God's Reconciliation to His Enemies

Does God really hate man because of the actions of men? The fact is that God loves man so much that the magnitude of his love is almost incomprehensible to imagine. In the past, God stood far off from the sinner, but God’s love is so paramount that he says he loves humans who are actively his enemies.

Certainly, the bible shows that God does not like the actions of men, but God reconciled himself to his enemies while they are still in hostility, although this statement may appear to be strange and impossible, but it is not. These are important words; God’s reconciliation to mankind took place when man was actively his enemy, not after man repented.

An enemy is one that is on the other side of the fence, he is in absolute opposition and his actions are hateful, and it was while mankind was in this state of utter hostility and in direct opposition to God, that we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. God’s reconciliation to man is from God’s side only.

God alone decided to make peace with man, and he did it through the death of his son, while man is still very much ungodly, a sinner, and while man is an active enemy to God. This one-sided reconciliation on God’s part is self-evident proof of God’s superabundant love to man.

As far as God is concerned, he loved us so much that he was willing to let his own son die on for sinful man, and have his son pay all the penalties of our sins, forget our rebelliousness and overlook our hostility, while we were still sinners, still rebellious, and still hostile. God made up his mind to become completely reconciled to mankind before man made any signs of making peace with God.

God has told the world through Paul’s teachings, that he has reconciled himself to them because of his love for them, and it was God alone who did this harmonious act; we have had nothing to do with it, all we have had to do is to receive the reconciliation that God has made with mankind.

God has one-sidedly reconciled himself to mankind through the death of Christ on the tree; all sins and hostility are paid for as far as God is concerned, and it is time all people begin to believe it. No longer do we have to strive to attain and maintain God’s acceptance on the basis of who we are and what we can do.

No longer are our sins held against us, no longer does the death penalty for sin hang over us. The just do, in fact, live by faith, but it is not our sinless lives that allow us to be called just; we do not live sinless lives. True faith is believing that God raised Christ from among the dead, thus, because of the resurrection of Christ, those who believe in Jesus are secure in their redemption.

Justification is an act of God; it is not an action of man. Our justification is secured by the vindicating act of God in resurrecting Jesus. Our possession of Christ’s righteousness is guaranteed by the reality that Christ has been raised from among the dead, for we have been justified through that resurrection.

Sin causes a debt to God so large that it can never be paid by ourselves, but the person who knows what Jesus Christ really accomplished, also understands that those who are reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ in which he bore our sin, exist in a completely new relationship with God.

Justification is the judicial act of God whereby he declares us righteous. As we stand before God in his courtroom, the evidence is overwhelmingly against us. Yet, as he drops the gavel, he pronounces no penalty. We are seen as Christ is seen. 

New Identity

There is a difference in what the Bible calls the flesh or known as the sin nature, and what the Bible calls the old man or known as the old nature, these are not the same terms. The sin nature has not died, we know it is alive and functioning in every one of us, none excluded.

We all have that sin nature towards satisfying the lust of our flesh toward serving ourselves; we all have the sin nature to contend with. Paul would have us understand that while we still contend with our sin nature, God eradicated our identity with our sin nature as far as our righteous standing before him is concerned and our identity in the Bible calls that the old man or known as the old nature, that is gone, crucified.

So, while we continue to have and will continue to have to contend with the sin nature on this side of life before we get our new bodies with that life God has within himself (John 5:26), same kind of life God gave Jesus when he raised Jesus from among the dead, same kind of life the tree of life produces, God no longer sees us in our identity with the old nature.

God can only view individuals in this age of grace one of two ways, we are either in the old nature or we are in the new nature, we cannot be both. While we are in the new nature we contend with the sin nature, but we are not in the old nature in God’s view of us.

The sin nature we have inherited from Adam God no longer identifies us as being in that, because our identity in that, the Bible calls the old man or known as the old nature. What did God do with the old nature? He eradicated, crucified the old nature with Christ. God wants us to reckon as true what he believes to be true, and that is the fact that as believers he has crucified everything we were in the first Adam.

Everything we are in our incapacity to serve him sufficiently to merit a righteous standing before him, God has done away with. God no longer views us in the old nature; he views us in a new nature, that is the key to living a successful life. So we quit trying to merit a righteous standing before God base on what we do or abstain from doing.

We do not look at our righteousness any longer as coming from what we do or abstain from doing. We view our righteous standing with God based on what Christ accomplished for us. When we stop focusing on the do’s and cease focusing on the don’ts, the do’s and don’ts become a lot easier.

Every believer is standing in the gift decree of righteousness, the very perfect righteousness as God’s perfectly righteous son. Believers are placed into the son, so that when God views them, he no longer views them in do’s or don’ts, he view them in the do’s and don’ts accomplished by our savior.

Our life is hid with God in Christ, God views us in the son, God’s sentence on the old nature was not REFORMATION, it was total eradication. That sentence was carried out when we died with Christ. God had no intention of repairing the old nature, no plan to clean the old nature up and make the old nature more presentable, God’s intention was to kill the old nature.

We had our identity in the first Adam, Adam in rebellion; we now have a brand new identity in the second Adam (Jesus Christ). This is identity truth, sanctification, set-apartness truth. Those who would die in their sins are those who would continue to have their identity in the first Adam, Adam in rebellion. Understanding identity is key, we have a brand new identity, a new nature. 

Sanctification

God has set you apart and he calls you righteous based not upon what you do or what you abstain from doing, God decided to give a judicial decree of rightness apart from our behavior, apart from our practice based solely on our belief.

The judicial decree of rightness God grants to those who believe is called justification, God alters your identity by removing you judicially in God’s mind from an identification with the first Adam and now you are judicially identified with the second Adam (Jesus Christ).

That joining itself is where sanctification comes into play; God gifts every believer with a judicial decree of perfection, perfect righteousness. The pride nature in man has a difficult time understanding how righteousness from God’s viewpoint can be granted apart from their conduct and /or commitment.

Therefore, performing that which is good and ceasing from that which is bad is directly related in most people’s minds especially the religious mindset today to the way that God views a person.

We are saved unto good works, we are saved for the purpose of good works, but we are not saved by our good works, or kept saved by our good works, or not upon any promise you might make along those lines, but upon Christ’s righteousness and your faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice on your behalf. It is at that point of your belief that God through his power from on high or what is called holy spirit sets you apart.

Most have the idea that sanctification means to become progressively less sinful, therefore, progressively more holy down through the course of time through the avenue of either their promise or performance, their conduct or commitment.

Relative righteousness comes into play as we try to sanctify ourselves according to what we perceive in our judicial minds, relative righteousness based, as to be righteous. Therefore, we stop doing some things, and we start doing some other things and we begin to believe that we are a prize package especially if we can relate and be connected to a large group doing the same thing. That is self-sanctification.

Those hearing this message might believe this good news and become the instantaneous recipients of a new identity by being placed into Jesus Christ, the one who reconciled them to God. New identity in God’s son comes only by way of being placed into God’s son; the miraculous judicial transaction called sanctification.

You are identified with every aspect of the one to whom you are joined at the point of your belief. When Christ died, it is just as though you died from the judicial viewpoint of God. When Christ was buried, it is just as though you were buried right alongside Christ from God’s viewpoint, that is how intricate is your union.

When Christ was raised from among the dead, you was raised from among the dead from God’s perspective, this is what being in Christ is all about. You are joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, what is his is yours. This is how intricate, this is how intimate is our union with our savior, this is your new identity and has been your new identity from the very instant you believed Paul’s gospel. 

Sanctification is a set-apartness that comes by way of baptism into Christ, not immersion into water, but immersion into God’s son. God’s power from on high or what is called holy spirit is how God baptizes a person in this instance. Pastors do not perform this baptism.

God is no longer imputing man’s sins unto them because he imputed those sins to his son, would that mean that the entire world would then instantaneously become dead to sin? The answer is no! The answer is because reconciliation and sanctification are not one and the same, they are two different truths.

No one is dead to sin apart from being baptized into Jesus Christ even though God is not imputing man’s sins to their account no person is placed into his son apart from belief.

We need to understand that forgiveness was all upfront and all-inclusive, but when we accept this idea of conditional forgiveness/forgiveness on the installment plan; a little forgiveness here, a little forgiveness there, the need for new forgiveness for new sin, that is the atonement program of Israel, not the reconciliation program of the body of Christ.

If you want God to view you today, you got to be in his son. It is a son issue on your part, not a sin issue, in order to receive the gift of salvation. 

Were the Jews Embracing Paul's Message

Were the Jews embracing Paul’s message? While some believe Paul’s message, the vast majority rejected it; a validation of why God had set Israel aside nationally in the first place, and why God had called this new Apostle who would be sent to the Gentiles.

Paul had gone to the Jews of Asia first, that was his intent. He held their unbelief up in front of them and he said, “Now I am free to go to the Gentiles in Asia”, and he did so. They were envious of the attention the apostle Paul was getting, and that envy had led to a rejection of not only Paul, but of Paul’s message.

Paul had already proven blindness when it came to the Jews and there is nothing special about those of Jewish heritage who are in that land today. They enjoy no higher status with God during this age of grace, no matter what some may say or think, than any other nationality on the face of the earth; all must come alike to God today.

When God deals with Israel as a special nation again, when they are re-gathered to that land, they will be re-gathered in belief, they will enter the land and given the totality of the land. Christ, their King, will be with them, and they will dwell safely according to scripture, that will take place after the tribulation of those days, at Christ’s second coming.

What makes Paul’s good news unique and distinct? According to the secret that was revealed to Paul? Do you believe it was an all-sufficient reconciliation where the entirety of the world’s sin debt was concerned, or do you believe that you must obtain a new measure of reconciliation every time you sin, and that is by seeking a new measure of forgiveness from God, that he might be reconciled to you.

Who in the world are you asking for forgiveness from? From God, therefore the assumption is that he is not reconciled when you sin. In your mind, you are separating yourself from God by your sin, and Paul is saying that God has already reconciled you where your sins are concerned. Seems like Paul should have been able to make great progress with his message of grace; exclusively revealed to our Apostle, the apostle Paul by the ascended, glorified Christ. 

Monotheism of Israel

Illustrations of the diversities of early Christianity are many,  which are called Christologies. Christologies is what do you believe about Christ: what kind of nature is Jesus Christ?

We can map out all these differences; when did Jesus become divine according to the gospel of John? He always was. He was with God from the very beginning. Everything was created through him. The beginning of the gospel of John ends up having the Christology that now become Orthodox Christianity.

Before Jesus was executed, he was recognized as a prophet, he seems to accept himself as a prophet, and it may be that he claimed to be a king or a messiah, but certainly by the time of his execution, some people thought he was a king, because that is the charge on which he was executed.

The Romans executed Jesus, because at least either he or other people were claiming that he was a king. He is a prophet and he is a king, but does that mean Jesus is divine? No, of course not.

The Israelites had lots of kings that were not divine. The Israelites had lots of prophets that were not divine. Many modern people get the idea that the word “Christ” or “Messiah” in itself signifies divinity, but it doesn’t. The “Messiah” in Jesus’ day was simply some Israelite figure who would rise up and take over the throne of David and reestablish the kingdom of Israel.

Calling someone the messiah in the ancient world did not mean that he was divine. Jesus is a prophet; he is even considered the messiah, but that does not make him divine. Some Christians therefore have to make a decision. Is Jesus human and only human? Is Jesus human and divine?

Jesus being human and divine is the take most followers of Jesus end up taking, although there are some followers today of Jesus who believed he was purely human. Those who believe Jesus was purely human tended to understand the Israelites history and they even accept him as a messiah, but that does not mean they think he was God.

They know the monotheism of Israel does not and cannot evolve from polytheism, because the two are based on radically divergent world-views, radically divergent intuitions about reality. The monotheism of Israel was not, it could not be the natural outgrowth of the polytheism of an earlier age, it was a radical break with it.

Monotheism was a revolution, not an evolution. Therefore, they say, no, Jesus cannot be divine. The early Christians who chose the human and divine route, though they had to spilt this up. Some believed Jesus was always divine; others believed Jesus became divine.

If Jesus became divine, then when did he become divine, at his birth, at his baptism, or at his resurrection? Other Christians say, no, he always was divine, but even they believed in different choices too, because some believed Jesus was divine but also fully human.

Other Christians believed Jesus was fully divine but not fully human. They believed Jesus was so divine he was God, so that when Jesus walked along on wet sand on the beach, his feet did not leave footprints, that is how divine he was, but this belief became declared as a heresy.

Out of all these choices, only one of them is considered Orthodox by the later church, so that what Christians end up with is the Nicene Creed, or the Creed of Chalcedon, which is what Christians came to believe? There were lots of complexities in early Christianity that finally got whittled down into a more united consensus view on Christology. 

It is God’s sovereign right to choose the criteria and he chose to use the criteria of belief. God has always used faith in every age; God has always used faith, or what a person believes, as the criteria necessary to effect salvation for humankind. 

Our faith in the good news of Christ given to Paul enables God to impute us with the faith of his son. Once we believe, and are sealed, it is not about us; our faith, but Christ’s faith. If you want God to view you today, you got to be in his son.

For any one to think they are just before God through their performance; to think that they have perfected themselves with God through their behavior proves that man is a liar and the truth is not in them. One who puts their faith in the Nicene Creed or any Creed, has not met the criteria that God requires, and living up to a Creed is based upon performance.

Ministers of righteousness have a lot of fun with these Creeds controlling people! How can you get into his son, and have all of his righteousness freely imputed to your account? By simply taking God at his word, concerning what his son accomplished for you.

This one-sided reconciliation on God’s part is self-evident proof of God’s superabundant love to man. As far as God is concerned, he loved us so much that he was willing to let his own son die for sinful man, and have his son pay all the penalties for their sins, forget their rebelliousness and overlook their hostility, while they were still sinners, still rebellious, and still hostile.

God made up his mind to become completely reconciled to mankind before man made any signs of making peace with God. God has told the world through Paul’s teaching’s (not through Creeds), that he has reconciled himself to them because of his love for them, and it was God alone who did this harmonious act; we have had nothing to do with it, all we have had to do is to receive the reconciliation that God has made with mankind.

God has one-sidedly reconciled himself to mankind through what the death of his son accomplished; all sins and hostility are paid for as far as God is concerned, and it is time all people begin to believe it. This three-in-one god concept has its roots from polytheism; monotheism was a revolution, it was a radical brake from polytheism, not an evolution of polytheism!

If you want to believe Jesus is God, whatever. God has reconciled himself to man, before man wrote those Creeds? 

The Faith of Christ

God’s heavenly program, the body of Christ program, God is not dealing with a nation today, and he is not recognizing any nation above any other nation. God is dealing with individuals today, to believe this good news is to be reconciled in your mind, not God’s.

The fact that Christ did sacrifice himself for all proves without a doubt that all were indeed dead in trespasses and sins, but in order to be acceptable in the eyes of a perfectly righteous God, in order to be able to dwell with God, people need to be perfectly righteous. It is easy for us to think we are righteous, especially when we compare ourselves with what we would consider to be the righteousness or lack of righteousness in others.

Paul has made it abundantly clear that God does not measure our goodness in relation to the goodness of others; he compares our goodness with his own perfect righteousness. That would be the criteria for dwelling with God and when our human righteousness is held up alongside the perfect righteousness of God, every member of the human race comes out on the short end of the stick.

It is a SON issue today, not a SIN issue. The issue is not forgiveness of sin. The issue is believing what Christ accomplished in your behalf, in order to be identified with and joined to Christ himself. Christ believed that God’s justice has been satisfied where the sins he came to sacrifice himself for are concerned, Christ’s faith was and remains in God, and indeed we can believe God’s justice has been satisfied.

Christ does not have a wishy-washy faith, it is Christ’s faith who has never, nor will ever waver in faith. It is Christ’s faith that is freely credited to the account of the one who believes the good news given to the apostle Paul to proclaim to us in this age of grace. It is Christ’s faith that righteousifies those who take their stand with God when it comes to what God has stated his son accomplished for them.

It was Christ’s faith and as a result of his faith, his faithfulness that he sacrificed himself and purchased the gift of our salvation. It is our faith in the accomplishment of Christ's faithful sacrifice that is the means whereby God acknowledges that we have accepted the gift his son purchased.

Therefore, God is his infinite wisdom devised a plan whereby he could take the very faith belonging to his son along with its resultant faithfulness and credit that faith and faithfulness to the account of those who believe. Ministers of righteousness still believe that sin is the issue; almost 2000 years after God took care of it! In their mind, God is waiting for man to make a decision, so God can forgive them of their sins.

God is not giving out his righteousness as a reward to those who are sorry for the past, and who promise to do their best in the future. Therefore, the issue where salvation is concerned is not sin, but righteousness. The instance you take your stand with God, you are not only saved but sealed until the day of redemption of these earthly tents in which we dwell.

Christ was delivered for our offenses, and God raised him from among the dead for our justification, he was not raised to sit on a physical throne, ruling over a physical nation called Israel, in a physical kingdom here on earth. The kingdom of heaven is not heaven, it is a kingdom designed in heaven, brought down to earth, and that is according to prophecy and has nothing to do with the revelation of the secret God kept to himself that Jesus Christ revealed to Paul.

Our citizenship is in heaven, not earth. Our faith in the good news of Christ enables God to impute us with the faith of his son. Once we believe, and are sealed, it is not about us; our faith, but Christ’s faith. Until you believe Paul’s message of the grace of God to be true for yourself, you will not be placed into Jesus Christ by the baptizing of God’s power from on high or what is called holy spirit, and not being baptized into Christ means that you are standing in your own righteousness rather than Christ’s righteousness. 

Judicial Reality

God justifies those who take him at his word concerning what his son accomplished; something for nothing! Being declared righteous is God’s gift to the believing sinner and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the sinner himself doing anything to deserve or merit that righteous standing. The righteousness God credits to the account of the believer is a righteousness that comes without a cause in the one being declared so. We have to admit, that is difficult for men imbued with the pride of life to imagine. It is difficult to accept because it does not seem fair to the human mind, especially to the religiously minded. It does not seem quite right that God could consider someone righteous, especially if that person is not expending the same amount of effort or attention that they are to become righteous by way of his or her practice. One can see why some have called this justification of God; cheap justification, one can see where the pride of life comes up with that notion. If it is that easy, (is the idea) if you can obtain righteousness without doing something, or even trying to do something (or at the very least, promising to do something) in order to gain it-why, that would be too easy and that would make it cheap. It is absolutely free, but it was certainly not cheap, it came at tremendous cost.

What God was doing through his son; God knew about what he intended to do before the world was ever formed, yet, God had kept this secret from ages and generations until it was time for the ascended Jesus Christ to reveal it to the apostle Paul, so that Paul could reveal it to the world. Understanding this message is Satan’s major goal during this age of grace, Satan knows the force or the power that emotions play when these emotions become the cement that seals the door of the mind such that a mind remains closed and the door locked. It is not that people cannot see the truth, it is more the fact that they do not want to see the truth. To be open to that which moves a person from the mental comfort zone to which that person has become accustomed becomes not only an unsettling inconvenience, it becomes a mind-shaking threat to many people. It is easier for these people to remain firmly entrenched in a false system of belief than it is to expose the pride-nature to the possibility of having been wrong and especially for the possibility of having been wrong for many, many years. Human wisdom, human reasoning will go to great lengths to deny the truth of God, that God has already reconciled all man to himself through what his son accomplished where their sins are concerned. To think that God has reconciled all man to himself where their sins are concerned smacks man’s self-righteous pride-nature right in the face. If the reality of reconciliation must be believed in order for justification or righteousification to become a judicial reality in the mind of God for those who believe that good news message, then we can only expect that Satan’s operation in this age of grace will be to attack the reality of reconciliation with all the religious fervor those who adhere to Satan's false belief systems can muster.

There are those who mistakenly suppose that reconciliation is the same thing as righteousification. These people have jumped to the conclusion that Christ taking the sin issue off the table of God’s justice through his becoming sin for man is that which makes a man as righteous as God; they have mistaken reconciliation for justification. To have your sin slate judicially emptied because Christ died for those sins does not mean that you now possess the righteousness recorded on the slate of the one who died for those sins. How can you get God to reconcile you to himself where your sins are concerned? The fact is, you cannot. There is nothing you can do. You do not have to try to get him to do it, you do not have to promise him something in order for him to do it, and you do not even have to ask him to do it because he has already done it. The instant you take God at his word that his son resolved God’s justice where all your sins are concerned (past, present, and future), God’s power from on high or what is called holy spirit joins you to his son who died for your sins and thereby you become an instantaneous member of the household of God. Those who believe in a belief system known as Universal Reconciliation are not understanding the difference in reconciliation and justification. Belief is necessary for righteousification and that belief is how you are heaven-worthy.