Classic Christianity Radio – (03-18-19) – Part 1
Bob George explains what salvation really is, coming by faith to God through Christ Jesus to receive His resurrected life. Sadly, salvation is often incorrectly taught as coming to Christ to get your sins forgiven. Through the scriptures, Bob explains what Jesus came to do, did, and what that accomplished for you and me. He explains how every man is born spiritually dead already. Jesus Christ died to take away the sins of the world, for all people forever. That does not mean everyone is saved because only in the resurrected life of Christ is someone a forgiven person with Christ’s righteousness. The only sin that keeps someone from God is the the sin of unbelief in Jesus. A person who comes to Jesus Christ for life has repented of the sin of unbelief in Him. Sadly, many churches teach you that you must repent of all your sins. But that is impossible for man to do. The only thing man can do is repent of the unbelief in Jesus. A person must change their mind about what they think they can do to make themselves holy, righteous and acceptable to God. There really is no more sacrifice for sin. Jesus Christ sacrificed himself, once and for all, by shedding his blood on the cross. The lost person must recognize himself as being spiritually dead already and in need of life. The only available life to man is the resurrected life of Jesus Christ.
Bob George also explains a commonly misunderstood scripture passage from 1 John 1:8-9. That passage was spoken to lost people, the Gnostics in the time of the apostle John, who were mingling with the believers, saying things contrary to truth. Sadly, this passage has been taught by so many pastors to apply to believers and has believers unable to rejoice in the completeness of Jesus Christ. So many believers, primarily from this incorrect teaching, think they must confess all their sins to God or keep short accounts with God. Yet God, through the finished work of Jesus Christ, says He remembers our sins no more. Jesus Christ also said, “it is finished”. Jesus Christ fulfilled all the requirements of the Old Covenant for us.
Bob George shares that what we have done in the religious world is to keep people preoccupied with what God has finished with, which is sin, and with absolutely no preoccupation with what we should be engaged in, which is life. So we either have people going to a confessional booth or to 1 John 1:9 to get sins forgiven. So often people ask, “What should I do?” Nobody, who is truly a child of God, should even be asking that question. Knowing that the resurrected Christ lives in you, teaching you all things of the Spirit, you will know what to do without the need of anyone telling you. Yes, it is good to ask for clarification of truth, as we are all growing in the knowledge and the grace of God, but we should not, and indeed cannot, live by a list of things, putting yourself under law. You do not need a list of 10 steps, 15 principles or laws to live by. In Jesus Christ, you are a new creation, a child of God. We simply thank God for what he has already done, for every spiritual blessing we have already received by grace. We can walk in the new life He has given, in His righteousness, in His holiness, in His forgiveness. For we had none of that – righteousness, holiness, and forgiveness – of our own to begin with, being once spiritually dead. We can choose to walk by the Spirit, resting in Him, so that the fruit of the Spirit is produced in us and through us.
Romans 5:10
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
How many of us were born lost? All of us!
What does lost mean? Dead, dead spiritually.
All of us, all of mankind, was born dead spiritually.
God has enabled the whole world to be neutralized in death by sin. It makes no difference if born a Jew or as a heathenish Gentile. It makes no difference whether born in a church or not even knowing what church is. You are born dead spiritually. For all of us alike are under the law of sin and death.
Colossians 2:13-14
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you[a] alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
When you were dead in your sins, God did something for the entire world. You were reconciled to him through death of his Son (Romans 5:10).
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. How many of the sins of the world placed on Jesus at the cross? All of them!
1 John 2:2 (KJV)
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Unlike the Jews, who had been given law, the very ordinances of God, the Gentiles were essentially left to themselves, without God and without hope.
Romans 9:2-4
2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.
Romans 3:1-2
3 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? 2 Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.
What advantage is there of being a Jew? They were a group of people set apart in order for God to reveal Himself to them. The Gentiles at that time were cut off, were separated from God’s dealing with the Jews. If you were to travel to Greece, you will see the Parthenon and statues, the archaeological evidence of nothing but heathen worship, with Greek mythology and statues made to look like God. That was the religion of the world. There was heathenism or truth revealed to the Jews, that was it. No Muslim, no Catholic, no Baptist, indeed no religion back in those days, except heathenish idol worship. If man is left to himself, trying to find God in and of himself, he will always find God in his own image until God revealed Himself to the Jews, through whom ultimately the Messiah would come. In the midst of all this, is where Judaism spread to the rest of the world.
When Paul went to Ephesus or Greece, you see temples there. When you study Acts, Paul would go into the temple, and would gather people who had at least heard something about the living God. Then he formed a nucleus through them, where the gospel would go to the entire world. Jesus came to deal with sins once and for all. That was unlike the sacrificial system he had given to Israel. Although the law required them to made, it was not final. The sacrificial system is a system by which man’s sins can be forgiven. Problem with the system in effect until Jesus came, referred to as the seed, you have to keep getting sins forgiven over and over again. That alone is the problem.
Galatians 3:16-22
16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,”[i] meaning one person, who is Christ. 17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.
19 Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator. 20 A mediator, however, implies more than one party; but God is one.
21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
Hebrews 10:3-5
3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me;
Hebrews 9:24-28
24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
It is not the case that sins were not covered. They were covered. The problem is you have to keep getting sins covered today, tomorrow, covered again and again. In our “smartness”, we create confession booths and 1 John 1:9 which do not make you complete. That is, we created our own sacrificial system. But no one can be made complete with that kind of system. The reason you are not made complete that way is because there is always something left to do. If there is still something left to do, then it cannot be called complete. Michelangelo, chiseling away to make a sculpture, his work is not done until it is complete. So what is needed is a system to take away sins of the world rather than to just have sins covered.
Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were yet enemies of God, Jesus took on humanity, and as perfect love, he came to fulfill all of the law, all the requirements of the Old Covenant for us. And that he did, when he died on the cross. He did so in order that in Him, in His resurrected life, we could become the righteousness of God. All of that took place while we were yet enemies.
2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
How many sins of the world were taken away at the cross? All of them. Were all sins judged at the cross? Yes, all! What was the verdict? Guilty!
That is why it can now be said of those in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1-2
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
By one act, shedding the blood of Christ, propitiation took place. Propitiation means God is completely satisfied with what Jesus Christ has done. His work is sufficient to take away sin. Jesus presented the blood to the Father and the Father said He is satisfied. Jesus, not covering sin as atonement, but he took sins away once and for all. The trouble today in religion, is that we are constantly asking what do we should do? We are a bunch of “do-do” Christians, stinking thinking and stench offering. We are thinking about what I do rather than what He did. The reason people ask what to do is because they do not know what He did. When you know what He did, then you know what to do. You say thank you. It is in your heart so yo know what to do. You do not spit in His face but instead say thank you. The reason you ask or need 10 steps, 15 principles and laws to live by is because you do not know what he has done. When you know what He has done you do not need someone to tell you what to do. Jesus took away sins one time and for all people forever. So where are all your sins? On the back of God never to be seen again. When did that occur? At the cross. Were you born in this world reconciled to God? As far as God is concerned, yes.
2 Corinthians 5:19
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
Were you saved? No, because salvation is not getting your sins forgiven.
Is forgiveness a part of salvation? Absolutely, yes.
Is forgiveness salvation? No.
Experiencing the Forgiveness of God
If you are born dead, do you go to a corpse and say “you are forgiven”? No. Does the corpse come alive? No. All you are is a forgiven corpse. Forgiveness does not bring life to the dead. Life brings life to the dead. Before he could bring the dead alive he had to deal with what caused death to begin with. What is the cause of death? Sin is the cause of death. What good is it going to do for someone to bring someone back from the dead if there was a universal disease called cancer, and everybody got it, and died from it. So who will bring him back from the dead, who then gets cancer and dies again? Who will then raise him from the dead again? That would be a cruel salvation. So in order to give life, God had to deal with what caused death, which is sin.
In order to give you and me something called eternal life, he had to deal eternally with the cause of death, which is sin.
Romans 5:10
For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Without the resurrection, we are to be most pitied, still in our sins, our faith useless, and we as apostles would be a bunch of liars without the resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:12-19
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
We place great emphasis on the cross, and we thank God for the cross, for without the cross I could not have the kind of life I possess. But do not stop at the cross. The cross was merely the means that God used for the divine action to clear the deck of sin. Death is worse than sin. Death is worse than what you are doing. What God has to cure was death. In order to cure death, he had to deal with the sin issue. If Jesus already dealt with the sin issue, then what should we do? Quit dealing with it. Why are we still preoccupied with sin when God said he has already taken it away? You cannot be preoccupied with two or three things at the same time. The reason he took away sin was in order to save you by his life. And if you are saved by his life, what should you be preoccupied with? The life that saved you. And if you are preoccupied with life, then you do not have to be thinking about sin all the time. The mind on the flesh sows to the flesh. The mind on the Spirit sows to the Spirit.
Romans 8:5
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
If mind is thinking on the Spirit, what are you going to sow to? The Spirit. And if mind is on the flesh all time, what do you sow to? The flesh. The power of sin is in the law. What does law do? It demands your flesh to behave. Can your flesh behave? No.
Ponder over Romans 7, describing the spiritual death of lost man and the resurrection life apart from law.
Romans 7:14-17
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
That is our lifestyle under the law, a law of sin and death.
Romans 7:21-25
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Who will free me from that? Analyze yourself? No, that is what you have been incorrectly taught when you go to the Lord’s Supper. Instead, you say, “Thanks be to God!”
What we have done in the religious world is keep people preoccupied with what God has finished with, which is sin, and absolutely no preoccupation with what we should be engaged in, which is life. The Lord’s Supper is a celebration of life not of the law of sin and death.
This forgiveness that was provided for all men 2000 years ago was placed in Jesus Christ, in His resurrected life.
What God did is put the pen (forgiveness) in the book (Jesus) and offers you the book. What we are doing is streaming people down an aisle to get the pen.
In much of the religious world, salvation is to come to Jesus to get sins forgiven. The message of the religious world is “All of you are lousy, dirty sinners, and you need to repent of all your sins”. Have you ever met anyone who repented of all their sins? If you ever do, I would like to meet him. If you do, then I will be dead because the only one I know who has never sinned is Jesus. You do not come to Christ to repent of your sins. There is only one sin attributable to man. The only sin attributable to man is the sin of unbelief in Jesus.
John 16:9
The world’s sin is unbelief in me
Why is that so? Unbelief does not need forgiveness. Unbelief needs repenting of. What are you repenting of? Your sins? No, your sins have already been taken away. You repent of the sin of unbelief. How many of us are born in unbelief? All of us. What do we do? Change your mind. Realize your condition. What is your condition? Dead! What is His provision? Life. In and of myself there is no life at all. There is no good thing in me.
Romans 4:15
But the fact of the matter is this: when we try to gain God’s blessing and salvation by keeping his laws we always end up under his anger, for we always fail to keep them. The only way we can keep from breaking laws is not to have any to break!
Romans 10:3
For they don’t understand that Christ has died to make them right with God. Instead they are trying to make themselves good enough to gain God’s favor by keeping the Jewish laws and customs, but that is not God’s way of salvation.
Romans 3:10
As the Scriptures say, “No one is good—no one in all the world is innocent.”
Psalm 14:3
But no, all have strayed away; all are rotten with sin. Not one is good, not one!
I could not make myself acceptable in the sight of God with my behavior if I wanted to, and neither could you. You die to the flesh oriented thinking, trying to make your flesh behave, trying to make your flesh religious. You die to that concept altogether, realizing it is an impossibility. If I am ever going to stand before the presence of a holy God, I will have to be made holy by you, God, because I cannot make myself holy. If I am ever going to stand before a righteous God, I have to be made righteous in your sight, God, by your righteousness given to me. If I am ever going to stand in your sight as a totally forgiven person, then I am going to have to walk by faith in the forgiveness you provided and not by what church provided or anything else provided. I die to self effort and come to him empty-handed, by faith. Lord Jesus, into your hands I commit my Spirit in order to receive yours. Forgiveness is in His Son. You do not come to Jesus to get forgiven. You come to Jesus to get life and in that life you get forgiveness.
Two things after forgiveness is the receiving of righteousness and life.
Salvation is like a two-sided coin. On one side, your sins are taken away, where you are cleansed of all unrighteousness, and on the other side, you have also received Him and His righteousness.
Romans 10:4
Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
1 Corinthians 1:30
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
In Him you have the righteousness of Christ. No one is righteous, no not one. So we had no righteousness of our own. All of us are nothing but unrighteous. We were cleansed at the cross of all unrighteousness so that we could be filled with Him and His righteousness.
1 John 1:8-9
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to [have] forgive[n] us our sins, and to [have] cleanse[d] us from all unrighteousness.
[aorist past tense from the original Greek]
Whose righteousness are you clothed in? His. Does he need cleansed anymore? No, he never did need to be cleansed. I needed to be cleansed to receive His righteousness.
Do you stand in your righteousness or His? His. Did you need to be cleansed of unrighteousness? Yes, if you are to be standing in His righteousness. So what is 1 John 1:8-9 about then? It is certainly not talking to a believer then, about being cleansed, that the religious world tells you. It cannot be talking to a believer to confess your sins to have sins forgiven. When did that occur, to have your sins forgiven and to be cleansed of all unrighteousness? At the cross! Did that ever occur before? No! Will it ever occur again? No! It occurred one time and one time only, at the cross.
Hebrews 10:10
And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all
If you are claiming that you have never sinned and never had a sin nature, can you be saved? No. If you do not have a sin nature, why do you have need of a new nature? “You okay, I am okay, we are all okay”. 1 John 1:8-9 is not dealing with a saved person, but a lost person, claiming to be without sin. Only a lost person claims to be without sin. So the lost person in 1 John 1:8-9 is deceiving himself.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. And if the truth is not in you, then you do not have Christ, and you are lost. Who is believing Jesus did not come in the flesh is the same group of people claiming that they were without sin. They proclaimed to be Christians but were not. They were Gnostics, the belief of heretics.
Does that verse have any bearing on you at all as a Christian? Were you taught that it did? Did that verse enable you to rejoice in the completeness of Christ. Did you going to the confession booth enable you to rejoice in the completeness of Christ? Would you going back to the sacrificial system, killing more bulls and goats, would that enable you to rejoice in the completeness of Christ? No! Jesus said there in now no more sacrifice for sin.
Hebrews 10:18 (TLB)
Now, when sins have once been forever forgiven and forgotten, there is no need to offer more sacrifices to get rid of them.
There is no more blood to be shed and no more sacrifice needed. Jesus meant what he said when he said, “it is finished”.
John 19:30
When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished,” and bowed his head and dismissed his spirit.
Do I need to tell you what to do if you believe that? No. You can figure that out.
Hebrews 8:11
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
John 14:26
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Now, we can spend the rest of our lives thanking Jesus Christ for his provision instead of insulting him by asking him for what he has already done. If I ask my spouse every morning to marry me, then that would not only be stupid, but also an insult to my wife, asking her for what we already are, for we are already married. I can thank her that we enjoy being married but to ask her to marry me would be an insult to the time we were.
