by Pastor Lee Hemen
April 23, 2008
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
It absolutely astonishes me that there are those who claim they know Jesus as Savior and Lord, but immediately deny it by their own attitudes and actions. They have this selfish need to try and earn salvation instead. It smacks of spiritual insecurity. Paul makes it plain that if God “did not spare His own Son,” but that He willingly gave Him as a sacrifice for our sins on the cross, why in the world would we need to try and earn it? It is not only heresy to think we need to follow the Old Testament Law, but it is paganism. Why? Because anything that is not of Jesus is paganism! We would be returning to the old things that could never work and turning away from what God has graciously provided us through His Son! In effect we are spitting on Jesus and His sacrifice for us and saying, “Jesus, it was not good enough, I have to do more!” Paul writes “He… gave [Jesus] up for us all—how will He not also, along with [Jesus], give us all things?” God absolutely does give us “all things!” He withholds nothing from His chosen people whom He has called according to His purposes.
Spurgeon wrote that “We go to Christ for forgiveness, and then too often look to the law for power to fight our sins. Paul thus rebukes us, ‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’ Take your sins to Christ’s cross, for the old man can only be crucified there: we are crucified with him.” He is absolutely correct.
Paul made it very plain that if you follow the Old Testament Law you are in slavery, sin and death when he wrote: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1-4) In fact, Paul wrote that those who want to return to legalism wanted to deliberately “alienate” God’s people from the truth. He would ask them, “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?” The law was born by a “slave woman and the other (the grace of God through Jesus’ death) by the free woman… One covenant (legalism) is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves… But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother… . Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman!”(Galatians 4:21, 22, 24, 26, and 31)
Why do I bring this up today dear child of the Lord? Because there will be those mangy sickened depraved wolves in sheep’s clothing who will want to enslave you again by trying to get you to follow their “law” of legalism instead of the grace of Jesus. As Paul would admonish, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes… . Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:11, 17) Use this sword to slay these legalists wolves who want to ensnare you again to the law of sin and death and make you entrapped by paganism instead of the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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NOTE: This article is copyrighted by Pastor Lee Hemen © 2008 and the property of Pastor Lee Hemen. You are welcome to copy it, email it, or use it but please if you copy it, email it, or use it you must do so in its entirety.
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