The Benefits of Our Justification

The Benefits of Our Justification

 

By Dean E. Boelt

We shall speak here of the great benefits of our justification in Christ. "Therefore, being justified by faith [cf. Rom. 4:20-25], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," (Rom. 5:1). The following considerations are some of the rich spiritual blessings which result from this state of our justification by God.

 

The Access into Grace. At the head of Paul's list of the benefits is that of "access by faith into this grace wherein we stand" before God, it was pointed out (v. 2). The grace of reference is that of acceptance by God on the basis of what Christ has done for us, rather than upon that of what we have done for God, as was the proffered means of acceptance, or justification, under the law. In Christ, we live unto God, and hold our status as His dear children, vicariously—"through Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 5:11; cf. Eph. 1:6). That is what is fundamentally involved in grace, as distinguished from law. In this grace we "stand," and with all trustful confidence, since God has repeatedly assured us it is solidly firm ground upon which to appear before Him, and continue in His Presence (Heb. 4:14-16; 10:19-22).

 

The Triumph in Tribulation. A second benefit of our justification is that of triumph in tribulation, rather than defeat therein, it was observed. "We glory in tribulations" it is declared (v. 3). This is not done because of the sheer joy of suffering, but out of consideration of its good fruitage when patiently endured (vv. 4-5). Scripture makes it clear that we shall "through much tribulation" enter the eternal kingdom (Acts 14:22), since God has "appointed" His children "thereunto" (I Thess. 3:3). Hence, in our single-hearted desire for, and quest of, the happy end, we are enabled, by the Spirit, to "glory" in it and them (cf. Jas. 1:2-4; 5:7-11). Only those, of course, who are fully conscious of their complete justification in Christ can so glory.

 

The Climactic Joy in God. Having "received the atonement"—reconciliation or justification— we joy [rejoice] in God through our Lord Jesus Christ." To know God in a state of reconciliation to Him—as the loving Savior and Father which He veritably is—is the acme of human joy. Full persuasion of such a state is conducive to this joy and certainly issues in it, as one "follows on to know the Lord" in the beauty of His Person and the riches of His grace (Hos. 6:3).

 

It is no wonder that Jesus denominated such knowledge "life" (Jn. 17:3). It is also "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17, ASV). Something is heard today of the joy of serving God. But, comparatively little of the even greater bliss of knowing Him and basking in His divine presence as a dear child in Christ.

 

Some of those on the other side of the cross, without realized justification, put most of us to shame in this matter. Abraham "rejoiced" to see Christ's day—afar off—"and he saw it, and was glad" (Jn. 8:56). "God is my salvation," exclaimed Isaiah. Therefore, with joy shall we draw water out of the wells of [His] salvation" (Isa. 12:1-3).

Although material blessings should be withheld from him, "Yet," said Habakkuk. "I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. 3:17-18; cf. Ps. 20:5; 33:20-21).

 

For those who have a lively consciousness of reconciliation to Him through Christ, there is great joy in God Himself (cf. Ps. 16:11). But the experience of it will be in direct proportion to one's acute awareness of his justification in Christ, and so of his full acceptance by God. Thus, the Apostle exhorts the church, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice" (Phil. 4:4; cf. ch. 3:1).

 

The Hope of His Glory. Our joy in God has its zenith in our hope of His glory, i.e., of His glorious manifestation and vindication at the coming of Christ. That is the ultimate joy set before us, and that for which "the whole creation," together with us, groans and travails "in pain" and in breathless anticipation (Rom. 8:19, 22). Then—ah, then!— "when that which is perfect is come" (I Cor. 13:10)—"we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is" (I Jn. 3:1-2; Ps. 17:15).

 

The Table Pertinence. Since the weekly gathering of the saints at the Lord's table is in both spiritual recognition of their justification in Christ and testimony of their expectancy of His coming, the pertinence of these considerations thereto is evident.  Let us, therefore, eat the body of the Lord and drink His blood in commemoration of His having brought us to God (I Pet. 3:18), and so of our complete acceptance by the Father in Him, thus proclaiming the Lord's death "till He come" (I Cor. 11:26, ASV). –Noted and recorded by Fred O. Blakely

The Witness of the Christmas Carols

The Witness of the Christmas Carols

By Al Stoner

It has long been our persuasion that the traditional Christ-exalting Christmas carols shall have proved, in the Day of Judgment, to have been a powerful, bright and shining witness for the truth among men. But, alas, in recent decades ungodly men have become increasingly intolerant of anything directly to do with Christ!  

The truth of the salvation in Christ Jesus is declared in so many of them (in some more clearly than others) in a manner that is charmingly captivating, heart-warming, and inviting to all who will lend an ear. This witness has been clearly sounded forth each year in spite of a church (and we are speaking here of everything that calls itself the church) that is, for the most part dead, and, as a consequence, grievously recreant in its proclamation of the truth.

Not that long ago in late November and throughout the month of December there would be hardly a street, a church, a home, a business, or a shopping mall, where the sound of these carols did not clearly resonate. Men and women, boys and girls, could be seen going about here and there, listening intently, noticeably pleased by these canticles of hope with their compelling and unspeakably joyous content. Often they could even be heard to sing, hum, or whistle along with the words and melodies.

However, by the time that January had arrived, all the joyous considerations contained in these hymns would be put away by men for another year.  And life would go on unaffected for the most part, business as usual. And alas, year after year the same tragic and inexplicable cycle would continue, and to some degree still continues on: the truth is heard by multitudes of men and women over and over again, but the truth, and particularly the all-essential love for it (II Th. 2:10), is not received by them!

The Day of Reckoning is Coming! The day is coming, however, when men shall give an account for all the truth which they have heard, but have not embraced, (and we are speaking now particularly of the truth which they have heard from the songs referred to above.) Ungodly men, standing there before the great and august judgment bar, shall give an account to God for not giving heed to the truth and for not embracing the glorious salvation in Christ Jesus, which was so powerfully declared in these hymns.

God will surely say to all those who would attempt to excuse and justify themselves in that great and notable Day, "Why did you not consider and inquire into this message of salvation that you repeatedly heard? You had entire lifetime to do so." And those that had made an empty profession of faith, as well, shall give account to Him as to why they had not hungered and thirsted after God's salvation and why they had not grown up into the truth that was so clearly and wonderfully proclaimed in so many of these carols year after year.

Men Must Grow Up into the Truth of Salvation. The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ has to do with great and abiding realities, and is, by its very nature, not at all seasonal (cf. Gal. 4:9-11). (It should go without saying that there is no observance of Christmas before the great white throne in Heaven. Actually, Christmas was not even celebrated on earth until about the year 300 A.D.)

Nevertheless, the kernels of truth that are declared during this time of remembrance each year are foundational to men's faith and are to be diligently embraced, put on, grown up into, and they are to be matters of intimate conversancy to all who profess the Name of the Lord Jesus. Men and women professing godliness ought to be at least as spiritually and intelligently conversant with the salvation in Christ Jesus as they are with their own families and with their jobs, and increasingly so. Anything short of this would simply be unreasonable!!  The knowledge of God, and of His salvation in Christ Jesus, is the only abiding knowledge.  All other lesser bodies of knowledge shall soon suffer obsolescence and pass away.

Some Examples of What We are Speaking. To cite some examples of the conversancy of which we are speaking, the word "Emmanuel" ought not, primarily, to provoke men to think of "the Christmas season," but rather it ought to transport them in their thoughts to the wonderfully great and abiding reality, that in Christ Jesus, "the eternal God" (Deut. 33:27), "the Creator of the ends of the earth" (Isa. 40:28), is now very near to us, He is with us, and even dwelling in us, in a marvelous sense that He never was before! Charles Wesley expressed it so very well in his familiar carol, "Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, Hail, the Incarnate Deity, Pleased as Man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel!" Expressions such as these have proceeded forth from a deep love for the Scriptures and for the blessed Redeemer, which they declare. When earnestly considered, these expressions, set to verse in many of these carols, will assist men in perceiving somewhat of the preciousness of the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and will stir them up to make diligent inquiry into the truth themselves so that they may take hold of it.

Bible words such as (Emmanuel, the Last Adam, the Second Man, Prince of Peace, Desire of Nations, Sun of Righteousness, reconciliation, and so many others) ought to continually provoke further inquiry among redeemed personalities as to their preciousness and their great personal relevance, significance, and glorious benefit to men, both as they pertain to this world and to the one which is to come.

If angels desire to look into the things pertaining to redemption in Christ (I Pet. 1:12), how much more should men desire to look and inquire and explore, who are the recipients of that redemption? Those who name the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ must not content themselves with being pabulum-fed by their local ministers. Rather they must accustom themselves to intelligently searching out and exploring the truth as those who are seeking after great and hid treasure (cf. Mt. 13:44). Let us all, therefore, resolve to heartily embrace and grow up into the truth being sounded forth in the specific carols of which we are speaking, and may they provoke us to make more diligent search into "the truth of" God's "salvation" (Ps. 69:13) which is "contained in the Scripture" (I Pet. 2:6). 

The Fear of God Being Taught by the Precept of Men

 

The Fear of God Being Taught by the Precept of Men: a Jeopardy

“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men” (Isa. 29:13).

“Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mt. 15:7-9). “He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Mk. 7:6).

Bible things, particularly the knowledge of God, must be communicated to other men with Bible words, words which the Holy Spirit teaches  (I Cor. 2:13). They must be communicated by those who are “living epistles”, having been begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. [How shall they hear without a preacher?]. The Holy Scripture is a precious compendium of spiritual vocabulary: spiritual words that are especially suited to acquaint men and women with God’s thoughts and ways. Scriptural words are the divinely ordained containers for imparting to men the knowledge of God.  They alone are able to make men “wise unto salvation” (II Tim. 3:16).  It has “pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (I Cor. 1:21).

Whenever men seek to communicate the knowledge of God with the wisdom of men’s words, they cause their hearers to stumble and to err.  The knowledge of God must be communicated by the means which God has both provided and ordained.  When this divinely appointed means is ignored, the tragic result is that of the fear of God being taught by the precept of men.  The hearers who subject themselves to the wisdom of men’s words  may become “religious”, but they are woefully ignorant of the God revealed in the Scripture, whom to know is life eternal (see Jn. 17:3).

Language Describing this Phenomenon. “That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD : Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us” (Isa. 30:9-11).

“HEAR ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD , and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is His name” (Isa. 48:1-2).

“CRY aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of Me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God” (Isa. 58:1-2).

The Lord Jesus Christ, addressing such corrupters of the Word of God, declared: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves” (Mt. 23:15).  These proselytes were being taught by the religious elite of that day, and yet the result of that instruction set the hearers on a course that ultimately leads to damnation, rather than them being set on “the way of holiness”, even the way that leads unto life eternal.

In our day religious instruction of one sort or another abounds on every hand, even in the name of Christ.  Every sect poses as an official representative of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and yet each religious faction is saying and emphasizing completely different things from the others. There are multitudes of approaches for finding God, an abundance of agendas for serving and pleasing God, yet in the vast majority of these sects, the fear of God is taught by the precept of men, as Jesus said.  As striking evidence of this, for the most part the people of which we are here speaking are strangers to Bible things, and strangely unfamiliar with the God who sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is the tragically fatal result of the fear of God being taught by the precept of men.

God’s Use of Scripture

God’s Use of Scripture

The case of Melchizedek and his typification of Christ’s new order of Priesthood, as set forth in Genesis 14:18-20 and Hebrews 7 :1-3, is difficult of comprehension by some. The question centers on the nature of Melchizedek’s eternity, which is asserted in Hebrews 7:3.

 

The answer is, of course, he was not himself an eternal being, but prefigured Christ, who is, and serves as High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary without the interruption of death, which limited the tenure of the Aaronic priests.

 

For the purpose of clarifying the point, we offer a statement of the situation. By God’s design, the Genesis account is a restricted literary portrayal of an historical situation intended to depict the eternal nature of One then yet to come. God so ordered the record as to have Melchizedek appear and leave the stage of action with no account of his beginning or end given. It was simply God’s manipulation of the history to convey the impression He wanted to give of the actual nature of Christ’s Person and ministry.

 

Obviously, Paul’s inspired interpretation of the incident. coupled with David’s prophecy concerning it in Psalm 110:4, was required to bring out the significance of the occurrence. So perceived, the whole episode provides a vivid demonstration of the precision with which God uses the Scriptures to serve His purposes. —Fred O. Blakely

The Significations of Pentecost

The Significations of Pentecost 

 

Two significations of the first Pentecost after our Lord’s resurrection were stressed by Richard Ebler in his lesson for our Bible class. The first of these was Its fulfillment of the typology integral to the days of Pentecost which had preceded it. Known as the harvest feast, or feast of weeks, It was also a feast of firstfruits, since the two loaves made of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were presented to the Lord on that occasion (Exod. 34:22). 

 

The fulfillment of this typology was in the fact that the Pentecost coming seven weeks (inclusively) after Jesus’ resurrection marked a great harvest of souls. In turn, this could be said to be the firstfruits of the gospel and, as such, the pledge, or earnest, of a multitude which no man can number who will respond to and be saved by the gospel ere the day of grace has run its course. 

 

Further antitypicality was seen in Pentecost regarding the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. The law was given fifty days after the deliverance of Israel from Egypt (cf. Exo. 12 and 19), and the gospel went “forth from Jerusalem” fifty days after Christ’s death, which marked our deliverance from sin (Isa. 2:1-4). 

 

At the giving of the law, it is to be noted, 3,000 were slain because of their sin, while on the Day of Pentecost, when the gospel was first proclaimed, 3,000 were saved by their obedience. That contrast is indicative of the law as a “ministration of death” (II Cor. 3:7), whereas the gospel is one of justification and life (v. 9). 

 

The fact that on Pentecost God gave the Apostles to so speak that the peoples of various languages present heard them in their own tongues (Acts 2 :6-12) was noted by Brother Dick as a marked contrast with God’s confusion of the people’s tongues at the tower of Babel, as a result of their presumptuous endeavor to circumvent Him. 

 

So does God honor His Old-Testament ordinances and types, the teacher remarked. Consequently, we should have great respect for the ordinances of the new-covenant era, which He has ordained. To lightly regard or despise them, is to do so with reference to God, whence they are. --Noted and recorded by Fred O. Blakely 

The Preferred Faith

The Preferred Faith

What might be termed the "preferred faith," as evaluated by Jesus Himself, was discussed by Kenneth Millspaugh in his comments on John 20:29. The occasion of reference was that of Thomas' being convinced by sight of Jesus' resurrection, and our Lord's accompanying observation. "Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed," said the Savior: "blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Thus, He anticipated that faith which is the belief of competent testimony in the case, and implied that it is more highly valued by God than that virtually forced upon one by sight, as was so with Thomas. Peter, apparently taking his cue from Jesus here, spoke in like commendation of such faith, saying with reference to Christ, Whom, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (I Pet. 1:8).

In enunciating this appraisal of faith-based-upon-testimony, both our Lord and the Apostle recognized and stressed the genius of the whole new-covenant economy, it was noted. In the very next verses of his account, John emphasized that the spiritual life which the new order was to make possible would be simply by believing the Apostles' testimony concerning Christ (vv. 20-21), and that the production of such faith was the objective of their writing. Thus also John's representation of the situation in First John 5:13-19, where he traces the possession of "that eternal life" (ch. 1:2) to the fact of one's believing "the record that God gave of His Son."

This being the case, all the current agitation in some religious circles about miraculous gifts for today as necessary for, or even especially conducive to, faith in the Father and the Son is exposed and refuted as the error which it certainly is. We have a testimony which has been amply confirmed by miracles and given to us by infallibly-guided men—not the testimony presumptuous and lying claims. We believe what these chosen witnesses of God have said of Jesus of Nazareth, and believing, ''have life through His Name" (Jn. 20:31), that faith being energized and empowered by the Holy Spirit, who operates through our faith, Brother Ken pointed out. How blessed, indeed, are those who, having not seen, yet believe, and so have Christ dwelling in their hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17), and leading them to heaven through this dark and evil world. –Noted and recorded by Fred O. Blakely