Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: We used the Berean Std translation for Part One of the comment on verses 19-20, so I have added two very different translations today (done by me) to give us some breadth. The first one is a paraphrase translation, written to be easily read; the second one, an extremely literal word-for-word translation, which is enormously accurate but nearly impossible to read. As we learned in Part One, it is easy enough to see what Paul means, by being crucified with Christ, being dead, living in Christ and Christ living in him. But what about us? This leads to a central, and quite a difficult, issue in modern Christianity. T he teachings of both Paul and Christ appear to call for a radical and almost violent change in the believer’s life. A knowledgeable Christian learns to pay at least lip service to such ideas as picking up their cross to follow Jesus, dying and being reborn in the Spirit, dying on the cross with Christ, etc. We put aside the natural human, the life in which we live according to sinful instincts: glorification of self, gratification of physical and emotional needs as our prime goal in life, uninhibited pursuit of the pleasures of the world. But we don’t. In many respects, we simply modify our behavior to some degree. Most of us will not even admit how much of Christ’s teachings we simply put out of our minds. We compromise. We say, “everybody sins but I live in Christ’s forgiveness.” There is an enormous tension between following Christ as well as we possibly can, and counting on the forgiveness of our continuing sinfulness. On the one hand, we are dead to the law; we cannot save ourselves by our good works. Only through faith in Christ might we find the forgiveness that we will ultimately need to be united with Him in eternity and be found righteous before God’s judgment. We can be justified only by faith; sola fides, faith alone, has the power to save our souls. I am the Good Shepherd, Kufstein Cemetery, Austria. 19th century. “I am the Good Shepherd” The problem is that there are two different ways to read “by faith alone.” First, “only those with faith will be saved”; second, “faith is all one needs for salvation.” People mistakenly hear the second of these, which Martin Luther (and Paul) clearly did not intend, and which is contradicted repeatedly in other parts of the Bible. “Faith alone” means “only by faith,” that is, only those who have faith can find salvation. It does not mean “alone” in the sense of “faith and nothing else.” To say that faith in Christ will save us, no matter how much we continue to sin after this rebirth, is a defined heresy: antinomianism. (If you are Protestant and associate the word “heresy” with Catholicism, substitute “false prophesy” or “perversion of the Gospel”.) We cannot take the attitude that we can sin all we like while praying to Christ for salvation, because He can forgive all sin. That is what “antinomianism” means. Christ Himself taught this during His life: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name . . . ? And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21-23) We also have a number of similar statements in the post-Gospel New Testament. John tells us bluntly, “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar,” but John also says, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous . . . and He is the atonement for our sins.” (1 John 2:1-6) James tells us, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. . . faith apart from works is useless.” (James 2:17-20) Will our sins be forgiven through our faith in Christ? Yes. Time and time again, the Bible tells us so, e.g., “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6) Is there a point at which sinfulness becomes so great that God will deem us faithless? Apparently, yes. Where does that point lie? Nobody knows! “For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come . . . .” (1 Cor. 4:4-5) This is, to my mind, an aspect of Christianity most likely to show the weakness of human intellect. People do not like to hear about it. Always, the human mind returns to the falsehood, “I must understand God to be saved.” We cannot understand God; we will be saved by faith in Christ, not by the Greek idea of intellectual understanding (or the Jewish theology of salvation by good works). This is the Word of God: we are specifically instructed on the futility of both Greek intellectualism and Jewish legalism in 1 Corinthians 1:20-24. So we will keep this issue in mind as we read Paul and remember that “death to the law” does not trivialize morality — for if we love God, we will try to follow His commandments. We must, however, look first to faith, not works, for our salvation.