Romans 10:1-4 ESV
Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
As I, as led by the Spirit of God, am presently examining
the subject of our salvation from sin, the Lord has directed me to this passage
of scripture from Romans 10, for this is yet another passage of scripture which
has been misinterpreted to mean something it does not mean.
So, what is the crux of this passage of scripture? It is
that the Jews, or most of them, had rejected God’s plan of salvation for their
lives, which was through faith in Jesus Christ alone, and they were seeking to
establish their own gospel of salvation from sin based on their own man-made
criteria. But, their ignorance was not out of lack of knowledge of the truth,
but out of a refusal to believe and to follow the truth.
And, so it is today within the institutional church, too.
Many people who profess faith in Jesus Christ are following a man-made gospel,
which is a substitute or a replacement for the true gospel of Christ. They do
so either out of true ignorance or due to willful ignorance so as to establish
their own gospel of salvation from sin intended to gratify the flesh and to
give them liberty to continue in their sinful practices without guilt or
remorse.
For, whether you are following a works-based salvation that
seeks to earn one’s salvation via works of the flesh, or you are following a gospel
message entirely absent of good works and which says we do nothing and God does
it all, both are still of the flesh, and they both seek to establish their own
path to righteousness with God. And, they are both wrong!
Why are they both wrong? Because they are both opposed to
what Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught regarding our salvation from
sin. They are both of the flesh, they are both man-made, and they both seek to
win God’s acceptance through means other than what God has established. And,
that really is the bottom line. For, they don’t submit to God and to his
purposes, but they make up their own gospel to suit their own purposes.
The Cheap Grace Gospel
Ok, so the cheap grace gospel people interpret this passage
of scripture to say we no longer have to obey God’s commandments, and that it
is only by faith that we are saved, and so we do nothing. We don’t have to
repent of our sins and we don’t have to walk in obedience to Christ, nor do we
have to submit to the Lordship of Christ over our lives. All we do is just “believe”
and God does the rest, and now we are guaranteed heaven when we die.
With all deception, though, there are elements of truth in
the mix, so this isn’t entirely wrong. But, it isn’t all right, either. So, if
something is intentionally half true and half false, it makes it false, because
the intention is to deceive naïve minds who don’t know any different.
So, let’s break this down. First of all, they are ignorant
of the righteousness of God. And, what is his righteousness? It is holiness,
godliness, moral purity, faithfulness, truthfulness, sobriety, self-control, and
uprightness, etc. So, they are either unaware, which no one is (see Romans 1),
or they are unfamiliar or unaccustomed to his righteousness, due to refusal to
submit to Christ’s righteousness for their lives. So, they seek to establish
their own.
In the case of the cheap grace gospel, they have devised a
gospel which requires no righteous living on our part at all, and they get away
with it by accusing such righteous living as being works-based salvation, which
it is not. Again, let me remind everyone here that the standard here for
righteousness is God’s standard, and the dividing line between a true gospel or
a false gospel is whether or not that gospel teaches a way to salvation from
sin according to what God has established.
Lastly, they did not submit to Christ’s righteousness, and
this is where “the rubber meets the road,” because the cheap grace gospel doesn’t
submit to Christ’s righteousness, but it submits to the flesh of man, instead.
It is all about appeasing the flesh of humans, and it has nothing to do with
submitting to Christ’s righteousness, because they think they don’t have to.
Jesus, the End
So, Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone who believes. For, he is the completion or he is the fulfillment of
the law. For, the law (Mosaic) was put in place to lead us to Christ. And, now
we have Christ. But, this does not mean we don’t have to obey Christ’s commands
to us. We aren’t free from having to follow his commands and his instructions
to us or his moral laws. The New Testament scriptures make that abundantly
clear.
But, we don’t obey to earn or to deserve our own salvation.
We are not trying to be good enough to win God’s approval. We obey because the
faith that God requires of us for salvation is God-given faith which submits to
God’s will and purposes for our lives. And, his will and purpose is that we
live godly and holy lives, pleasing to him. It is, too, that we forsake our
former lives of living for sin and self, that we are born anew of the Spirit of
God, and that we now walk (in lifestyle) according to the Spirit of God.
[See: Lu. 9:23-25; Rom. 6:1-23; Rom. 8:1-17; Gal. 5:19-21;
Gal. 6:7-8; Eph. 4:17-24; 1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Co. 5:15; Tit. 2:11-14; 1 Jn. 1:5-9]
So, here’s the deal. We can’t do anything to earn or to
deserve our own salvation. Nothing we can do, in our flesh, will ever be good
enough to meet with God’s approval. So, it is absolutely the truth that it is
only by God’s grace through God-given faith in Jesus Christ, which are both
gifts from God, that any of us can be saved from our sins and have eternal life
with God.
BUT… and this is where it gets critical here that we know
what the scriptures teach… it is also true that the faith it takes to be saved
from our sins, and to have eternal life with God, submits to God’s purposes for
our lives (see: “Saved by Grace through Faith”).
And, again, we have to read scriptures in context to get the
true picture of what they are saying. For, Romans 10 has to be read in the
context of the whole of Romans, and most especially in the contexts of Romans 6
and 8. For there we learn more completely God’s plan of salvation for our
lives. It requires that we die with Christ to sin and that we live with Christ
to his righteousness if we want to have eternal life with God.
In fact, in chapter 8 it states that the righteous
requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who walk, not according to the flesh
but according to the Spirit. And, this really is the crux of it all. For, the
difference between a man-made gospel and the true gospel is that the true
gospel submits to Christ’s righteousness. True belief in Jesus Christ
surrenders our lives over to Jesus Christ, and we are no longer the ones
controlling our lives, but Christ is.
Yet, there are a lot of folk who plead ignorance to this
truth, and they have established their own way to God. Some will perform well
for others so that people will think well of them, and so they will give off
the impression that they are living righteously, but they are not. Behind
closed doors they are secretly addicted to all sorts of wickedness, just like
the Pharisees.
Others feel the liberty to keep on in their sinful practices
without guilt, and so they don’t hide that fact, for they feel God’s grace
gives them free license to keep on in their sinful practices while promising
them heaven as their eternal destiny. For, they have convinced themselves that
God’s grace requires nothing of them other than some obscure “faith” which is
not biblical faith at all, for it does not submit to God or his purposes.
And, so we have a whole lot of people in our church
congregations who are living for the flesh convinced that heaven is their
eternal destiny and that God is smiling on them even in their willful rebellion
against him. But, the scriptures make it quite clear that if we walk (in
practice, in lifestyle) according to our flesh, we are going to die in our
sins, no matter what we profess with our lips. So, don’t be fooled! We will all
reap what we sow (See: Lu. 9:23-25; Rom. 8:1-17; 1 Jn. 1:5-9; Gal. 5:19-21; Gal.
6:7-8).
The
Letters
An
Original Work / December 17, 2013
Based
off Revelation 2-3
To the angels of all the churches write:
These are the words of your Lord and your God.
I know all your deeds, and your witness, too,
And who holds to My words and tells what’s true.
I know all your hard work and your perseverance,
Yet I hold against you: you’ve forsaken Me.
Listen to what I say to you.
You have people there who deny My name,
And who put the cross of Christ up to shame.
They entice the people to Me, profane,
And their worship of Me is all in vain.
They are so adult’rous as they chase their idols,
And you put up with them easily enough.
Listen to what I say to you.
You give off an image of godliness,
But what you present is so fraudulent,
Or else you lack passion for Jesus Christ,
So you look to others to tell what’s right.
I say turn from your sin, or you will face judgment.
He who overcomes will have eternal life.
Listen to what I say to you.
I know your afflictions and poverty;
How you suffer for your Lord patiently.
Do not fear the devil and company.
You be faithful to your Lord endlessly.
I know all your weakness and your dedication.
You have kept My Word and not denied your Lord.
I will write on you My new name.
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