Radio Broadcast Monday 06/13/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P40 (06-13-22)

Jesus Forgave the Sins of The Whole World

Because we are so preoccupied with trying to keep ourselves clean, and religion throws that in our faces too, that we fail to realize the truth of the word of God. We discount His word and think to ourselves, that God really didn’t die for the sins of the whole world. You hear this type of teaching all over the place today. It doesn’t matter whether a person is a Catholic or a Protestant, both teach the error of ongoing forgiveness. They are not teaching the New Covenant and don’t even understand the New Covenant to begin with. They change the meaning of the word of God to something else.

Listen in as Bob teaches from the word of God in today’s lesson.

1 John 2:2
² And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

In today’s lesson, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store

Just as a person’s physical growth is based on proper diet and exercise, so is the Christians’s spiritual growth dependent on regular feeding upon the word of God and application of its principles. With more false teaching, shifting opinions and general confusion in the world than ever before, Christians need a solid foundation upon which to base their beliefs and build their lives. The word of God declares that Jesus Christ is that foundation of truth. With that in mind, let’s now take A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ.

Now, folks, because the world does not realize that this reconciliation has already taken place on your behalf. It isn’t that you have to do something, outside of come to the One who reconciled you, Jesus Christ, from the one who provided that reconciliation. It isn’t that God is mad at you even though you may be a raging heathen. He is not mad at you. He went to a cross to die for your sins the same way that he did for everybody’s.

So God isn’t mad at you. All He wants you to do, is come to my Son for life, which is what salvation is all about, life and death issue. The reason you have people rebellious toward God, the reason you have people in my opinion who say that I’m an atheist. I don’t believe anyone is born an atheist. I think you’re taught to be an atheist. And mostly you’re taught by Christians. And what causes you to be an atheist is I’m so hacked at this God, that is mad at me. This guy that I owe this debt, that won’t let me go. That I don’t even believe he exists. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a goner. Let him wipe him off. The average person that I’ve talked to, who are atheists, had a horrendous early childhood Christian experience under legalism. And that’s what they’re rebelling against is legalism. So you don’t rebel against love. You don’t come to somebody loves you perfectly, and say, get away from me, I don’t want to be around you. You rebelled with somebody you think he’s holding something against you. Don’t you?’ Sure. That person is holding someone against me. Well, I don’t want to be around you then.

And again, oh it’s kind of like in our churches and many times, our churches that are the proclaimers of these guilt trips. And God is mad at you and God’s gonna zap you and God is this, and so it’s kind of like me saying, Bob, I tell you, you make me sick to my stomach. I can’t stand to be around you. You smell bad. You look bad and everything else. Would you come over and have dinner with me Sunday? Looking forward to that, thank you very much Bob, but I think I’ll pass. I think I’ll go to the dumpster, get something good. And that’s what church has become a place where you’re going, that person telling you how much God hates you and how bad you are and how you better get straightened down and everything else. Now come y’all come back next Sunday so I can bury you again under legalism. And so it’s no wonder that we have the rebellion that we do. Not only is there an active rebellion, it says I don’t want to have anything to do with it. But liberalism is a form of rebellion. In other words, liberal theology is a form of rebellion. Liberal theology has its majority of the problem with liberal theology and the cause of it is that in most liberal seminaries, the Bible’s never taught. Very seldom that you get maybe the number of hours that you get studying the Bible at liberal seminaries is you’d get more in, you know, a few Sundays in church. You get a lot of counseling and a lot of history, and that type of thing, but not the Bible.

So there’s an automatic assumption that these evangelicals, these conservatives out there, why they quote Bible verses all the time so I guess they know what the Bible says. And so, I guess that’s what the Bible does say. But the God that I know, the God that I think loves me he and in that Bible. So I’m going to ignore the Bible or to just say I just don’t think it’s true. I don’t think it’s true, there’s a lot of errors in it. And the reason I think that is the case is they’ve never studied the New Covenant. They never studied the Bible. They just assume there’s no need studying that, because this God that I want to have is a God of love and the Bible certainly doesn’t teach that. So I don’t need the Bible because when I find out when I deal with a liberal, and I’m able to sit down with a person who is involved in liberal thinking and explain to them the love of God, that is in this Bible, they can’t wait to get into the Bible. And after they find out that sure enough under the New Covenant, the new agreement between God and man, that God that love that they’ve been looking for is there from cover to cover, it’s there. A person says, why do I need to keep casting doubt on the truth of the Bible? That Bible;s true, telling me about this God that I need deep down in my heart. So Bob, you see the ramifications? You got liberal theology that comes from teaching legalism. You got total rebellion that comes from legalism and all of this comes from not realizing that we have already been reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

Now with that, let’s go to Roman’s 5 beginning in verse 10 and we’ll just see if that doesn’t bear it out. For if when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him (That’s to God) through the death of His Son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through His life and not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Now folks don’t just glance over words, for if when we were God’s enemies, what is that? What do you mean God’s enemies? Well, that’s lost. That isn’t somebody that’s out there shaking their fist at God. It can be their active rebellion or passive indifference. Either one. I was never rebellious against God, just indifferent. I was in, I was God’s enemy. In other words, I had not become his friend because you can’t become a friend to somebody, you don’t know. So how you going to be a friend to him? Say are you a friend, you know. Wally so and so and so now I don’t know Wally, I don’t know him. How can he be his friend? I don’t know who he is. So I was an enemy. I didn’t know God.

And so while I was an enemy, I was lost, dead in my sins and the uncircumcision of my sinful nature. What did God do? He reconciled me to Himself through the death of His Son. What does that mean? He looked down and said, there’s Bob George’s entire life, and there’s a debt, he’s guilty. And I’m taking it away. I’m taking it off of My books. We say, you mean up to today Lord? No, no, no, not up to today, forever. It’s gone. It’s off My book. Well, Lord, you don’t know what I’m gonna do tomorrow. Oh yes, I know what you’re gonna do tomorrow. I know what, somebody’s got to tomorrow a thousand years from now. So no, it’s off my books forever.

Now getting back to again, to our illustration here in the scriptures when we were God’s enemies, that was lost. Something took place on God’s behalf towards you that you didn’t even know about. Now as we talked about before, if as an example, you wrote that off of your books and that debt was no longer there, but you didn’t notify me, you didn’t tell me, or you put it in a paper that you had done that, but I didn’t read the paper. And how would I know that I had been reconciled? I wouldn’t know that and therefore, I would still be an enemy. I’d still wouldn’t want to be around you because it’s still owed you a debt that I can’t pay. Now there again, that’s the position of humanity before they hear the gospel. That’s why faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If I don’t hear, don’t know that I’ve been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how am I ever going to experience that reconciliation?

Now, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who have heard about reconciliation, but they don’t know what it means. And therefore are never reconciled and are sitting in church every day, listening about forgiveness, and yet, don’t realize what that means and that it’s a part of my possession. Again, it’s floating out there in space. It doesn’t have a circle around it. It hasn’t been encompassed in something called the New Covenant. And so therefore it’s ongoing. That’s something I have to keep getting, and getting, and getting and getting and begging for. And He said no, it’s in the circle. It’s not out there floating. It’s a part of being in the New Covenant. It’s a part of being in Christ, who is the New Covenant.

So when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. Now, once again, this passage of scripture that we camp on, so often how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life. You’re not saved by the death of Christ. You’re saved through His life. Now you couldn’t be saved with the kind of life that He came to give us called eternal life unless reconciliation was taken place. Reconciliation is where all my sins were forgiven. I was cleansed of all unrighteousness. That’s at the cross and the cross alone. That’s why when you talk about that, if we agree with God concerning our sins, He’s faithful and just to have forgiven and to have cleansed me of all unrighteousness. That took place at the cross. He’s faithful and just to have done that. It’s not the case He’s going to, He’s already done that. It happened one time at the cross. I have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

But you’re saved through His resurrected life. What are you saved from? The wages of sin, What’s the wages of sin? Death. What’s the solution to death? Well, life. And that’s why He came to give us life. Now, if He did not come to give me life, even though my sins were behind the back of God, never to see them again, written off the book. All I am is a dead forgiven corpse. So reconciliation had to proceed the justification that takes place through the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. So what caused man to die to begin with? We can just go back to creation and find that. What caused Adam and Eve to die? Sin. On the day that you eat thereof you will surely die. They did not die physically. They did not die soullessly that day. They died spiritually and death is nothing more than the absence of life. When life leaves your body, your body’s going to be dead. As long as life’s in your body you’re alive. So the spiritual part of man created by God, totally whole, totally complete, complete man physically, a complete man soullessly, a complete man spiritually, when he died spiritually, all that is, is that the life of God left man’s human life. His human spirit leaving his human spirit dead to what vacated it isn’t dead to the world. It’s dead to God. It’s dead to what vacated it. In other words, when it’s gone, why I’m dead to it. When my father died, I’m dead, he’s not here. So you’re dead to that. So man, therefore from that moment on all of us, born in Adam, dead in Adam in need of Life In Christ. And that’s what salvation has been. And that’s what the Holy Spirit of God has been doing for two thousand years is going throughout the world. Appealing to every man and woman boy and girl, on the face of this earth, come unto me for Life. Come to Me, come to Me, come to Me. I came that you might have life. That’s the whole appeal of salvation.

Now, so in order for that to occur, as I said, however, what caused death to begin with, had to be dealt with once and for all. Now, once again, what caused the Spirit of God to depart from Adam? Sin, the sin of Adam through that one man, Adam all died. It’s all of us. So we’re all born dead spiritually. Jesus Christ, the only Man ever born alive spiritually. Adam, the only man the first man created alive spiritually, died. Jesus the only Man ever born alive spiritually. That’s why the virgin birth is not up for grabs. Had He been born out of the loins of Adam like us, He would have been dead, been born dead spiritually. But His virgin birth is what enabled Him to be born, not created, born alive spiritually. That’s why He’s the only Man who could ever lay down His life for you and me. He’s the only one that ever had a life to lay down for you and me.

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And so Christ Jesus walked on this Earth, as a man, as God made man to be, as He created man. And has now, a man was for the first time, born. Jesus called the last Adam, Adam the first. Jesus the last Adam. Now. Jesus knew no sin and therefore His spiritual life was intact until He went to the cross. Now, all of this was a plan of God and He went to a cross and there He who knew no sin became sin for us. So that in Him, His resurrected life, we could become the righteousness of God. We studied that last week. Now, Jesus, therefore laid down His life for you, His spiritual life and His physical life, laid down His life for you then, so that raised from the dead, He can come and live in you now. Restoring you now to resurrected life. And He had to be our substitute at the cross and he had to be our total provision through His resurrection.

Now in order for Him to give us eternal life, we have to think this through a moment, folks. Jesus died did he not at the cross? Father in thy hands I commend my Spirit. So the Spirit of God departed from the physical Jesus, the humanity of Jesus, leaving him in the exact condition that Adam was in when he fell. In other words, a fallen physical man. Dead. Dead to what vacated him. And then His body died. Now what caused that? Well the same thing that caused Adam to die, sin. What caused Adam to die spiritually? Sin. Whose sin? His own. What caused Jesus to die? Sin. Whose? Ours. The righteous (Jesus) died for the unrighteous, ours. When He took upon Himself the sins of the entire world, that’s a much bigger transaction. And what we puny human beings want to get involved in. See, we’re so selfish. We just think, oh, well, He couldn’t certainly been thinking about mine sins in the future. He took that one sacrifice, you see, prior to that time. The only provision for sin was sacrificial, sacrifices of blood and bulls and goats. In other words, it was an animal sacrifice that could never take away sin. We’re told sin had to be taken away, not covered. Atonement covered sin. Jesus came to take away sin. That’s why atonement is not used in the new Covenant.

Now, Jesus therefore went to that cross and He died for the forgiveness of all men’s sins back to Adam and forward throughout eternity. Again a circle. So in that circle, there’s a cross and that cross, there’s a circle, has no beginning and no end. It just means it’s done. It’s finished, it’s done. So the very moment that Christ Jesus entered into our humanity, went to a cross, volitionally for us, took upon Himself the sins of the world, from our vantage point forward and backwards from God’s vantage point. He’s not limited by time and space, as such as we are. It’s just done. It’s finished. So just quit worrying about this past, present and future stuff. It just done. It’s just through eternity, it’s just done.

Forgiveness, the kind of forgiveness that God exercised to me is too big to confine to our method of operation past, present and future. It’s bigger than that. Just the Bible doesn’t deal with that. You see, we sit down and say, oh, my sins are forgiven past, present and future with, that’s limiting your knowledge of forgiveness in accordance with the realm we live in. It’s bigger than that. It’s called eternal forgiveness, eternal life. It’s eternal, bigger than time and space. So, He died for all of those sins. Now, for how many people? Now, for everybody. Now, here’s where the confusion comes in, people say, well, if he died for everyone sins, is everyone saved? Well, if salvation was having your sins reconciled for, why then you would have universal salvation because he died not only for our sins, but the sins of the whole world. Well then what’s the solution to that? Well, it’s very simple. Salvation is not getting your sins forgiven. That’s a part of it, but it’s not total salvation. We just got through reading, we were reconciled to Him through the death of his Son. How much more having been, that’s already occurred. Folks, having been means it’s already done, reconciled. Shall we, shall we be saved? That’s right now through His life.

So we’re not saved through the death of Christ, we’re saved through the Life of Christ. Salvation is receiving His resurrected life. Now again in order to give us a life that is also indestructible that can never ever be taken away, the thing that caused life to depart from and to begin with had to be dealt with once and for all that is sin. And that’s the marvel of the cross. It is what provided Him to give me eternal life. That is the joy of the cross, is because it provided the way and the means whereby, God could enter into a new agreement with me, giving me a life that had never been given before, and that’s called an indestructible life. For if when we were God’s enemies, again, we were reconciled, (that’s past tense) to Him through the death of His Son. That only happened once two thousand years ago and yet, I am reconciled to Him today. How much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through His life. Now once again Christ Jesus, and what salvation is about is Christ Jesus, all about Him. At the cross is where the New Covenant went into effect. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. In case of a will it’s necessary to prove the death of the one who made it because it’s only when the death of the one who made it is proven that the new will goes into effect. We’re told that in the ninth chapter of Hebrews. So on the day that Christ Jesus went to a cross the New Covenant went into effect. This circle, we’re talking about went into effect. In that circle is total forgiveness, reconciled, written off of the books.

My friends, do you realize what the majority of the Christian world is doing today and has been doing, it’s no different than if Christ had not gone to a cross or if he was nothing but just a glorified animal, because we treat his sacrificial death no differently than we did the death of the blood of a bull and goat. No differently at all. We go for forgiveness on the day of atonement. And we go back next year, for forgiveness. That’s the day of atonement. And we go back next year again for the day of atonement, and that goes on on and on and on and on. So is forgiveness ever final? It is never final and as it says in Hebrews, therefore no man could ever be made perfect in the sight of God with that type of a system. Perfection, if it could be gained through the law, why then Christ died for nothing. And so the problem with that is a man would never ever ever in his own experience be able to boldly walk into the presence of God, calling him Daddy, Father to receive mercy in his time of need. He would always have to go to someplace else to get mercy. Ultimately when the blood was shed that blood was then taken into the holy of holies, where only the high priest could enter. And the blood presented to God at that time as a sacrifice. So we could never enter into the holy of holies. We could never enter into the presence of God, calling Him Daddy Father.

When Christ died at the cross the curtain was rent from the top to the bottom and that enables every one of us tt says in the scripture, to go into His presence today, calling him Abba Father and receiving mercy in our time of need. So folks, before you see,the way we are treating, for. this is something that is ongoing, well, atonement was ongoing. Was there a lesser form of forgiveness, back in Old Testament than in the New Testament are being where you were just less forgiving back then when you went to the day of atonement? No, God initiated the day of atonement. And when the blood of bulls and goats were shed and spread on the altar forgiveness occurred. You aren’t any less forgiven for those sins than Jesus forgave today, You’re not less. What was the problem with it? It wasn’t final, it wasn’t taken away. Sin hadn’t been dealt with. The whole issue of sin had to be dealt with, not just yours, but the whole issue had to be dealt with in Christ, dealt with that one time. And that was at the cross.

And today we are still, if they still had animal sacrifices and Bob before the Lord comes back or in that period of time, that that temple is going to be rebuilt. And they’re going to be reinitiating a sacrificial system and I can just see a bunch of these Christians that are more preoccupied with Israel than they are Jesus, just flocking over there to get involved. They just think that’s the neatest thing ever going and it’s spitting in the face of Christ. I’m not excited for the temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem outside of the fact of it being a fulfillment of prophecy that the temple is a shadow. It is a direct shadow. Again, we already have the temple. It’s Christ Jesus. And here we’re looking for again, for something man-made, just get excited over it. Can’t wait to go. Well, I don’t want to go. Alright, why would I want to go to a shadow when I have the reality? And so be caught but because our understanding of forgiveness is so flimsy and we’ve never settled that issue, the realization, I’m in a New Covenant where He says, their sins in lawless acts.I’ll remember no more. What, why would I want to go back for a sacrifice when he says remember them no more? When you see, your mind gets down to what, He just doesn’t remember the ones that got forgiven yesterday. What about tomorrow, what about my future sins? Well, how many of your sins are in the future when Christ died for you? Appears to me that all of them were. It wasn’t something limited again by time and space. We want to bring God down to our realm. We can’t bring God down to our realm. God came down into our realm, in the person of Christ Jesus, does show us what God was like to talk about things like eternal. How in the world can we talk about something eternal, when we’re temporal? It had to come from God, that there’s Eternal things, I wouldn’t have known that otherwise. Everlasting things.

So Christ came to that cross and there He dealt with this issue once and for all reconciled the world unto himself, not counting their sins against them. What is it? It’s our illustration. You wrote it off your books, took it off. It’s gone, not dealing with it anymore. And it says, when Christ returns that He is not coming to bear sin, but to bring salvation for those waiting on Him. Why isn’t he coming to bear sin? He’s already done it. He’s already set down at the right hand of God, making His enemies His footstool. He’s already done that. It isn’t the case I’m going to do it again. If that is true and that forgiveness has been totally taken care of and executed on God’s behalf, that means that if there was any further forgiveness to be executed on your behalf. What would Christ have to do? Die again. Is He going to do that? No, He is not.

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