The Beginner’s Introduction to the Bible (Part 7)

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It is the failure to understand the rules I told you about earlier, that has brought this about, with the happy assistance of Satan himself, who is the author of confusion, and the master counterfeiter. He wants to be like God as stated in Isaiah14:14, so he tries to counterfeit everything that God does –all the things, including the performing of miracles,healing, deliverance, etc., and having an unholy trinity.

Now I mentioned earlier that once we are born we never die. Life is eternal and we,as individuals, must decide here on earth where we will spend our eternity. (We have two choices: (1) With God, or (2) Without God and with Satan). Once we die a physical death, we can no longer make that decision,and therefore we are sealed forever into our decision for eternity. With or without God, God has done everything that He can possibly do to save us from the fate of living without Him, but we as individuals must make our decision here on earth and accept the gift, before we die. The prescription for our salvation is found in Paul’s epistles for today, encapsulated in 1 Cor. 15:1-4. It is basically the fact that we must believe in the completed, all sufficient, sacrificial death of Christ for our sins (which separate us from God our Creator), the burial (putting those sins out of God’s sight forever), the resurrection for our justification, and the fact that Christ is alive today and seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven.(He has to be alive, because it is the faith OF Christ that saves us, and if He were dead He could not have any faith)! We must simply believe this and once we believe it we are saved once and for all with absolutely NO works involved.

At this point we are baptized into Christ,and the Holy Spirit comes into us to stay forever. This “baptism” is an identity with Christ, NOT water baptism. There is only one baptism (Ephesians 4: 5)–the baptism of the Holy Spirit–and this baptism identifies us with Christ and puts His seal upon us FOREVER.There is nothing else whatsoever required to get saved, or to stay saved. In fact if you believe you must do anything else to get or stay saved, you are really not saved at all–because it is All OF CHRIST AND NONE OF US!He did all the saving and He does all the keeping. You are saved, once and forever.Our fingerprints will never be found on our salvation. We are simply to believe what Christ believes about us. We are in Him and He is in us!

There are many ministries out there today that tell us we must “commit to Christ” to be saved. This is UNTRUE! It is HIS commitment to US that saves us, NOT our commitment to Him.There are ministries out there that ask, “What would Jesus do”? But again this focuses on His earthly ministry and not on the heavenly ministry of Paul. It is Satan’s ploy to try and refocus our attention back on the earthly program instead of looking to the heavenly program of Paul. Most national religious movements and ministries and most radio and television ministries also try and focus our attention back to the earthly program and a works-type salvation, of what we can do. It bolsters our pride nature, and keeps us coming back for “forgiveness”.

Think these things through well before you commit to them and become focused away from the heavenly program given to Paul for us today. It is the faith OF Christ that saves us not our faith in Him. Because of this there is NO MORE FORGIVENESS FOR SIN! Yes I said NO MORE FORGIVENESS FOR SIN! It was all paid and forgiven at the cross. Jesus said about 2000 years ago, “It is finished”(John 19:30). Done, Completed, Period!The sin question was then answered in the affirmative. The payment was made for All sin — past, present, and future — and by the way, how much of your sin was future at that time? All of it! Let us simply THANK HIM for what He did!!!

You can’t ask for more forgiveness if it was all given at the cross! There isn’t any more to be given! You have already been forgiven! If you believe it as stated in 1 John 1:9 that you must confess your sin and then you will receive forgiveness, then you don’t really understand the Gospel of Grace at all. 1 John was written TO and FOR the Jews and relates back to Leviticus26:40. It has nothing to do with us today! The question today then is NOT the “SIN” question, but the SON question. What will you do with the Son? Will you accept the payment He made on your behalf once and for all?Will you accept Paul’s gospel of Grace?Or will you refuse and reject what Jesus, and He alone, could do and did on your behalf, as preached by the apostle Paul?