For if when we
were enemies
we were
reconciled
to God
through the death
of His Son,
much more,
having been
reconciled,
we shall be
saved
by His life.
Romans 5:10
In the last blog I mentioned that men are not saved because they want to be saved, that out of their "free will" they can choose. The Scriptures are clear about two things: 1. Men are totally depraved and have never, cannot now, nor ever choose from their natural "free will" to come to salvation. 2. Man must choose and this choice is due to the free gift of grace (Psalm 84:11) given to them by God because God has elected them to salvation. Men are not saved by believing. Men must realize that they are saved by believing. Does that sound like a contradiction? It is not repentance that saves a man; repentance is the sign that a man realizes what God has done in Christ Jesus. There should be a true sense of horror that you sinned against a Holy and just God who created you and all the things that have been created. A God who gave a Law so that men would know how to live accordingly to the Holiness of God. A problem is that we put our emphasis on the effect, that is on the mode of death, instead of the cause. We think that our obedience is what has put us right with God. Never! We are obedient because we are put right with God and that was done prior to your being alive on this earth. In fact it was done prior to anything being created. Prior to all creation Christ died for all He came to save. You may cavil at this point and say: did not Jesus come to save the whole world? No! If that was His will, He being God, the true of God of true God, then if this was His will, there is a problem, some still are going into the lake of fire, then He would have failed. This miracle of God, the atonement, Jesus Christ dying on the cross and by doing so became sin for us: "For He made Him who know no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2Corinthians 5:21). We are not made righteous because we are sorry for our sins, not because you have repented, we repent because God has revealed to us the horrendous darkness of our sin; but because of what Jesus Christ has done. It is the Spirit of God that gives to man the ability to choose Him, it is the Atonement that gives to all God's children, the elect, righteousness, and a right standing before Him.
It is not by means of human logic that salvation comes to man. It stands on the sacrificial Death of Jesus. This then is how men and women can be saved, by the marvellous work of God in Christ Jesus that is prior to all experience. All Justification and sanctification is given to us by God Himself. We do not, and cannot work out these things ourselves, for they have been worked out by the Atonement. It is what Jesus Christ has done, the supernatural becomes natural. The Word of God has existed always and He exists with that which He created, all creation was ever with Him as He abides with the Father. He fills all things (That is not to admit to Pantheism). Now, He has entered the world He created in a different manner: He stooped down to our level because of His love for that which He created and revealed Himself to us.
Jesus Christ did not stooped down to our level because He felt sorry for us, rather He saw that the human race had within them the expression of the Father's mind but that sin and corruption was causing a wasting of their existence; death reigned over man in all its corruption. It was this corruption of death due to man's sin that was the cause for this penalty, a penalty of death. Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, could see that it would be unthinkable that the Law of Death be repealed for their transgressions; the Law must be fulfilled. As the creator of all things He could see that by means of man's transgression, their corruption, that not only were liable to the Law of Death but that all creation would come to nothing; there is a universal death. All things were made for the enjoyment of men, and all other lives would benefit from that creation for man. Yes, Jesus had compassion but it was His love for man that He would come to earth and by doing so the work of the Father would not come to nought. He did this by His embodiment in the form of that which He created, in a human body. He could have come in some other manner to reveal His majesty. This He did not do, He took on a pure body, not stained with the inherited original sin. He came to this world from a spotless, stainless virgin. There was no earthly father for His Father was the Father of heaven; God. This coming to earth and taking on a human body from a virgin became the temple from which He using that body as an instrument to became known, revealed as the Son of God.
I will dwell in them
and walk among them.
I will be their God,
and they shall be
My people.
2 Corinthians 6:16b
May this weekend be blessed
Richard L. Crumb
No comments:
Post a Comment