Taking up the Cross

Which master do you serve? (Romans 6)

2010-02-26T12:21:00.006-05:00

1. A misinterpretation of the text.
Many often misinterpret the 1st and 15th verse of Romans 6 to mean that Paul is calling out the church in Rome for following this idea that if you sin more grace will increase, therefore sin is good. What was actually going on here is that Paul was addressing his Jewish opponents that were saying, according to Paul's gospel people would take this philosophy and thus sin more in the name of grace. This is ridiculous and if we have that mindset, we need to stop it, it is sinful.

2. You can only serve one of two masters, there is no middle ground.
We are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. There is no middle ground. There has been an unbiblical concept creep into the church that there is a middle person. This person has backslid and is not living for Christ, but professed faith at some point in their life. Romans 6 says that this person is either saved or not, no middle ground.

3. What the text is not saying.
We may quickly say that than people that sin lose their salvation. No. That is not what the text is saying. Sin still exists in the life of Christians, if they say otherwise than you just caught them in sin. That is why Paul says in verse 19 that our salvation leads to sanctification. Sanctification is a lifelong process of becoming more like Christ.

4. Practical Application
The application is seen right in the text. Present ourselves as slaves to righteousness. (6:13) Live our lives for God. (6:10) Understand the parallels between Christ's life and death and our salvation presented in 5-11.

Romans 6 is a good chunk of meat, but is a refreshing break from the tension so far found in Romans. Read it. Memorize it. Live it.

Election

2009-02-22T00:41:00.002-05:00

That single word brings up thousands of years of debate, arguments, and bitterness. You have most likely encountered this word, whether it be in the Bible, a "Calvinist", or if you have been around America that past year or so. What I ask is that you leave your preconceived notions, grudges, and bitterness towards this topic at the door. Allow the scriptures to shape your thinking on this issue, as much as you can fight the urge to allow your human logic to creep into your thinking. The Bible is the Bible, read it and believe it. I will grab a few scriptures from around the New Testament and bring them to your attention. If you have questions or comments, please voice your opinion.

John 6:37-"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out."

-This is Jesus speaking. He is saying here that God will give us to Jesus. When God gives us to Jesus, we can not and will not resist that calling on our life.

John 17:9 "I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours."

Acts 13:48 Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

-Again and again we see this idea that God has given those He chose to Jesus and those that are given to Jesus, believe because they can not and will not resist that calling. This idea is called irresistible grace.

Romans 8:29-30 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. ³⁰ Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

Galatians 1:15-17 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, ¹⁶ to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, ¹⁷ nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

2 Peter 1:10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble;

These verses are the tip of the iceberg. There are so many verses in the Bible that speak on this subject. I urge you to get a good translation of the scriptures and seek this out. I say a good translation because there are translations and paraphrases out there now that are watering down the original Greek. It is not pleasant to hear that God has chosen some for salvation and not others, due to this translators of versions such as the NLT and TNIV water down the strong language that is used in the Bible.

Election is a glorious doctrine. Let me walk you through the salvation story.

You were dead in your sins, dead, dead, dead. Not living, not able to make a choice one way or another. Also you were a slave, to your sinful flesh, sinful desires, which in affect makes you an enemy of God. In court you would be guilty, sentenced to death, you would be sent right from court to the chair. Breaking even one command of the law makes us a sinner and all of the above applies to us. Thankfully a man died 2,000 years ago to pay the penalty for that sin. God saw that we needed saved, that we had a sentence of death on our heads and gave us the payment for the punishment we should have taken. God than called us from our death state, He pulled us out from the grave and breathed into us life, eternal life, Holy Spirit filled life. From that calling we believe in this book, we believe in a gracious God that gave His Son for us, we believe in the whole Bible, we love Jesus. This is election, to many people get caught up in the numbers and in our human logic. God did not have to save anyone, why should He? But He does save many and if you are a believer in Christ, be thankful for the grace that was shown to you, be humble at the fact that the God of the universe chose you out of all humanity to save!!! If you are not a believer, you can be. Repent of your sins, seek forgiveness, and trust in Jesus. Give your life to Him. That is it. There are no hoops to jump through. Jesus loves you.

I hope this has enlightened the topic. I pray that this was more helpful than offensive and again if you have any comments or questions speak out or get a hold of me through email.

Grace and Peace

Sanctification

2009-01-15T00:07:00.002-05:00

Sanctification, a process, lifelong, a hard road, but one that is blessed by our Lord and Savior. The transliterated word, hagiasmos, means consecrated or purified. As I stated before, I find that the 3cu view on this aspect of the christian life is incorrect. Sanctification is a process, not an event that occurs later in life as I quoted from the belief section of the 3cu website.

Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may know what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul's urgent plea is that the Romans die daily to there flesh, renew themselves in scripture and live pleasing to the Lord. Paul uses many key words that I believe reveal the doctrine of sanctification, conformed, transformed, renewal and testing. All of these words indicate a period of time, not a single event. Sanctification therefore is a process, a walk with God, a striving for our true love, our Savior and Lord. We all go through periods of time when we are tested by temptation, put through trials, and fall victim to the luster of sin and our fleshly desires. Often times we fall, turn away, and indulge in those sinful desires. However, there are times when the Holy Spirit grips our heart, drives us from the temptation, points our eyes to God and makes the love of Jesus more lovely than anything this earth would have to offer. This is the sanctification process, God purifying us more and more each day. Yes, there will be rough days, sometimes we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but God is still working, He is still there, loving us and working together all things for our good.

This process is hard, we must die to our flesh daily, we must be most satisfied in Christ. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and gives us the strength and power to live in a way pleasing to Christ. The important thing to remember is that God is gracious with us, His mercies are never ceasing, His work on the cross paid our sins, past, present, and future. In the hard times we must keep our eyes focused on the cross, the prize, Jesus. We must be most satisfied in Him, not the temporary pleasures that we so often put Jesus aside for. Sanctification is a beautiful process that every christian goes through. What a honor to live day by day for the God of the universe!!!!

Justification

2008-11-17T00:15:00.006-05:00

I wanted to continue with my theme of covering some big theological, hard to understand words and also continue on a path of covering the -ations of the Bible. Justification came to mind next.

We believe in entire sanctification as a definite crisis experience subsequent to regeneration. It is wrought on the basis of faith and consecration through the infilling of the Holy Spirit by which the believer is cleansed from all sin and to which the Spirit testifies.

We believe in the progressive growth in grace toward Christian maturity through a consistent Christian life of good works which springs from faith in God and obedience to His Word. This growth we believe to be a necessary complement to the above mentioned crisis experience.

This statement is taken from the Ohio Christian University beliefs page. I am using the CCCU (Church of Christ in Christian Union) as an example, not to degrade them or put them down in any way, but because this is where I had my first encounter with justification and where I first started to pursue the topic. I also use this statement of belief because it is a commonly held belief that I disagree with. I hope that you understand justification and where the body has disagreements and hopefully you can find a place to stand based on scripture.

You ask, why did you put the above quote up there? It's definitely talking about sanctification there!!! So it would seem, but look closer. The "crisis experience" mentioned above is in fact an occurrence that takes place at the time of salvation (a.k.a-justification), not some time later. I would add also that sanctification in the context of scripture and the use here is contradictory to each other. The growth in grace that is mentioned is sanctification and the crisis experience is justification. (Just to clarify, or maybe i just confused you even more)

First, what is justification. Justification is the act of God pardoning our sins because of the substitutionary work of Christ and imputing Christ's righteousness to us so that we can have eternal life. This occurs through faith and faith alone.

Romans 3:24-26 and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation
by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over
former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 5:18 Therefore, as one trespassOr the trespass of one led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness Or the act of righteousness of one leads to justification and life for
all men.

Romans 3:28-For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law

This process happens at the time of salvation. This is the crisis experience mentioned above!! When God brings us to life from our state of death, it is a legal transaction. Just as in a court case, when the judge throws down the gavel and declares a verdict in a case, the word is final. How much more so is the verdict of the Almighty, Perfect, Eternal Judge. That is the crisis experience. Christ is victor!!! He paid for our sins!!! He was victorious over death!!! When we place our faith in Jesus, He pays for our sins in that moment, He takes us in His hand and never lets us go. (John 10:28) There is no subsequent work of justification later in a Christians life. This just cannot be found in scripture. The believer in Christ is saved by faith alone, justified, and sanctified in a life-long continuous process led by the Holy Spirit.

Why does this matter? This is a topic that is crucial to the everyday life of a christian. I believe the Bible presents justification as an act that occurs at the moment of salvation. If this act were to occur later in the Christian's walk with Christ, than up to that point the christian is not actually declared innocent by the work of Christ on the Cross. This brings me to my knees in gratefulness that I do not have to live everyday of my life in fear that I might lose my salvation. According to the quote above, you can lose your salvation at any moment, I believe this creates a very "me" centered christian. Instead of marveling at the grace of God and basking in the presence of the Lord, we end up fearful and focused on if we are doing enough good or not doing bad things so we won't lose our salvation. What a terrible life to live!!!

In light of the justification that we freely received from our abundantly loving God, we should glorify Him and thank Him for His Son that took the penalty of death that we should have received. We should live confidently in our faith and live a life pleasing to God. We should share this good news with others!!!!

Propitiation

2008-10-09T00:08:00.003-04:00

In our culture the wrath of God is either diminished and non-existent or taken to the extreme of God hating us and showing no love. The Biblical view of God's wrath is scary, but through Jesus we have hope.

Jesus was a (hold on to your seats for the big theological word of the day................)------ PROPITIATION for us. So for people like me that just saw that fly way over their heads. This is the definition given by http://www.theopedia.com/ for propitiation.

Propitiation is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross by which He appeases the wrath of God who would otherwise be offended by our sin and demand that we pay the penalty for it.

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:2

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:10

We have greatly offended a Holy God, the Creator of the Earth, YHWH, the Almighty, a Perfect God, we have sinned and rebelled against this God that has blessed us with life. We have enough audacity to spit in His face and tell Him that we know better than He does, that we can take care of ourselves and that we are king. No, false, wrong, incorrect. We basically are the worst of the worst. We deserve death, to be crushed and God could do this to us, but instead of demolishing us with a flick of his pinky, He sent His Son to die for us, to lay down His life, to take upon Himself the full wrath of a Holy God. He took the punishment for us, He pleaded guilty in court, He took the rap for our misconduct.

What a wonderful Savior we have in Jesus! How awesome is it that we have a God that would send His Son to take the punishment for our sins? (Correct Answer: Amazingly Awesome)

In light of this TRIPP: Turn your eyes to Jesus, Recognize the seriousness of sin and turn from it, Inspect God's word thoroughly to know more deeply the God over all creation, Praise God for His provision of a substitute, Preach the Gospel to anyone and everyone that has ears to hear