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Most
doctrinal errors are the result of failure to understand the Bible. Failure to
understand the Bible, in turn, results from not believing the words themselves
came from God. Without true Biblical authority people must fill the void by
turning to false authorities like Reason and denominational tradition. A
perfect example is the issue of faith and works.
If I wanted to get you to believe in some
traditional doctrine I’d join an established denomination in order to gain credibility.
If I had the money I’d also pay to attend a “Bible” college and try to graduate
with a D- or better. I might also try for a D- or better in graduate school so
I could be called “doctor.” Then, when I applied for a job as your preacher,
I’d preach an impassioned sermon on some big denominational doctrine I knew you
already agreed with. In the sermon I’d make believing that doctrine an
indication that you’re a good, strong, well-informed Christian – unlike the
backslidden apostates in other denominations who don’t believe the doctrine.
I’d use some of my best stories, anecdotes, and analogies in order to involve
your emotions so you’d feel good and want me to come back and preach again. In
that way you’d approve of me as a denominational loyalist, you’d respect me as
a “fearless” preacher who’s not afraid to loudly and strongly preach a message
you already agreed with, you’d feel safe knowing I was a denominational flunky
who was unlikely to toss any curve balls, and you’d be titillated at the prospect
of having a preacher who knew how to tickle your ears.
As your preacher I’d make a big deal of Ga 2:16 and Ep 2:8,9 if I wanted
you to believe in salvation by faith alone (don’t look them up now; we’ll get
to them in a minute). But if I wanted you to believe in salvation by works, I’d
harp on Ja 2:14,17,21,24,26.
In both cases I’d either ignore the contradicting verses or get you to ignore
them with a bag of tricks that includes clichés, ridicule, and misapplication
of Scripture such as, “They’re just trying to take away from what Christ did on
the cross! But I wanna tell you what, brother, the
Bible says ‘It is finished’, I believe it, and that settles it! Amen?!”
The problem is, because people don’t believe and
apply everything in the Bible, they never let the presence of verses that
apparently contradict their doctrine cause them to search the Scriptures for
God’s truth that never contradicts any verses. Both of the above sets of verses are correct. That means both doctrines are incorrect. I’m going
to begin by telling you what I believe so you can get any ridicule out of your
system now. That way you can pay better attention when we get to the
Scriptures. I believe salvation is a two-part process, which I call Part A
and Part B.
Part A of salvation is the first part, and it is
a one-time event. It is being born spiritually, being born again. It is when
God gives birth to your spirit body. Most Christians think we are born again by
faith and/or works. They are wrong. The Bible doesn’t say we are born again
by faith and works, it says we are saved by faith and works. But aren’t
we supposed to say the “sinner’s prayer” and put our faith in Christ so we can
be a born-again Christian? No, only born-again Christians are supposed to say
sinner’s prayers. That’s why the sinner’s prayer (Lk
18:13) is always said by God’s born-again people. Notice the sinner’s
prayer was said inside the temple (Lk
18:10). Pagans weren’t allowed in the temple. The sinner’s prayer has
nothing to do with becoming born again; it is part of a Christian’s confession
to God.
Did you say the “baby’s prayer” to your human
parents before you were born? Did you put any faith in them, or ask them to be
born, or did you do any works before you were born? You say, “But the first
birth and the second birth happen by different means.” No they don’t. And there
isn’t a verse in the Bible that says they do. You got that from tradition.
Let’s examine an unsaved guy who wants to be
born again. First we note that he has but one body, the natural, mortal,
physical, earthy, carnal, old-man body of the first birth. According
to Mt 7:18b this unsaved man cannot produce good fruit.
That means he cannot produce the faith some denominations think we have to
produce in order to be born again. But, you ask, don’t we receive the
faith necessary to be born again from God – isn’t the faith we’re talking about
a gift from God? Only born-again Christians can receive faith from God; the
unregenerate cannot receive anything from Him (1 Co 2:14). The reason
God gives His people the new birth is so we will have the capability to receive
and know the things of God (1 Co 2:12). Unsaved
people are not members of His body and are not branches attached to the Vine.
Therefore, they are incapable of receiving anything from Him. Only Christians
can have the Ro 7:15-25 war rage within them because only Christians
have the two bodies. If you put Ro 8:8 together with He
11:6 and Jn 6:44,65
you’ll realize the unregenerate cannot have the faith or the belief required to
go to God for anything. Only born-again Christians have the God-given
spiritual-new-man ability to have faith. But if Christians choose to carnally
reject faith, even the word of God will not profit them (He 4:2).
Therefore, a person who responds to the word of God is doing so because his new
birth gives him the ability to do so. That means only Christians have the free
will to serve or not serve God. The unsaved – like Pharaoh – simply do not have
the ability to believe, to have faith.
Part A, the new birth, is a gift of God – it is not a
reward for the unregenerate’s ability to engender
saving faith out of the mortal carnality of a corrupt tree. But didn’t Christ
say the pagan Syrophenician woman who wanted crumbs
from the Master’s table, and the Roman centurion in Capernaum had faith? Yes, and that faith is a New Testament indication that a
person has been born again. We already know that only those who are quickened
by the Quickening Spirit (Christ), which is being born again and getting a
spirit body, have everlasting life. The vast difference between mortal life and
everlasting life is why the Bible says the unregenerate have no life – they are
dead. Dead dogs cannot produce “saving faith” because they are dead! No
matter how you look at it the unsaved are incapable of reaching out to God. The
popular modern theory that God gives “saving faith” to the unsaved so they can
say the sinner’s prayer and be born again is not only not in the Bible, it
contradicts what the Bible does say about faith and the carnal man. Faith cannot
exist in carnality, and the unsaved are nothing but carnal because they are
nothing but the old man. Therefore “believing faith” is a gift from God to His
already born-again saints (Jn 3:27) so
they can learn, grow, and serve. Look at Gabriel and Lucifer before they were
born of the Spirit. Did they have saving faith? Of course not because they didn’t exist before they were
born! The birth of their spirit bodies was all God’s doing. That is Part A. And Gabriel and Lucifer
weren’t born of God by any different procedures from us, because when God
decides to give birth, He gives birth (Ja
1:18) – just like any parent.
God gave birth to the Syrophenician
woman and the centurion – but not to Pharaoh. These two newborn Christians
didn’t even know they were Christians – because all babies are ignorant of whom
their parents are. This is especially true of the new birth because the second
birth isn’t an event that is seen or felt (no matter how many histrionics the
“tongues” groups go into). They didn’t know they had been given a new man –
unlike Pharaoh – with fertile soil in which their God-given faith could grow.
But, like all babies, the Syrophenician and the
centurion did know they were hungry. They found themselves hungering and
thirsting for something that would satisfy a new body they didn’t yet know
existed. They were suddenly drawn to Jesus Christ and the Bible with a real
hunger, a need – not just with the idle curiosity they used to have. They were
drawn toward Christ in a way none of their friends was. Later, after the cross,
when some Christians taught them some of the Bible in obedience to the Great
Commission, they accepted Christ as
their Authority, their Lord. And at some point they acknowledged or
accepted that Part A had happened to them sometime back then, even though they
weren’t sure exactly when it all began. They believed by faith that they’d been born again even though nobody
saw it, and then they demonstrated that faith by learning obedience in
accordance with the Bible (Part B). Their faith made them carefully avoid the
pitfalls along their Christian walk, something Lucifer didn’t do. They had to
carefully nourish the new man with milk and meat so they could grow into
properly submissive and obedient servants. That’s how we all establish whose
servant we are, whose wife we are, and that is Part B.
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Notice the Lord was very pleased with their faith
(Mt 8:10; 15:28) and even said the centurion had belief (Mt
8:13). (Also notice in v.9 the centurion was off to a fast start
because he understood the issue of authority.) According to the Bible the
reason the Syrophenician and the centurion “cometh to
God” with faith and belief (He 11:6) but Pharaoh didn’t is the
simple fact that it is impossible for unregenerates
like Pharaoh to have faith, receive the things of God, etc. Pharaoh was a dog,
and dogs from God’s perspective are dead. The Syrophenician
and the centurion we recognize as Christians by their fruit; their works
manifested their faith. In other words, they only went to Christ because God
had already birthed them into His immortal, spirit family. Pharaoh couldn’t go
to God because God’s decision not to give birth to Pharaoh left Pharaoh with no
alternative but to live in accordance with his physical, carnal heart, which is
deceitful and desperately wicked. John the Baptist, and Paul were chosen in
the womb by God to serve Him (Lk 1:15; Ga 1:15), but God’s purpose for pagan Pharaoh was to kill him (Ro 9:17). All of these people had
faith in no one before they were born – just like Gabriel (who properly
served God) and Lucifer (who didn’t) had no pre-birth choice about becoming
God’s servant-children. We also know Jacob fathered a nation of God’s people,
but his twin brother, Esau, fathered an
entire nation of pagans – and those decisions were made by God before they were born (Ro 9:11,13; Ge 25:23). Those people in pagan nations were merely
born once of the flesh, as demonstrated by Ishmael (Ga 4:22,23), while those in the nation of
Israel were born again of the Spirit, according to what the word of God teaches
about Isaac (Ga 4:28,29). The fact that these
momentous decisions about these people and nations were made by God before they
were born, before they had faith, and even before they were (in many cases)
conceived has great doctrinal significance: When God decides to create immortal
spirit children (by giving birth to angels and the second birth to humans),
those Part A births have everything to do with the sovereign parental will of God…and
nothing to do with “sinner’s prayers”, repentance, “decisions for Christ”,
faith, belief, and works, which are all part of our Part B Christian walk as we
struggle to identify and repent of all forms of selfish carnality, and to
develop into selfless servants of our heavenly Father. If you don’t think all
the unsaved people walking around today are dead you need to go back
over D7, The Quick and the Dead.
Thinking the unsaved can make themselves Christians by deciding to receive or
produce “birthing faith” by saying the “sinner’s prayer” is contrary to the
Scriptures, shows a lack of understanding of faith, carnality, and spirit,
and is like pulling an unsaved man’s lifeless carcass from a fatal auto crash
hoping even then he might decide to be born again. There is no difference.
Some may protest by claiming Christ tells us we
should “first count the cost” before getting saved, which “proves” our free
will is a necessary part of being born again. But if you carefully read Lk 14:25-33 you’ll see Christ is showing He
is the king who counted the cost before this war started – like every prudent
man does before a large undertaking (vv.28-30). Christ foresaw that His
numerically-inferior army would lose to King Satan’s numerically-superior army
(v.31) unless He was a hard master who required His children to become strong,
selfless warriors (vv.26,27; 2 Ti 2:3,4; Ezek 22:30). The point of the previous parable is
consistent with this; the Lord is having trouble finding enough suitable men (Lk 14:23,24). (Read again the sentence in bold print and the
one after it in the Introduction.)
And that’s why the passage ends (vv.
34,35) by warning us salts we’ll be cast out if we lose our savour, as explained on page D8-6 about Mt 5:13. Counting the cost has nothing
to do with Part A, it’s all about Part B. Trying to make it a prerequisite for
Part A is so ridiculous modern preachers can’t even fit it into their own
evangelical practice. That’s why today’s traditionalists who call upon the
unsaved masses to say the “sinner’s prayer” are hypocrites – they don’t first warn them to count the cost
by giving them a long list of hardships they will typically encounter if they
get saved!
After God gives birth, the Bible and witnessing
cultivate and water the soil of the new man. With the Pharisees and Lucifer the
cares of this world made their soil rocky and shallow, and during their
Christian walk (Part B) they rejected the faith God gave them at their Part A
new birth. But the Syrophenician woman, the
centurion, and Gabriel responded to their spirit births and the accompanying
faith God gave them by bringing forth fruit meet for repentance (Part B).
Let’s see if the physical first birth can
confirm this view of the second birth. When I was born I was too young and
ignorant to know I was born, or how or when it happened. Later two people told
me they were my parents who had birthed me. They said the neighbors were not my
parents and that I did not come from a stork or a cabbage patch. I accepted by
faith what they told me, including the date on which they said I was born. As I
grew I learned through spankings that parents are authorities and their
children must obey them. At first I was often a willful child, but I learned
obedience by the things which I suffered. But my neighbor’s son remained
willful no matter how they tried to discipline him. Just before the boy was
stoned as incorrigible, his father
told him, “You’re not my son.” I was confused, and my father explained it this
way: “Because faith without works is dead, you can’t just say someone is your father, you must demonstrate/prove your
acceptance of him as your father by your obedient works.” (Contrast the
disobedient seed of Jn 8:37 with the
obedient children of Jn 8:39b.) A
father is an authority, so when my boyhood chum refused to conform to the will
of his father, he was rejecting authority,
that is, he was rejecting the fatherhood of the man. Without realizing the
legal technicalities of what I was doing, when I submitted to the authority of
my father I was establishing myself as his son, his servant.
Let
me clarify something about the new birth and the Great Commission. I have said
I believe God gives us the new birth without our knowledge and without our
having “saving faith” – such as the Syrophenician
woman, the centurion, John the Baptist, Paul, Gabriel, and Lucifer. But does
that view reduce the importance of – or even nullify – the Great Commission? In
fact, doesn’t the Great Commission’s mandate to preach the gospel to every
creature support the traditional belief that every unsaved carnal human has a
free will and the ability to respond to the gospel by repenting, saying the
“sinner’s prayer”, and being born again because of that faith?
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If you accept what God says about the vastly
different capabilities of people born of God and dogs born only of the flesh,
you won’t think we have free wills when we don’t even exist (before we are born
again). I know I didn’t have a free will when my parents decided
to have a baby – did you? But once my earthly parents gave birth to me I had a
very free and independent will and had to learn
to submit to the will of the authorities in my life. And once God gave birth
to me I found that I had a very free will because until I learned and submitted to the Bible
I had no choice but to keep sinning by living carnally in accordance with what
was right in my own eyes. (The Great Commission complements what I’m saying:
The “teach” and “teaching” of Mt 28:19,20 equal
the “preach” of Mk 16:15,16, and the “observe” of the former matches the
“believeth and is baptized” of the latter.) Those days of my independence and
free will are long gone; unlike when I was a young, ignorant, carnal Christian,
I now accept whatever God says in His Book, and I shape my beliefs and life
around it.
The only people on earth who have the free will
needed to repent, the free will to yield their members to the master of their
choice, the only people who have a free choice as to whether they will walk in
the spirit or in the flesh are born-again Christians. Every time the Bible says
“Repent!” it’s addressing Christians who have ears to hear (Ezek
18:27,30-32; Mt 3:2; 4:17; 9:10-13; cp. Mt 10:5-7 and Mk 6:12; Lk 13:3-5; Ac 2:5,22,38). But what
about verses like Ac 17:30 and 26:20? They are broad nets
cast over all “creatures” (Mk 16:15) in obedience to the Great
Commission. We preach to all creatures because we can’t see the
difference between men (Ezek 34:31) and beasts (Ec
3:18,19) according to He
13:2. Your thought process must be as follows (and it takes years to
develop): “Hmm, maybe verses like Ac 17:30 do prove the unregenerate can
somehow produce the faith necessary to respond to the gospel and be born again.
No, that ignores the Bible’s clear teachings about carnality and the absence of
life in the unregenerate. Ah, wait a minute! It says “men” in Ac 17:30! That
rings a bell! I’ve failed to take into account the little-appreciated fact that
when God says men there are a couple of ways He could mean it. The first
way is the obvious meaning of men from our human, mortal perspective.
The other way is the way God differentiates between men and dogs. I
remember carefully studying that stuff in the section Saints and Ain’ts: Different Rules on page D8-5. Boy, this guy
Smith sure does let the words God uses shape the way he thinks about everything!
Maybe I should go back over that section and see if he’s wrested the Scriptures
or if he’s properly making much of the word of God.” That’s the way we submit
to the word of God. By the way, on page D8-5 pay particular attention to all
the info in the four paragraphs that begin with: Dt 7…Dt
32…The unsaved…and God’s people…
I believe part of the reason the Great Commission
was given is the possibility that we might be entertaining angels (born-again
Christians) unawares. For example, I believe it likely that Christians today
are unaware that the Syrophenician woman and the
centurion were new angels who were demonstrating the same sudden, compelling
spiritual hungering and thirsting that babies have for their mother’s breast.
Six months or so before the date on which I supposedly got saved in church, I
experienced a feeding frenzy. I had no idea why I had this sudden compulsion to
learn about the Lord Jesus Christ. I started regularly going to the Catholic
Church again, going to Catholic “Christian growth” classes, and Catholic Bible
studies. I read and marked up my old never-touched RSV from cover to cover,
studied Hal Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth, composed my own
blessing for meals (“Father, thank you for this food you’ve provided, and for
your word by which we might know You through Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
amen.”), and was disgusted with everything that didn’t directly concern the
Bible. My wife wondered (with some trepidation) what was happening to her
husband. Later, with moving boxes still piled in our new home two thousand
miles away, a Bible preacher and another man were out witnessing and knocked on
my door. As I was closing the door in their faces I heard the preacher saying,
“We’re a Bible-believing, Bible-preaching, Bible-teaching church.” That
is what I wanted; I invited them in and revealed to them how incredibly
ignorant I was about the Bible. Two weeks later my wife and I answered the
altar call and walked up the aisle to the preacher. He offered his hand and
asked me, “Did you ask Jesus Christ to be your Saviour?”
I shook his hand and (to this Baptist preacher’s great – but concealed – amusement)
replied, “Yes, father.” I came to love him greatly, but the Lord led me away
from him and out into the wilderness.
Anyway, I believe the Lord gave me the new birth
long before I, as a typical Roman Catholic, had any idea what faith meant, and
long before I said the “sinner’s prayer” in that Baptist church. But like the Syrophenician and the centurion, once I was born again I
was drawn to the Lord by a need to feed. Those two men out knocking on
doors in obedience to the Great Commission had just the Food I craved. But
that’s anecdotal and proves nothing; forgive my digression from Scripture.
My belief that our free wills apply only to our
Part B Christian walk and that Part A, the new birth, has nothing to do with
our unsaved free will producing the faith to “make a ‘decision’ for Christ” is
based on more than just an understanding of authority, carnality, and the
impossibility of a corrupt tree producing good fruit; other applications of
Scripture also support it: He 5:4,5,6,10 and Jn
1:13 for example, perfectly complement the fact that we are born again
as a result of God’s will alone. When you read these verses, remember and
apply the fact that we Christians are God’s royal priests: You’ll learn
that no man, including us, takes upon himself the honor of priesthood –
we are specifically chosen by God by His giving us birth. That’s
why Aaron didn’t make himself a priest; he was “called” of God. Even
Christ glorified not Himself by making Himself our high priest; God appointed
Him to the job by saying, “Thou art my Son/Thou art a priest.”
And how did God accomplish that? He explains: “to day have I “begotten”
thee.” You and I did not one day “make a decision” that we would become
priests/Christians; God alone made us priests and sons by begetting/calling us
and we must accept our positions as priests and get to work. (Remember, in the
Old Testament the only Christians who worked seven days a week were the
priests, and now we are the priests. And we’re way behind in our work.)
The Bible says the Old Testament saints were, like us, all chosen by the
sovereign will of God to be His priests (Ex 19:5,6 – notice the works
requirement in v.5; and Dt 7:6). Again, the
Bible says nobody takes God’s honor unto himself by “making a decision
for Christ/the priesthood”; it says God Himself produces priests by begetting
them. And if they don’t do the works required of priests God will cast them out
because He saved and called us not
because of us, but according
to His own purpose and grace (2
Ti 1:9).
I’ve actually gone on about this longer than
necessary. I could have just said: “The Lord was impressed by and pleased with
the faith of the Syrophenician (Mt 15:28).
Because of Ro 8:7-9 and related verses, the unsaved are incapable of He 11:6. I
rest my case; nothing more needs to be said.” And when we apply that, we
realize obedience to the Great Commission – like those two men who knocked on
my door – is a great way to reach hungry newborn angels who don’t know how to
live their new life. Therefore, the Great Commission is at least as important
from my perspective as it is from the traditional perspective. But because the
actual process by which we received our new birth is not important – since it
doesn’t affect our Christian walk – I haven’t spent much time dwelling on it
like everybody else does every sermon every week, year after year and decade
after decade. But do notice that the resurrected Christ’s Great Commission
always contains two elements: 1) teaching people the word so they
can then be… 2) doers of the word (Mt 28:19,20;
Mk 16:15-18). And notice that when the resurrected Christ
commissioned Peter thrice to “feed” (Jn
21:15-17), that word contains both elements of the Great Commission
– when you remember the spiritual food we eat is supposed to be put into
action (Jn 4:34). And, if Christ is giving the
Great Commission to Peter, it is interesting to note whom it is the Lord
commissioned him to feed – “my sheep”, not dogs. In other words, the Great
Commission’s “to every creature” is baiting the hook with Scripture to see
which creatures are dogs that are uninterested in the bait, and which are sheep
who hunger and thirst after righteousness. The Great Commission is trolling
among all creatures in order to draw newborn angels to the milk of the word.
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We tend to forget how radical it was to
the disciples for the Lord to issue them the Great Commission to preach
the gospel to all nations after so many centuries of only the Hebrews being
God’s special people. For example, because God’s people in general believed it
wasn’t proper to cast the saints’ bread to dogs (Mt 15:26; Jn 4:9,27; Ru
2:10), Christ raised no eyebrows when He specifically instructed His
disciples to not preach salvation to the unsaved Gentiles but rather
preach only to Hebrews (Mt 10:5,6). Therefore, even though Christ had already
issued the clearly-worded Great Commission, it wasn’t until He used the vision
of unclean beasts in a sheet and miraculous tongues that His disciples
grudgingly accepted the new reality that God really was opening the gospel to
Gentiles (Ac 10:1,2,11-15,28,34,35,44-47; 11:1-3,7-9,17,18). The
disciples’ reluctance to preach to Gentiles should have reminded them of the
Book of Jonah, which was an Old Testament foreshadowing of the Great Commission
because Jonah also, when God told him to preach to Gentiles, needed special
signs from God before he grudgingly accepted that he should preach to dogs (Jona 1:1-3; 3:1-3,5; 4:1). History repeats
itself, and Rahab the harlot, the wise men, the Syrophenician woman, the centurion, and Jonah were all Old
Commission era types of the coming two-thousand-year
New Testament era of the Great Commission – as shown by Christ’s two-day work among the
Gentiles/Samaritans (Jn 4:39,40), which ended “after two days”/2,000 years (v.43).
Let’s now consult the Scriptures about faith and
works and see what we might learn about Parts A and B:
EPHESIANS 2:1:
This is obviously talking about Part A, the new birth.
2:5:
Part A is by the grace of God.
2:8:
Part A saves us from the curse of mortality through faith. The unregenerate,
carnal, corrupt tree does not engender that faith within us; it is the gift of
God.
2:9:
Part A is not the result of works. Not of what? Works!
2:10:
We are created. (That means we didn’t
exist before we were birthed by God because temporary, mortal dogs are
insignificant; they are dead; they have no life in them.) That is Part A. But
it goes on: Part A, which is not of works, is done so we can do good works.
Those works are the way God wants us to walk. That’s Part B, the Christian walk. So now we know our good works,
which have nothing to do with Part A since God is the one giving birth, are
expected of us in Part B.
Here
in Ephesians we’ve seen that being born again (Part A) is not the result of any
works on our part, which makes sense because babies have nothing to do
with their own births. We’ve also seen that the
reason we were born again was to serve (that’s a verb) God with our
good works (Part B). (As we study this subject you need to learn to understand
the Biblical difference between generic works and specific works of
the law.)
ROMANS 3:19:
The law condemns. (We are going to notice the subject now concerns the law.)
3:20:
Therefore doing the deeds of the law
justifies no one.
3:21:
The fact that God’s righteousness is without
the law is made obvious by the writings of the Old Testament law itself. (He 13:12,13
show that without means outside of.)
3:22:
Righteousness is by faith. (We learned in Ep 2:8
above that Part A faith is not something we come up with. This verse repeats
that.) This Part A saving faith is not “of us,” it’s “of Jesus Christ.” Note:
You’ll see that this discussion of deeds
of the law will sometimes be applied to Part A, and sometimes to Part B.
Why? Because whenever you’re discussing works
of the law, it doesn’t matter whether you’re discussing Part A or Part B –
because works of the law are never
required. By now you should know why that is true: We are dead to the law.
3:24:
This, too, is a repeat of Ep 2:8: We get Part A
freely; it’s a gift we get by the grace of God.
3:25:
“Through faith in His blood.” That does not mean faith we come up with in order
to get Part A because we’ve already seen twice that Part A faith is of God, not
us. The role of Jesus Christ is now being discussed. God accepted Christ’s
blood as payment for sins that are past. “Sins that are past” has to do with
the curse of the Old Testament; it symbolizes the original sin that cursed us
by making us the Devil’s bride. Christ’s blood satisfied God, Who then allowed
us to be espoused to His beloved Son through Part A.
3:27,28: Deeds
of the law have nothing to do with Part A or Part B justification.
Ro 4:1-4:
The theme here is that justification is not of “works.” (Here it does not
specifically say works of the law,
but we’ll see that, just as that was the subject in chapter 3, so is it here.)
4:5:
The Christian who believes on the God who justified him is of faith, not works.
4:6-16:
Works of the law did not justify
David or Abraham in their Part B walk. Abraham lived before the law showed up,
and David ate the shewbread.
Ro 5:1,2: The results of justification.
5:6-8:
Reviews the new birth, Part A of salvation. (Although we may find this is referring to neither Part A nor Part B: It may refer to
Christ’s bound-in-sin, wed-to-the-Devil, Abraham’s-bosom-bound saints being
liberated by Him).
5:9:
Shows there are two parts to salvation. Having been justified by His death
(Part A), we shall be saved (future
tense) from wrath through Him. (If
Part A were all that is required for salvation, there would be a period after
“from wrath.” Through Him is walking
after the Spirit, it is the good works
we were saved to do, it is the Christian walk, Part B.
Also note that words like saved and justified can refer to either Part A or
Part B, while quickened and born again refer only to Part A.)
5:10:
When we were enemies is a past tense
reference to Ro 8:7 before Part A happened. Shall
be saved by His life is future tense and refers to Part B, walking in
Christ.
Ro 6:4:
Part A (buried with Him) is followed
by Part B (the Christian walk).
6:13:
This is about Part B obedience.
6:14:
For refers to the Christian
walk/obedience of v.13. So v.14 says: Pleasing God with the Part B obedience of
v.13 is now possible because you are
not under the law but under grace.
6:16:
Explains why Part B works are so important.
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Ro 7
shows the legalities of how we got out from under the law so we could legally
be married to “another” Husband (v.4)
even though our first husband, Satan, is still alive.
In Romans we’ve seen that works of the law have nothing to do with Part A, being born again,
and that works of the law don’t
justify our Part B walk, as proved by Abe and David. But didn’t Ep 2:10 say we’re born again in order to keep the law? No,
it said we’re born again in order to do good works. In other words,
we’re beginning to see that God differentiates between good works and works of the law. But even though the
context in Romans was works of the law,
there were times when it used the word “works” alone without adding “of the
law.” Could that mean Abraham and David were not justified by either works
or works of the law during their Part
B Christian walks, and the “once saved, always saved”/eternal security groups
are correct in saying works are not a requirement during the Part B Christian
walk? And are they correct when they say the only thing the Part B works do is
determine how many rewards we’ll be showered with at Judgment? No, because the context
of Ep 2 is Part A – it doesn’t specifically define
Part B works. And the context of Romans is works
of the law in both Part A and Part B because nothing that is of the law ever did anybody any good in
either Part A or Part B. But Romans is not worded plainly enough to really nail
this down by itself. So let’s see if
the next two sections agree with what I’m saying.
JAMES 2:1:
These are Part B instructions for “brethren” who already have Part A. Good,
that’s what we’re looking for, info on what is or is not required during our
Part B Christian walk.
2:14-16:
The requirement for works and the insufficiency of faith alone is obvious in
these verses. They show us that David would not have helped his starving men
(the church) by merely saying, “God bless you! I’ll be praying that you find
food! See you later!” What he did was to understand what the word “good” means
in Ep 2:10. We are created by God in order to do expedient works. Therefore both good and expedient mean whatever works
are for the benefit of the church. That’s why David rejected the pious “be ye warm and filled” speech and said instead: “Men,
there’s bread in the temple and I’m going to get it for you! Normally, it
wouldn’t be lawful to eat it. But we are created unto works that are
good for the church. That is the law and the prophets. The only sin
would be for me to see a good and not do it.”
2:17:
Therefore, brother, if you have faith but you don’t have works (good
works, expedient works, obedient works, Part B works), your faith is the same faith
the Devil and the devils have. Works are not an option; they are
required.
2:18:
Talking about faith is lip service. We are supposed to shew our faith by our works.
That is how we manifest God in our
flesh by showing the mystery of godliness.
2:19:
But, you say, you are born of God and believe in the true God? That makes you
the same as the devils.
2:20:
I say again: If your Part B Christian walk doesn’t have works, you
haven’t got faith.
2:21-23:
When Abraham (who lived before the law arrived on Sinai) obeyed God by doing works,
our all-knowing God (Who knew beforehand Abe would obey) waited for him to
manifest his belief and then said, “Now I know you fear Me” (Ge 22:12). The test is in doing;
faith without works does not manifest God in our lives.
2:24:
Compare the word works here with the word faith in He 11:31. They are synonyms. (And,
because in the Bible there are so many places that show faith, works, obedience, fear, love, etc., are the same, this verse
isn’t even included in the list of synonyms on page H1-2!) Let’s call the type
of faith/works the Bible tells us Rahab had –
which is an example of the exact same kind of New Testament faith/works
we are required to have – Rahab’s faith. Here we have a prostitute who wasn’t a
pagan – she was a closet Christian, born again like the Syrophenician
woman and the Roman centurion – even if she didn’t know it yet. Her works are
not only compared with those of Abraham, they actually put her in the Hebrews
11 hall of fame. We learn that God really likes doers whose good works benefit
the church. And we see why those who have “faith” but don’t gather with Him
(those whose “faith” has no synonyms like “works” attached to it), are
considered to be against Him; our purpose is to work for the good of the church
in order to keep the gates of hell from prevailing against it. If we don’t
work, we won’t eat the Marriage Supper with the Lamb. We must work to eat.
2:26:
Believing in faith without works is like thinking the mortal bodies of the
unregenerate have life.
Here in James we’ve seen that works are
required in Part B. We’ve seen, in fact, that God waits for the works to be done before He imputes
righteousness to us. And we’ve seen that a Christian trying to get to heaven
with faith alone is like a pagan trying to get to heaven without the new birth.
How did the eternal security/faith alone groups
go wrong? If they’d believed God’s word they would have realized salvation is a
two-part process. The groups that make a big deal out of Ep
2:8,9 are correct in thinking works have nothing to do
with being born of God, but they incorrectly think the Part A new birth is the
whole story.
GALATIANS 2:14:
Paul is upset that Peter is having saved Gentiles keep the law. The subject
here, therefore, is not the relationship of Part B with works (like it
was in James, where we learned works are required); it’s the
relationship of Part B with works of the
law. In fact, those who think Christians should be keepers of any or all of
the Old Testament law are not walking uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel, are preaching another, perverted gospel (Ga
1:6,7), and should be accursed (Ga 1:8).
I say again, they should be accursed (v.9).
2:16:
Christians are not justified by works of
the law. What are we justified by? It says by faith and belief. Why
does that confuse the “faith alone” groups? Because they ignored the synonymous
use of faith and works in Ja 2:24
and He 11:31 as well as the list of synonyms on page H1-2. This verse says we
are not saved by works of the law; we
are saved by works. If you think works of the law saved God’s
people in the old days, or if you think they still save us, you are like Peter
and do not understand the gospel.
2:18:
For if I build again the works of the law
which I destroyed (when I was baptized into Christ’s death which got me out
from under the law and made me sinless), I make myself a sinner again (because
sin is only imputed when the law exists – according to Ro 5:13).
2:19:
For I through the law am dead to the law. This does not say, “By keeping the
law I achieve freedom.” It says, “Legally (because of Christ’s substitutionary death) I’m dead so the law no longer
concerns me. And because of that I can serve as Christ’s bride with good
works.”
2:20:
A statement of Part B works that manifest Christ in our obedient lives.
2:21:
If doing works of the law
accomplishes anything, Christ died in vain: Rather than dying to replace the
Old Testament with the New, He could have just said, “Keep the law!”
Ga 3:2: Did you
receive the new birth by doing works of
the law, or did you accept it [that it happened] by faith?
3:3:
Why go back to the very law from which you were saved? This verse, along with
2:21, makes more sense when you understand not only what the Old Testament law
is a type of, but also understand the carnality of the law (as covered
in D19 Law and Grace). And when you
understand how much God hates carnality, you better appreciate the New
Testament’s grace, expediency, and good works, and why Christ was so
impressed when David ate the shewbread – all of which
stress selfless love, mercy, and maturity.
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The rest of the chapter continues this theme
that Part B requires works, not works
of the law. Because we’ve seen that faith alone comes into play only for Part
A (when we accept that something we can’t see or feel did happen), it becomes
clear what the word faith, which is
used in the rest of the chapter, means. Its meaning cannot be “faith alone”
because that would contradict two things we’ve already learned: a) Part B
requires works, and b) faith alone applies only to Part A. The correct
choice is that the word faith used in
this chapter is Rahab’s faith – faith with synonyms attached.
Ga 3:19 is interesting
because it says God never wanted the law!
He only invented it because of sin. Because this revelation is rejected by
those who think we should be keepers of the law (because they think that would
mean the law was bad), the next few verses show the Old Testament’s real value
was in its ability to teach.
God was so upset with the false gospel of works of the law being spread by people
like Peter (Ga 2:11,12) that
He continues in chapters 4 and 5 to stress works of faith, and to show
how bad works of the law are. For
example, the observance of feast days is called “weak and beggarly” (4:9,10), and
keeping the law is equated with walking in the lust of the flesh (5:16-18). This is consistent with He 7:16 and Ro 8:7,8.
And this helps explain why Ga 5:4 is true. If you think the works
of the law justify you, you are going about trying to establish your own
righteousness. That will cause you to fall from the scepter of grace and end up
under the First Testament Law of sin and death (as discussed in Law and Grace). But, you protest, isn’t
that exactly what I’m doing by thinking Part B justification is of works?
No. And that question makes me wonder if you’ve yet realized what the Biblical
distinction is between works and works of the law. Works,
works of faith, and good works are all the same and are anything and everything
that is a result of submissive obedience to God via His word. That will often
include things specifically mentioned in the Bible. All of these works are the
product of a selfless sense of duty that is the result of loving God and His
church – and these works are now and will always be required.
Works of the law on the other hand, are
never required because dead people (here I’m referring to Christians who died
in Christ and are therefore dead to the law) are never expected to do anything.
(Christians who are alive in Christ do need to do good works.) The works of
the law are more defined by attitude than anything else – the wrong
attitude. If you do the works of the law (which could be anything in the Bible)
for the reasons the Pharisees did them you are in trouble. But if you do those
exact same things in the Bible for the right reasons mentioned above, those
works of the law cease being works of the law and become good
works of faith.
Proper good works require David’s outlook: “I’m
already a sinner, keeping the law won’t change that. Pleasing the Judge and
relying on His mercy are my only hope. Will He be more pleased in this
situation if I keep the law or if I take the shewbread?”
Obviously we know the answer in that situation, but the choices you make in
your daily life are up to you and God: What will please Him? Let’s say you
don’t eat pork, you got your penis cut, you go to
church on Saturday, etc., because your denomination thinks at least some parts
of the works of the law should still be done. But you’ve not yet kept the
Passover and are really looking forward to it. And a big denominational
get-together is coming up for Passover, which falls on a Saturday this year!
How great is that! You’re all excited. But just before you jump into your car
to tow your camper trailer to the reserved campground, you find out the
Christian widow next door is down sick and has no one to care for her but you.
And to make matters worse she’s out of firewood and, because of how low the sun
is and how long it’ll take you to pick up enough sticks in the woods, if you
help her you’ll end up gathering firewood on Saturday! You’ve got two choices:
First, as you drive off toward the campground you can roll down your window and
yell out to her, “God bless you! I’ll be praying for you! Gotta
go keep the sabbath and
Passover! Bye!” Second, please God like David did by taking “sin” upon yourself
by breaking [complying with] the law for the good of the church. If you do the
first, you really do think we should keep the law. That makes you a Pharisee
and it doesn’t look good for you. If you do the second, you believe in
expediency, you believe in good works – not in keeping the law – and
you’ll serve God well. You see, God doesn’t want you concentrating on rules, He
wants you concentrating on Him and on those He loves.
Does that mean Catholic nuns who ignore the
Bible and try to please God by caring for sick people are pleasing God? No,
because good works must glorify God by coming from Him via discernment in accordance with His Scriptures.
When a Catholic stays with the sick widow and picks up sticks for her, that nun
is using her carnal mind to do that which is right and good in her own eyes. Ro
8:7,8 applies. But, you object, she came up with the
same things God wanted the law keeper to do! Yes, but they were her
thoughts. That makes her the authority, the head, and she gets the
“glory.” Discernment in accordance
with God’s word makes God the Authority, the Head, and He is glorified. Our works,
like when David ate the shewbread, must be under
God’s authority. The issue is authority.
To review:
●
Faith is always required. Part A
faith is believing or accepting that Ep 2:10a happened to you so you can get on with the
business of Ep 2:10b. Part B faith is Rahab’s faith – whatever works you discern God wants you to
do.
●
Works are always required in
your Part B Christian service. As for works in Part A, because they are not
possible, it is absurd to think your works have anything to do with the new
birth. No baby has anything to do with his own birth.
●
Works
of the law never do you any good because the law only condemns, it
never justifies.
If you remember this lesson when reading the
Bible, you’ll avoid the confusion that afflicts everybody else. Carefully check
the wording and context of Scripture to see if it’s talking about being
born-again saved (Part A), or walking-the-walk saved (Part B). Then find out if
it’s talking about works or works
of the law. And don’t forget what God wants you to learn from Rahab about the true and full meaning of faith and its synonyms.
By the way, under the rubric of dispensationalism
some Christians today feign a doctrinal difference between Jews and Gentiles
(called in the Bible “dissembling”, “dissimulation”, and the “false
gospel” of Peter and others, which was covered on
D16-2). In other words, they think some “works” verses in the New Testament
don’t apply to us New Testament saints – they only apply to Jews.
Dispensationalists do this in an effort to explain this Biblical “conflict” between
what the New Testament says about faith and works in books like Ephesians,
Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation – and in order to preserve their belief in
justification by faith alone and eternal security. In other words, the false
gospel of Peter (dissembling, saying there is a doctrinal difference between
Jews and Gentiles) has survived to this day because Christians have failed to
grasp the difference between works and works of the law.