stuart, you seem to use this 'lone' passage to press your beliefs. Did you not say the following:
Forgive me, but you quote the letter of one or two verses to support your view a person must be baptised in water to receive salvation, and cannot understand why everyone doesn't believe it.
Are you not doing what you accuse others of doing?
You asked me the other day if the Christian had a licence to be lawless under the new covenant according to words of Paul I quoted. I cannot do your question justice by simply repeating the same old words hurriedly, and therefore at times in a slapdash way.
I could give you a more detailed reply of the application of grace, but as I doubt you would accept it, I will just respond with the basic nuts and bolts as it were:
Now you may be wondering
why people cannot act however they like if they do not have to be good enough for God. For if their salvation hinges on faith, and not being good enough under the law, surely they can do whatever they want without a care in the world. People should be free to rob a bank, for instance, and not worry about it, for they are righteous in God’s sight by faith, and that has no bearing on how they live out their lives, correct?
Well to answer this important point, I would like to draw your attention to a huge difference between the Old Covenant that existed before Christ died on the cross, and the New Covenant that followed. The writer of Hebrews states in the tenth chapter and the sixteenth and seventeenth verses: “‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.’ Then He adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’” (NIV)
Now what does it mean to put God’s laws in the hearts and write them on the minds of new converts? Well, I like the way the Living Bible puts verse sixteen: “‘I will write My laws into their minds so that they will always know My will, and I will put My laws in their hearts so that they will want to obey them.’”
It means, therefore, converts will want to obey the good and holy laws of God in their hearts. Now this does not mean a long list of laws will flash before their eyes every waking minute of their lives. No. It means that in their minds they instinctively know how God wants them to live, and in their hearts they want to live as God desires. They no longer seek a life of sin, but a life in line with God’s will. They have in this sense been born again. That is what Jesus told Nicodemus must happen the night he came to see Him in John 3:3: “‘Very truly I tell you No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” (NIV)
New converts are changed by the Holy Spirit who has entered their lives. He lives in them, and their conscience will now bear witness to wrong things in their lives in a way it did not before. This is an amazing thing God does for those who come to His Son. No man could
bring about such a change in himself − only God could − and it is a provision He makes for all those who accept His Son as their Lord and Saviour.
You see, the Israelites in the Old Testament had the written law – the laws they were to follow to live as God desired. God gave that law to them at Mt. Sinai. The most famous of these laws were the Ten Commandments, though God gave many other laws, as well. Most of the time, however, those written laws stood against the Israelites because in their hearts they didn’t want to follow God. They almost mechanically strove to obey because the law was not written on their hearts. They thought they would be all right if they simply followed certain rules, regulations, and ceremonies. It is the heart that matters most to God, however, and their hearts were far away from Him most of the time, whereas those who are born again under the New Covenant want in their hearts to obey God.
God told Moses the Israelites were a stiff-necked people who would soon desert Him once they reached the Promised Land. Their history as a nation records that most of the time they turned away from God, got into a mess, and found themselves in dire situations. Then they repented of their wrongs and asked for God’s help, and He forgave them and got them out of the messes they were in. This was a cycle they repeated over and over again. It wasn’t always like this, but the vast majority of the time it was. So you see, having the written law didn’t in itself help them, because their hearts were far from God most of the time.
But that was the Old Covenant. Under the New Covenant, which reigns supreme today, God has softened our hearts by putting the desire to obey Him within us. The prophet Ezekiel wrote of this hundreds of years before Christ died on the cross. He says in the thirty-sixth chapter of his book and the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses: “‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.’” (NIV)
God says “I will” three times in the above verse. You see, friend, it is what God does for us. He will give us new hearts. He will remove our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. He will put his Spirit within us and move us to want to obey His laws. God will do these things for all those who accept His Son as their Saviour.
So not only do we have a totally free salvation, but when we come to God through His Son, God changes us into people who want to please and obey Him in our hearts.
Now anyone who wants to obey God in his or her heart cannot at the same time wilfully − without conscience − seek to disobey Him, correct? Such a thing is not possible.
Now when you are born again something significant happens. You become aware of your sin before God for the first time in your life. In order for us to understand why this is so, we need to understand what sin actually is. The disciple John tells us in 1 John 3:4, “Sin is the transgression of the law.” (KJV)
So we see the definition of sin. It is breaking the law of God. The Apostle Paul states in Romans 3:20, “Through the law we become conscious of our sin.” (NIV)
You see, friend, only when you are conscious of God’s laws can you be conscious of your shortfall of obedience to those laws, and your shortfall of obedience is your sin. For sin is breaking the law of God. Before you become a Christian, you sin in ignorance of the fact that you are sinning. Once you become a Christian, however, the spotlight has been turned on. Through the knowledge of God’s laws placed on our hearts and written on our minds, therefore, we have knowledge in our hearts of how far short we fall in obedience to God’s laws. At that point, we have a heartfelt conviction of our sin.
Now we have looked at what it means to be born again. Let us now look at the second core component of the New Covenant the Christian is under, which is found in verse seventeen: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’” So under the terms of the New Covenant, a person’s sins (which are lawless acts) will be remembered no more. We know this is true, of course, because Jesus died for our sins at Calvary.
At the very moment you accept Christ as your Saviour, therefore, the Holy Spirit places the law God wants you to keep on your heart and writes it on your mind. You are born again. This results in you desiring in your heart to live as God wants you to. Because that is what you want, Jesus is an atonement for your sin.
You see, friend, God is not stupid. He had it all figured out. He did not create a covenant whereby those who know they have a righteousness before Him apart from the law would then use that knowledge as a licence to sin. He created a covenant whereby He places the desire to obey Him in the hearts of those who accept His Son as their Saviour. Because that is what they want, He will remember their sins no more. So we see the two foundational principles of the New Covenant are inextricably linked. God changes us into people who want to obey, and because we do, Christ paid the penalty of our sin.
You see, there is what we can term an “unbridgeable gap” that will be reflected in our lives. That gap is the difference between the perfect demands of God’s good and holy laws and our obedience to them. Now as I have met no one who has claimed to be perfect in his or her flesh, I have met no one who has ever claimed to obey God’s laws perfectly. We all fall short, every one of us. Thus we can say, “Christ died to bridge the unbridgeable gap.” The more we follow the true path of the Gospel message, the narrower the gap becomes. A gap, however, will always remain, friend, for you will never be perfect in your flesh.
I would once again place before you the basis of the covenant the Christian is under, friend, for it is something we need to fully appreciate to move forward in the Christian faith. So once again, here Hebrews 10:16-17: “‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and write them on their minds.’ Then He adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’” (NIV)
] to burn that straw... Just a li'l ol' strike-anywhere will touch it off!
