Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

Paul asked this same question (and also emphatically answered it in the negative) in Romans 6.

The fact that God's grace (that is, His totally unmerited love and favor toward humanity) allowed Him to justly forgive human sin -- on the basis of JESUS enduring (in OUR place) the suffering and death that OUR sins deserved -- by NO means amounts to a license for us who have been forgiven to take unfair advantage of that mercy by then deliberately continuing to sin so that God's grace will be given a further opportunity to exercise itself.

Faith in Christ puts a new nature (the presence of the Holy Spirit) within Christians that seeks to serve and obey Him out of gratitude and love, which are totally incompatible with the type of mindset that minimizes or discounts the magnitude of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf by seeking to "put one over" on God (as if that were even possible, given His omniscience) through intentional sin.

August 30 2022 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report

Mark Vestal Proud of nothing of myself. Freed by Christ who did it all!

When the gospel that saves today is understood and believed, a desire to serve God ensues. We may still fail on occasion as humans.

Christ died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins (Eph. 1:7, Col. 1:14), and God is no longer imputing them to us (2 Cor. 5:19).

Believers are not subject to God's wrath or covenant law, we are under God's grace today (1 Thes. 5:9, Eph. 3:2, Rom. 6:14, Gal. 3:23, 1 Cor. 6:12).

Christ received the punishment on the cross that we deserved (2 Cor. 5:21, Eph. 1:7, Col. 1:14).

It is of utmost importance to rightly divide the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15), the gospel of our salvation (Eph. 1:13), that was given to our apostle Paul (Romans through Philemon), from the gospels given to biblical Israel (any other book in the bible) when studying. The gospel from Christ on earth and the 12 apostles were to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, which is not you or I (Mat. 10:5-6, Mat. 15:24).

Our apostle Paul received the revelation of the fellowship of the mystery from Christ ascended (Eph. 3:9), which was before kept secret since the world began (Rom. 16:25). Had this mystery information been known prior to Christ's death, the princes of this world would not have crucified Jesus (1 Cor. 2:8).

During God's dispensation of grace (Eph. 3:2) there is no difference in Jew nor Greek (Gal. 3:28). Believers today are members of the church, the body of Christ (Col. 1:24). God now sees Christ in us, and not who we see when we look in the mirror!

The sin barrier between God and man was removed by the death of Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:22, 2 Cor. 5:21). God can now work through us once we've removed ourselves from His path (Col. 2:14, Phil 1:6). We can now focus on what we can do for Him once we've stopped focusing on ourselves and our iniquities (Rom. 7:22-25). This is where our desire will change from serving our sinful flesh bodies to that of serving God (Rom. 7:5-25).

Christ's message to Paul, the gospel of our salvation, differs from the 12 apostles to biblical Israel (James 1:1), who did works under law to prove their faith in 'times past' (Rom. 11:6, James 2:24). We, in the dispensation of the grace of God (Eph. 3:2), are to simply have faith in the finished cross-work of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:28, 1 Cor. 1:23). Works for salvation actually put us into debt with God as this shows lack of faith (Rom. 4:4). Basically, we do not work in order to be saved, we work because we are saved (Eph. 2:10, Eph. 4:12).

Is there something we believe we could have done differently during our lives that would secure a path to heaven? If we answer yes, then we do not yet understand what it means to have a savior, to faith in what Christ did on our behalf. This is the requirement today for salvation, which is nothing of ourselves.

Can we lose our salvation in any way? If we say that we can then we do not understand that at the moment of belief in Paul's gospel of Christ crucified we were sealed by the holy Spirit until Christ returns (Eph. 1:13), and not just until we sin again, which we will certainly do as humans.

When you’re a passenger in a vehicle, you have faith that the driver will safely get you to your destination. Jesus Christ is our ‘spiritual vehicle’ (Rom. 5:10, Rom. 8:32), and the Holy Spirit is our 'spiritual seat-belt' (Eph. 4:30), that seals our souls until the day of redemption (Eph. 1:13)!

Since we're unable to save ourselves we need someone who can, a savior. That's what it means to have faith in Christ, to believe that He died on the cross for the forgiveness of all of our sins (1 Cor. 15:3), was buried, but rose again (1 Cor. 15:4) that we may have everlasting life in Him (Rom. 6:22, 1 Cor. 15:22).

The good news today is that we will not be judged on our merits for salvation (Titus 3:3-5), our belief in what Jesus Christ did on our behalf makes us the righteousness of God (1 Cor. 1:30, 2 Cor. 5:21)!

September 02 2022 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report