Search Results for: What Must I Do TO Be Saved

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The book of Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament and its prophecy came about one hundred years after God’s people returned to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity. That was a time of great joy and great relief, to return to their homeland and rebuild the city and the temple. But, a hundred years is a long time. It may not seem like it when you consider the whole span of Bible history, but from the perspective of a life or a particular generation of people or the history of a nation, a hundred years is really a long time. A lot can change in a hundred years. Attitudes can shift, things can be forgotten and can go by the wayside. Sure enough, that was the case with Israel.

In this period of one hundred years, a lot had changed. Whatever excitement there might’ve been at returning and rebuilding was now gone. The nation had reverted to its old self. The services of the temple had become common and profane. The nation was once again in sorry shape, spiritually, and they blamed God for their troubles. Despite His forbearance, they had the audacity to accuse God of not loving or caring about them. And once again, the fires of God’s judgment were smoldering, except that there was one thing that kept Him from destroying them altogether. Read with me.

Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”

God made a covenant, promising that a Messiah would come from their people and bring salvation to the world through them. God did not destroy them because the promises that were made to them still had to be fulfilled through them in Christ, and God would not break His word. They deserved to be destroyed, but God did not destroy them because of His covenant.

The prophet Balaam, knowing how capable he himself was of deceit and knowing how he could be tempted by bribery to change from one course to another, said this of God:

Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

God does not change. We can’t think of God in terms of humans. People change their minds, attitudes, sometimes their personality over time. But God never changes, and He succinctly states that on more than one occasion in His word: I do not change. But not only does He not change, but He cannot change. Today, we’ll study what it means to serve an unchanging God.

It’s difficult for us to imagine one who never changes because everything in this world changes with the passing of enough time. Everything about our lives is changing from moment to moment, day to day, and year to year. Even the earth and the heavens are changing. Things that look to us like they never change are surely, slowly, and constantly being reshaped by the forces of time.

Psalm 102:25-27 “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.”

Everything from the microscopic atom to the sun’s solar system and universe are all in a constant state of flux, transition, and change. Everything God has created is changeable, but God does not change. James made this contrast.

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights (speaking of heavenly lights: the sun that rises and sets and the stars that are born and later burn out), with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

One may say, Hasn’t God changed throughout the course of human history? Isn’t there an old covenant and a new covenant? Haven’t the economies through which God has dealt with people in different times changed? But those things don’t mean that God has changed. The Bible is not merely a compilation of books and writings; the Bible has a continuity about it. It is a story. Paul refers to the mystery of the scheme of redemption that spans the ages, from eternity to eternity as “the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11). The word manifold means variegated or many-colored, like a grand mosaic work of art. Each part or piece of the divine story–beautiful and significant within itself–every interaction between God and man down through the stream of time seems independent to itself, but it’s not, because when all of it is arranged in place by the master artist, a larger picture emerges. That picture here is Christ Jesus and the redemption of the world. There is a continuum from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 and everything that has come to pass has all been according to the purpose that God has had from eternity. He is not playing it by ear. He created the world with purpose, He created man with purpose, and His dealings with man have been with purpose.

2 Timothy 1:9 “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”

So, God’s plan throughout the ages has involved change and has brought change, but the plan never changed and God never changed. He does not change and He will not change. But not only is God’s purpose unchanging, God’s attributes and personality are unchanging. Some almost seem to believe that the Bible is a story of at least two different Gods: the God revealed in the Old Testament and the God revealed in the New Testament. On one hand, a God of rules, law, of wrath, vengeance, and judgment. On the other, a God of grace, mercy, love, kindness and understanding; a God who is not all that concerned or angered by sin, but who basically handed us the reins to live and worship as we please. But that’s not accurate.

You see, the Bible does not give us two revelations of God because God hasn’t changed. The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is one revelation of God, all pointing to Christ. Yes, He has established different covenants at different points in time, but all of that has to do with His overarching purpose, and He has not changed. It’s not that God has decided not to change, by the way. He didn’t just arbitrarily say, I won’t change; it’s that God cannot change, because if He changed, He wouldn’t be God.

Think about it this way: the perfection of God demands His immutability. If something changes, that change will result in something either being better or worse. If it makes no difference, then it’s really not a change. Well, God cannot become more perfect, nor is it possible for God to no longer be perfect. God is simply God. He has an immutable nature. He is who He is. He didn’t just decide to act a certain way and be a certain way. God is God.

For example, the Bible doesn’t say that God merely loves or can love; it says that God IS love. He didn’t become love; He IS love, and He has always been love. The Bible doesn’t say that God chooses to be holy or that He can be holy and separate from sin; it says that God IS holy. God told His people through Moses in the Old Testament and through Peter in the New Testament, and it is repeated several times in God’s word, You shall be holy, for I am holy. God was not holy in the Old Testament and then became love and grace in the New Testament, as though there is some contradistinction between the two. God has always been holy and He is still holy, and God has always been love, and He is still love. He will always be all of those things.

God showed incredible grace to His people in the Old Testament. I mean, where do people get the idea that there was no grace under the old covenant? God was a great God of grace even in that dispensation. Can we not read that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord? God could’ve immediately destroyed Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden, but He didn’t. His grace made a way and His mercy spared them. They paid a price for their sin, but God was still acting in grace. God spared His own people as we read in our text and gave them space for repentance beyond what they deserved. Yes, even back then, God was a God of grace.

By the same token, God promises His wrath even in the New Testament age. In fact, time and again, we are told by Paul, Peter, Jude, and others that the divine strokes of punishment that fell on the people of old are examples to erring and apostate children of God today. To go even a step further, the Hebrew writer indicated that the judgment and punishment of God is even worse for one who turns from the truth today, because now we have the full revelation in Christ Jesus. God hasn’t changed.

The difference is that now, we have the realized blessings and promises of God that are all found in Christ. Those before Christ looked forward to Christ and all of those events pointed forward to Christ. God’s dealings with them were preparing the way and creating the expectation and hope of Christ. Praise be to God that now, we know the fulfillment of those promises, covenants, and blessings. But, you see, God has not changed. God still hates sin as much as He ever did. God still promises to punish sin. And yes, He still loves sinners like He always has. He is the same God who went searching for the rebellious pair in the garden and made a sacrifice and covered their nakedness. He is the same God who told Cain, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” (Genesis 4:7) That same God sent His holy and spotless Son down the golden staircase of heaven into this awful, sin-filled world to save it.

God hasn’t changed. He has been acting according to the same purpose in accordance with His own attributes from eternity and He will to eternity. He has not gone from being some raging, jealous, vengeful, wrathful, thundering God of old to being some aging, senile, doting, docile grandfather today. He is the same God today that He was to Adam, that He was to Noah, that He was to Abraham, to Moses, to the Jews of Malachi’s day, to the church of the first century, to the church a hundred years ago. God simply does not change.

Not only does God’s personality not change, but neither does He change in His pronouncements. Just as God is immutable Himself, His word is unbreakable. God cannot lie, the Bible says.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

Not sometimes truth, was truth, can be truth or will be truth—thy word IS truth. It’s much like when Jesus said, Before Abraham was, I AM. God’s word is eternal and unbreakable, and the Bible is as relevant and authoritative in our lives today as it was to the early churches to whom the apostles wrote. Time has not rendered it null and void. Cultural, technological, and societal achievements and advancements have not made the word of God irrelevant. Some suggest that God’s view of things, His standards and expectations have changed with the times and so should we, and that God just sort of follows our lead. But that’s not what the Bible says.

2 Peter 1:24-25 “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”

Mark 13:31 “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”

Let me remind you that what the Bible calls sin is still sin. Living in a modern world does not change that. The ebb and flow of culture does not change that. God’s word is immutable. Sin is still sin, even if the world ignores what God says about it.

John 12:48 “…the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”

Sin is still sin even if the majority celebrates and embraces it.

Exodus 23:2 “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil;”

Sis is still sin even if it’s legal. There is a court much higher than the supreme court, I promise you that.

Acts 5:29 “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.”

Sin is still sin even if you don’t see the harm in it and you don’t recognize it as sin. It is still sin if the Bible teaches that it is sin.

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

Sin is still sin even if the church tolerates and accepts it. We see people in religion tolerating and accepting many things that were unthinkable just a few years ago. Some people get the idea that it must be alright then, but it’s not alright. God said not to pagans, but to His own wayward people:

Isaiah 5:20 “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

Sin is still sin even if wicked people try to justify and defy it. People twist the scriptures. Jude 4 speaks of some who would attempt to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. Sin is still sin even if we’re persecuted for believing in preaching it.

1 John 3:13 “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.”

Immorality is still a sin and will always be a sin in God’s eyes because that’s how His word describes it. Sins of the flesh, sexual sins that are defined in the word of God—time has not changed that. The supreme court can’t change that, the president can’t change that, nobody can change that. God’s word is immutable and His word cannot be broken. We may ignore or dismiss sin, we may become flippant about sin and immorality, but it’s still sin, and it’s a big deal in the eyes of God, whether our culture sees it that way or not.

Unscriptural practices are still unscriptural in God’s eyes. It doesn’t change over time. God gave a pattern for the church. God revealed His church when He built it in the first century. We have this book to guide us in all matters of faith and practice and that doesn’t change. Men may change and drift away from that pattern, but that doesn’t mean that God has changed that pattern or that His commandments or examples that were set forth for us no longer matter. You see, God’s word and His pronouncements do not change.

God also does not change when it comes to His promises. It’s tempting to doubt the promises of God. It’s tempting to look at circumstances and current events, and either forget what God has promised or let our faith in his promises waver. It’s easy to allow time to cause the fires of excitement and anticipation to burn low and eventually go out. But I would remind you that God often takes a lot of time to bring His promises to pass. It took nearly four thousand years for God’s seed promise to Eve to be fulfilled, but in the fullness of time, Christ was born. The Bible says it happened in the fullness of time, or at the right time. It took one hundred twenty years for God’s warning of judgment to come to Noah and the antediluvians of judgment to come to pass. But finally, sure enough, the sky grew dark, the thunder rumbled, the heavens opened, and it started to rain. It took a long time for Abraham and Sarah to have a son, the son of promise. In fact, it was perplexing to them why it took so long, especially considering their age after God made the promise. But fifteen years later, despite their presumptuous scheme regarding Hagar and Ishmael, baby Isaac was born.

So, you see, God keeps His promises. The Hebrew writer warns Christians not to turn away and go back to the sacrifices of the temple and the services of the Jewish economy, but to remain steadfast in Christ. Not to waver from the good confession that they at one time had made. It was tempting to turn away because of the persecution that was bearing down upon them. It was tempting to think that God was not in what they were a part of or that He had forsaken them because of their circumstances.

Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)”

God has made those who will believe and obey Him many promises and He is true to those promises. He will not go back on those promises. God cannot lie, even when from our human vantage point, we simply can’t see how it will work out or how those things can be true. Do you have faith in what God says? Jesus made another promise I want you to look at.

John 14:2-3 “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

It’s been two thousand years since Jesus made that promise but it’s true. One day, He is going to burst through the blue. One day, He is going to return and bring this world to judgment. Are you ready for that time? You need to be, because God will not forget His promise. God does not change.

 

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At what point is a penitent sinner saved from past sins? That question has long divided professing Christians. Most people who claim to follow Jesus believe that baptism is to play some part in a believer’s life. But, what part? Is baptism merely a symbolic ceremony performed upon new Chrstians? Or is it the point at which one is forgiven of sins by the blood of Christ? If the latter be the case, wouldn’t that make it a necessary step of obedience in order to be saved?

What about you? Do you believe that you were saved before you were baptized, because that’s really what the question comes down to. We’ll look at a passage of scripture in Paul’s letter to the church at Rome about the wonderful transformation that takes place in the heart of a sinner who comes to the Lord Jesus.

Romans 6:16-18 “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

It should go without saying that in order to be saved and to be reconciled to God, we need to have our sins removed. God is holy; He can have no fellowship with sin. Our sins are what has separated us from God to begin with. So, salvation is about having our sins forgiven; being made free from sin. But how? By the blood of Jesus? Of course. By the death of Jesus? Of course. By the grace of God? Of course. But at what point are our sins taken away? When does the sinner move from the state of sin to the state of salvation? It really isn’t a mystery because Paul declares it very plainly in our text. We’ll search the scriptures to find the answers to these questions.

The Bible is clear that the sinner MUST be forgiven of his sins in order to be saved. As we said, God is holy and just, and cannot have fellowship with sin.

Isaiah 59:1-2 “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”

The sinner is spiritually dead, facing the second and eternal death if he remains in his sins.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death…”

So, to be saved from sin means to be forgiven of sin; to be forgiven of sin means to be freed from sin. The only way we can be free from sin is by coming to Jesus for forgiveness and cleansing from those sins.

John 8:36 “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

The question is, how do we come to Jesus? What does it mean to be washed in His blood? At what point are we forgiven and thus, free from sin’s fetters? When you find the answers to these questions, you also learn at what point a man is saved in Christ, because no man can be saved until he is free from the bondage and guilt of sin. That freedom is only by the grace of a merciful God; not based on any worth or merit of our own.

Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”

But there must be a point at which a man is no longer in sin, but rather declared righteous and free from the sins of his past. When is that? When is a man made free from sin?

Romans 6:17-18” But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

Consider that word “then.” That point of transition. What is Paul talking about? Someone will say that a man is made free from sin the moment he believes in Christ. Is that what Paul is referring to? Look again at verse 17. Did he say …ye were the servants of sin, but ye have believed in your heart that form of doctrine being then made free from sin…? Is that what Paul said? No, you won’t find the word believe there. Belief is the cause of what Paul is talking about. We certainly can’t be saved without believing in Jesus. In fact, Jesus Himself said:

John 8:24 “… for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

Faith is essential. But is it all there is? Are we then made free from sin when we believe?

James 2:19 “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

You see, the devils believe the truth; they just don’t submit to it. Paul preached before sinful King Agrippa and in his persuasive appeal to the king, he asked him if he believed.

Acts 26:27-28 “King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

The word believe can be used in different degrees. It can simply mean to assent to a fact. More comprehensively, it means to yield to the one believed. There’s an interesting sentence construction in Mark 16:16 where Jesus gave the great commission to His disciples.

Mark 16:15-16 “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Notice that belief and baptism are made conditions by our Lord for salvation. Someone in protest might say, why didn’t Jesus say that he who believeth not AND is not baptized shall be condemned? Friend, it’s simply because belief envelopes the obedience that results from it. In other words, baptism is the immediate manifestation of belief. Jesus didn’t have to include both in the last phrase because baptism would avail nothing to the man who doesn’t believe. As one man said, regarding an unbeliever and baptism, he couldn’t if he would, he wouldn’t if he could, and it wouldn’t do him any good if he did. So, yes, we must believe Jesus in order to be saved, but becoming free from sin doesn’t occur when one merely assents mentally to the gospel.

Someone else might say that they believe they were made free from sin when they said the sinner’s prayer. Let’s look again at Romans 6:17.

Romans 6:17 “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

Did Paul say, “but ye have prayed from your heart, being then made free from sin…”? No, that’s not what he said either. In fact, you have never read where one person responded to the preaching of the gospel by reciting anything that the Bible calls “The Sinner’s Prayer.” You know, friend, there is no such thing in the New Covenant. There’s not one single example of gospel conversion recorded in the book of Acts that says that any person was ever told to pray a prayer to receive salvation, to become a Christian or to be made free from sin. Those who ARE Christians are told to pray for the forgiveness of their sins, but the sinner outside of Christ is never told to do so, and there is not one example of anyone saying such a prayer in order to be saved after Jesus Christ came and died upon the cross and offered salvation to the world. That is simply not what Paul said in Romans 6:17. Perhaps you were told by a preacher or by someone else that to come to Jesus, you simply need to accept Christ into your heart by saying such a prayer. But look again at our text, and we’ll let Paul explain what he means.

Romans 6:16-18 “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

Paul makes the delineation not at the point of mere belief, but at the point of obedience. He said they had “obeyed from the heart…being then made free from sin…” Most preachers today will tell you that salvation comes first, then comes obedience, but Paul stated it the other way around. He says that you obey, then you are made free from sin and become servants of righteousness. That’s in harmony with what he wrote in Hebrews 5:9 as well.

Hebrews 5:9 “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;”

Now we don’t earn anything in obedience; don’t mistake the point. But the Lord has made gospel obedience the condition of receiving the gift of salvation. Any gift must be received, and we receive Christ’s gift in faith that is manifest in obedience. We obey the form of doctrine delivered, as Paul says, and then become free from sin. Remember too, that becoming free from sin is not something that comes after salvation. It must happen in order for salvation to take place, and we’re made free by the efficacious sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His blood that was shed on Calvary. But that gift is received at the point where we obey from the heart the form of doctrine that Paul is talking about.

That begs the question, what is that form of doctrine to which Paul refers? He uses the word obey, so we know it’s something we submit to, not merely believe or mentally assent to. It isn’t something we get or receive in our hearts. He says that it’s something that we DO from the heart. It’s an action of obedience. He also says that that act of obedience is not a mere ritual, but a response of faith and repentance, a conscious decision from the heart. (That’s why the notion that babies are born in sin and must be baptized to be saved is wrong. An infant can’t do anything from the heart or from an understanding and willing mind.) Paul says freedom from sin comes when we obey and submit from the heart to that form of doctrine which was delivered you. What is a form? We talk about a form when we pour concrete. You prepare your site and dig footers as you prepare a form. You pour concrete into that form, and a concrete slab takes on the shape, dimensions and depth of the form. If you bake a cake, you mix the batter and pour it into a pan, and it comes out looking exactly like the pan that you baked it in. So, you see, Paul is talking about a mold or likeness. The renowned New Testament scholar James MacKnight said in his commentary of this verse:

A form (tupos in the Greek) is “a mold into which melted metals are poured to receive the form of the mold.” (from MacKnight On The Epistles)

That’s interesting because you might say that faith and repentance are produced by gospel conviction, and that melts one’s heart or spirit so that it might be poured into God’s mold/form and made into what God desires of it. That’s a powerful illustration that Paul uses here: We are poured into the mold/form of the doctrine.

So what’s the doctrine Paul speaks of? He says it was delivered you. It merely refers to the teaching delivered to them. Here’s what he said to the church at Corinth:

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also now received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

He says, “the gospel that you received…the gospel wherein ye stand…the gospel by which ye are saved…” That gospel, that teaching, was the fact that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and arose again the third day. Is that not the very crux of the gospel? Paul said that it is.

Let’s try that on. Back to Romans 6:17.

Romans 6:17-18 “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

When were they made free from sin? When were they saved? When they obeyed the gospel. What did these Roman converts obey that was in the form/mold/likeness of the gospel–the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus? Did they say a prayer in the likeness of His death, burial and resurrection? Did they merely believe in the likeness of His death, burial and resurrection? Look back at Romans 6:3-5.

Romans 6:3-5 “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: “

There it is! These believers DIED to their sins in baptism, they were BURIED with Jesus in baptism, and they ROSE from the watery grave of baptism to walk in newness of life! Planted in the likeness of HIS death and HIS resurrection. Friend, that means that baptism is much more than just ‘an outward show’ of a past inward transaction. Paul didn’t say that we were planted in the likeness of our death and our resurrection from sin, but His death and His resurrection. In other words, raised from baptism to a new life. Baptism is something besides a church ordinance for people who have already been saved or freed from sin. Paul says they obeyed from the heart that likeness of the gospel, or the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, being then made free from sin.

That helps us to understand a number of other statements made in the book of Acts. Remember in Acts 22, Saul of Tarsus had met Jesus on the Damascus road and had been told to go into the city. He, having been made blind, waited there for the preacher Ananias that Jesus said would come to him, to restore his sight and tell him what to do to be saved. You recall what Ananias told him? Paul recounted it in verse 16.

Acts 22:16 “And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”

You say, surely the literal water in baptism doesn’t wash our sins away? Oh no, the blood of Jesus is the only thing that washes our sins away. But the question is, where was that blood shed?

John 19:33-34 “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

His blood was poured out in His death. So, where does Paul say that we unite with His death? In our death to sin, which takes place in baptism. That helps us to understand why Peter said this, in Acts 2:38:

Acts 2:38 “…Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…”

For, meaning in order to receive or obtain. Remission, meaning forgiveness. This helps us to see why every single conversion recorded in the New Testament after Christ died and rose again and the gospel was preached included the believer immediately being baptized for the remission of their sins. You see, you can’t be saved and remain in your sins; your sins must be removed. You must be liberated from the bondage of sin in order to be saved. You must be in Christ in order to be free from sin and thus, saved. Paul so beautifully tells us when and how that is done. When, in faith, the penitent heart is united with

Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection in baptism for the remission of sins. That’s exactly what the people on the Day of Pentecost did.

Acts 2:38 “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

That means baptism is not an option. It’s not an auxiliary command or suggestion; it is an absolute command to every penitent believer. Verse 41 tells us that those who gladly received his word WERE baptized, and they were then added to the church.

We come to Acts 8, when the Ethiopian nobleman who was riding along in his chariot and reading from the scroll of Isaiah met Philip the evangelist, and Philip took that scroll and showed him how it referred to Jesus and led him to salvation. You remember that the eunuch saw an oasis of water there along the way and he said,

Acts 8:36-39 “…See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.”

That’s why we also read in that same chapter how that Simon and the people of Samaria, upon hearing and believing the gospel or good news of the kingdom that Philip preached, were baptized. And on and on we could go, to the house of Cornelius in Acts 10. To the Philippian jailer in Acts 16, when he was holding Paul and Silas in prison and during the midnight hour as they were singing and praying, an angel opened the doors of the prison. All of the prisoners could’ve escaped, but they didn’t, and the jailer was amazed.

Acts 16:27-33 “And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.”

You can go all the way through the book of Acts, and every example of conversion includes sinners being baptized in order to have their sins remitted. It was done immediately when they came to the point of believing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and they were willing to turn away from their sins.

Have you done that? Have you been baptized into Christ? Let me be even more specific: Do you believe that you were saved BEFORE being baptized in obedience to Christ? That’s what most churches and most preachers will lead you to believe. But, does that fit with what Paul was saying in our text? Have you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, being then made free from sin? I’d like to urge you to obey the Lord in baptism for the remission of your sins. I’d like to urge you to turn away from your sins

in faith and repentance and be willing to confess that Jesus is who He claims to be—the Christ, the Son of God—and be baptized in order to have your sins washed away. That will put you into Christ.

Galatians 3:27 “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Can a person be saved outside of Christ? No, we must be IN Christ. The Bible says we are baptized into Christ. When we’re baptized into Christ, we put on Christ; we enter into a relationship with Him. Having been made free from sin, made a new creation in Christ. Baptism doesn’t merely picture the fact that at some point in the past we became a new creation. Rather, it IS the point at which we become a new creation.

The Bible places a greater emphasis on baptism than most people in the religious world place upon it today. I’d like to urge you to give serious consideration to what the Bible does indeed say about baptism, and I hope that you will hasten to obey the Lord in the way that the Lord gave this commandment. For the reason which He gave the commandment. That you’ll be baptized and have your sins washed away. You’ll enter into Christ with a new life, to be a member of Christ’s church and serve Him as long as you live.

 

©2019 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.

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When Jesus came to earth 2,000 years ago, He came heralding the soon-to-come kingdom. It was not far away when Jesus began His ministry, and in light of that, Jesus had an interesting exchange with one of the religious leaders of His time. It is recorded in Mark’s gospel and it will serve as our text today.

Mark 12: 28-34 “And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.”

This man came to Jesus with an important question: what is the foundational commandment of all? What is the first commandment? Jesus responded with what is known as the Great Shema of Israel: that a man is to love God with all that he is and all that he has.

When the scribe acknowledged the answer of Jesus and how He had correctly answered the question, he responded to Him in such a way that Jesus was able to see a keen perception in this man which caused Jesus to tell him that he was not far from the kingdom of God. Well, what did He mean by that? What kind of distance did Jesus have in mind? Could it be that there are those perhaps listening to the program today who are not very far from the kingdom of God?

This scribe was impressed with Jesus and how well He had answered the questions that had thus far been put to Him. Don’t mistake the point of his question to the Lord; he wasn’t implying that one commandment was more important to keep to the neglect of others, rather which commandment was the most fundamental and broad in its scope. In other words, everything that was within the law was built upon what they called the Great Shema of Israel, the first commandment. If you didn’t get the first commandment down, anything else wasn’t going to profit you very much. One wouldn’t be very successful at keeping the law if he didn’t first love the Lord with all that he is and all that he has.

Jesus answered him thus:

Mark 12:29-32 “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

The scribe then acknowledged that Jesus had correctly answered the question, adding that to do this “is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” It would do no good to try to keep the remainder of the law if you didn’t love God supremely, and secondly, love your neighbor as yourself.

Well, when Jesus saw that the scribe answered so discreetly, He told him this:

Mark 12:34 “…Thou art not far from the kingdom of God…”

This man was perceptive enough to understand the great philosophy behind a life of service to the Lord. When a person loves God supremely and loves his fellow man, his life will be lived accordingly. It is the foundational principle upon which ALL of God’s teachings rests. In recognizing this, the scribe already had a keen understanding of what it would take to identify and enter the kingdom of Christ when it was established. I think it’s more than that this scribe had merely memorized this Shema of Israel; it was more than just a rote knowledge of what the law said. This man had an honest perception of what it meant. That’s why Jesus said that he was not far from the kingdom.

Even though the time of the kingdom’s establishment was not far away, Jesus wasn’t talking about a chronological or geographical distance. It was true that it wasn’t going to be a long time until the kingdom came; it came on the Day of Pentecost at the end of the Lord’s ministry. So, yes, chronologically he wasn’t far from the kingdom. It would be established in Jerusalem, geographically in that part of the world. So, in that way, he wasn’t far from the kingdom either. But that’s not what the Lord has in mind. He was talking about a spiritual distance from the kingdom. This man was well on his way to discovering the great truth that Jesus brought to the world.

With that in mind, there are a lot of people today who come close to the kingdom, but they never enter. That’s the real tragedy. They stand outside the kingdom. You might say that they dwell in the border country around the kingdom. Could it be that YOU are very near the kingdom but are still outside of it? Maybe you are a morally upright person, maybe even a very religious person, yet in reality, you stand outside of the kingdom of Christ, and that is the greatest tragedy of all.

Many people allow pride or prejudice to keep them outside of the kingdom. They may draw very near so far as their knowledge is concerned. They may have many commendable things about their lives, that were you to observe them and how they think, talk and behave, you might assume that they ARE a part of the kingdom of the Lord. But they’ve never entered the kingdom. Perhaps it’s because of pride and/or prejudice. The fact is, the door of the kingdom is a very low and humble portal that proud men find it too difficult to stoop and enter. They are unwilling to deny themselves and bear the cross that the Lord asks them to bear. They’re too proud to crucify their pride and to humble themselves in the eyes of the Lord and hear what He has to say.

The attraction to Christianity has never been prestige or its position in society or the wealth that it offers. It’s never been because of its popularity with the world. The church has never offered ANY of those things. In fact, true Christianity is portrayed in the scriptures as the opposite of those things. Jesus didn’t come with the pomp and circumstance afforded the kings of earth because He didn’t come claiming to be such a king. His life was one of abject humility. He was meek and lowly, born in a stable, not a palace. His primary disciples were fishermen—not princes or elite men of society. Jesus didn’t really attract those kinds of people. He rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey–not a camel or a warhorse. His crown was woven out of sharp thorns—not of glittering gold. He was poor and had no home. Even His grave was not His own, but was borrowed from a friend.

When you observe this humble life of Jesus, the Jewish leaders of that time couldn’t imagine such a one as their king and Messiah. They had been under the oppressive rule of Rome for a long time, and their view of a redeemer and savior was not one who would free them from sin, but one who would free them from Caesar. They expected the promised Messiah to come riding in on his white horse and remove the yoke of the Romans and make them great and sovereign again. As time went on, that materialistic and shallow expectation of the Christ became set in their minds like concrete. So that when Jesus—the homeless vagabond from Nazareth—came teaching them to love their enemies, turn the other cheek and so forth, they resented Him. They even hated Him to the point of ultimately putting Him to death. He couldn’t possibly be their king! Instead, he was a dangerous heretic and imposter who was stealing the hearts of the common people!

The great tragedy in all of that is that the evidence that Jesus was indeed the Son of God was right before their eyes. THEY, of all people, had the law and the prophets. THEY had the oracles of God committed unto them. THEY had the prophecies that drew the picture of the Christ who was to come, and now Jesus lived and talked right in their midst, fulfilling every one of their Old Testament prophesies. Yet, they missed Him. Why? Their pride and prejudice blinded them and kept them out of the kingdom.

After they put Jesus to death, He of course rose again and went back to heaven. He established His kingdom there and then in the hearts of men. The preaching of the gospel with all of its power on display was the last chance that the people of the ancient Jewish nation had to change their hearts and reap blessings that Christ came to bring in the establishment of the church. Yes, there was a remnant that was converted, but the nation as a whole was not. They hated and persecuted the apostles, just like that had their leader, the Lord Jesus. And when the gospel had been preached to the entire known world at that time, their last chance ran out, and the Jewish nation was destroyed. Why? destroyed because of pride. It kept them from realizing the kingdom that was right before them.

Pride is still a problem with men today. There are those who have a very materialistic view of Christianity. They want something exciting, showy. Something that the world sees as impressive and powerful. Something that will meet the approval and maybe even gain the applause of the world. Churches today race to see who can build the largest, most expensive buildings, campuses and sanctuaries. They boast of how many people they have, how many doctors, lawyers and people of business attend their congregations. They point to their many programs and attractions.

But when you open the New Testament, you find that the early church really doesn’t fit that picture. It was a lowly thing in the eyes of the surrounding world. The power they possessed didn’t come from any position in society or from material wealth, but from God and the simple message they preached to the lost. Yet, some are too proud to lay aside the doctrines and practices that are popular today that are designed to please men, draw a crowd and entertain the masses, and lay hold on the simple teachings of the Bible. Primitive Christianity is just that—primitive, as far as they’re concerned. The world has grown beyond that. Pride is the problem and the denial of everything that Jesus taught. Such a show of religion no more represents the Lord Jesus Christ and His teachings than light represents darkness. Pride leads the procession of sins that will keep any man from entering in at the narrow gate.

Secondly, some linger outside the border of the kingdom because of procrastination. They have every intention of entering, but there are too many things outside that make them linger at the portal. Their name is Legion who planned to obey the gospel but simply put it off until time ran out. Maybe you’ve known for a long time now that you need to be saved, that you need to be baptized. That you’re not in a saved position in the eyes of God. You’re a sinner and you know what you need to do about it. Maybe you have all of the good intentions in the world, saying, One of these days, I’m gonna do what I know I need to do. But you procrastinate.

Throughout the years that I’ve been preaching the gospel, I’ve spoken to a lot of people who had some reason, a good reason in their minds, to wait. They’d say, I will. I know it’s what I ought to do. I hope and plan to do it one day. I’m not ready just now, but I will—soon. I’m going to be baptized, but there are some things I’ve got to take care of, some issues I have to settle. Friend, let me warn you: it’s just as easy to put off salvation for thirty years as it is for thirty days. Shakespeare once said,

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.”

–from Macbeth

Procrastination is a very, very dangerous thing.

2 Corinthians 6:2 “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

No preacher in the Bible ever told anyone to do anything tomorrow because we’re not guaranteed a tomorrow. Here’s a sobering thought: statistically, more than 100,000 people will make plans today for a tomorrow that will never come for them because they don’t realize they are less than 24 hours away from dying. Pick up a newspaper and look at the obituary section today and see what you find. You’ll find many people who woke up just a day or two ago and went about their daily business and they thought their day would end and tomorrow would start just like every other day—but look where they are. They had no idea that that day would be their last. They had every reason to believe, just a few days ago, that they would be just as alive as you are right now.

Proverbs 27:1 “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”

That’s so very true. The rich fool of Luke 12:20 was certainly shocked when God told him that his soul would be required of him that night. Hezekiah of old was shocked when God told him to set his house in order because he was about to die. The fact is that none of us know when our last day on this earth will be and many will be caught by surprise and they will die outside the kingdom–near the kingdom, but outside of it, because procrastination kept them from entering in the gate. The poet said,

The clock of life is wound but once,

And no man hath the power,

To tell just when those hands will stop,

At late or early hour.

Next, some have never entered the kingdom because they carry some contraband, or that which is forbidden. At the entrance to every country, there is some station where the traveler or immigrant must declare his possessions. Of course, contraband—certain items—are not allowed to pass through that gate. It’s the same way as the gate to heaven’s kingdom. The word repentance is a forgotten and unwelcome word in many modern pulpits. Some will tolerate the Jesus who says nice things and who does kind things for others, but they reject the Jesus who came to a sinful world preaching repentance from sin.

Luke 13:3 “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

The apostle Paul did not embrace the “anything goes” theology.

Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

You see, friend, the kingdom of heaven is a gated community. The drunkard can’t enter until he decides he is going to leave the bottle behind. The thief can’t go through until he relinquishes that which he stole. The adulterer can’t pass into the kingdom in the arms of another man’s wife. The unforgiving cannot enter without leaving his grudges and vengeful feelings at the door. The false worshipper cannot enter until he leaves false doctrines and innovations behind. It doesn’t mean we have to be perfect when we come to Jesus; none of us is perfect, nor will we ever be perfect by our own works. But I can tell you that the Lord does expect us to leave our contraband at the border. And that very demand of repentance will cause many to never enter the kingdom because they’re simply unwilling to give up that which is wrong and sinful.

Lastly, some will never enter because they think they’re already inside. Friend, don’t take it for granted that you’re already a part of the kingdom. Don’t think that simply because you think you love Jesus that you’re a part of the kingdom. Don’t think that just because you happen to accept and believe the fact that came and lived and died that you’re in the kingdom. It takes more than that.

The Bible teaches that we must obey the gospel in order to be saved and enter the kingdom. Jesus said that we must be born of water and of the Spirit to enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5).

Mark 16:16 “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Yet, imagine living in a country for maybe most of your life only to find that there was an error; you never met the legal requirements of citizenship. You were an illegal alien to the country. In a sense, that’s how many live their lives in relation to the kingdom of God. They’ve decided they have been saved and that they’re alright, regardless of what the law of God says and they see no need for change. They may have a lot of good characteristics about their lives, but they’re living their lives not far from the kingdom. Are you IN the kingdom today or are you dwelling NEAR the kingdom? The difference is one of life and death.

 

©2017 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.

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It is impossible to consider the cross of our Lord without being overwhelmed with a mixture of emotions. On one hand, it is the saddest, most pitiful scene mortal eyes will ever behold: the good, kind and innocent Jesus, beaten, stripped, bloodied and mangled, hanging shamefully on a crudely fashioned cross. It was truly the most horrible and heinous method ever devised to execute a human being. There were many who suffered the cruel fate of crucifixion during the days of the Romans until it was finally outlawed by Constantine in the fourth century because it was so awful and inhumane.

Jesus’ case was very typical of Roman crucifixions. After suffering the torture of a scourging–which itself often left men dead–Jesus was weak. His back had been laid open by the cat of nine tails that Roman soldiers had used upon Him. He is led in a procession of shame and humiliation to the face of Calvary’s summit. Jesus would have been thrown backward onto the crudely hewn crossbeam. The soldier quickly feels for the depression in the front of His wrist and then takes a heavy iron spike several inches in length and with a mallet drives it through the quivering flesh into the cross beneath. Experts say the nail probably struck the median nerve as it passed through the Lord’s wrist, causing unbelievable shocks of pain up His arms and into His neck.

The crossbeam with Jesus’ body hanging from it was then lifted up and secured to the pole already in place in the ground. One of Jesus’ feet was then taken and pressed onto the other with the toes pointing downward, and another large wrought-iron spike was driven through the arch of each foot, leaving His knees slightly bent. Jesus at this point was crucified. The word excruciate is of Latin origin and it bears the meaning as on the cross. So, it was incredible torture that Christ endured every minute He was on the cross.

What a terrible scene we encounter at Calvary. How could Paul, living in a time when everyone understood the shame associated with crucifixion, say in Galatians 6:14 that he gloried in the cross. Jesus himself said in John 12:32, “…If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.”   In other words, there would be a magnetic force to the cross that would draw men unto it. How strange to think we would find such an appeal in such a dark hour in the history of the world! But thus, it is. For Paul said the following:

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

To us, it is an ensign of faith and victory. In something so horrible and so dark, we see something so wonderful and so bright.

A paradox is a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true. The Bible is full of paradoxical statements and teachings. For example, Jesus said in Mark 8:35, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it…” That’s a paradox that expresses one of the fundamental principles of the scriptures. The scriptures also teach us that loving involves hating, that being first requires being last, or as we recently learned on this broadcast, that maturing in Christ means taking on the characteristics of a child. But nowhere are such paradoxes more plainly seen than surrounding the cross of Calvary. I want to notice three of them with you today.

First of all, in the cross, justice was shown but mercy was granted. I can’t think of two terms more antithetical than the words justice and mercy. In every criminal trial, someone is satisfied and someone is disappointed. Every crime carries with it a prescribed penalty according to the law. When a person is convicted of a crime, the judge has the prerogative to exact the full penalty for the offense. He can choose to make the convict pay the ultimate price the law allows–perhaps even the price of the offender’s life. When that happens, the victim or the victim’s family will walk away with as much closure as possible, satisfied to know that justice has been served. On the other hand, the judge can be merciful. He may take into account the record of the offender or the circumstances of that person’s life and choose to give a lesser sentence or let them go on probation. When that happens, someone is usually relieved, but others are sorely disappointed. So, we don’t normally blend the words justice and mercy. Yet the two are perfectly mingled at Calvary.

Psalm 89:14 “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.”

Justice must be the foundation of God’s throne if His throne is to have any authority. After all, one of the immutable characteristics of God is holiness. He is perfect and set apart from all sin and impurity.

Habakkuk 1:13 “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:”

Now, that put God in somewhat of a dilemma. When God created man, He gave him a code of conduct by which to live. Like any law that has any force behind it, a penalty was threatened for disobedience. Imagine a country trying to enforce a law without prisons, or a parent trying to command respect from a child he never has disciplined. God had to attach a penalty to the transgression of His own law. He said, the day you eat of the forbidden tree, you will die (Genesis 3:3). Adam disobeyed the Lord’s command and left God with no choice.

What was God to do? The penalty had to be exacted or God’s law would be a mockery and His holiness would be violated. God is limited by the constraints of His own nature and thus, He had no choice but to punish sin. God would have been well within His rights to drive Adam from the garden and abandon the human race forever. He could have said, “That’s it! I gave you one simple law to keep and you didn’t do it. So, it’s good enough for you to just die and be destroyed.” But God couldn’t bring Himself to do that. That’s because of other immutable traits of God: love and kindness.

1 John 4:8 “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

God, by His own nature, desires to give of Himself in whatever way necessary to make His creation happy, but His mercy could not be independent of His demand for justice. I want you to understand this today: letting man off the hook without the penalty for sin being paid was not an option. So, how could those two opposite attributes possibly come together? John explains it to us in the next verse.

1 John 4:9 “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.”

In other words, the penalty could be paid vicariously, or through another. The law of God demanded a sacrifice, but the mercy of God provided the sacrifice. The law of God demanded that someone die for what man had done, but the mercy of God provided the vicarious victim.

Isaiah 53:4- 5,10 “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed…Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

1 Peter 2:24 “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”

When Christ hung upon the cross, He suffered everything we deserve. For example, we will never suffer our own separation because Christ was separated from God as He bore our sins on the cross. The person who rejects the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, though, will be eternally cast from God’s presence. He’ll suffer the fate of his own sin. We will never suffer our own shame because Christ was put to shame for the sake of our sins. They stripped Him of His garments and hung Him as a naked spectacle for the wicked world to gaze upon. He allowed our sin to put him to an open shame. However, the sinner will die in shame — no righteousness to clothe himself with in the Day of Judgment.

We will never suffer the agony of thirst. Victims of crucifixion quickly dehydrated and sometimes died of thirst. Jesus cried out in thirst but refused what was given Him to drink. But the person who rejects Jesus will beg alongside the rich man for one drop of water. We will never suffer the agony of eternal pain. Put yourself in the place of Jesus. Spread out your arms and feel the nails go thru your hands and then your feet. Feel the excruciating pain as the cross is lifted into the air and dropped into its place. With every muscle strained, and the tendons and flesh torn, feel the awful thirst, the trickle of blood running down the crown of thorns into the mouth and nose. Feel the heat of the sun as it bakes your body. That’s the picture of the sinner in hell–not for six hours, but forever.

Every sinner needs to know that sin exacts a penalty. Mercy is not God ignoring sin, but making a provision for it. Every time you sin, you either put that sin on the back of Jesus, or you accumulate the wrath of God to be poured out on your soul in the last day. Thank God that through the cross, justice and mercy were mingled together.

But the second contradiction or paradox of the cross involves the opposite words victory and defeat. Both sides experienced both in the same event. In fact, you might say victory was won through defeat. To understand that, we need to go all the way back to what we sometimes call the “primal prophecy” or first recorded prophecy pointing forward to Christ, recorded in the book of Genesis.

Genesis 3:14-15 “And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

So, when God cursed the serpent along with the man and woman, He said that in the process of Satan trying to defeat the seed of the woman (which refers to Christ), Jesus would, in turn, deal a final and devastating blow to the devil. Well, that’s exactly what occurred when Jesus was crucified. What appeared to be Satan’s victory became his final fall, and what appeared to be Christ’s fall, became His victory.

Sinful men unwittingly crucified Jesus to the delight of Satan and the demons of hell. Satan must have laughed with fiendish joy as he watched the Son of God die on the cross. At the same time, the angels of heaven must have cried as they leaned over the balconies of heaven and watched their King suffer so, because neither the devil nor the angels, or anyone else for that matter, knew what was taking place when Jesus died. God had kept it a secret or a mystery until it all unfolded. What really took place on Calvary was a secret known only to God and His Son that day.

1 Corinthians 2:7-8 “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

There must have been suspenseful silence in heaven as Jesus was crucified. Perhaps the angels wept as they saw the One they had adored through the ages hanging on the cross in the throes of death. They must have wondered if Hell had won and God had lost. But though Satan bruised the Savior’s heel, with one crushing blow, Jesus destroyed the head of the serpent. After six hours of gloom and horror, Jesus said three words that split time in two and changed the world forever: “It is finished.” The scene was changed. The clouds that hung over the land broke apart and the earth itself began to testify to the fact that something tremendous had just taken place. The veil in the temple was rent and the most sacred place on earth was now exposed and open for all. That was a picture that in His own suffering and defeat, Jesus really won the victory by opening the gate of heaven for all who would enter.

Also, remember, the body of Jesus was dead and buried–but it didn’t remain in the grave. He broke the surly bonds of death and arose triumphant. He defeated Satan once and for all. No wonder the scripture says, Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Finally, we see in the cross another paradox: The power of God was shown through weakness. Though it appeared as though Christ was vulnerable and weak, the cross of Christ was no failure. Christ the King was nailed to the cross in abject shame and rejection, but ultimately He displayed God’s power by submitting to the weakness of the cross.

2 Corinthians 13:4 “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.”

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

The world sees the cross as a symbol of weakness on the part of God, but it is actually the Christian’s ensign of victory. The cross has power like no other force or influence on earth. It has the power to cause lives to be reborn and find new hope and direction. It has the power to forgive sins and erase the guilty conscience. It has the power to create within us the heart of an humble servant. And it has such power that it has fixated the world for 2,000 years. It’s just as Jesus said, “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.” No other religion has the power of Christianity, because no other religion is built around a cross. That sounds like a paradox itself, but it’s the great power of the gospel message that no other message possesses.

What do you see in the cross of Christ? Do you merely see a sad story of a lonely man who died a cruel and underserved death? Do you see nothing more than a fact of history, or do you see God’s love for you and His passionate desire to save you from sin? Do you see it as your only hope of escape from the condemnation of sin? Would you not put your faith and trust in what happened on the cross of Christ lo those many centuries ago? Allow Jesus to pay your debt so that you won’t incur the unlimited wrath of God in the day that is to come. Would you not be united with Christ in baptism today and allow the benefits of His death, His cleansing and soul-saving blood to flow over your soul and wash it clean?

Acts 22:16 “And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”

I hope you’ll do that today.

 

©2016 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.

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We’ve heard a lot about building and tearing down walls in the world. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan famously stood in West Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate and challenged Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall that had divided East and West Berlin since 1961. In 1989, people finally began to cross over that wall, and by 1992, it had been demolished. Then there are some today who are interested in building walls. Some say the United States should build a wall along its border, arguing that it is necessary to preserve the security and prosperity of America. We’ll leave that to the politicians to debate.

Instead, I’m concerned about walls that God has built. When you look back through the Bible, walls were important. In ancient times, they were used to fortify a city. A wall was erected around a city, and a gate would allow people in and out. Watchmen would be perched upon the wall to scan the horizon for danger and warn the city leaders of any threat that approached.

Spiritually, God is concerned about walls around His city of truth, around His kingdom. The book of Revelation pictures the new Jerusalem as having a wall great and high around it (Revelation 21:12). We know that a wall is to exist today between the church and the world. A wall of demarcation and distinction, as the people of God are told to be a holy people, called out from the world, separated and consecrated unto God. That was also the case in the Old Testament. The scriptures picture the Jewish people as having a wall about them as a nation, separating them from all of the other nations of the world since they were the covenant people of God. God wanted them to be very careful to maintain moral, ethnic and religious purity throughout their days as a nation. Not that they might look down on the nations about them; rather so God could use them as a channel of revelation and blessing to the other nations of earth.

In Ephesians 2, the apostle Paul teaches us that that wall or fence that separated the Jews from the Gentiles was the law that God exclusively gave to them through Moses. But as he argues throughout the chapter, we’re not saved today by keeping the law of Moses, but by grace through faith in Christ. The law of Moses served its purpose, then was taken out of the way and mankind was reconciled together and to God through Christ. This is what he is teaching them here.

Ephesians 2:11-14 “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;”

What was that wall of partition? And how did God remove it? What happened when He did so? And are men today trying to re-build the wall that God tore down?

It’s a dangerous thing to tear down walls that God builds. It’s also a serious matter to rebuild walls that God tore down. In fact, that’s what it seems men are doing today in religion. On one hand, it seems that many want the wall that God built between the church and the world taken away. While at the same time, they are eagerly taking their trowels, stones and mortar and building the very walls that God DID decree to be torn down.

Paul refers to one such wall in our text passage of Ephesian 2:14 as the middle wall of partition that had divided Jew from Gentile. What was he talking about? Some scholars say that he was referring to a literal wall that existed in the Jewish temple. It was a wall or partition that separated the court of the Gentiles from the rest of the temple that was restricted to Jews. Gentiles were forbidden to pass that point. That physical partition was even representative of the spiritual division, and even by this time, a hostility between Jews and Gentiles. You may recall that in Acts 21:28, Paul himself created an uproar when he was accused of taking Trophimus beyond that wall, thus polluting the temple according to the Jews. Some argue that Paul makes reference to that wall here. Perhaps there is a spiritual allusion to it, but the problem with that interpretation is that if he is speaking of the literal wall of the temple, it actually stood until the entire temple was destroyed, and that didn’t happen for at least eight years after Paul wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus.

Rather, Paul tells us what the middle wall refers to.

Ephesians 2:15 “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;”

In other words, the law of Moses. He goes on to imply that the Old Testament law created two groups of people. How did the law distinguish between Jew and Gentile? Well, the law of Moses was not given to all mankind; it was only given to the Jews. It was part of the Abrahamic covenant—that is, those who were born of the seed of Abraham and were heirs to the promises made to him. That’s very important to note. The law was not given to ALL peoples. Every other nation of the earth was excluded from the covenant and thus, the law pertained not to them, but to those who were in a covenant relationship with God. All of the other nations of the earth were Gentiles according to the flesh.

But Paul says the wall that divided Jew and Gentile (the law that made that distinction) was torn down and taken out of the way, thus making one new man (or body) instead of two. That means that today, God’s people are made up of people of every nation and tribe, and not just those who are Abraham’s children by physical birth. That was a very difficult lesson, especially for the Jewish Christians of the first century to accept. They placed great confidence in the flesh—in the fact that they had the blood of Abraham coursing thru their veins.

The great tragedy was that they misunderstood this distinction that God had made at that time between them and the Gentiles. Oh, they were very careful to maintain that fleshly and national separation from other peoples, but they weren’t so concerned about the moral and spiritual distinction. In Romans 2, Paul shows they were just as great sinners as the Gentiles, yet they went about boasting of their Abrahamic lineage. They might have been able to trace their physical line back to Abraham, but the fact was they were not his children spiritually because they did not possess the faith and character that he possessed. If they had, they would not have rejected the word of God and the prophets. They would not have crucified Jesus and rejected the gospel preached by His apostles.

Paul is showing in Ephesians 1-3 as he does in some of his other epistles, that there is now no difference in the eyes of God as pertaining to the flesh. That Christ, by fulfilling the law in His life and death, had torn down the wall between Jews and Gentiles, resulting in one body made up of those who are redeemed by the blood of Christ through the kind of obedient faith that Abraham possessed. In fact, Paul tells us who the true children of Abraham are. Paul wrote the following to Gentiles who had been converted to Christ.

Galatians 3:26-27 “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Who were the children of God during the time of the law? The children of Abraham, by physical birth of the lineage of Abraham. But he says now, ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Let’s read on.

Galatians 3:28-29 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

You see, he’s saying that even Gentiles are Abraham’s seed. No longer was there to be hostility between the Jew and Gentile. In fact, the law was never intended to make the Jew despise or hate the Gentile, as ended up being the case. Rather, the law was God’s way of using the Jewish people as channels of revelation and blessing to the whole world. God would give the lost human race a Messiah and a redeemer from sin through the children of Abraham. That’s why God told Abraham when He repeated the promise to him In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed (Genesis 22:18). That’s a Messianic promise. That’s talking about the fact that through the lineage of Abraham, God would provide the world with a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let’s go back to our text and read it in the full context.

Ephesians 2:13-19 “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off (Gentiles) are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our (Jews and Gentiles) peace, who hath made both (Jews and Gentiles) one (How and where? In the church of Christ), and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us (that is, the law that delineated us); Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances (talking of the Old Testament law that came by Moses); for to make in himself of twain one new man (the church of Jesus Christ), so making peace; And that he might reconcile both (Jew and Gentile) unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both (Jew and Gentile) have access by one Spirit (the revelation of the Spirit—the gospel) unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;”

Paul clearly says that the wall has come down! Even in his own time, there were those trying to re-build the wall that God tore down. Their efforts continue even today. Did you know that many beliefs and religious practices are in effect an effort to re-build what God tore down and took out of the way?

For example, there are those who still seek to make a national and racial distinction between people. The whole doctrinal system known as dispensationalism which is wildly popular and widely believed among many denominations today, makes such a distinction. They tell us that the church is a Gentile institution and the Jews, on the other hand, are still a covenant people with God today. In other words, they say God has two programs: one for the Gentile, through faith in Christ, and one for the fleshly Jew. They say His plan for the Jews is delayed until later, while presently He is blessing the Gentiles in the church age. Well, that’s not what Paul teaches in Ephesians. Paul says He has made both one. No distinction. Both one in Christ. When? Not in the world to come, but now. In the church. The church’s very beginning consisted of whom?—Jews, who kept their covenant with God and accepted the Messiah when He came. They believed and obeyed the gospel when it was preached. They were added to the church beginning on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:47).

We read what Paul wrote to the Galatians in Galatians 3:28 where he said there is neither Jew nor Greek. Under Christ’s economy, as opposed to the Mosaic economy, there is neither Jew nor Greek in the flesh. Neither bond nor free, neither male nor female. But all are one in Christ, and if in Christ, then Abraham’s seed. Who are Abraham’s seed?—All those who are Christ’s. Just Jews?—No, Gentiles, too. Not by physical birth, but by the new birth. And heirs according to the promise. Spiritual Israel is not made up merely of Jews, but spiritual Jews—Jew and Gentile—who have come to Christ.

Any person who makes a racial, ethnic or national distinction between people does NOT understand the gospel. There is not a Jewish religion and a Gentile religion. There is not a church for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. There is the church of Christ, made up of all who have obeyed Christ, Jew OR Gentile.

Also, the church is not an American institution. Nor is it a Roman institution. Nor a European or African institution. It is a heavenly institution. That’s it. God does not have a white church and a black church, a red church and a yellow church. He only has the blood-bought church of Jesus the Lord. Consequently, any person who discriminates, hates or looks down upon another person because of the country they were born in, the color of their skin, or their socioeconomic status, any person who would withhold the gospel from such an one, or would not allow such an one a seat of honor in the kingdom of God equal to their own is what the Bible calls a respecter of persons. And the Bible plainly states that such a person commits sin (James 2:9). There is no place for racism and ethnic or national delineation or distinction in the kingdom of the Lord.

Secondly, the religious division in the form of denominationalism and sectarianism that exists today is an affront to God and is an unwitting effort to re-build the wall that God tore down. Many say that denominations are simply an unavoidable fact of religious life. In fact, the religious diversity that surrounds us is even strangely celebrated by many. We’re led to believe that the church is made up of all kinds of varied beliefs and practices represented by distinct fellowships of Christians around the world. My friend, nothing is farther from the truth. Nothing is more contrary to the spirit of Christianity as Christ authored it.

Think about it. If Christ had built His church to consist of many sects and fellowships and differing denominations, wouldn’t we immediately see that in the writings of the New Testament? Yet, we see the opposite. We see the apostles working against that. Couldn’t Christ have established a Jewish church and also a Gentile church, thus avoiding some of the conflict of the first century that was due to the brethren’s immaturity and misunderstanding? Some seemed to treat the church as though it were divided into two branches, including the apostle Peter. He was guilty of treating his Jewish and Gentile brethren in an inconsistent manner, and Paul had to rebuke him for it when he saw him in Antioch (Galatians 2:11). No, instead Christ reconciled both Jew and Gentile unto God in one body by the cross(Ephesians 2:16). What’s the body?

Colossians 1:18 “And he is the head of the body, the church…”

The body of Christ is the church of Christ. That is the will of Christ Jesus today: one body, one fellowship, one church. The idea is foreign to the scriptures to have Baptist Christians, Methodist Christians, Presbyterian Christians, Holiness Christians, Assemblies of God Christians or Seventh-Day Adventist Chistians…Rather, what we read about in the book of Acts and throughout the New Testament are simply Christians. Members of the one church that Jesus established on the Day of Pentecost, and made thus by obedience to the gospel. Being baptized into Christ for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38, Galatians 3:27). Added by Christ Himself to that church (Acts 2:41,47).

May God help us to restore the faith that was once delivered and respect the fact that Christ tore down the wall of religious division in His death. When people come along today and celebrate the multiplicity of churches in the world with statements like one is as good as another and we are to honor, accept and respect all religious ideologies and philosophies, they are taking their brick and mortar and re-building a wall that God tore down.

I would lastly point out that men are re-building the wall that God tore down in Christ when they seek to observe the law of Moses today. We’ve been made free from that law. Paul was very plain about that in his epistles.

Galatians 2:18-19 “For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.”

What’s the broader context here? He is addressing the efforts of Judaizing Christians to go back and enforce the law of Moses (particularly circumcision under the Abrahamic covenant) on this side of the cross. To hold that over Gentiles and enforce that on them. Paul spent much of his time and energy combatting that false doctrine and heresy that afflicted the early church.

You may ask is anyone really doing that today? Are there any Judaizers left in the world today? All around us, if you stop and think about it. We see Sabbath keeping, instrumental music in worship (I know that is very popular and widely accepted today, but that is an Old Testament precept that is not taught in the New Testament.), the idea of a special priesthood (distinction between the clergy and laity), the burning of incense in religious service, the keeping of Old Testament days and feasts…All of that comes from the Old Testament—not the New Testament.

Think of it this way: if your pattern for worship and church organization necessarily comes from the Old Testament and the temple, your worship is not in spirit and in truth. If you must point to an Old Testament scripture to justify something that you offer to God as worship today, you are going back to the law and unwittingly, you are helping to build a wall that God tore down in Jesus Christ.

May the Lord help us all to preserve the walls that He has built, and on the other hand, respect the results of other walls that He, in Christ Jesus the Lord, tore down. And thank the Lord that He DID tear them down, that we might be saved in Christ.

 

©2016 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.