NarrowPathPilgrim said:
Romans? Old Testament???
Has Jesus paid the price for everyone?
John 17:9
I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Think about that, Jesus wouldn't even pray for everyone, only for a chosen few.
And according to scripture, even us, the elect, were born DEAD IN SIN!
Ephesians 2:3 says that "we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and
were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." (BTW, This is NT)
I have posted MANY, MANY, MANY more Bible verses which will help you understand the issue on my website because it would take about 3 or 4 posts to post them in this forum (They limit posts to a certain size), please
Click Here read them! (WARNING: You May Not Be Prepared For What You Will Read!)
Sincerely, Zach Doty
1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our's only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
2 Corithians 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Isaiah 54:8-10, In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah to me. For I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, and my kindness shall not depart from you; neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed from you, says the Lord who has mercy on you.
The God that I serve is
not ticked off anymore.
THE TRUE NATURE OF GOD
God is a good God! He isn't mad at us. He not only loves us, He likes us! He will never leave us nor forsake us, no matter how badly we miss it. His love is unconditional. His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness!
These are radical statements! They go contrary to the typical Christian teaching concerning God. Usually God is represented as stern, angry, and ready to get us for the slightest misstep. This leads to conclusions and attitudes about God that hinder an intimate relationship with Him.
There are reasons for the Lord being represented harshly. In the Old Testament, the Lord vented His anger and judgment often and in devastating ways. There was Noah's flood; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; a death angel killed all the first born of Egypt in one night; an angel killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night; and on and on the list goes. There is no doubt our God is a holy God who hates sin and demands justice.
But there is also the portrait of God that Jesus painted through His teachings and actions. He showed mercy on the worst of sinners. He associated with publicans and harlots. The only people to receive His harsh rebukes were religious hypocrites. And His ultimate action of dying for our sins proved beyond any doubt that He came to save, not condemn the world.
How does this fit with the Old Testament view of the harshness and severity of God? Is God schizophrenic? Does He sometimes love us and other times hate us? How can we have a healthy relationship with someone who changes His moods frequently?
These are questions that present a dilemma keeping many people at arm's length from the Lord. The vast majority of people KNOW there is a God. They just don't know how to relate to Him. They are confused because there have been confusing signals sent to them, often by the church.
A minister will say that it was the Lord who sovereignly killed a baby and in the next breath ask if anyone wants to serve this GOOD GOD. We are told that God won't answer the prayer of anyone in sin, yet we are told that we all sin. Where does that leave us?
Without a prayer!
There is a simple answer to these questions and a harmony between the wrath and mercy of God. God is not schizophrenic. There is one true nature of God clearly represented in the Word and that is LOVE! First John 4:8 says,
"God is love."
He doesn't just love at times. Love is the nature of God! Jesus gave us the greatest representation of the true nature of God ever presented. But what about the harshness of God's judgments in the Old Testament? Many expect God's mercies when we do well, but what about when we sin?
God placed our sin on Jesus and punished Him in our place. God satisfied His own demands for justice, not by punishing us but by punishing His Son in our place. This wasn't a partial payment for our sins, conditional on our holiness being added to it. It was a total payment that leaves us with nothing to do except believe and receive or doubt and do without.
Jesus' payment for our sins forever changed our relationship with the Father. If Jesus had made His sacrifice for sins in the Old Testament, then we wouldn't have seen the wrath of God vented as recorded in the Old Testament scriptures.
Here's an example. In 2 Kings 1, Elijah called fire down from heaven and killed 102 soldiers who had come to arrest him. Jesus' disciples asked to do the same thing and cited Elijah as their example. Jesus rebuked them for even thinking about such an act, saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:55-56).
Jesus rebuked His disciples for trying to follow Elijah's example. This shows that if Jesus had been present on the earth in His role as Messiah, Elijah's act of judgment wouldn't have happened.
There is a difference between the way God dealt with mankind under the Old Covenant and the way He deals with mankind under the New Covenant. One of the biggest problems in the church today is a failure to understand these differences. Before the sacrifice of Jesus, there was harsh judgment. It wasn't because the Lord desired to punish us. His nature has always been love. But there was a price that had to be paid for sin, and until that price was paid by Jesus, He had to do something to restrain sin.
It's similar to the way we train our children. If you wait until your child is twenty years old and can comprehend exactly what you say before you begin disciplining him, you and the child will be in big trouble. A child has to be restrained from doing wrong from a very young age. At one or two years old, a child may not understand that it is the devil tempting them to take their sibling's toys. But they can understand, "If you do that again, you are going to get a spanking." They may not comprehend the issues of heaven and hell, but when the devil tempts them with covetousness, they will say "NO!" because of the fear of a spanking.
Likewise, before the new birth, the Lord restrained the amount of sin in the earth through enforcing the strict Old Testament Law by harsh judgments. This put the fear of God in men, but "fear hath torment." (1 John 4:18)
Although the amount of sin may have decreased by those under the Law, the sin they did commit became more exceedingly sinful and damaging to their lives through the Law (Rom. 7:8-13). Therefore, the Law wasn't God's best, or first, way of dealing with sin. Prior to the time God gave the Law through Moses, God didn't impute men's sins unto them. That means He wasn't holding men's sins against them, or, as the word "impute" literally means, God wasn't putting men's sins on their account.
Romans 5:13 says,
"Until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law."
Men were sinning and that sin was destroying their lives. God didn't want to punish them. He was willing to show them mercy, on credit in a sense, looking forward to the sacrifice of His own Son for their sins. But men began to take the lack of God's judgment as approval.
This can be clearly seen with Cain and his descendants. Cain killed his brother Abel (Gen. 4). Instead of punishment, God extended mercy toward Cain, even putting a mark on his forehead to warn others that God was protecting him. But Cain's great-great-grandson, Lamech, interpreted this as approval of Cain's murder. Lamech killed a man in self-defense and therefore felt more justified in his killing than Cain was. He said, "If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold" (Gen. 4:24).
God didn't say that. Lamech said that. Lamech was being presumptuous because of God's lack of punishment upon Cain. Therefore, mankind began to move so far away from a proper standard of holiness that
if God had not intervened, there wouldn't have been a virgin left from whom Jesus could've been born.
As Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 10:12,
"But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves, are not wise."
This has always been the case. If one gets by with sin, others will be emboldened to commit more sin. So, before the Lord could produce the new birth where He came to live within us and guide us through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, He placed external restraints on sin that even lost people could understand. "You sin and you die." That's the way it was. Not because that's the way God really wanted it to be, but sin had to be restrained until Jesus' atoning sacrifice could be made.
God's lack of punishment on sin had also led to a total loss of a true standard of right and wrong. Men compared themselves with others so often and for so long that no one knew what God originally intended. Something had to be done.
Therefore, God gave the Law, but not because it was His best. He could have given the Law to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they first transgressed, but He waited 2,000 years until the time of Moses. That's because the Law had serious side effects of condemnation and guilt. God didn't want us to run from Him but to Him. However, sin was destroying the human race and had to have some restraint before Jesus came. That's why He gave the Law.
The Law wasn't God attempting to save mankind. It was God showing us that we could never measure up to His holy standard. It was to drive us away from self-righteousness and toward receiving the sacrifice of Jesus by faith. Yet, amazingly, the church has interpreted it in a completely opposite manner. Most Christians think the Law is wonderful and something that we are obliged to comply with as much as possible. Not!
The Law was given for two main purposes. It caused us to fear God's punishment on our sins, and therefore, to those who listened, it lessened the amount of sin in our lives, thereby diminishing Satan's in-roads. Second, it totally took away all hope of being saved by any virtue of our own. The Law made everyone guilty before God with no hope of justice. We needed mercy.
Those were the main purposes of the Law. It was not God's list of steps one through ten thousand of what you must do to be right with God. It was God's list of all you have done wrong, proving that you can never be right with God unless He provides another form of payment. It was not to set you free. The Law was to bind and destroy you. It was a severe spanking for the whole human race to turn us from sin and self-salvation.
THE WAR IS OVER
There is a lot of tragedy in this world. Besides lifes personal hardships that come to all of us, the world has been hit with tsunamis and hurricanes of biblical proportions. Many people are reeling from the blows theyve received and are trying to make sense of why all of this happens.
Sadly, many Christian leaders havent been much help. As a whole, theyve said these things are the judgment of God upon our sins. Even a very well-known televangelist was quoted recently as telling people that because they voted intelligent design people off their city council, Gods judgment was going to strike their city. And when it happens, dont cry out to God, because they deserve what they get.
This rationale for why bad things happen grieves me, and I believe it grieves the Lord too. Its totally missing the point of why Jesus came.
Jesus forever changed the way God relates to mankind. Sure, there are scriptural examples of Gods judgment on sin in catastrophic ways. But Gods greatest act of judgment was when He placed all of His wrath for our sins upon Jesus. This forever satisfied Gods wrath. Since that time, God hasnt been judging our sins (2 Cor. 5:19).
Gods not angry at us. Hes not even in a bad mood.
Look at the angels joy at the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Luke 2:13-14 says,
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
This scripture is very familiar to us, and yet there is a lot of misunderstanding about what its saying. Some translations say they were proclaiming good will among men or peace to men of good will. Basically, this passage has been interpreted that Jesus was bringing peace on earth among men. Thats not why these angels were praising God. If that interpretation were true, then Jesus own words in Matthew 10:34-36 would contradict this. He said,
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a mans foes shall be they of his own household.
Jesus Himself said He was not sent to bring peace on the earth among men.
The peace that the angels of Luke 2:13-14 were praising God for was peace BETWEEN God and man.
They were announcing the end of Gods war on sin. Peace now reigns between God and man.
Prior to Jesus coming, there was wrath from God against mankind for his sins. It wasnt total wrath. Even in the Old Testament, we see Gods mercy and grace. Yet the Old Testament Law was a ministry of wrath (Rom. 4:15 with 2 Cor. 3:7 and 9), and mens sins were held against them. But when Jesus came, God quit holding mens sins against them. This is exactly what 2 Corinthians 5:19 and 21 says,
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
The word reconciliation is talking about making peace. He was no longer holding us accountable. Instead, He imputed our sins to Jesus, making Jesus accountable for our sins.
Jesus became what we were so that we could become what He wasthe righteousness of God.
Jesus was like a lightning rod that drew all the judgment of God unto Himself. He not only bore our sins, He actually became sin (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus said this in John 12:27-32:
Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
Many have thought this thirty-second verse means that if God is properly glorified in our preaching, then He will draw all men unto Himself. But that is not what this scripture is saying.
If you look in the
King James Version Bible, notice that the word men in verse 32 is italicized. That means it wasnt in the original language. The translators put this word in italics to let you know this was their addition, but it wasnt a part of the text. If you take this verse in context, I believe the Lord was saying that He would draw all JUDGMENT to Himself. Jesus, like a lightening rod, attracted all of Gods judgment for all of mankinds sins for all time unto Himself.
All the murder, all the perversion, every vile and rotten sin imaginable, all sickness, all disease ever known to mankind actually entered into His physical human body. Isaiah 52:14 talks about the crucifixion of Jesus and says that He was marred more than any man to the point that He was unrecognizable as a human being.
That could not just happen from physical beatings, especially since the Word says that not a single bone was broken in His body (Ps. 34:20 with John 19:36). I believe His body was completely disfigured from the cancers, tumors, diseases, deformities, and anything else that human beings have ever suffered.
Jesus didnt ask for the cup to be taken from Him just because of the physical pain He would suffer but because He did not want to become sin. He hated becoming what He came to redeem us from. And the worst part of all Jesus sufferings was total rejection from His Father. Matthew 27:46 says,
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?
God the Father forsook Jesus so that you and I would never be forsaken. All that you and I would have suffered through billions of years in eternitythe grief, the pain, and worst of all the complete separation from the presence of GodJesus experienced. And He experienced all of this for us.
When we say that God is judging our sins as individuals or corporately as a nation, we are voiding what Jesus did. That would be double jeopardy.
Some of you may not like this, but its true.
Sin isnt a problem with God anymore. Its the church that has made it a major deal. Neither past, present, nor future sins can separate us from God. The only people who will go to hell are those who have spurned and rejected the greatest sacrifice that has ever been made.
In heaven, we wont answer for our sin, Jesus already has; we will answer for our acceptance or rejection of Jesus.
You might now be thinking,
Youre just giving people a license to sin. Well, it seems to me that people are doing a pretty good job of that without a license. What Im saying will not free you to sin; it will free you from the condemnation and the guilt that comes when you do sin.
To continue in sin is just stupid. Youll be opening the door for Satan to have an inroad into your life (Rom. 6:16). If you do, then you will suffer the natural consequences of sin, but it will not be because of the judgment of God. If you commit adultery, you will probably lose your family, but it was you that caused it, not God.
These natural disasters are just thatnatural disasters. We live in a corrupted world where bad things happen, but God isnt the cause of them. If He were, why would He stop at New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of America? Surely all of us deserve the judgment of God. But praise God, we dont get what we deserve.
Before I learned that the war was over, I used to say, If God doesnt judge America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Now I say, If God does judge America, He will have to apologize to Jesus. Thank God for Jesus!
hey tsuriyel!
