glorification

A Matter of Life or Death

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

18 Yes, and I will rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, 20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. 24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again. – Philippians 1:18-26 ESV

Paul opens this section of his letter by reconfirming his determination to rejoice in his circumstances. While news of his imprisonment had been disconcerting to the believers in Philippi, for Paul it had been just another God-ordained opportunity to spread the gospel. If others were attempting to take advantage of his situation by filling the role of messenger in his absence, so be it. As long as Christ was being lifted up, Paul was perfectly okay with it all, even if some of these people were motivated by envy rather than a sincere love for the lost.

Paul knew that any success he had enjoyed in his ministry had not been because of his powers of persuasion, but was due to the power of the gospel. In writing to the believers in Thessalonica, Paul reminded them of the treatment he and Silas had suffered in Philippi because of their preaching of the gospel. Not long after their arrival there, they had cast out a demon from a young slave girl. With the exorcism of the demon, she lost her ability to act as a fortune teller for her masters and they lost a much-needed source of revenue. In an act of revenge, they grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the magistrates of the city, where the two men were severely beaten and thrown in jail. Paul reminds the Thessalonian believers that all of this had taken place just before he arrived in their town.

You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.

For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. – 1 Thessalonians 2:1-6 NLT

Despite all that had happened in Philippi, Paul and his companions boldly declared the gospel in Thessalonica, even in the face of opposition. They did so, not for money or the praise of men, but to please God as His faithful messengers. So, Paul was not concerned with the motives of others; as long as they were preaching salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, he was satisfied and could rejoice. He had never been in the ministry for what he could get out of it. For him, it was a calling, not a job, and He never saw himself as this gifted spokesman using his talents to further the Kingdom of God. He even describes himself as nothing more than a fragile clay jar containing the great treasure of the gospel message (2 Corinthians 4:7). When he wrote to the Corinthian believers, he reminded them that their conversions were due to the power of the Spirit, not his own eloquence.

When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan. For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified. I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God. – 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 NLT

But as Paul writes to the Philippian believers from his house arrest in Rome, he shares with them the tremendous internal conflict he was having. It had nothing to do with a fear of death; he knew that was a possible outcome of his pending trial before Nero and he was perfectly at peace with that. In fact, he flatly stated, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23 ESV). He saw death as a reward, not a punishment. But he also struggled with the desire to continue his ministry among the Philippians and other congregations he had helped to start. As much as he longed to be with the Lord, he felt that his work on Christ’s behalf was far from over. That’s why he told the Philippians, “I am convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith” (Philippians 1:25 NLT).

One thing motivated Paul’s actions and attitudes – bringing glory to the name of Christ. If he could do that through deliverance from prison and a continuation of his ministry, so be it. But if his trial resulted in a death sentence, he saw that as a gracious deliverance by God from this sin-marred world. When all was said and done, Paul simply wanted to honor Christ in all that he did, which is why he stated, “I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die” (Philippians 1:20 NLT).

Paul was not making much of himself. He was not bragging about his superior spirituality or attempting to set himself up as some icon of righteousness and religious virtue. He was attempting to encourage the believers in Philippi to share the same perspective on life that he had. He didn’t view his arrest and imprisonment as a setback or a sign of God’s disfavor with him. He sincerely believed that it was all a part of God’s will for his life. By maintaining his focus on Christ and trusting in the will of God for his life, Paul had “learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Philippians 4:11 NLT). So, he could say, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Philippians 4:12 NLT).

He knew that the Philippian believers were facing their own set of difficulties. They were going to have struggles in their faith journey, just as he had, and he wanted them to stay strong, to remain committed to the cause of Christ, and to see the sovereign hand of God in all that happened in and around their lives.

Paul was convinced that he would be released and would one day see them again. But in the meantime, he wanted to encourage them to keep on keeping on. Later on in this letter, Paul writes these powerful words of testimony and encouragement.

I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us… – Philippians 3:14 NLT

Then he follows up this statement of personal conviction and commitment with a call for them to follow his lead.

Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. – Philippians 3:17 NLT

In the verses that follow, Paul provides the Philippians with specific details concerning the conduct of all those who claim heavenly citizenship as God’s children. Their journey of faith was not going to be easy or trouble-free, but God had equipped each of them with the indwelling Holy Spirit and placed them in the body of Christ so that they had all the resources they needed to thrive, not just survive what lay ahead.

Paul was torn between two opinions; he was ready to see his Lord and Savior face to face, but he was also anxious to continue his ministry of exhortation and evangelization around the world. He was prepared to face the ongoing struggles of doing God’s will in a fallen world but, should his life end in death, he saw that as a promotion, not a punishment. So, whether he faced a long life serving God that was marked by pain, persecution, and opposition, or if his next step was heaven, he could rejoice because he was in God’s good and gracious hands.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Where He Leads Me, I Will Follow

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Make two silver trumpets. Of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for breaking camp. 3 And when both are blown, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 4 But if they blow only one, then the chiefs, the heads of the tribes of Israel, shall gather themselves to you. 5 When you blow an alarm, the camps that are on the east side shall set out. 6 And when you blow an alarm the second time, the camps that are on the south side shall set out. An alarm is to be blown whenever they are to set out. 7 But when the assembly is to be gathered together, you shall blow a long blast, but you shall not sound an alarm. 8 And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets. The trumpets shall be to you for a perpetual statute throughout your generations. 9 And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the Lord your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies. 10 On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the Lord your God.” – Numbers 10:1-10 ESV

God was leading His people. In chapter nine, Moses recorded how God had chosen to manifest His glory and presence in the form of a pillar of cloud that would rest over the Tabernacle. It was to serve as a visual reminder of God’s presence among them and as a means by which God directed their journey through the wilderness.

…when the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out, or if it continued for a day and a night, when the cloud lifted they set out. – Numbers 9:21 ESV

But in the opening verses of chapter 10, Moses records a secondary source of divinely ordained directional aid: Two silver trumpets.

Now the Lord said to Moses, “Make two trumpets of hammered silver for calling the community to assemble and for signaling the breaking of camp.” – Numbers 10:1-2 NLT

“The last directions given at Sinai deal with the manufacture and use of two silver trumpets to coordinate the movements of the tribes on their march through the wilderness. Though they were to be guided by the cloud, more precise means of control were necessary if the people were to march in the tight-knit formations envisaged in chapters 2-3.” – Gordon J. Wenham, Numbers, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries

From the moment God delivered the Israelites from their captivity in Egypt, He had directed their path. He had gone before them, guiding their every step along the way, and providing for their every need. But they had to follow. They couldn’t veer to the right or the left or go off in another direction. If they did, they would suffer the consequences.

God’s leadership required faithful followers. It reminds me of the chorus of the classic old hymn, Where He Leads Me I Will Follow. It simply states, “Where He leads me I will follow; I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.”

The people of Israel had spent nearly a year camped at the base of Mount Sinai. During that time, God had given them His law and provided them with the construction plans for the Tabernacle. He had also given them the sacrificial system as a means of atoning for sin and receiving forgiveness. There at Mount Sinai, they enjoyed God’s presence and provision, but Mount Sinai was not their final destination. They were not where God wanted them to be. So, “In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle of the testimony, and the people of Israel set out by stages from the wilderness of Sinai. And the cloud settled down in the wilderness of Paran” (Numbers 10:11-12 ESV).

God led and the people followed. The trumpets blew and the people gathered to receive their marching orders. As the cloud lifted from above the Tabernacle, it signaled that it was time to break camp and follow God’s leading.

God had a purpose behind everything He did. To get the people of Israel all the way through the wilderness, He knew it was going to require much more than good directions. He could lead them and they could follow but they would have to do so according to His terms. Their following would have to include faithful obedience to His righteous rules and divine requirements. They would have to follow obediently.

God could have miraculously transported them straight to the promised land and eliminated the need for a journey altogether but, instead, He took His time. He gave them rules of conduct. He painstakingly provided them with commands designed to regulate their conduct as they followed Him. The wilderness wanderings were going to be a time of testing; to see if they would live set-apart lives, faithfully following God’s prescribed plan for His people. God didn’t just expect the people to follow, He wanted them to do so faithfully. In other words, they were to follow according to His terms. They had to keep His laws. They had to celebrate His festivals. They had to keep the Sabbath. They had to regularly sacrifice for their sins. They had to deal with impurity in their midst.

Their journey from Mount Sinai to the land of Canaan was to be marked by obedience. When the silver trumpets sounded, they were to heed the call and follow God’s lead. Following God requires faithful adherence to His commands. From our vantage point on this side of the cross, it’s sometimes easy to look back at the Israelites and wonder how they could have failed to realize just how good they had it. They seem to have been slow to comprehend how blessed they were to have God’s actual presence living among them. They got to witness incredible miracles and experience amazing acts of provision, such as manna that fell from the sky and fresh water that flowed from a rock. They wore sandals and clothes that never wore out. Yet despite all this, they continued to disobey Him by disregarding His commands. Yes, when the trumpets sounded, the Israelites followed the cloud but their actions along the way revealed that they were simply going through the motions.

The psalmist writes, “How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and insulted him  in the desert! They again challenged God, and offended  the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78:40-41 ESV).

But before we point our fingers in accusation and derision, we need to realize that their story is far too often our story. We too are on a journey. We’re walking through this life on our way to another “land” that God has promised to give us. He has chosen us as His own and He has given us the indwelling presence of His Spirit who leads and directs us. God speaks to us through His Word and He calls us to live lives that reflect our unique standing as His children. He has commanded us to live holy lives and provided us with everything we need to make it possible.

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. – 2 Peter 1:3 NLT

And yet, Peter also revealed that God’s Spirit-empowered children will have to constantly fight the urge to replace godliness with worldliness.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” – 1 Peter 1:14-16 ESV

For the Israelites, Mount Sinai held special meaning; it was there that they received God’s law. At the base of the mountain, they had received God’s plan for the sacrificial system and the hope of atonement for sin. But they were not meant to remain in Sinai’s shadow. God had other plans for them. As life-altering as Sinai had been, it was not their final destination. While they could have grown comfortable living beneath the mountain peak where God’s glory was displayed in smoke, fire, thunder, and lightning, their future lay elsewhere. When the cloud moved, the trumpets would sound, and the people of God would leave Sinai in their rear-view mirror. The place where God appeared in glory, declared His law, gave instructions for the Tabernacle, and established the sacrificial system would soon become a distant memory. But the God of Sinai had not abandoned them; He was going before them, guiding them to the land of promise.

For many of us as Christians, we bask in the glory of our salvation story. We focus on the day that we placed our faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and remain content to dwell on that occasion as the most significant moment of our lives. But our salvation experience was just the beginning of the journey. God expects us to move on, following His leading and relying on His Spirit to continue His sanctifying work in our lives. We must recognize the fact that our salvation was the beginning, not the end. There is life to be lived – in Christ. He is to be followed, not just believed in.

Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24 ESV). There is a cost and a commitment to following Christ. It is a daily event that requires faithful obedience to His will and His way.

Jesus had many followers when He walked this earth. But when things got tough and they discovered that His journey was going to include suffering and even death, the majority of his followers fled. Believing in Jesus was easy; following Him would prove to be a difficult and sometimes risky proposition. A fact His 12 disciples would soon learn

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were thought to be faithful followers of God but Jesus repeatedly condemned them for their hypocrisy and self-righteousness. He compared them to their ancient ancestors who had killed God’s prophets because they despised God’s message. Like their predecessors, the Pharisees were followers of God in name only. They lived by their own set of standards and put on a facade of faithfulness but were actually blind to the will of God for their lives. Highly knowledgeable of God’s Scriptures, they were unable to recognize the Word of God standing in their midst. They refused to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah and Savior.

Following is not easy, especially when we’re prone to go our own way. Even after salvation, we are constantly tempted to take our lives into our own hands and determine our own destiny. But God has a plan for our lives and a path for each of us to take. We are on a journey from salvation to our ultimate glorification. The future Kingdom is to be our final home. But for the present, we are wandering through this earthly wilderness, led by God’s Spirit and buoyed by the promise of our eternal inheritance.

The apostle Peter encourages us to live with our eyes on the prize so that we might endure the pitfalls and perils of the journey.

It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. – 1 Peter 1:3-6 NLT

We are living in what Paul Tripp calls “the gospel gap.” Our salvation is in our past; the eternal Kingdom is in our future. For now, we live in that in-between time where our sanctification is taking place. We are in the process of being transformed into the image of Christ as we faithfully follow His example of love, obedience, humility, and service. It is during our time on this planet that we are to live out our salvation in tangible and practical ways that emulate the nature of Christ. We do so by allowing the indwelling Spirit of God to powerfully flow through us, producing a lifestyle that is radically different than the world around us. As we faithfully follow Christ it results in our reflection of His nature to the world around us. It is as we walk with Him, living in obedience to Him, that we become increasingly more like Him.

The silver trumpets were to be used to call the people to action. Whether they were a signal for gathering, celebrating, traveling, or going to war, the trumpets were to be obeyed. God was leading and He expected His people to follow. He was declaring His will and they were to submit to it – willingly and faithfully.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

It Always Comes Back to Grace

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. – Galatians 6:11-18 ESV

The fear of man has always been a real-life, everyday problem for believers and non-believers alike. Everyone fears being rejected, disliked, misunderstood, or mistreated for their views. Our deep-seated desire for attention and affection sometimes drives us to do and say things that go against what we believe. We don’t want to be the odd man out so we tend to give in rather than stand up for our beliefs. Peer pressure is a powerful force in every person’s life, and Paul knew that. He was fully aware that following Christ put a target on the back of every believer. Bearing the cross of Christ was a costly endeavor that often brought His followers rejection and ridicule, including his brothers and sisters in Galatia.

Paul had first-hand experience with persecution and rejection. As a Jew and a former member of the sect of the Pharisees, he faced intense backlash when news of his conversion to Christianity became known. His entire public ministry as an apostle of Jesus Christ had been marked by conflict and the constant temptation to give in to the fear of men by compromising the gospel message and disobeying his divine calling.

Yet Paul had stood his ground, refusing to allow his fear of man to get the better of him. But he couldn’t say the same thing for the Judaizers, those individuals who were demanding that all Gentile converts undergo the Jewish rite of circumcision to validate their salvation. According to Paul, their zealous efforts to persuade the Galatian believers were motivated by the fear of man. The party of the circumcision, as Paul referred to them, were Jews who confessed to being followers of Christ, but Paul insists that they were promoting circumcision out of fear of rejection by their fellow Jews.

Those who are trying to force you to be circumcised want to look good to others. They don’t want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save. – Galatians 6:12 NLT

Paul insisted that these Jewish Christians feared being persecuted and ridiculed for putting all their hope and faith in the cross of Christ alone. To do so would require them to reject their dependence upon the law and their reliance upon their own self-effort to justify themselves before God. Their commitment to the doctrine of faith alone in Christ alone would make them social pariahs among their Jewish brethren, and they were not willing to endure that kind of rejection.

But Paul pointed out the absurdity of their logic.

…even those who advocate circumcision don’t keep the whole law themselves. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast about it and claim you as their disciples. – Galatians 6:13 NLT

They were more concerned with what their fellow Jews thought of them than they were with how God would perceive their actions. This was man-pleasing at its ugliest. Paul knew that their message had a deadly side-effect that would lead people away from the saving knowledge of faith in Christ alone. For Paul, the message of salvation had nothing to do with works or human effort. It could not be earned. It was a grace gift provided by God Almighty Himself. This is what led Paul to append the following line to the end of his letter: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14 ESV).

Paul wasn’t going to boast about his Hebrew heritage, his resumé as a Pharisee, his education under Gamaliel, the great Hebrew rabbi, or his missionary exploits. At one point he confessed, “But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me – and not without results” (1 Corinthians 15:10 NLT).  Paul had been transformed by the saving work of Jesus Christ. His efforts on behalf of the gospel were the result of the Spirit within him, not his own efforts.

The primary issue threatening the Galatians believers was that of circumcision. But Paul said, “It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation by faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:15 NLT).

This rule or principle regarding the efficacy of the gospel would bring peace and mercy to all who lived by it. Giving in to the false message of the Judaizers would result in guilt, shame, and a never-ending attempt to win favor with God through self-effort. Paul found that choice appalling. He also wanted his readers to know that he was anything but a man-pleaser. He had suffered greatly in his effort to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the Gentile world, and he had the physical and emotional scars to prove it. He closed his letter with the words, “I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus” (Galatians 6:17 NLT).

The message of faith in Christ is a difficult one for people to understand and even harder to accept. It sounds absurd. The story of God taking on human flesh, dying on the cross, and being raised from the dead sounds crazy to most who hear it. Yet for Paul, it was the truth. Over the course of his ministry, he had seen it transform his life and the lives of thousands of others. The gospel was not just a message, but a powerful force for change in the world, and he believed in it wholeheartedly and preached it unapologetically.

He told the believers in Rome who were living under the persecution of the Roman government, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16 ESV).

Paul was not ashamed of the gospel because he believed in its life-transformative power. He was willing to suffer ridicule and rejection at the hands of men because he had placed his hope and trust in the promises of God. He wanted every believer in Christ to know the joy of living with their faith placed firmly in the saving work of Jesus Christ and the future redemption promised to them by God. Their hope was never to waver from the simple message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. This is what led Paul to close out his letter with the following words of encouragement.

May God’s peace and mercy be upon all who live by this principle; they are the new people of God. – Galatians 6:16 NLT

The Galatians were already the new people of God; they didn’t require a physical change to their bodies or a set of rules and regulations to obey. Their lives had been transformed by the power of the gospel and nothing else was needed to guarantee their membership in God’s family. In the end, all they needed was a reminder of the reality of grace.

…may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. – Galatians 6:18 NLT

With this closing line, Paul returned to the opening theme of his letter.

May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. All glory to God forever and ever! Amen. – Galatians 1:3-5 NLT

All the glory belonged to God because He made salvation possible. It was His grace that made the incarnation possible; He willingly sent His Son as the payment for mankind’s sin debt. And Jesus, in full compliance with His Father’s will, fulfilled the divine plan by serving as the sacrificial substitute whose sinless life satisfied the just demands of His Heavenly Father. Jesus willingly gave His life in the place of sinful men and women, so that they might be justified before God and declared righteous in His sight. And it was all the result of grace, not human effort. It was a gift freely given, not a reward for good behavior.

Paul closed his letter with a reminder of God’s grace. Salvation wasn’t available for purchase or accessible through good works, and Paul wanted the believers in Galatia to refocus their attention on the irrefutable nature of God’s redeeming grace. This was the same message he conveyed to the believers in Ephesus.

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. – Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT

Their salvation was secure and nothing else, including circumcision, was required. As long as they continued to embrace grace, the Galatians could resist the fear of man and the false teaching of the Judaizers. They could live as the new people of God, empowered by His Spirit and fully confident in the promise of their future reward of eternal life.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

True Freedom

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. – Galatians 5:1-6 ESV

In these verses, Paul makes it clear that the rite of circumcision was one of the big issues facing the Gentile believers to whom he wrote. They were being pressured by the Judaizers into believing that their salvation was incomplete unless they agreed to be circumcised. In essence, they were being told that they needed to become Jews before they could become card-carrying Christ followers. But Paul warns them that there is no end to this slippery slope down which they are about to slide.

If they give in to the demand of circumcision, then they will be required to keep the whole law. By accepting the idea that obedience to the law is necessary for their salvation, they are placing themselves back under the full weight of the law. The apostle James warned of the danger of falling under the spell of the law.

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. – James 2:10 ESV

There is no such thing as partial obedience to the law. One who chooses to live under the commands of the law must adhere to all of them, without fail and with no opportunity to decide for self-determination. God’s law wasn’t up for debate or customizable. It was all or nothing.

But the real issue for Paul is that of freedom in Christ. He states that it is “for freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1 ESV). Most of us, when we think of our freedom in Christ, focus on our emancipation from sin and death. And yet, Paul speaks of another freedom we enjoy because of our relationship with Christ.

When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit. – Romans 7:5-6 NLT

Does our release from the law mean that the law was somehow evil? Paul answers that question rather emphatically. “Of course not!…the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good” (Romans 7:7, 12 NLT). Paul is emphasizing that the law is no longer to be viewed as a mandatory code of conduct or as a set of rules that must be obeyed to gain a right standing with God. We have been freed from that pointless pursuit, which is why Paul spent his lifetime preaching the believer’s newfound freedom in Christ. That freedom includes our release from having to pursue justification through adherence to the law.

Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law. – Galatians 2:16 NLT

Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. – Romans 3:19-20 NLT

So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.” – Galatians 3:11-12 NLT

Paul didn’t want the Galatians to fall back into a life of slavery. Before coming to faith in Christ, they were slaves to sin and under the control of Satan himself. They had no other choice. But when they had accepted Christ as their Savior, they had been released from their captivity. Now, by listening to the teachings of the Judaizers, they were risking a return to slavery – placing themselves under the demands of the law.

Paul warns that if they turned their backs on the grace offered through Christ and the justification that He alone could provide, they would be willingly allowing themselves to live according to their own self-reliance and their ability to keep God happy through rule-keeping. To do so would be to fall away from grace, and Paul was not willing to sit back and watch them do that. It isn’t that Paul feared that they ran the risk of losing their salvation. That is not what falling away from grace means. He is simply saying that by returning to the law, they would be walking away from God’s sole method of salvation and justification: His undeserved and unearned grace as offered through His Son through faith.

In Paul’s theology, faith in God’s grace made available through the gift of His Son would result in good works and a willing adherence to His commands. In the minds of the legalists, it was the exact opposite. Man’s adherence to God’s law would earn him a right standing before God and was, if anything, as important as faith in Christ.

Paul gives us the key difference between a life that is grace-focused and one that is law-based.

For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. – Galatians 5:5 ESV

The believer is to live according to the Spirit’s power and not his own own. And it is the Holy Spirit who provides the believers with the faith necessary to wait for the hope of righteousness. We don’t manufacture faith; it is a gift provided to us by God. It is with the Spirit’s help that we enjoy “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV).

That is how the author of the book of Hebrews describes faith. God’s indwelling Spirit provides us with the supernatural ability to believe in things that have not yet happened and to trust in those things we can’t even see. It is by faith that we believe we will be fully sanctified by God. We can’t see the end result and we can’t even see our sanctification taking place in real-time. But we believe that God is doing what He has promised to do. Paul wanted believers to have certainty and an abiding assurance that God had not only saved them by faith but was busy perfecting them by faith. And one day He was going to finish what He began by glorifying them by faith.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. – Philippians 1:6 NLT

God doesn’t need our help to make us holy. He simply asks for our complete reliance upon Him and our willing obedience to what He calls us to do, even when it doesn’t make sense. For Paul, it always came back to faith. Faith was the key to salvation, sanctification, and our ultimate glorification. To place oneself under the demands of the law, in the hopes of earning a right standing with God, was to reject the grace of God. It would make all that Christ accomplished on the cross ineffective and unnecessary. His death would have been needless and pointless; a fact that Paul raised in chapter two.

I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die. – Galatians 2:21 NLT

For Paul, there was no going back. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews and a former Pharisee, but he was not willing to place himself back under the strict and unwavering demands of the law. He knew he was incapable of living up to God’s exacting standards. In fact, in his letter to the believers in Rome, he described his ongoing battle with sin and the flesh. He knew the real issue was not the law but man’s inability to live up to its holy demands.

…the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. – Romans 7:14-20 NLT

Paul goes on to lament his battle with sin and his inability to live up to God’s holy standard.

Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? – Romans 7:24 NLT

But he provides an answer to his own question, by stating his immense gratitude for God’s gracious gift of His Son.

Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. – Romans 7:25 NLT

Righteousness is not something we produce; it is a gift we receive. Freedom from sin is not something we achieve through law-keeping; it is a by-product of our faith in Christ and the outworking of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The grace of God makes it possible and the death of Christ makes it available – to all who will receive it by faith.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Legalism and License: Two Dangers for Every Believer

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? – Galatians 3:1-6 ESV

You can sense the frustration in Paul’s words as he begins his theological defense of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. From his perspective, it is as if his readers have been cast under a spell. His previous efforts, while living and ministering among them, seem to have been in vain. He had gone out of his way to convince them of the grace of God made available through the cross of Christ alone, but now they were allowing themselves to be ‘bewitched” into believing that something was missing. More was necessary. They had bought into the lie that circumcision was an added requirement for salvation but Paul’s problem was not so much with the rite of circumcision as it was with the problem of legalism.

Jesus Christ died a gruesome death on the cross to provide a means of salvation for men and make possible their justification before God. He did for humanity what humanity could not do for itself; He satisfied God. His death was an act of propitiation, fully satisfying the righteous wrath of God against the sins of mankind. And yet, here were the Galatians allowing themselves to be convinced that His death had been insufficient. The Judaizers had successfully sold their formula of faith plus circumcision.

Paul’s opponents probably accused him of being against doing good deeds. They couldn’t understand why a former Pharisee of the Jews would be so opposed to encouraging the rite of circumcision. But Paul was not against good works. He was not propagating a life of moral, ethical, and spiritual complacency. Paul’s issue is with works being tied to and made a requirement for salvation and justification. He truly believed that Jesus had done everything that needed to be done for mankind’s salvation. Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross was fully and completely sufficient to ransom men and women from their sins and restore them to a right relationship with God.

The message of false teachers will always fall into one of two categories. Either you have not done enough to be truly saved or you don’t have to do anything now that you are saved. Theologians refer to these two extremes as nomism and antinomianism. The Greek word for “law” is nomos, so nomism means “religious conduct based on the law.” Antinomianism is “a theological doctrine that asserts the freedom of Christians from the obligation to observe moral laws” (Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers).

Two more familiar terms are legalism and license. One promotes a doctrine of salvation based on religious rule-keeping while the other encourages the rejection of any moral requirements altogether. Essentially, license propagates the idea that Christians are no longer obligated to keep God’s moral law because we have been set free from it. And while there is a degree of truth to that assessment, it can easily lead to a justification of sin and a life of moral ambiguity.

Both legalism and license share the same root problem: Self-centeredness. One places self at the center of man’s redemption, making human effort the key to salvation. The other promotes self to the point of making salvation all about self-gratification. Rather than holiness, license preaches happiness. Instead of encouraging death to self, license promotes a life of self-satisfaction.

Both of these extremes are dangerous, and Paul found himself constantly having to deal with both of them. In the case of the Galatians, the greatest threat to their faith was legalism. They had placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior, but now they were being convinced that something was missing. This is why Paul asked them, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” (Galatians 3:2 ESV). The answer was obvious. As Gentiles, they had been oblivious to the Mosaic Law and had done nothing to keep any of the commands it contained, and yet they had managed to come to faith in Christ and had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. None of them had done anything to deserve this incredible gift of grace from God.

Paul took his argument a step further, asking them, “After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” (Galatians 3:3 NLT). Essentially, Paul was asking them if they thought their salvation had been up to God, but their sanctification was somehow up to them. Now that they were saved, were there some “next steps” they had to take to remain saved?

The issue Paul is raising is that of sanctification, their ongoing transformation into the likeness of Christ. Paul firmly believed in salvation by faith alone but he also believed that faith, if left alone, was not true saving faith. In his first letter to the churches in Corinth, Paul shared some stern words of warning about their lack of spiritual maturity.

Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world? – 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NLT

He and Peter saw eye-to-eye on the matter of sanctification. It was Peter who penned these powerful words of admonition and expectation:

…get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment… – 1 Peter 2:1-2 NLT

But Paul was adamant in his belief that good works of any kind were not an add-on to salvation. In fact, Paul believed that sanctification was also a byproduct of faith, not human effort. He wanted the Galatians to understand that not only had they been saved by faith in Christ, but their transformation into His likeness was accomplished by the very same process. That is how he could confidently tell the believers in Philippi, “I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Philippians 1:6 NLT)

For Paul, there was no such thing as self-sanctification. A man can no more sanctify himself than he can save himself. God’s plan of salvation is all-inclusive and designed to culminate in a finished product that reflects His glory and Christ’s likeness. Paul wanted the Galatians to understand that God didn’t save them and then leave their spiritual transformation up to them.

Again, Paul is not discounting the role of good works in the life of the believer. He is simply emphasizing the source from which those good works are to flow. Later in this same letter to the believers in Galatia, he writes, “…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22 ESV). God not only saves us; He sanctifies us.

Paul told the Corinthian church, “And the Lord – who is the Spirit – makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NLT). We don’t make ourselves more like Christ; that is the Spirit’s job. Our role is to remain submissive and obedient to His activity in our lives. Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13 ESV).

For Paul, the entire process of salvation, justification, and sanctification was the work of God. At no point does the responsibility for redemption fall on man. The only thing we are required to do is trust. We are to submit our lives to His will and relinquish our right to self-autonomy. Paul stated his position well back in chapter two: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 NLT).

Faith isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime event; it is a life-long process, orchestrated by God and powered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Faith is a lifestyle, a way of life, and the key to our salvation, sanctification, and ultimate glorification.

The Galatians didn’t need circumcision to complete their salvation. What they needed was continued faith in the grace and goodness of God. He wasn’t done yet. Paul knew that the Galatians had not yet arrived. Their salvation had been accomplished but their sanctification was a work in process. God, through the indwelling presence and power of His Spirit, was molding each of His children into the likeness of His Son; a process that the apostle John said will one day be made complete when Jesus returns.

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure. – 1 John 3:2-3 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Great Gain But Not Without Pain

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
    nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. – Hebrews 12:3-11 ESV

As we live our lives on this planet, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. He is to be our focus. We must constantly remember that He has returned to heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father and, yet, He has promised to come back one day so that we might receive our glorified bodies and spend eternity with Him.

In the meantime, we must deal with the unmistakable reality that our earthy lives are marked by difficulties and even the discipline of God. This is why the author of Hebrews tells us to “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself” (Hebrews 12:3 ESV). The word, “consider” is translated from the Greek word, analogizomai, which means “to think over, consider, ponder” (Greek Lexicon :: G357 (KJV). Blue Letter Bible).

In addition to fixing our eyes on Jesus and His resurrected and glorified state in heaven, the author wants us to give careful consideration to all that Jesus went through during His earthly ministry. His time on earth was anything but easy. He was the Son of God, yet He experienced rejection, ridicule, temptation, testing, and false accusations. He was considered a liar and a lunatic. He was called a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19 ESV). He was regularly accused of blasphemy. There was even a vicious rumor that He was an illegitimate child because Joseph wasn’t His real father.

His own family thought He was crazy. The Jewish religious leadership hated Him and plotted to kill Him. To many, He was nothing more than a novelty act, a traveling miracle worker who performed inexplicable, jaw-dropping signs and wonder. To others, He was a means to an end – either for healing or even a free meal.

And to top it all off, His life ended in death, leaving the impression that His earthly ministry had been a brief and abysmal failure. But through it all, He had been doing the will of His Father in heaven.

Earlier in this same letter, the author wrote, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:7-9 ESV).

Notice that the author qualifies what he says with the words, “in the days of his flesh.” He is specifically talking about Jesus’ incarnation, the time He spent on earth in human form. During the thirty-plus years of Jesus’ life, He experienced something He had never had to go through before: What it means to live life as a human being. He knew what it meant to grow tired, to experience pain, to hunger and thirst, to feel loneliness and sorrow. He regularly spent time in prayer to His heavenly Father, crying out “with loud cries and tears.” And he learned obedience through what He suffered. In other words, He learned what was required for a human being to obey God in the midst of all the pain, suffering, and temptations that come with life on this planet.

In chapter four, the author reminded us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15 ESV). Jesus knew firsthand what it was like to suffer while serving. He knew what it felt like to experience the pain of rejection while attempting to obey the will of His Father. And He knew what it was like to obey God even when doing so would result in His own death.

But the author reminds us that few, in any of us, have had to suffer as Jesus did.

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. – Hebrews 12:4 ESV

We have not been required to experience what Jesus went through. Yet we are encouraged to “not grow weary of fainthearted.” We are to view ourselves as sons and daughters of God, living under His loving discipline, as He molds and shapes us into the likeness of His Son. God disciplines us because He loves us, in the same way a human father lovingly disciplines or corrects his son. God always has our best in mind. He longs to see us grow in Christ-likeness and increase in dependence upon Him. He wants to see us filled with and controlled by His indwelling Spirit. He desires for us to learn to rely on and rest in Him.

God “disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10 ESV), and while the discipline of God may seem painful and unpleasant at the moment, we must always remember that it will result in “the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11 ESV).

God is out to make us increasingly more holy because our holiness is His ultimate goal (1 Thessalonians 4:3). In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul made an interesting and seemingly paradoxical statement: “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame (Romans 5:3-5 ESV).

We rejoice in sufferings. Why? Because they teach us endurance, and endurance improves our character, and as we experience the change in our character, our hope in God is strengthened. In the end, our hope in the promises of God will not disappoint us because the day is coming when all our suffering, trials, tests, and lessons in discipline will be over. We will complete God’s earthly school of sanctification and experience our “graduation,” the glorification of our bodies, and the reward of our eternal state.

John tells us, “Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is” (1 John 3:2 ESV).

This is why we must constantly focus our eyes on Jesus, remembering what He endured and rejoicing in the reality of where He is. He suffered, but He was glorified. He was crucified but brought back to life. He came to earth but eventually returned to heaven. And one day, He is coming back to get us. When that moment arrives, our days of suffering, discipline, testing, and trials will be over.

This is what led Paul to say, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18 ESV). So, as we wait, we must keep our eyes on the prize. We must constantly remind ourselves that where Jesus has gone is where we truly belong. This world is not our home. It is a temporary and far-from-perfect part of our spiritual journey through which we must pass on our way to our final destination. And while the journey may at times seem difficult and the lessons of life may feel unfair, we must remember that God loves us and is transforming and preparing us for something far greater and better than this life could ever offer.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Faith Is Not Wishful Thinking

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. – Hebrews 11:13-16 ESV

“These all died in faith.”

That statement sounds so odd. It seems to make no sense. These people (the patriarchs) had faith, but they died, “not having received the things promised.” Then what is the point of faith, one might ask. Why bother having faith if it isn’t going to do you any good? But that is not the author’s point. He is juxtaposing our temporal, earthly perspective with one that is eternal and future-oriented.

Faith is not a point-in-time experience that takes place once in a lifetime. It is a way of life that extends over a lifetime. We often hear people express their faith story in terms like, “I came to faith in Christ when I was 14 years old” or “I placed my faith in Christ when I was in my thirties.” Those statements are not incorrect or inaccurate, but they display an insufficient understanding of what faith really is. Faith is a journey; a pilgrimage. It involves this life, but it goes far beyond it. As the familiar verse says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV).

Our faith or belief in Christ is meant to have an eternal focus, not a temporal one. Jesus told Mary and Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25 ESV). Physical death is still inevitable and unavoidable, but our faith is to be based on the promise that death is not the end of life, but rather, it is just the beginning. The apostle Paul reminds us:

For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.

Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. – 1 Corinthians 15:53-57 NLT

When the author of Hebrews opened up this section of his letter with the words, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” we probably read them with a temporal slant. We hope for a lot of things in this life. We hope for success. We hope for good health. We hope our marriage will survive. We hope for a better-paying job. We hope our children will one day accept Christ and live for Him. And then we try and muster up enough faith so that these things will come about. But that is a misunderstanding of faith.

Faith is not just another version of the power of positive thinking. During our lifetimes we have seen faith turned into a distorted name-it-and-claim-it theology that attempts to turn God into some kind of a cosmic genie in a bottle. We come up with our list of hopes and wishes, and then He is obligated to make them happen. But that is not the essence of biblical faith.

The apostle Paul would have us understand faith differently. He wrote, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:1-4 ESV).

Seek the things that are above. Set your mind on things that are above. Have an eternal focus and a heavenly perspective. Paul told the believers in Ephesus that he longed for their spiritual enlightenment.

…that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. – Ephesians 1:18 ESV

Ultimately, as believers, our hope is to be on our future redemption and glorification. Paul said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18 ESV). We live far too often with temporal hopes rather than eternal ones. We place all our hopes in this world instead of the next. We expect and sometimes demand heaven on earth, but God has something else in store. Something far better.

The patriarchs had to acknowledge that “they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” Abraham and Sarah had to live as nomads, moving from one place to another, never having a real home and never getting to live in the land promised to them by God. They never had the pleasure of seeing their descendants multiply into a great nation. By the time that happened, they were both long gone. But they had faith that it would happen. They also had faith that they would live in a better country. Abraham left his hometown and headed out for a new land. He had no idea where he was going but was simply trusting God’s word. He believed that what God was offering him was better than what he already had. He left behind his old way of life for a new one. The author says that God “has prepared for them a city” (Hebrews 11:16b ESV), a heavenly city.

The ultimate reward received by Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, David, Enoch, Abel, and all the other Old Testament saints listed in this passage, was the eternal state. Their lives spent on this planet were temporary and their days were filled with trials, troubles, setbacks, and disappointments. But they maintained their faith in God and His goodness.

As Christians, we must live with a constant awareness that this world is not our home. We are simply passing through on our way to someplace better. Like Abraham, we are to recognize our role as aliens and strangers in this “land.” We are not to get comfortable here. We are not to demand that God provide us with our best life here and now. We are not to put our hopes in things that rust, decay, break down, fall apart, get stolen, go out of style, and always fail to bring us the joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment we hoped they would. Remember the author’s description of faith:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. – Hebrews 11:1 ESV

We are to be assured of our future place in God’s eternal kingdom, and that is to be what we hope for. We are to have a strong conviction regarding our future glorification and the redemption of our bodies, and it is that for which we eagerly wait. Paul put it this way:

And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. – Romans 8:23 NLT

We will all one day die in our faith. But because we have faith, our death will not be the end. It will be the beginning of our eternal life with God the Father and Jesus Christ, His Son. The city in which Abraham and Sarah live at this very moment is far better than any city they could have inhabited on this earth. The descendants they can claim are far greater and more in number than they could ever have imagined, and they include people from every tribe, nation, and tongue.

When we place our faith in God, He does great things. His will is far better than our most ambitious wishes. His promises are far better than anything we could ever imagine or hope for.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Ultimate Reward

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. – Hebrews 11:5-6 ESV

We don’t know a whole lot about Enoch. Other than what we read about him here in Hebrews, the only other mention of him is found in the book of Genesis. He’s part of a genealogical list that shows the line of mankind from Adam all the way to Noah.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. –  Genesis 5:21-24 ESV

Enoch lived to the ripe old age of 365, but his time on earth was short compared to that of his father (962 years) and son (969 years). Enoch, as the genealogical list suggests, lived in the days before the flood. While there have been many suggestions to explain why men lived so much longer in those days, no one really knows why. But we do see that, over time, the longevity of man diminished dramatically; most likely as a result of the ongoing effects of sin and the curse of death on the human body.

But Enoch lived over three centuries. In our day, it is rare for anyone to make it to the single-century mark. But the remarkable thing about Enoch was not his lifespan, but his departure from this earth. The Genesis account tells us “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, says he “was not found.”

He was on this earth for 365 years and then, one day, he was gone. But unlike every other man listed in the genealogical record found in Genesis 5, Enoch didn’t die. He is the only one on the list whose name is not followed by the words, “and he died.” Enoch was taken. He could have lived longer, but God decided to remove Enoch from the earth and transport him to heaven. The author of Hebrews adds another strange twist to this already bizarre tale.

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. – Hebrews 11:5 ESV

Verse 5 stands in direct contrast to verse 4 and the life of the first character in the great “hall of faith.” Abel, the son of Adam and Eve, is commended for his faith but recognized for his untimely death.

…he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. – Hebrews 11:4 ESV

Abel exhibited faith but died at the hands of his own brother. Yet, Enoch was spared the fate that all men have faced ever since the fall. He was glorified and received his redeemed body without having to suffer the inevitable and inescapable reality of death. He was there one day and gone the next. The Scriptures simply tell us “he was not found, because God had taken him.”

But why was Enoch rewarded with this one-of-a-kind experience? The text simply states that it was because of his faith. Living in a time of unparalleled evil and immorality, Enoch remained faithful to God. When everyone else around him was pursuing wickedness and involved in rampant evil, this man had chosen to believe in the promises of God. To fully understand Enoch’s status as a righteous man living among the unrighteous, one must consider the sorry state of affairs on earth at the time. Ever since the fall, the moral decline of mankind had spiraled out of control. Some 669 years after the “rapture” of Enoch, things had become so bad that God decided to wipe out all of humanity.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” – Genesis 6:5-7 ESV

At that point in the human story, there was only one man left who remained faithful to God, and that was Noah. The Genesis account states that “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8 ESV), and then it adds that “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9 ESV). Notice that last sentence. It is the same thing said of Enoch.

Enoch walked with God… – Genesis 5:22 ESV

Two times in the Genesis passage, we are told that “Enoch walked with God.” The Hebrew word translated as “walked” is hālaḵ and it can be used to refer to the physical act of movement or to living one’s life. Another way of translating this statement is that Enoch lived his life in communion with God. It is the same idea expressed by God to Abraham in Genesis 17. “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless’” (Genesis 17:1 ESV).

Abraham was to live his life with an awareness that he was doing so under the watchful eye of God Almighty. Every aspect of his life was being conducted in the presence of the all-knowing, all-seeing God. But when God told Abraham to “be blameless,” He was not demanding perfection. The Hebrew word for “blameless” is tamiym and it means “complete, whole, entire, sound” (Hebrew Lexicon :: H8549 (KJV). Blue Letter Bible). Abraham was being told to live his entire life, his whole life, with the constant awareness that God was watching. There was to be no compartmentalization, no hidden areas. He was to live as if God was with him at all times because He was.

And that is how Enoch lived. He lived by faith, believing that God was with Him every day and in every circumstance. Enoch couldn’t see God, but he believed in Him. The author of Hebrews explains that “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV).

Enoch believed that God existed even though many around him did not. That genealogical record found in Genesis 5 gives us an abbreviated glimpse of mankind’s trajectory from the fall of Adam to the days of Noah. In the very next chapter of Genesis, we read, “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart” (Genesis 6:5-6 NLT).

By the time we get to the days of Noah, we find that “God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt.” (Genesis 6:11-12 NLT). The path from Adam to Noah was not an easy one. It was filled with increasing sin, violence, godlessness, and wickedness. The further man got away from the garden, the dimmer his recollection of God became. And in the midst of this downward spiral, Enoch stood out like a bright light. He was a beacon of faith in the midst of the darkness of man’s increasing sinfulness. He believed God existed and that He would reward those who pleased Him.

The text tells us, “before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” He had lived a life that pleased God – by faith. He was not self-seeking, but God-pleasing. He lived as if God existed and as if God was walking with him every moment of every day. His God was not distant or disinterested in his life. His God was near and lovingly involved in every aspect of his daily walk. He lived to please God – by faith. He lived to obey God – by faith. He lived to bring glory and honor to God – by faith.

To walk with God requires faith in God. You have to believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). You have to believe that He sees and that He cares. Enoch longed and hoped for the reward of God without ever really knowing exactly what the reward might be. It is likely that Enoch would have lived many more years on this earth, just like his father and son. But God rewarded Enoch by taking him in mid-life, and by sparing him the suffering and pain associated with death. He also didn’t have to endure what would have likely been a prolonged period of old age. In those days before the flood, men enjoyed long lives, but they still had to face the inevitable reality of sin.

Enoch had faith in God and he was rewarded by God with escape from the curse of death.

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. – Hebrews 11:5a ESV

Enoch provides a foreshadowing of the hope that is found in Jesus Christ. There is an ultimate reward for all those who place their faith in God by trusting in His Son’s sacrifice on the cross on their behalf. As Jesus told Mary and Martha at the graveside of their brother, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die” (John 11:25-26 NLT). Enoch was raptured and never died. Because of his faith, he was rewarded with his immediate glorification and entrance into God’s presence.  He went to be with the LORD. And that same hope awaits all those who place their faith in Christ. That is why the author opened this chapter with the reassuring words: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV).

Every child of God is to live their life on this earth believing that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him and that His ultimate reward is a death-defying escape from this world into His eternal Kingdom. Whether by death or by rapture, every saint will experience the fulfillment of God’s promise of eternal life, but that reward can only be accessed by faith.

Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. – Hebrews 11:6 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Faith Factor

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. – Hebrews 11:1-3 ESV

What exactly is faith? How do you know when you have it? When do you know that you are living by it? The author of Hebrews, like the apostle Paul, spent a great deal of time defending the doctrine of faith. They both believed it was essential to salvation and a non-negotiable part of the Christian life. The author of Hebrews even goes so far as to say that “without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV).

Both Paul and the author of Hebrews borrow a phrase from the book of Habakkuk, “but the righteous shall live by his faith,” to support their position on faith. For each man, faith and righteousness were inseparable. You couldn’t have one without the other. To attempt to achieve the kind of righteousness that God demands, apart from faith, would be impossible and illogical. He had given His Law to the people of Israel to show them the extent of the righteousness He required and to reveal the utter futility of trying to live up to His righteous standard in their own strength. They couldn’t do it.

God knew they would be unable to keep the Law, so He provided them with the sacrificial system to atone for the sins they would inevitably commit. As the author has already revealed, the law and the sacrificial system were “but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews 10:1a ESV).

The people sinned and then offered sacrifices for those sins, year after year. But this unending cycle of sin and sacrifice could never bring about true righteousness. As the author pointed out in the last chapter, these repetitive sacrifices “were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship” (Hebrews 10:1b NLT).

The Law was intended to reveal God’s righteous standards and expose man’s sin. Paul explained, “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are” (Romans 3:20 NLT). God’s mandated sacrificial system demonstrated that His wrath against sin was real and required the shedding of blood to atone for those sins.

In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. – Hebrews 9:22 NLT

The blood of bulls and goats could only provide temporary atonement for sins, so God sent His Son to provide a permanent solution to man’s sin problem and a way to escape the sentence of death hanging over his head. But this new plan of salvation would require faith – “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV).

Faith is always forward-looking. It is based on the yet unseen and the as-yet unfulfilled. Peter gives us a wonderful glimpse of what faith should be like for us as believers:

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls. – 1 Peter 1:6-9 NLT

The author of Hebrews shared a similar admonition.

…let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. – Hebrews 10:22 NLT

We are to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering” (Hebrews 10:23 ESV). He praised his readers for their willingness to endure difficulties and trials with joy.

You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. – Hebrews 10:34 NLT

They were willing to put up with loss in this world because of their confidence in the promise of God that assured them of great gain in the world to come. They were “not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction,” but instead, they were “the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved” (Hebrews 10:39 NLT). Their faith was future-oriented because they firmly believed in the promises of God. They had an assurance of things hoped for and a conviction of things not seen. That is exactly what Paul encouraged the believers in Corinth to keep doing.

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NLT

If we take our eyes off the hope of God’s future promises, we will find it hard to endure the present trials of this life. If we live as if this earthly existence is all there is, then we will grow weary, disappointed, and disillusioned. The “great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3) the author referred to earlier in his letter will begin to appear weak and ineffective. But it is essential for every believer to understand that God’s salvation includes our future glorification. There is more to our faith than simply the assurance that we have been saved and our sins are forgiven. We will one day be redeemed and given new bodies. We will be freed once and for all from our battle with indwelling sin.

Our faith must always have a future focus. The apostle John, as a loving pastor, reminds us, “Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is” (1 John 3:2 NLT).

That is our hope. That is the basis of our faith, and the author of Hebrews will spend the rest of this chapter demonstrating what this kind of faith looks like in real life, using Old Testament saints as examples of a future-focused faith lived out in real life. This list of long-deceased individuals who lived long before the incarnation of Jesus is intended to provide us with hope. They illustrate that God’s redemptive work has always been based on faith. From Abel and Abraham to Noah and Moses, each of these children of God demonstrated faith in the faithfulness of God. Their lives are living examples of what it looks like to have “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV).

In their own way, each of them revealed their trust in God by stepping out in faith and relying on nothing more than His word. Abel offered the very best of his flock, potentially sacrificing his future livelihood but trusting that God would care for his needs. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son because he fully believed that God would keep His promise to produce a great nation from his offspring. Noah built and entered the ark, based on nothing more than the promise of salvation offered by God. And Moses took a leap of faith and delivered the people of Israel from their captivity in Egypt with little more than a sight-unseen promise from God about a land of their own.

Faith is the unifying factor in each of their stories. And, according to the apostle Paul, faith is still the sole means of accessing the salvation and future glorification that God has in store for each of His children.

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” – Romans 1:15-17 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Mission Accomplished

/ kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
    after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
    and write them on their minds,”

17 then he adds,

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. – Hebrews 10:11-18 ESV

Year after year, sacrifice after sacrifice, the Israelites followed God’s instructions regarding His pattern for receiving atonement for their sins. The Hebrew word for atonement is kaphar and it means “to cover.” In the sacrificial system, atonement was achieved when an innocent, unblemished lamb, bull, or goat was sacrificed and its blood was sprinkled on the altar to “cover” the sins of the guilty party.

The death of an innocent animal was used to pay for the sins of a guilty individual. The sacrifice involved the shedding of blood, which was necessary to atone for the sins, essentially hiding them from God’s eyes. But this process was only partial in nature. It could not completely remove the guilt of sin and the penalty of death that it incurred. Each sacrifice was temporary in terms of its effectiveness and limited in duration. Every day, the priests had to stand ready to offer additional sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people. It was an endlessly repeated process because the hearts of the people remained unchanged. They could not stop sinning against God because they lacked the inner power to keep His divine laws and holy decrees. And the sacrifices they offered could “never take away sins” (Hebrews 10:11 ESV) – at least not completely or permanently.

But when Jesus sacrificed His life on the cross, it was a one-time deal that never had to be repeated. And because His sacrifice was effective, He was raised back to life by His heavenly Father and restored to His rightful place in heaven.

For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. –  Hebrews 10:14 NLT

Because the sacrifice of His sinless life satisfied the just demands of God, Jesus “sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12 ESV). His mission was complete. He had accomplished the will of His Heavenly Father by atoning for all the sins of humanity, for all time.

Quoting from the prophet, Jeremiah, the author of Hebrews reminds His Jewish readers that God had long ago predicted the moment when a new and better covenant would be enacted.

“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” – Jeremiah 31:33 NLT

God was revealing through His prophet that a day was coming when He would make a new covenant with the people of Israel. Rather than having to rely on some kind of external code of conduct (the Law), they would have God’s will planted right in their hearts. The motivation to obey God would come from inside and not outside. In addition, God promised to provide permanent forgiveness for sins.

“And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” – Jeremiah 31:34 NLT

The author of Hebrews reveals that these former promises that were provided centuries earlier to Jeremiah, had been the work of the Holy Spirit. They were divinely “breathed out” by God through His Spirit to Jeremiah but never took place in Jeremiah’s lifetime. They were prophetic in nature and pointed to a future day when God would implement His new covenant plan through His Son’s death, burial, and resurrection.

God was letting Jeremiah know that hope was not lost. Despite the people’s rejection of Jeremiah’s message and their refusal to repent of their sins and return to God, there was a silver lining on the dark cloud of God’s judgment. A brighter future was on the horizon. God was going to provide a sacrifice that would take care of man’s sin problem once and for all. No more temporary, partial atonement.

…where there is forgiveness…there is no longer any offering for sin. – Hebrews 10:18 ESV

Because Jesus offered His body and blood as payment for mankind’s sin debt to God, there is nothing more required for sinners to be made right with God. That does not mean that those who place their faith in Christ’s sacrificial death are free to live however they want to live. Paul dealt with this misconception in his letter to the believers in Rome.

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? – Romans 6:1-2 NLT

Paul went on to shoot further holes in this misguided and dangerous assumption.

Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. – Romans 6:15-16 NLT

We are free from the Law (rules and regulations) when it comes to our salvation. But we are not free to live as we choose. As children of God, we are expected to live lives in keeping with our new status as His adopted heirs. That is why Peter strongly encouraged believers to live in a way that reflected their new identity in Christ.

So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. – 1 Peter 1:13-15 NLT

We no longer have to obey God’s law in order to be made right with Him. We obey God because we have been made right with Him through faith in His Son. We obey out of love, not obligation. We pursue righteousness, not in order to earn favor with God, but out of gratitude for the favor He has shown us by sending His Son to die for us.

For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. – Hebrews 9:14 NLT

Consider the implications of that verse. We are already seen as righteous in God’s eyes. And yet, we are in the process of being sanctified or continually set apart for His use. We are positionally holy and yet, we are being made progressively holy.

We are already right with God, but at the same time, God is transforming us into the image of His Son. That is why we are commanded to put off the old nature and put on the new. We are to die to ourselves daily and to live for Christ because we are in the continual process of transformation that will one day be completed by our glorification by God. It is then that we will receive new redeemed bodies and complete freedom from the effects of sin and the threat of death. But, in the meantime, as we wait for that glorious day, we have work to do.

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. – 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 NLT

Our salvation is God’s doing, not ours. In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes this as “the gospel of God.” He further defines it as “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:16-17 ESV).

Faith in our own human effort? No. He is talking about faith in the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross. Our salvation is based on God’s plan, Christ’s work, and the Spirit’s power. We brought nothing to the table. In fact, Paul paints a vivid picture of just how amazing the grace of God and the gift of His Son really is.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 ESV

We have been fully forgiven. Our debt has been paid. Our future is secure. And our response is to live in willful, joyful obedience to the One who made it all possible.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.