness for new sin, we had to have someone take care of that sin issue for us and thank God that he had his son take care of that issue for us; God’s son taking ALL the sins of the human race upon himself and satisfying the Father’s righteous demand for justice for those sins.

Sin, or coming short of the measure of who God is, is that which stood in the way, or stood between God and the human race. Christ’s blood dripping on God’s Ark of the Covenant (The Ark Moses was instructed to build) was sufficient to satisfy God’s righteous demand for justice.

God’s attitude towards a believer does not fluctuate in response to action, it is not condition on a believer’s behavior. Paul is telling here at the very outset of Romans chapter 5, that being justified results in an unchanging attitude of peace with God for every believer.

The avenue of our faith in Christ’s faithful performance on our behalf, rather than peace based upon our performance, results in an unchanging attitude of peace with God for every believer. We now have available for the enjoyment of our everyday experience an everlasting peaceful relationship with God!

Just a Thought "79"

Colossians 3:2 - The natural tendency of the flesh is to set our affection on the things of the earth and the things of the flesh and allow those things to rule our mind. We are not to hold the things on the earth so near and dear so as to rule our minds. Paul’s desire is that we refocus our minds, renewing of our minds day by day.

Paul would not have us be defeated believers, depression is Satan’s weapon to defeat us. Depression is a rush of negative attitude that results from a vacuum of joy. Joy is the opposite of negative attitude. Depression is negative attitude based on fleshly happenstance in the absence of hope. Is the primary focus of your mind on the circumstances at hand in your life?

When it comes to a mind set of joy, Paul takes us to a re-direction of thought and its up to each of us individually. It is our responsibility to focus our own minds appropriately and according to Paul its a redirection of thought based upon the accomplishments of Christ. The cause of depression is almost always related to fleshly circumstance, people, things and worry over those three.

Galatians 4:21 - Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior? Would more righteousness be needed than the Savior’s righteousness, when it comes to the human race? Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed, or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need?

The lunacy of desiring to be under the law was in the fact that the Galatians actually thought they could perform the law in a manner that would make them more righteous before God. They were trying to perfect their righteousness, to cap off the righteousness they have in God’s sight. They thought they could enhance their righteousness through their performance, through their rule-keeping, and they were using the law.

God used the faithfulness OF his son and the faith of the Galatians in his son’s faithfulness to have resolved God’s justice for their sins as the criterion. If our only righteousness in the sight of God comes through our union with his perfectly righteous son, is it not idiotic thinking to suppose that our righteous works can ENHANCE the righteousness that belongs to Christ, to whom we have been joined? The Galatians were not falling back into sinful practice, they were falling back into law practice. They were falling back into the mindset that their righteousness before God was tied to their performance.

Philippians 3:2-3 - Paul warned to guard against those who would promote a righteousness through performance idea. Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision.

Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul is simply drawing a contrast between those who were relying upon ritual for righteousness and those who place no confidence whatsoever in their flesh for a right standing before God.

Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual here was circumcision. 

Just a Thought "78"

Romans 5:9-10 - “much more” The goal of the apostle Paul is to establish us and every believer in the knowledge of our sanctified standing before God, our being in his son. These are “much more” security doctrinal passages that we find in this section of Romans, you will see Paul using that term over and over again.

Justification and Sanctification are “much more” assurance doctrines that Paul is giving us as to the security that we as believers have being placed into Christ. Paul wants to establish our minds in the “much more” assurance that we have, so we can have that stability of mind and stability of emotions.

This is security. This is who we are in Christ, we can not lose it. So, this is a “much more” doctrine when it comes to the establishment of the mind of the believer and the truth of their secure identity in Christ. You see, God could only grant a gift decree of the very righteousness of Christ to those God would be joining to his son, Jesus Christ. This is why our faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice is essential.

Romans 6:19-21 - “to iniquity unto iniquity” The general principle works across the board. One pleasurable  indulgence, leads to another pleasurable indulgence. One serving of self, leads to another serving of self. Words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words, to further harmful words. One sin leads to another sin, to iniquity unto iniquity.

Paul is exhorting us, as believers to bring our conduct in line with our identity in Christ. The believer makes the choice of who they will obey and you are a slave no matter what you choose. We serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self rather than the Body of Saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior.

We were free from imputed righteousness before we trusted Christ as our Savior. You see, it is one thing to be righteous in the eyes of the world, many people have that kind of righteousness, but Scripture clearly distinguishes between the righteousness that people attempt to produce in themselves and that type of righteousness that is credited to a person’s account called imputed righteousness.

Human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying and unbelievers are under no obligation to serve righteousness. It should not surprise us to see what we see now and what we will be seeing in an increasing manner as time goes on in the world today. The unsaved world is simply serving the master they are under.

Philippians 4:9 - Paul was no stranger to adversity, to calamity, to distress, to stress, for that matter, everywhere he went, they were right under his heels. Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today, because Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ.

How did Paul face adversity? Paul assessed the situation, he made statements such as, “I have learned” and “I reckon,” he reasoned things through. We are to access our situation. Why would we need to reason out the source of the problem? There are avoidable suffering circumstances and there are unavoidable suffering circumstances that come our way.

Avoidable suffering has to do with the choices we make in our lives. When we sow an inappropriate choice, we can count on the fact that sooner or later, we are going to be faced with an unfortunate circumstance. Many problems come our way simply because of our insistence upon having our way. How many problems would disappear if we could all conduct ourselves in a more Christ-like manner when it comes to the sacrifice of self in preferring others over self?

Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today. Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation. Satan had for more reason to give it his all when it came to Paul. 

Just a Thought "77"

Romans 7:24 - “O wretched man that I am” do you suppose Paul would want us to believe that we can produce through our fleshly efforts, what Israel was totally incapable of producing through their fleshly efforts, or for that matter, what Paul knew that he could never produce through his fleshly efforts even after his conversion. Paul never used the word fruit in connection with any believer as being the product OF that believer.

You can set yourselves apart all you like behaviorally, you can start any number of things and cease doing any number of things in order to gain holiness before God, but you will do no better at reaching that goal then the foolish Galatians, who were themselves flirting with the idea of progressive sanctification.

Paul did not praise them for their gallant efforts to become more holy people through fleshly production, he gave them a name, he called them foolish people! We can do great wonders when it comes to relative righteousness, but measuring up to God’s standard of righteousness, none of us will ever do so apart from God decreeing that to be so.

“Look at where I was, look at where I am now,” that is famous among many groups that are meeting today, and they have to have a testimony by a person showing the other people there where they were and how far they have progressed. The capacity of the human race to EARN the measure of righteousness that belongs to God is “Zilch.”

Romans 2:3 - Arrogance! It is such a shame that so many people today are trusting in their goodness to get them to heaven. God is going to see you as having no need of the saving work of his son. The human race is guilty before God! God has decreed it! NO excuse will suffice to pardon it. Paul wants us to understand that there is no refuge in human goodness.

When we put our human hearts under the microscope of God’s truthful judgment, we are going to find out that we need much more than human righteousness to have a perfectly just standing before God. We need a Savior and Jesus Christ is that Savior! They have the responsibility of making a decision. I will believe it or I will reject it. God’s given them that choice; love does not force itself.

According to Romans chapter one, God’s attitude toward ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of the human race is being revealed in scripture. The guilty verdict that God has just declared upon the human race, do you think that you are going to escape that guilty verdict. Do you think for one moment that God is going to give you a non-wrath-worthy pass; that Christ needn’t have died for your sins; that your sins are of such a non-serious nature that you have no need of a Savior in the first place?

The first characteristic of a self-righteous moralizer is Arrogance. Here is a person who is looking down their nose at someone else, yet they are doing the very same things in another form! It is a Son issue today, not a sin issue! There are many who will spend an eternity apart from Christ, because they refuse to accept what Christ accomplished on their behalf.

2 Corinthians 5:17 - Paul is not talking about a believer gaining sinless perfection at the point of their belief or at any other time for that matter. When Paul talks about “a new creature” he is not talking about sin in an individual’s life, he is talking about all that we once were in Adam, prior to salvation.

The issue for life everlasting is not what church you attend or to which denomination you belong or how religious you are, or even whether or not you are a good person in the worldly sense of the word “good.” The issue in eternity will be to which man are you related? Romans 5:19 is about identity, contrasting two men; Romans is really the story of two men and the people who are related to these two men.

Do you have your identity in the first Adam, or do you have your identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Once saved, we are no longer in Adam, at the very point of our believe we are that instant “in Christ.” In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now the new creation, having been forever joined to our Savior.  

Just a Thought "76"

Galatians 2:16 - The faith “OF” Jesus Christ, his faithfulness, not ours. Israel’s labor of love under the law contract was a system of performance according to demand. They had to deal with their neighbors according to a strict system of rules and regulations. The law told them how to deal with one another. The law had apprehension as a motivating factor.

Understand love “agape” has much more to do with attitude in action, than it has to do with emotions direction that does what’s in the best interest of another individual. This is a work of righteousness. No one has ever measured up to the labor of love as Christ expressed that work of righteousness during his walk on earth. Christ not only fulfilled the outer demands of the Law Program, he fulfilled the inner demands as well.

Christ always did the will of the Father, he never went contrary at anytime to the will of the Father. God’s design was that Christ fulfill the law, so God could join us. To be in Christ, joined to our Savior, requires that you believe that something happened to the sins that Christ died for. God raised Jesus Christ from among the dead as proof that the payment Christ made for all the sins of the world was sufficient to satisfy God’s justice where the sins Christ died for are concerned.

Our labor of love under the Age of Grace has had the apprehension aspect removed entirely. We are to serve others today based on how God expressed his love to others through Christ and what God accomplished for them, who God made them and us to be in our Savior by joining us to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Romans 6:3 - “know you not” when you trusted Christ as Savior, something happened that took place outside the realm of your sensation, outside the realm of your feeling. People oftentimes base their salvation and their relationship to God on their emotions. From Paul’s perspective, these people are “walking after the flesh.”

They are walking in relation to the flesh, thinking that their relationship with God is based upon either the feelings of their flesh (emotions) or the capacity of their flesh to produce righteousness through their performance. One of the main purposes of worship, as some people define it, is to get a touch from God; to get the emotions at a peak.

They feel close to God when they are in a situation that stimulates their emotions. They find themselves on an endless quest for emotional satisfaction, because they relate their closeness to God upon feeling. Paul wants us to recognize that Justification and Sanctification are not based upon feelings at all.

Feelings are not an outward demonstration of an inward manifestation, as some would have us believe. Justification and Sanctification has nothing at all to do with a religious physical formality, it is rather, a reality, and Paul wants us to understand that and appreciate it as being true!

Galatians 3:1-3 - Having been taught by Paul, these people begun in belief, but then some false teachers came along and these sealed saints became confused in their thinking. These people were saved, but they reverted to a walking after the flesh identity; not a identity in Christ.

The problem with the foolish Galatians was not the fact that they were slipping back into a sinful lifestyle. The problem with the foolish Galatians was incorrect thinking. They were slipping back away from the reality of grace and back into a works for righteousness to maintain a righteous standing with God concept.

They knew about the crucifixion, they knew about the resurrection, and they knew what it had accomplished. They had been foolishly duped, the law was never successful at making anyone good before God, it was not given for that purpose. They needed to be straightened out where their thinking was concerned.

Paul provided the correction by asking these people if they knew the source from which their new identity had been derived. Did it come from first believing or from later doing? Let us remain in our minds with that concept and not move away from that in our thinking. Paul is saying, “Do not let your thinking become foolish thinking and go back to dealing with God according to rules and regulations.”

Just a Thought "75"

Romans 8:29 - Do you grasp the full scope of what predestination means if you are a believer? Think about this for a moment, God has predetermined something where you are concerned once you believe Paul’s good news message and God’s mind is not going to be changed on this.

Now if you are a believer, what does that mean to you that God pre-decided something? God did not predetermine to cause some individuals to belief unto eternal life. God predetermined to conform everyone who believes to his son, Jesus Christ. You the believer are to be conformed to the imagine of God’s 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 adult son. God decided in advance that you the believer are to be the praise of the glory of his grace. Ephesians 1:4-6

You are predestined to these outcomes, God has pre-determined them simple as that, God’s mind is set. You see God wants us to praise him for all these things and he certainly wants us to thank him for all these things, because he has pre-determined these outcomes for you, for ever believer. God wants us to rest in these things.

1 Timothy 6:9 - “they that will be rich” Do you see how the entrapment takes place? Those who are bent on satisfying the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life fall into a snare, in that they become addicted to the manner in which they satisfy those lusts. Without any concern whatsoever for keeping your service to those lusts at bay, then serving those lusts will entrap you, such that it will become increasingly more difficult for you to do. 1 Corinthians 9:27

Paul was not talking about being wealthy; nothing wrong with being wealthy. Paul was talking about those with an insatiable desire to become wealthy, their sin lies not in being wealthy, but in coveting riches. They fall into temptation and a snare, the addictive entrapment. A person who covets wealth, makes that their goal in life, can be easily swayed by the sin nature toward dishonesty, and dishonesty can become a lifestyle, rather than a one-time event.

Whatever, or whomever, you choose to serve, you become a servant to, a slave to that person or to that thing, you are going to become enslaved to that which you choose to put yourself in servitude. Choose to serve sin and you can soon become addicted to the manner in which you have chosen to serve sin. That is the principle. Romans 6:16

Paul goes on to say, they fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts (not only harmful to themselves, but hurtful to others around them) which drown men in destruction (“damage” whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or functional, and damage to a person can take any number of roads) and perdition (total waste or ruination) of that individual. Paul is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts of the flesh reap to themselves, not from God, but through that to which they are reaping.

Romans 8:12-13 - We do not owe anything to this flesh, because it will never please God. That is why our flesh is going on down to the dust and God is going to give us a new body. Our fleshly production did not gain us our identity in Christ in the first place, and it certainly can not gain us heaven. If the works of our flesh did not contribute to getting us save, how can the works of the flesh play a part in keeping us saved.

How will we die if we live after the flesh? If we live after applying rule-keeping to our righteousness, we are going to be functionally dead when it comes to the production of fruit in our lives. Paul was functionally not capable of producing any fruit that God could accept, he died functionally when he tried to apply law-keeping to perfect his flesh.

If we are trying to satisfy God’s justice on a daily basis or however by conforming to a standard of rules and regulations, we are going to find that just the opposite becomes true in our flesh. We are going to find ourselves constantly focusing on the flesh. The milk of self-righteousness will sour under the divine heat of God’s justice. It is either an issue of God’s righteousness, or it is an issue of self-righteousness.

Living after the flesh, from a functional pony of view is taking the credit yourself. Walking after the new nature is recognizing the source of the fruit. To walk in the new nature is to take the credit away from yourself. You realize that God is not looking at how well you adhere to any standard. God is not looking at your production. God is not looking at your behavior in order to view you as being in favor with him. God is looking at your identification with his son, and at what his energizing power from on high is producing IN you. 

Just a Thought "74"

Romans 1:17 - “For therein,” inside that gospel message is good news concerning a righteousness that far exceeds the righteousness of any person, no matter how righteous appearing that person may be. The righteousness spoken of in what Paul calls “the gospel of Christ” is no less than than the perfect righteousness that belongs to God himself.

Paul went on to tell us that the person who would have righteousness freely attributed to their account, is the person who has believed something, and it is an issue Paul said of faith from two different perspectives, “from faith to faith.” The first “faith” in that expression is a reference to the faith OF, or belonging to Christ himself.

So it was ultimately Christ’s faith that allowed God’s justice to remain intact, as God declares an unrighteous believer to be righteous. You see, apart from Christ’s faith and his faithfulness to carry out the Father’s will based on that faith, there would not be anyone perfectly righteous to whom God could join a believing sinner.

Just as Christ never doubted the will of the Father, the Father never doubted the faith and faithfulness of his son. It was God’s plan to use the faith and its resultant faithfulness of the son of God in the ultimate glorification of the human race who would take him at his Word. The Identity of believers to Christ is that which allows God to remain just when he credits those with righteousness with that which belongs Christ, who is perfectly righteous. 

2 Timothy 3:7 - Pride will not let us swallow our own pill. You see, on one hand traditions die hard, some people are never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, because they fear learning. Knowledge of the truth may cause them to have to change the truth they have been standing on for who knows how long, and that is a frightening thing for lots of people.

It is a fearful thing to think we may have been wrong all along, much easier for many people to avoid learning then change in mid-stream. Pride is a tremendously powerful force, money can be a factor. Money and power go hand in hand in the mind of carnal people, which actually leads us to the real reason from Paul’s prospective some are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

People living in the realm of the flesh, focusing more on the things of the earth and the desires of the flesh than on the things of God. Yes, both pride and money fit within the carnal category. To be carnal is to centered, concerned with personal stature with the things that satisfy fleshly desires and emotional needs.

There are pastors out there who have come to the knowledge of the Word of God Rightly Divided who refuse to take a stand on the distinctiveness of Paul’s ministry and Paul’s message and all because in their minds they have too much to lose if they do. Could they only see what they truly have to gain, if they do.

1 Timothy 1:15 - Paul was not only first in line when it came to dispensing the Grace of God, Paul was also foremost in crime when it came to murdering the saints of Israel’s earthly kingdom program. If Paul was at Pentecost, would Paul himself, if he took part in stoning Stephen for believing the message given at Pentecost, would he have been a blasphemer at Pentecost? 

In Paul’s pre-grace zealousness, he would have been a foremost rejecter of any notion whatsoever that Jesus was Israel’s messiah or that Jesus had risen from among the dead. First in line, first in crime are apt descriptions for the Apostle of Grace. Paul is the chief pattern of God’s grace to all, he is the foremost example. Paul was certainly the first person to be an exhibitor of the long-suffering Grace of God, in that Paul called himself a blasphemer according to his very own testimony. (1Timothy 1:13)

We need to understand that even though Paul was saved, Paul still considered himself to be a sinner. Paul understood the word: Sin. And Paul understood that word meant to come short of the righteousness belonging to God himself. The word “chief” in this passage is the Greek word protos, were we get our English word prototype.

Not only does prototype mean the first in a sense of time, prototype can also mean: a foremost example. Paul is the foremost example of the impossibility, the total impossibility of gaining righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh. The source of our righteousness! What is it: personal performance or identity in Christ?