ROMANS 3:23-27 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which BELIEVETH in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
ROMANS 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
ROMANS 1:16-19 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
Here is the Gospel you have to believe to be saved.
CORINTHIANS 15:1-6 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
ROMANS 5:8-11 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
ROMANS 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
EPHESIANS 1:13-14 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
I THESSALONIANS 4:13-18 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
ROMANS 10:8-13 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
There are two great revelations, or unfolders of Divine Truth in the Bible - Moses in the Old Testament, and Paul in the New.
Someone may say, "Is not Christ the Great Teacher?" In a sense this is true; but in a real sense Christ is the Person taught about, rather than teaching, in the Gospels. The law and the prophets pointed forward to Christ; the Epistles point back to Him; and the Book of Revelation points to His second coming, and those things connected with it. The Four Gospels tell the story how He was revealed to man, and rejected by them. Christ, Himself, therefore is the theme of the Bible. Moses in the Law reveals God's holiness, and thus by means of the Law reveals human sin, and the utter hopelessness and helplessness of man. Paul in his great Epistles reveals Christ as our Righteousness, Sanctification, Redemption, and All in All.
The twelve Apostles (Matthias by Divine appointment taking the place of Judas) were to be the "witnesses" (Acts 1:22) of Christ's resurrection - that is of the fact of it. They were not to unfold fully the doctrine of it, as Paul was. The twelve were with Jesus personally, and knew Him as a man; and when He died they saw it. When He was buried, they knew it personally, as eye-witnesses. And when He was raised, they found it out experientially, visiting His actual tomb, and seeing that it was empty. They were also to see and handle the physical, risen body of our Lord. And it was with them that our Lord abode on earth forty days after His resurrection, "showing Himself alive (physically, in a body) by many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3).
Christ, when on earth, did not "start' anything. He said, in Matt. 16:18: "I will build My Church;" but He had not yet built it. He was a "Minister of the circumcision," (Romans15:8; Matt. 15:24); and though He taught it was to discover to men their helplessness, and lead them to rely on Him. Finally, all failed in Gethsemane. Then came the Cross and the end of all things human. Then the resurrection, and a new beginning.
This great fact -- that is, that the Person that the Jews themselves well knew they had crucified and buried, was risen from the dead and ascended to heaven-this tremendous fact the twelve Apostles witnessed to Israel at Jerusalem, and everywhere else. Thus we find the opening chapters of the Book of Acts filled with the single testimony that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead; and that remission of sins was through Him.
But unto none of these twelve Apostles did God reveal the great body of doctrine for this age. Just as God chose Moses to be the revelator to Israel of the Ten Commandments, and all connected with the Law dispensation; so God chose Saul of Tarsus be the revelator and unfolder of those mighty truths connected with our Lord's burial, resurrection, and His ascended Person. And all the "mysteries" or "secrets" revealed to God's people in this dispensation by the Holy Ghost are revealed by Paul. Finally, Paul is the unfolder of that great company of God's elect, called the Church, the Body of Christ, the individuals of which body are called members of the Body of Christ - members of Christ Himself.
No other Apostle speaks of these things. Peter himself had to learn them from Paul (II Peter 3:15-16). When Paul finishes his thirteen great Epistles (Romans to Philemon), those which belong to the Church, God indeed permits him to give a message to the Hebrews. This is not part of the Church's doctrine but is simply explaining to Hebrew Christians the character, the real application, the typical meaning, of their Levitical system - that is, how it pointed forward to Christ.
James addresses his Epistle to "the twelve tribes" - that is, his Epistle has special reference to the Jewish Christians in the early days, and to such throughout the dispensation, for that matter. Peter writes to "the strangers who are sojourners of the Dispersion," that is, to the dispersed Jews who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah.
In the second chapter of Galatians we are distinctly told by Paul, that James, Cephas and John were to go to the circumcision, while Paul tells us that his message was to the Gentiles. Since then the testimony by the Jewish Apostles to the Jews was duly given, there is now no distinction between Jews and Gentiles; and Paul's message holds good for the world, both Jews and Gentiles.
We find Paul finally sets the Jewish nation aside in The last chapter of the Book of Acts, and opens his great Epistle to the Gentile center of the world with the statement that "there is no difference" between men; for "all have sinned;".
God does as He pleases, and it pleased Him to choose - first to save people in this dispensation through "the foolishness of preaching," or the "preached thing"- that is, through the message about the Cross, and what was done there (See I Cor. 1:21). And second, it pleased Him to choose Paul to be the great proclaimer and revealer of just what the Gospel is for this dispensation.
You can judge any man's preaching or teaching by this rule - is he Pauline? Does his doctrine start and finish according to those statements of Christian doctrine uttered by the Apostle Paul?
No matter how wonderful a man may seem in his gifts and apparent consecration - if his Gospel is not Pauline, it is not the Gospel; and we might as well get our minds settled at once as to that. Paul calls down the anathema - that is the curse of God Himself - upon anyone who preaches any other Gospel than that which he declared (Gal. 1). To be continued……..
Not for one moment are we to believe that James, Peter and John were at variance with Paul-not in the least. They were given certain things by the Spirit, to say to certain classes of people. They do not conflict with Paul. And their words are included in the statement that "All Scripture is profitable" (II Timothy 3:16).
But, nevertheless, Paul is the declarer and revealer of the Gospel to us. Take Romans to Philemon out of the Bible and you are bereft of Christine doctrine. For instance, if you were to take Paul's Epistles out of the Bible, you cannot find anything about the Church, the Body of Christ, for no other Apostle mentions the Body of Christ. You cannot find one of the great mysteries, such as the Rapture of the Church (I Thes. 4, 1 Cor. 15) or the mystery of the present hardening of Israel (Rom. 11). No other Apostle speaks of any of those mysteries. Paul alone reveals them-the great doctrines such as Justification, Redemption, Sanctification. And what is perhaps the most tremendous fact of every real Christian life, that of this personal union to the Lord in glory. Paul is the great divinely chosen opener to us of truth for this age. The great doctrines that Paul reveals may be outlined as follows:
1. The unrighteousness before God of all men.
2. The impossibility of justification by works before God-that is, of any man's attaining a standing of righteousness before God, by anything done by him. Do what a man may, he is a condemned sinner still.
3. The fact and the scripturalness of righteousness on the free gift principle-that is, of a Divine righteousness, separate from all man's doings, conferred upon man as a free gift from God.
4. Propitiation: That satisfaction of God's Holy nature and law for man's sins rendered by Christ's blood.
5. Reconciliation: The removal, by Christ's death for man of that obstacle to righteousness which man's sin had set up between God and man.
6. The plan of the actual conferring of the gift of righteousness upon all who believe, without any distinction, This change of a sinner's standing before God, from one of condemnation to one of righteousness, is called Justification, Negatively, it is deliverance from guilt on account of Christ's shed blood, and deliverance out of the old creation, by identification in death with Christ on the Cross. Positively, it is a new standing in the risen Christ before God.
7. Redemption-the buying back of the soul through the blood of Christ from sin, from the curse of the law- even death, involving, exclusion from God, under penalty; from the "power of death," which involves the hand of he enemy; and from all iniquity.
8. Forgiveness-the going forth of Divine tenderness in remitting penalty for sin, in view of the blood of Christ trusted in; and in complacency and fellowship, to creatures who before we're necessarily under Divine judgment.
9. Remission of sins-that is, the actual removing of transgressions or trespasses from the sinner, so that for all time and eternity his sins shall not again be upon him.
10. Identification- (see above, Justification) the great fact that those who are in Christ were united with Him at the Cross, by God's sovereign inscrutable act; were crucified with Christ and buried with Him; so that their history is now ended before God; and when Christ was raised up as the First-born of the new creation, they also were raised up with Him, and their history began as new creatures in God's sight, in Christ, the last Adam.
Of course, in the experience of the Christian, there comes a time when he is actually made partaker of this new life-that point of time when he is, as we say, saved, or converted, or born again, etc. Nevertheless, the life that is in every Christian came up out of the tomb, and it is in Christ Jesus that a man is created anew.
11. Incorporation. This tremendous doctrine Paul alone mentions, and he makes it practically the foundation of all his exhortations to the saints with regard to their conduct and life. By "incorporation" we mean the fact that all those who are really saved and are new creatures in Christ Jesus become members of one organism, which is more real than the very earth we tread upon called "the Body of Christ,"-Christ Himself in heaven being the Head of this Body, and every real Christian a member of it. So that believers are thus members of Christ in heaven, and also members one of another here on earth. No wonder Paul is able to exhort the saints to love one another when they are members one of another! (Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12 and Eph. 4).
12. Inhabitation. The wonderful fact that the Body of Christ and each member of it individually is inhabited, indwelt, by the Holy Spirit Himself, and not only so, but that the Church is being "built together" as a great temple of God so that in the future God's actual eternal dwelling place will be this wonderful, mysterious company built into a building called "a holy habitation of God in the Spirit."
This mystery is a great and marvelous one, the fact that we are saved, are partakers now of the life of the Lord in glory, that the Holy Spirit indwells us.
13. Divine Exhibition - that is, that through the Church, in the ages to come, is to be made known that which God counts His "riches," even His Grace (Eph. 2:7; 3:10).
The failure or refusal to discern the Pauline Gospel as a separate and new revelation and not a "development from Judaism," accounts for two-thirds of the confusion in many people's minds today as regards just what the Gospel is. Paul's Gospel will suffer no admixture with works on the one hand or religious pretensions and performances on the other. It is as simple and clear as the sunlight from heaven. The end of man is where God begins in Romans 3, at what might be called the opening of the Pauline Revelation. Most unsaved people today believe in their hearts that the reason they are not saved is because of something they have not yet done, some step that remains for them to take before God will accept them. But this is absolutely untrue. When Christ said, "It is finished," He meant that He had, then and there, paid the debt for the whole human race. "He gave Himself a ransom for all" (I Tim. 2:6).
Now Paul in his wonderful revelation declares that God hath reconciled the world to Himself; that God was in Christ (at the Cross) reconciling the world unto Himself (11 Cor. 5:19). Men do not know this, but they conceive that something stands between them and God, before God will accept or forgive them. If you tell a man that God is demanding no good works of him whatsoever, no religious observances or church ordinances, that God is not asking him to undertake any duties at all, but that God invites him to believe a glad message that his sins have already been dealt with at the Cross, and that God expects him to believe this good news and be exceedingly happy about it - if you tell an unsaved man such a story as this, he is astonished and overwhelmed - yet this is the Gospel!
Would that we had grace just as vigorously to defend his great message today, whether from its enemies or its real friends who do not see it clearly as yet; or who, like Peter (Gal. 2), through fear of others, are ready to compromise and tone down the Gospel of God.
While we are copying and posting small portions of the writings of Miles J. Stanford, let me also copy and paste a statement from his writings.
Failure or refusal to discern the Pauline Gospel as a separate and new revelation, and not a "development from Judaism," accounts for most of the confusion in many people's minds today as regards just what the Gospel is.
Sarge, are you sure that you received this message from God, and not Miles Stanford?
While we are copying and posting small portions of the writings of Miles J. Stanford, let me also copy and paste a statement from his writings.
Failure or refusal to discern the Pauline Gospel as a separate and new revelation, and not a "development from Judaism," accounts for most of the confusion in many people's minds today as regards just what the Gospel is.
Sarge, are you sure that you received this message from God, and not Miles Stanford?
I am sure I received the right message. I am just trying to help you understand the scriptures.
Do you not agree?
And by the way, it is not from Miles Stanford.
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I Corinthians 15: 1-4
Last edited by SFC Retired; 08-07-2009 at 08:03 AM.
Mat 15:8" 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Mat 15:9They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' [fn]"
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Elm River Hunt Club
Wayne County Illinois
www.illinoisdeerhunters.com
Act 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,what shall we do?
Act 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christfor the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Act 2:39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Plain enough
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Act 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,what shall we do?
Act 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christfor the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Act 2:39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Plain enough
I should have known someone would bring up this.
Well, back up to the previous verse,
Acts 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel (whoa now, who was Peter talking to?)
It does not say: all the house of Israel and gentiles. This is all jewish. Rightly divide the word.
Mat 15:8" 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Mat 15:9They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' [fn]"
Act 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,what shall we do?
Act 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christfor the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Act 2:39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Plain enough
But how are we baptized in the name of Jesus? How do we pray in the name of Jesus? I will tell you but you wont believe! 7If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (Jn.15.7) Jesus tells us something very important right here. If my words abide in you ask whatsoever ye will. His words must abide in us. 11And I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 12And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems; and he hath a name written which no one knows but he himself. 13And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name is called The Word of God. (Rev.19.11ff) Since Jesus is the Word of God you must have his words inside you and be walking in the truth before God will even hear you. How are we baptized in the name of Jesus? Here Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
He cleanses us with the water of the Word. We take the Word of God(Jesus) we read it and obey it which cleanses us spiritually on the inner. What happens when we do this? Here Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
We become part of his holy church!
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Elm River Hunt Club
Wayne County Illinois
www.illinoisdeerhunters.com
The Plan for Heaven
