Aug 15
30
| The first two people to hear the gospel proclaimed by a man were Cain and Abel. They heard the testimony of their father concerning what happened in the garden. How God came and reconciled them and the substitution sacrifice of a lamb slain. By the death of this substitute they were restored into fellowship with God and a covering was provided to hide their nakedness. They were to view this sacrifice and covering in the light of the promised seed; the seed of woman who was yet to come. They heard the gospel of God’s redeeming grace in the promised redeemer. They both heard the same gospel from the same man who received it himself from the mouth and hand of God.
Cain heard this gospel and mixed what he heard with his own fallen depraved reasoning and logic. He took what appealed to him and what seemed right and changed what he didn’t like. He brought the works of his labor. He brought the very best he could do and with his eyes pointed up to heaven and his heart lifted up with pride he presented his gifts to the Lord expecting a full reward for his efforts. By these two men, and their offerings to God, is represented all the religions of the earth from that time to this. All the sons of Adam will come to God by the works and ways of the flesh or by the testimony of God through faith. Every man that comes the way of Cain will be judged by his works and found wanting. Everyone that comes the way of Abel will be judged in the substitute and found justified. |
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A Mixture of Law and Grace
Clay Curtis
Acts 11: 1: And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God. 2: And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, 3: Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.
Here the apostle Peter stands before his own brethren who contended with him because he ate meat forbidden by God in the law with Gentiles. They did not rejoice in God’s grace or in the fact that Christ was exalted; they did not rejoice in the fact that sinners were saved. Their minds were fixed in the opposite direction, on Peter and the letter of the law. That is the result of turning from Christ to the law.
Wherever the law is mixed with grace, men focus on the law; men focus on their imaginary obedience to the law; the congregation examines one another, but no one looks to Christ alone. That is why when Paul was confronted by men who insisted that just one law was yet necessary for believer’s salvation he refused. Pay attention to the reason he gave, “that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.” (Galatians 2: 5)
When men are turned to the law as a means of sanctification or as a means for righteousness or justification or as way to gain rewards in heaven then the truth of the gospel ceases. If the law is used as motivation to make men obedient or moral then the truth of the gospel ceases. If the observance of a day or abstinence from certain meats is preached as a requirement by God the truth of the gospel ceases. There are many other reasons men give to constrain sinners with the law but the truth of the gospel ceases because that is simply not the truth of the gospel.
Look up the following scriptures in the book of Galatians. This is why the gospel of grace ceases when even just one law is made a must.
Gal. 2: 18: It makes men transgressors against God.
Gal. 2: 21: It counts the death of Christ vanity.
Gal. 3: 3: It makes men think they are made perfect by the work of their flesh.
Gal. 3: 10: It binds men under the curse of the law.
Gal. 3: 18: It claims God’s salvation to be by law instead of by promise.
Gal. 3: 24: It claims justification to be by law instead of faith.
Gal. 3: 27-29: It divides men against men so that they can never be one with the brethren in Christ and heirs of God’s salvation.
Gal. 4: 9, 10: It turns men back to the weak and soul-distressing elements of bondage.
Gal. 4: 11: It counts the work of God’s true messenger’s vanity.
Gal. 4: 17: It zealously affects men in a wrong way causing them to exclude men who teach salvation by God’s free grace in Christ.
Gal. 4: 22-25: It makes men count themselves sons of the bondwoman, born of the flesh, servants of Mt. Sinai, bound by law.
Gal. 4: 29: It makes men persecutors against believers who are born of the Holy Spirit.
Gal. 5: 2-4: It makes Christ of no effect unto men.
Gal. 5: 11: It makes the offense of the cross to cease.
Gal. 5: 15: It makes men bite and devour one another.
Gal. 5: 18: It leaves men under the law, led by their flesh, instead of the Holy Spirit.
Gal. 5: 24-25: It makes men unable to crucify the flesh, leaving them vain, combative, and envious.
Gal. 6: 3: It puffs men up in self-righteousness when in reality they are nothing and self-deceived.
Gal 6: 7, 8: It makes men mockers of God.
Gal 6: 13: It causes men to force others to walk after the law so that they can glory in what they constrain other men to do in the flesh.
Gal. 6: 14: It makes men to glory in their work instead of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gal 6: 15: It makes men believe that even just one act of law-obedience will profit them something before God.
The truth is that Christ is the believers All–all Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption (I Cor. 1: 30-31.) Believers are complete in Christ—perfected forever (Col 2:10; Heb 10: 14.) God remembers their sins no more so there is nothing else for the believer to offer. (Heb 10: 17, 18.) It is King Jesus who gave the law that leads the believer, not by sinful carnal rules and reprimands, but by the Holy Spirit of grace and love.
The Necessity of the Husband’s Glory
Clay Curtis
Isaiah 4: 1: And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
It is improper for the bride to propose to the man. Merely taking his name does not constitute a marriage. If her reproach will be taken away, Christ the GodMan must draw his bride in cords of love, unite himself to her in a holy, unbreakable union, and provide all her needs.
God created one wife for his beloved Son. She is the church made up of his elect people out of ever nation on this earth. God espoused this bride to one husband even Christ Jesus his own Son. He is her All and she is his all.
First, the full provision Christ bestows upon his bride is found in his name which he gives her. The maiden name of a sinner is that of our father Adam. Our maiden name is a name of reproach, of disobedience to God, a name which declares we are dead in trespasses and in sins. But Christ gives his bride his name and his name declares her reproach is taken away by him. Jeremiah 23:6: In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Jeremiah 33:16: In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness.
Secondly, the name of Righteousness given to his bride declares that Christ has fully met every requirement of a faithful husband. Concerning the responsibility of the husband the law states, If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. Christ shall never take another bride as sinful men do for he has everlastingly loved the bride betrothed to him by his Father. Christ is her Food (Life) and thus Christ’s bride shall never be found begging bread. Christ is her raiment of Righteousness thus she is arrayed in the finest garment. Christ the Son of God unites himself intimately with her, which scripture terms the “the duty of marriage”, by making himself one with her nature that he might make her one with his nature (Ephesians 5: 30-32; Heb 2: 11, 14-16; Eze 36: 27; 2 Peter 1: 3, 4; Rom 8: 9-12.)
The marriage is about much more than the bride’s reproach being taken away, it is about Christ’s glory in being a true and faithful Husband. Christ is that glorious Husband thus the reproach of his bride is forever removed.
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:11
How many poor souls are struggling against the power of sin, and yet never get any victory over it! How many are daily led captive by the lusts of the flesh, the love of the world, and the pride of life, and never get any victory over them! How many fight and grapple with tears, vows, and strong resolutions against the besetting sins of temper, levity, or covetousness, who are still entangled and overcome by them again and again! Now, why is this? Because they know not the secret of spiritual strength against, and spiritual victory over them.
It is only by virtue of a living union with the Lord Jesus Christ, drinking into his sufferings and death, and receiving out of his fullness, that we can gain any victory over the world, sin, death, or hell. Let me bring this down a little to your own experience. Say your soul has been, on one particular occasion, very sweetly favored; a melting sense of the Savior’s precious love and blood has come into your heart, and you could then believe, with a faith of God’s own giving, that he was eternally yours; and through this faith, as an open channel of divine communication, his merits and mediation, blood, righteousness, and dying love came sweetly streaming into your soul.
What was the effect? To lead you to sin, to presumption, to licentiousness? No, just the contrary. To a holy obedience in heart, lip, and life. Sin is never really or effectually subdued in any other way. Saul struck down at the gates of Damascus, and turned from persecution to praying, is a scriptural instance of the death of sin by the power of Christ. It is not, then, by legal strivings and earnest resolutions, vows, and tears, which are but monkery at best, (a milder form of the hair shirt, the bleeding scourge, and the damp cloister,) the vain struggle of religious flesh to subdue sinful flesh, that can overcome sin; but it is by a believing acquaintance with, and a spiritual entrance into the sufferings and sorrows of the Son of God, having a living faith in him, and receiving out of his fullness supplies of grace and strength–strength made perfect in our weakness.
In this sense the Apostle says to the Colossians, “For you are dead;” not merely by the law having condemned and slain you, as to all legal hopes, but by virtue of a participation in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, by virtue of a living union with the suffering Son of God. “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law,” where sin reigns with increased dominion, “but under grace,” which subdues sin by pardoning it. If you read Romans 6 with an enlightened eye, you will see how the Apostle traces out the death of the believer unto the power and prevalence of sin, by virtue of a spiritual baptism into the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. J.C.Philpot