davidbu@tekigm2.men.tek.com (David Buxton) (10/13/89)
(Continuing my $10 Bill discussion)
Not until the Holy Spirit gets through to people do they understand that
they are sinners; not until they come to Christ and know Him are they wil-
ling to be schooled by the law of God; not until they come to Jesus are
they capable of discovering that they are truly condemned by the law and
not until they come to Jesus can they understand that they can be freed
from their bondage to sin. Until then, they see nothing to be freed from
and cherish their freedom to "do their own thing".
-----
Freedom from God and His Commandments was the siren call of Lucifer in
heaven. Freedom from God and His Commandments was the siren call in the
Garden of Eden. Freedom to "do your own thing" is what we want to do
today. Before coming to the cross we think of this as freedom. But is it
really? Satan's claim has always been that no man can keep the command-
ments of God. Under the first dispensation he is right. But there is the
free gift of salvation that anyone can choose. Satan is eager to show us
why he thinks this is a total loss of freedom and bondage to God. This was
Lucifers delusion in heaven and 1/3 of the angels bought his neat ideas and
left with him to "do their own thing", free from God's Law in heaven.
Did they gain the freedom that they so eagerly sought? No!!! Compare the
freedom of the angels in heaven with God, under God's loving law, with the
'freedom' of Satan's host to "do their own thing" here on earth with Satan
who is eager to convince everyone that true freedom is freedom from the
obligations of God's commandments. Those on a free for all do your own
thing trip are the ones most likely to be on suicide trips. Those who get
involved in doing things for others are soon cleansed of this affliction.
Doing your own thing is really not freedom after all. Whose definition of
freedom do you wish to choose? The Bible makes it clear that we cannot
choose both. We must choose one or the other. The ultimate choice belongs
to each one of us. The Holy Spirit strives mightily with each one of us,
but we alone must choose between Jesus and Satan - between God's law vs
man's ways and traditions.
-----
What stands between the two sides of the Ten Dollar Bill? The answer is
simple. It is the cross of Calvary. It is Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Until we come to the cross and lay everything at the foot of the cross of
Jesus who died for us; until then we are under the dispensation of law
which condemns us to an eternal death. Believing in the Lord Jesus and
coming to know Him, brings us to an understanding that we are sinners in
need of the cross. Until we bring everything to the cross, we are under
the Old Dispensation which does condemn us. This condemnation is just as
much in effect today as it was before Christ came to die. But the gift of
salvation is free. It does not call for good works, it does not call for a
pure life, it does not call for victory in Christ. We simply come as
sinners and we leave our impossible burden of guilt and sin at the cross.
All we have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and we will be saved.
We can be delivered from our burden of sin and we can indeed be saved.
Jesus can do a mighty work to change our hearts if we will only let Him.
Let us say that we have someone here before us who finds that coming to the
cross is asking too much. It calls for believing in Jesus and Jesus is
someone he does not know yet. So he balks at the cross and turns back.
But this person is eager to go to heaven, if it turns out there is a heaven
he says to himself. And so he determines to keep the commandments. And
let us allow that he does indeed refrain from breaking any of God's Ten
Commandments. Do we all know why such a keeping of the commandments does
not save? It is because this fine young man stands under the wrong dispen-
sation. He has been a sinner all his life until this date. Let us allow
that he breaks no commandments the rest of his life. He is proud of the
fact that he has not broken a single commandment since a specified date.
And yet he is a sinner and is condemned because of what he did before that
date. It should be clear that we cannot save ourselves by anything that we
can possibly do.
It is the cross yesterday, today and tomorrow that stands between the two
dispensations of law and grace. I firmly believe that the central essence
and theme of salvation is eternal and has never changed and did not change
on the day that Christ died. I do not teach that one dispensation is in
the Old Testament and the other in the New Testament. No! Each of the two
dispensations stand on each side of the cross in a much more personal way.
There is the date on which each of us should be able to say we first came
to Jesus and believed and left our burden of sin at the foot of the cross.
That is the date on which we accepted the new dispensation. But let us
also remember Paul saying "I die daily". We must each come to the foot of
the cross each day. How quick and easy it is to revert back to the Old
Dispensation. How easy it is to be smug in our own abilities to save our-
selves. How quickly we do revert to our own ways and means and the Old
Dispensation.
-----
The New Testament is full of statements that the Commandments are to be
kept and that only those who keep the Commandments will find their way to
heaven. Do we condemn these texts as legalism and discard them? If the NT
law is Love then why don't these texts say 'Love' in stead of 'Law' or
'Commandments'? How do we reconcile these texts with the free gift of sal-
vation? Jesus gave us the answer - "If you Love Me, Keep my Commandments".
It is the 'Placed in the Heart', 'New Heart', the 'Born Again' experience
that is the answer.
The New Testament is clear that the law of God was not done away with.
Here is one line of reasoning: If it was done away with then every sinner
since Christ died is released from the condemnation of the law regardless
of whether they come to the cross and to Christ or not. Those who say
God's Law was nailed to the cross are in effect claiming that the need for
Christ, in terms of salvation, was also nailed to the cross. This teaching
basically says that because Christ died there is now no longer any need for
Christ - in other words Christ died so that we no longer need Him. But do
read these texts: Where no law is, there is no transgression. (Rom.
4:15). Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). Jesus pointed
to the Mishna keeping Pharisees and said their man made rules were all to
no avail and that anyone who did not do better at keeping God's succinctly
stated law would not find his way to the kingdom. Because the law remains,
we need a Saviour.
It is also clear that there is Grace to be found in the Old Testament. The
Old Testament looks forward to a Messiah who would come and the New Testa-
ment tells us about a Jesus who came. The essence of salvation stands the
same in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
-----
Anyone who claims to be a born again Christian claims to have brought
everything to the foot of the cross. They have surrendered completely to
Jesus. This is what the Bible means by believing in Jesus: they have come
to know Him; they have come to Love Him; they believe in Him, they have
surrendered all to Him. The born again Christian is eager to do what the
Lord would have him/her to do. This calls for keeping the commandments and
obeying the Gospel Commission. But let us be careful here. We do not do
these things in order to prove anything at all. We do not do these things
in order to be saved, as salvation is an already accepted free gift. We
simply do these things out of the fulness of our hearts filled with the
Love of Christ. Jesus is the one who gives me a 'New Heart' and that 'New
Heart' desires to do what He would have me to do. The 'New Heart' is
wherein lies the secret. It is Him in us that keeps the commandments. If
we lack the desire to do all that He wants us to do then we do not solve
this problem by psyching up a greater determination to do right. That does
not mean we give up the battle because we neglected the relationship. It
means the relationship is what will restore our motivation. We seek to tap
ourselves deeper into the true vine that is our Lord Jesus Christ. We turn
to Him in prayer and plead for the victory and we go forward in Faith, we
purpose in our hearts that we will be victorious - as Daniel did and so
many other's in the Bible did - they each made their simple statements of
Faith.
With the true heavenly motivation of Jesus Christ in our hearts it is per-
fectly ok to do His bidding in all things that He asks of us to do. It is
Jesus in us that gains the victory over sin. It is Jesus in us that keeps
the Commandments of God. With Jesus in us we keep God's Law in a spiritual
and loving way instead of trying to keep the letter of it legalistically.
We do what we do out of the fulness of our hearts full of Love for our
Saviour which fills us with love for our neighbor. Does this make us the
judge of what is the 'spirit' of the law - the Christ filled keeping of the
law? No, not at all. Sinful man is always eager to find new ways to do
his own thing. Don't trust your own reasoning on how to keep the law spir-
itually, the 'spirit' of the law. Read carefully the example that Jesus
provided for us. This is one key reason why He came to this earth. He
showed us how to keep the law in spirit and in truth. Come to a thorough
understanding of His example in order to understand what is meant by the
spirit of the law, the spirit filled, Christ filled keeping of God's Ten
Commandments. He provided testimony and example on all ten commandments
and made it clear that He had not come to do away with any of them. If
there was no need of His example He could have simply come to die. But He
came as a baby, as a boy, as a teenager, as a man. He was in all points
tempted as we are and He kept God's law as we should keep it. Keep God's
law and not a new Mishna of man's devising. Keep it out of a new Christ
filled heart and not out of any attempt to prove anything before God or
man.
Do not counterfeit my ten dollar bill. Both sides must be authentic or
don't try to give me one of them.
I will happily provide supporting texts at your request.
\\/////
8-) (-8 Dave (David E. Buxton)
|
.-. davidbu@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM
. . Smile! Its a beutiful day!
\_/ mrh@drutx.att.com (Mike Hudson) (10/19/89)
I enjoyed your $10 Bill discussion: In other words "...faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." New Testament - James 2:17 "...it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." Book of Mormon - 2 Nephi 25:23 Cheers Mike Hudson ...att!drutx!mrh
davidbu@tekigm2.men.tek.com (David Buxton) (10/22/89)
In article <Oct.18.17.51.15.1989.3001@athos.rutgers.edu>, mrh@drutx.att.com (Mike Hudson) writes: > "...faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." James 2:17 > "...it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." > Book of Mormon - 2 Nephi 25:23 I certainly do subscribe to your James 2:17 text in the sense of Christ doing those works through me. The works must be revealed but it is not my works but rather the works of my Jesus. Sorry Mike, but I simply cannot subscribe to your Nephi quotation. In my $10 Bill analogy I wish to be clear that SIDE_A must come first. Without SIDE_A there can be no SIDE_B. The full Gospel, IMHO, must deal with both sides of the $10 Bill, else we have a counterfeit. Let me re-state my oppening summary. ----- Two of my neighbors each ask a different question. Each of these ques- tions has a different answer: QUESTION_A: One neighbor asks "What must I do to be saved?" ANSWER_A: Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. QUESTION_B: I Love Him, what would God have me to do? ANSWER_B: Jesus said - "If you love me keep my commandments." The Gospel Commission. Until my first neighbor becomes a 'Born Again' Christian and is sincerely asking Question_B the second answer will mean little to him/her. We hand out a counterfeit if we offer the same answer to both questions: Legalism is offering ANSWER_B for both questions. It is also a fraud when we insist that "Just Believe" is the answer to both questions. ----- You are proposing one of the many variations by which people offer the same answer to both questions. You propose that the 'Born Again' experience must come out of Faith and Works. No, emphatically NO!! The works flow out of the 'Born Again' experience. Any other works flow from the human heart and are perverted by human selfishness. We keep His Commandments because we love Him; out of a heart filled with Love for Him and for the humans that He created. Until God's Love and God's Law become an inseparable unity we know not what love is or law is in the true spiritual sense. They must be welded together in our hearts; and only Jesus can do that. Step #1 is the Born Again experience - we come to Him just as we are. There is no other way by which we can be saved. Friend, Dave