Radio Broadcast Monday 07/18/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P55 (07-18-22)

Understanding Our Justification in Christ Jesus

In today’s lesson, Bob explains what our justification means in Christ Jesus.

Justification deals with the entirety of what salvation is all about, which is, which includes certainly the forgiveness of sins and the taking away of sin, which we still don’t understand in many instances. But even more importantly is the imputation of the righteousness that has to come to us from God. And therefore being declared righteous in the sight of God, we are now totally justified in the sight of God. Now we have this misconception that if I could just be declared innocent that I’d be neat. In other words, if I never sinned again, or if somebody could say Bob, I’m gonna treat you as if you’ve never sinned, you’d be wonderful. No, I wouldn’t. I’d still be a sinner, I would still be a forgiven sinner.

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, 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.

Bob George
In this entire book, it’s around your believers identity. And as we have input from people around the country who have studied to this book, it is a life changing. It is absolutely a life changing event because so many Christians don’t have a clue as to their new identity in Christ to the exchanged life. And so therefore they’re out trying to, to change their life which they can, instead of exchanging it which they can, and it is the exchange life that begins to reality of Christ’s life alive living in us, which is their only hope of glory. We studied parts of this thing is what it means to be a new creation. It means to literally first of all to have been translated in out of Adam into Christ. In other words, you have a new inheritance, you have a new citizenship, you’re now citizenship of heaven. And that’s an that’s something brand new.

In this new covenant, you have been totally reconciled to God, which means you’ve been totally forgiven. You’ve been made righteous in the sight of God bought back redeemed. We talked about last week of being sanctified, set apart. And that isn’t something again, you go do it’s not something you get more of, it means that you have been set apart by God as a new creature in Christ called a child of the living God.

Now today, we’re going to study a word, justified, and most people certainly have heard that word even when your lost you’ve heard about justification and being justified. I think probably Martin Luther had as much to do to bringing that word to the forefront of people’s minds as anybody because most people have heard of the story of Martin Luther as a Catholic priest and, and trying to earn his way to God and praying numerous hours all day long, trying to keep his sins confess about the time he got him confessed, he had more to confess.

And finally, one day opened up the Word of God it’s it’s strange, as we said, how the Word of God will shed a lot of light on customs and on commentary. But he opened up the Word of God and went through the book of Romans and they’re read that we are justified by faith, and by faith alone, no works apart from the law. And his life was changed which caused him ultimately to enter into the teaching of the purity of the Word of God which separated him from where he was, and literally was threatened with his own with his own life numerous times and because of this, this break. But the fact of the matter is that one way or the other and I don’t look at that as Catholic and Protestant I look at it is what is truth and what is error. Because there’s error in Catholicism, and there’s error in Protestantism. And so wherever you have teaching, there’s error.

And Jesus said, truth would set you free. And if truth is what sets you free error is what keeps you in bondage. It doesn’t make a difference whether I’m getting error for one side or error from another side. It means that error will keep me in bondage and the only thing that’s going to set me free is truth and I’m not going to find truth in any manmade organization. I’m going to find truth from the source of truth the one who claimed to be the truth, Jesus claiming I am the truth. And when the truth is set you free you will be free indeed, and saying that when the Son has set you free, you shall be free indeed. In other words, the truth will set you free. I am that truth and when the Son set you free, you will be free. One of the things you’re free from his error which is what happens when you get engulfed in truth.

So but as we are studying this together, please of any of our listeners, do not take these things as an attack or a criticism of one denomination over another because quite frankly, God didn’t make denominations, man made those. This is strictly taking a look at what the Word of God has to say, from God’s mouth to your ears. And let’s look at it in that light and let God change our lives.

Many times something that sounds kind of cute, that you’re able to apply to a word becomes the ology and it’s, it’s a damaging thing for that to happen. And one of the cute little things that we’ve done with justified means just as if I’ve never sinned, and I can remember learning that and thinking I was so cute and using it all the time. And there is certainly a certain amount of truth to that fact. But justification is so much larger than dealing with sin. Reconciliation is what dealt with sin. That was the cross. Justification deals with the entirety of what salvation is all about, which is, which includes certainly the forgiveness of sins and the taking away of sin, which we still don’t understand in many instances. But even more importantly is the imputation of the righteousness that has to come to us from God. And therefore being declared righteous in the sight of God, we are now totally justified in the sight of God. Now we have this misconception that if I could just be declared innocent that I’d be neat. In other words, if I never sinned again, or if somebody could say Bob, I’m gonna treat you as if you’ve never sinned, you’d be wonderful. No, I wouldn’t. I’d still be a sinner, I would still be a forgiven sinner.

Now Romans 5:18, which picks up on page 58 of our study, it’s the first question we’re dealing with says consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, now, folks, that one trespass was the trespass of Adam and when Adam fell and died, everyone born out of the loins of Adam was born as he became dead. No one is born alive spiritually on the face of this earth, nor has anyone ever been born alive spiritually, except one person and we’ll cover that in a moment. Every person born was born dead. Now, Adam and Eve were not born they were created. They were created out of dust. They were created by the hand of God. They were the first human beings on the face of this earth. We were not evolved from an ape. Some of us act like we were sometimes but we did not evolve from an ape we were created by the hand of God and when we were created by God, we were created alive, alive, bodily, alive, solelishly and alive spiritually. Now that spiritual life that that we were given and Adam was given when he was created, God created him in such a way whereby his creation man, got God in that man was indispensable to the true humanity of that man.

It’s the same thing that a light bulb was designed in such a way whereby electricity in the bulb is indispensable to the function of the bulb. The same way that a car is manufactured whereby gasoline in the car is indispensable to the function of the car. We get the picture on that. An ink pen is made in such a way that ink in the pen is indispensable to the function of the pen. You take the heck out of the pen, you got to pen on your hands, it won’t, write. You take gasoline out of your car and you got a car in your hands that you’ve paid 1000s of dollars for that will not run, and you take electricity out of a light bulb and you’d have a bulb on your hands that will not perform light and will not give out light and you’re going to be in darkness.

Now why does man need God living in him in order to function according to the intelligent purpose for which man was created? The same reason he was made that way? You take man you take God out of the man, what do you have? You have a man on your hands, but he cannot behave like one. He is two thirds whole. He’s certainly alive bodily. He’s certainly alive soullessly But he’s dead as a hammer spiritually.

Now on the day that Adam died, he did not die bodily or solelishly on the day that he ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil the very day that man stood before God and said, God I don’t believe you when you said that I need to come to you for truth and error. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil I’ll determine right and wrong and good and evil. On my own. I don’t need you I will now be God. Of all of the trees in the garden He said you have total freedom except man. Because of your being a created being you have no right and no privilege. No ability at all to be a moral instrument in and of yourself. You cannot determine right from wrong your situational and all things you’re going to rationalize every action that you ever come up with. And all you have to do today is to take a look at man no one is guilty anymore. We’re all victims.

And so that rebellion that started in the Garden of Eden, in my opinion is absolutely rampid today and has progressively become so to the point where there is no one guilty anymore. We’re either sick, we have a syndrome, or we’re into a situation where, don’t blame me it’s mother’s fault. So we’re victims. Well, that is so contrary to the scripture. But that’s what happens to man when we in our brilliance become totally ignorant in thinking that we know more than God. God said this is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don’t eat of it. Because you man cannot determine good from evil. Now on the day that Adam decided to be God, why then why does he need God living in him? And Adam obviously didn’t think he needed God living in him. And God for sure didn’t think Adam needed him living in him. So God departed from man. And by that one result of that one trespass condemnation was passed to all men. What is condemnation? Well, what is the wages of sin? Death. So what did that mean? Death was passed on to all men. Now again, did Adam died physically that day? No. Did he die solelishly that day that he’s personality die is a mind is emotion his will? No. Well, what died? Well, he died spiritually, which is what made man different from an animal. Now I want to make a delineation of that before we go on, man is a human spirit, who is indwelt by God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit. So there is a human spirit that delineates him from the animal kingdom that was meant by his creator to be indwelt by God, and His Spirit. Now, when the Holy Spirit of God departed from Adam’s human spirit, what is death? The absence of life. So what died in Adams human spirit? The life of God, but that human spirit is still alive to the world, but it is dead to God. Now, what delineates the animal kingdom from the human kingdom is that humans have a human spirit. And the only place that that human spirit has to go now for information to determine right from wrong good from evil is to the world, some instance of it being the downward force into the soul and the body, it becomes subject to the soul and the body. And so it is there to answer the demands of the soul in the body rather than creating the demands on the soul and the body. And so the human spirit is not so destitute as some people say that it couldn’t receive Christ of one to two and so it’s just all God he just elects who he wants to, to convert. That is ludicrous. If that human spirit was dead. If it was totally if it was dead, he would be an animal. No different than a dog at all. So what delineates the human kingdom from the animal kingdom is a dog has a body, a dog has a soul, the dog has a mind. Sometimes you wonder if a dog has emotions and for sure a dog has a will. And you can tell what’s going on in those three things but watching the tail, if it’s wagging you know one thing that’s going on if it’s between his legs, you know, another thing is going on.

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Bob George
Now to the human being why he is over and above the animal kingdom is because of the fact of having a human spirit that enables him to be incurably religious. In other words, something has vacated that spirit and when it’s vacated, you’re longing for what vacated it. And so all of us unknowingly are coming into this world, not knowing what it is that’s missing, but awareness that something is missing. And I have people coming to me anytime and say, Bob, I feel like something’s missing, said you know, why? No, because something’s missing. What is it the Spirit of God living in?

You see, if that’s human spirit, a man was just absolutely so destitute. Why would all men be incurably religious? But it isn’t, it’s dead to what vacated it. In other words, the death of the human spirit was not that the human spirit died, it died to what vacated it and that was the life of God living in it. So that human spirit of ours before we are saved into God because the life of God is not there anymore. But it’s very much alive to the world, and therefore able to be seeking what it is that he is missing. And that’s what delineates the human kingdom from the animal kingdom. Dogs aren’t sitting around contemplating God and how we got here and where we’re going, but man does. Why? Dead as hammer spiritually, but that human spirit is still crying out for what vacated it. And Bob, when you stop to think about that think of God’s way of doing that because look at the fairness of that. There’s not a person alive that does not have a longing and his heart to know God. None. There is none, there’s no such thing as a man born into this world without a longing to know God. And but because he will not turn to the true God, he makes up every harebrained idea on the face of the earth to try to fill that vacuum and it never gets filled. There’s only one place that can fill the God shaped vacuum that is in the heart of every man, and that is through a relationship with Jesus Christ, period. There is no other means of doing that. That is not a dogmatic doctrine. That’s a fact of life. That’s just plain a fact of life.

And so, we have to come to grips with that fact of seeing, therefore, our condition. Consequently, Romans 5:18, just as the result of one trespass, that was Adam was condemnation, that was death. We’re all born into this world, dead spiritually. So it says the result of one act of righteousness. Now who was that? That was Jesus was justification that brings what? Life for all men. So what was the condemnation for all men? Death. What is what is the justification to bring dwell man? Life. Whose life? Christ’s life alive living in you and me which is our only hope of ever being restored to the intelligent purpose for which God created you. When you are born again, my friend, you are restored to true humanity. You weren’t a true human from God’s vantage point. Before you’re born again. When you’re born again you are now complete. Before you were born again. You are not complete. Why weren’t you complete? God wasn’t living in you. And until God comes to take up residence in his creation, that creation is incomplete. When God takes up that residence, we become what is called complete or made perfect in the sight of God.

As we’re talking about what we were talking about that just in the last 15 minutes of this broadcast. It’s probably as important thing to grab a hold of as anything in the Scripture is an understanding of this. Because you see, once again, religion is continually dealing with sins and getting forgiveness of sins, instead of coming to grips with what Jesus said. I’ve already dealt with sin. Having dealt with sin, did not cure man’s problem. It just cleared the deck for the cure of man’s problem. Man’s problem is death. And getting forgiveness does not make a corpse come to life. So if you went to in a graveyard and looked down into that grave and said, You’re forgiven, you’d still see an old corpse land, they’re forgiven corpse, the corpse deeds life. And so that’s the that’s the meaning of the resurrection. We asked people continually what was the meaning of the cross? Oh, that’s where Jesus died for all my sins. What was the meaning of the resurrection? And you kind of get this blank stare and it’s well I guess maybe that’s what prove that Jesus died for my sins. And we don’t realize the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead, so that we could be raised from the dead so that that resurrection life that was given to him after he became a substitutionary Lamb of God, taking our sins upon himself and dying a death exactly like ours, so that we could experience a resurrection exactly like his. And so the purpose of the cross was to clear the deck for the divine action of bringing life to the dead, which is justification. Now what what do you mean bringing life to the dead as justification? No, that’s life. Justification is when all of those transactions have taken place. You now are justified in the sight of God. So, the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men. So the one act of righteousness of Jesus was the justification that brings life to all men.

Now, before we go to the Titus passage, I would like for you our listeners to turn back with me to the third chapter of the book of Romans. And I want to pick up there in verse 19. And we’re just going to spend some time reading through some of these passages as it deals with this whole element of salvation. First of all, no man is ever going to be saved through obedience to the law. Remember in Ephesians it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. Not that of yourselves. It’s a gift of God not as a result of works, that no man should boast. Now in verse 19, there it says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law. How come? So that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. So who is under the law? The whole world. What does the law do to the whole world? It silences your mouth and makes the entire world accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared, look at this folks, righteous in His sight by observing the law, it didn’t say no one would be declared righteous in our sight, but in His. We make people righteous all over the place by doing things that we think they ought to do. We get self righteousness through believing that we do things that is just so pleasing to God. But God said, no one will ever be declared righteous in His sight. God will never declare anyone righteous through observing the law, but rather it’s through the law, that we become conscious of sin. So what was the purpose of the law? Well, the purpose of the law, my friends, was to show you and me our pitiful condition. That was the purpose of the law was to show a man here 10 laws to go but it shouldn’t be hard to live up to give a try. And you find out it silences your mouth, and realize that I’m accountable to God. So folks, the law speaks to those who are under the law. And basically, I think the context here is all men who are lost are under the law. That’s why you’re accountable to God and that’s why your mouth gets silenced. Unfortunately, saved people put themselves back under the law and it does the same thing. But the purpose of the law was not to deal with safe people the purpose of the law was to show a last person his lostness. Now, no one will ever be declared righteous in God’s sight, in other words, God will never declare you righteous through observing the law, but it’s through the law that you’re going to be conscious of your own sin. Well, how are we going to be justified in the sight of God, then, how are we going to be declared righteous? Well, it’s going to tell you but now, verse 21, a righteousness from God, apart from the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. In other words, God is saying, man went to a cross, and I took away your sins. And now there is righteousness or right, right standing available to you, apart from anything you do in regard to the law. That is from my Son Jesus Christ. So it’s a righteousness from God that comes through faith in Jesus to all who believe. Why faith in Jesus? He’s the only man who was ever born alive spiritually. Now we talked about Adam being called the first Adam created alive. Jesus, the only man ever born alive spiritually, that’s why he is called the First Born from among the dead. Who are the dead? Us. Who’s the first born from among the dead? Jesus. That’s why his virgin birth is not up for grabs. Had Jesus been born of natural means, as you and I were born into this world, he would have been born out of the lines of Adam dead as a hammer. Just like all other men. That’s why again, Jesus saying I am the only way I am the way I’m the truth in the life I’m the only way I’m the only truth on the only life is not to be dogmatic. It’s because he is the only way and the only truth and the only life. He’s the only man who could have ever laid down his life for you and me. He’s the only man who ever had a life to lay down for you and me.

So folks, Christ is not a theological object. Christ is the most practical person committing the most practical act on the face of the earth. I am dead and need life and he is life and he came to give it to me. I am a sinner and need forgiveness and he went to a cross to provide it for me. How much more practical can you get? Buddha didn’t die on a cross. He isn’t raised from the dead. Mohammed didn’t die on a cross, isn’t raise from the dead. How come he couldn’t give you life if he was. Only Christ can give you life it’s not dogmatic. It’s a truth. That’s just all there is to it. It’s just plain truth. It’s dogmatic that I need water. He who will resist it and see what will happen to you. It’s not Oh, I don’t like that whether you like it or not, folks, you’re made that way. We are made to need water. If you don’t have it, you’re gonna die. So folks, this righteousness that comes from God is a part is what’s begins to bring into the into focus is entirety of salvation. Forgiveness was justified. That’s what the Cross did. Then I needed righteousness, that had to be imputed to me, and had to be given to me. I couldn’t do it on my own. And if righteousness could be gained through obedience to the law, why then what did Jesus need to come for? Now, it says, How come that is so that it’s all through Jesus? He said, There’s no difference for all of sin, all Hebrews, and all Gentiles have sinned, all Catholics have sinned, all Protestants have sinned, all Buddhists have sinned, all Muslims have sinned, all who said the whole world has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And any one of those people are justified freely by His grace and His grace alone, through the redemption. That’s the buying back we talked about that before that came by who, by Jesus Christ, justified. What do you mean justified? You were forgiven, and you were given life. You were given His righteousness. It was all accomplished for you in the cross and the burial and the resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity, with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord, find more information online at shop.BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.