Radio Broadcast Wednesday 02/07/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Hebrews P64 (02-07-24)

God Made Us Alive With Christ by Grace Through Faith in Him

~ We were dead in our sins before we came to Christ Jesus. Dead people need life. In Christ, He is our very life. He sent His Spirit to indwell us and to give us His very life. We were raised from the dead. The Holy Spirit now resides in every true believer and He made you a child of God. If you are in Him, then He is in you and nothing can separate the two. God does not save part way. God saves completely. Someday we shall all understand. But in this movement in time, we have his word of God to teach us all truth through the Holy Spirit explaining the meaning of everything. The world does not understand, because they do not have the Holy Spirit living in them.

~ But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life ^{Ephesians 2:4-10}

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~ “When you were dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all your sins. And so the righteous man has got to live by faith. That’s what it’s talking about. We we’ve discussed in some of our other lessons about the armor of God, to stand firm in the armor of God with a breastplate of righteousness on. What is the breastplate of righteousness? His righteousness. The very moment you and I stand in her own righteousness, we’ve taken off her shield, we’ve taken off our breastplate, we’ve forgotten that it’s his righteousness that we stand and not ours.” ~ Bob George

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Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the book of Hebrews. Available for download the complete series on the Book of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews is key to understanding the New Covenant.

Announcer 0:12
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Bob George 0:29
When you were dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all your sins. And so the righteous man has got to live by faith. That’s what it’s talking about. We we’ve discussed in some of our other lessons about the armor of God, to stand firm in the armor of God with a breastplate of righteousness on. What is the breastplate of righteousness? His righteousness. The very moment you and I stand in her own righteousness, we’ve taken off her shield, we’ve taken off our breastplate, we’ve forgotten that it’s his righteousness that we stand and not ours. Now, there’s only one way that a person who is has been made right in the sight of God, in other words, called a righteous person is one who has accepted His righteousness. And there’s only one way a man got that way and that was by faith. And there’s only one way that a man lives that way. And that is by faith. As a man risk See if Christ Jesus the Lord, so, walk in him, how did we receive Him? By faith. How do we walk in him? Same way by faith. And that faith is not in me and what I’m doing for God, that faith is in him and what he is continuing to do, in and through your life. So it says the righteous will live by faith, the law is not based on faith. On the contrary, a man who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, death by becoming a curse for us. Where it is written cursed is everyone who hung on a tree, he redeemed this, he came to this earth, born of a woman born under the law. That’s the celebration of his birth, taking upon himself, our own humanity, so that he could redeem us, buy us back. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus the promised seed, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Now let’s turn back for a moment to Romans, chapter three. Let’s start in verse 21. A righteousness from God, apart from the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, there is no difference, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is no difference, folks. There’s no difference whether you’re a Hebrew, whether you’re Gentile, whether you’re slave, whether you’re free, you’re all one in Christ, there’s no difference. The Hebrews sinned and fall short of the glory of God, the Gentile have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God, the whole world, it says is held captive under the law. We think that the whole world wasn’t under the law, I don’t know what we’re gonna do with that passage, the whole world was held captive, under the law. The whole world had fallen short of the glory of God. All have sinned, all of us and fallen short of the glory of God. That’s why the seed had to come, Jesus to redeem who? The whole world back to God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented him as a sacrifice and NIV translates that atonement, which is terrible. And if you’ve got an NIV, I’d really recommend you cross that out and take a look at the footnote down there. And that is the fact of the one who would take aside His wrath taking away our sin. The word atonement is not a proper translation in the New Testament. Atonement was what the blood of bulls and goats did they covered sin. Jesus did not come to cover sin, He came to do what? Take away your in my sin that is not atonements called propitiation. And, again, translators will can translate all kinds of things. But the footnote down there is the accurate interpretation of that. This happened to us folks is this, that people have pulled the word atonement over. And, and, and if you look at an explanation of that as to why do they continue interpreting or atonement? The explanation was given us through continual theological usage, it’s become acceptable. Well, I got news for you. theologians are not the criteria for truth. Truth is a criteria for truth. So it doesn’t make any difference how much usage it has. It’s either right or wrong, and that word is wrong. Atonement was what the blood of bulls and goats accomplished in covering sin. Jesus did not come to atone for sin, He came to take away our sin. Behold, the Lamb of God who what? Takes away the sin of the world. So God presented him as a sacrifice to take away the sin through faith in his blood, not in the blood of bulls and goats that covered sin, but in his blood that took it away. He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance, he had left sins committed and committed beforehand and punished. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time. So it will be the just the one who justifies to those who have faith in Jesus.

Now, chapter four, what shall we say that Abraham our forefather discovered in this matter, if in fact Abraham was justified by works he had something to boast about, but not for God. Or what does the Scripture say that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, when a man works, his wages are not credited him as a gift. But as an obligation, however, to the man who does not work, but trust God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. That talks about David doing the same thing. Now let’s go down to verse 16. Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace, and may be guaranteed to all of Abraham’s offspring, not only to those who are of the law, but to those who are the faith of Abraham. In other words, to believe, Hebrew, Gentile, like slave and free. He is the father of us all, made you the father of many nations. He’s the father in the sight of God in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead, and calls things that are not as though they are. Against all hope. Abraham, in hope believed and so became the father of many nations just as it had been said to him, so shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his face, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about 100 years old, and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. And that is why it was credited to him as righteousness. The words it was credited to the him were written not for him alone, but for all of us, to whom God will credit righteousness for us who believe in Him, who raised Jesus, our Lord from the dead. He Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins. And he was raised again, for our justification.

It’s all Christ. It’s none of us. And that is the reason that the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth. That’s why he was born. Now let’s turn back just for a minute minute to Chapter Three of the book of Galatians, verse 26. You are all sons of God, through faith in Christ, for all of you who were baptized into Christ, and folks that in splattering with water, that isn’t dunked in a tub someplace, you’re talking about identified baptism is identification. It’s a means of identification. Each and every one of you were baptized into Christ, the very moment that you and I were saved, the Spirit of God came to live within us. If the Spirit of God, it says, is not in us, we do not belong to Him. You are all born again of the what? Of the Spirit, you couldn’t be in Christ, if the Spirit of God did not come to live within you. That’s how you’re born again, of the Spirit, the Spirit comes bringing life to your dead spirit. And that’s how you and I received life, the Holy Spirit of God comes and brings Christ to your heart, that’s Christ in you at that very moment. It says the Spirit then baptizes, places you into the body of Christ. And we have all received that baptism. Everyone who is truly in Christ, Christ came to live in you the Spirit, then baptize placed you into Christ. That is how Christ lives in you live in Christ. That’s how that whole transaction took place. It can’t it’s not a subsequent event, there is no such thing. Nor could there be it’s, it’s a perversion of, of the dynamic of the meaning of the Scripture, to think that I can be born again today receive the Spirit today and then receive him later. That cannot be, you couldn’t be born again if you didn’t have the Spirit living in you. So this dynamic, the beautiful dynamic of it that gets unfortunately many times perverted with that, not intentionally, but it does and it loses the dynamic is the dynamic of that total transition by God whereby God came to live in me, and at that moment placed me into the body of Christ, and that completed the action Christ is in me, I am in Him. That is also what takes place by Christ coming to live in me that’s him identifying with me, him placing me into his body, you are in the body, you’re in the body, you’re in the body and that makes us what? Brothers and sisters in Christ. It what, it’s what enables me to be identified with Christ and with one another. It’s what I tell people who are married who are in Christ, do you realize that first and foremost, you are married to your sister in Christ, you’re married to your brother in Christ. That’s a relationship that’s gonna go on forever. Marriage isn’t gonna go on forever, it ends when you die. There ain’t gonna be marriage in heaven. Somebody said that, maybe that’s why they call it heaven. But at any rate, whether that be so or not, I don’t know. But I do know one thing that you’re going to be we are going to be brothers and sisters in Christ, throughout eternity. And that’s how all that was accomplished. So each and every one of you have been placed baptized into Christ, have clothed yourself therefore with Christ. That’s your clothing is the righteousness of Christ, not your own.

Now, in this relationship, folks, where God sees the world in only three categories, you’ve got the lost you got the same you got the Hebrew, Gentile lost. You’ve got the saved, the church. You’ve got natural man, you got spiritual man. You’ve got only two types, natural man lost, spiritual man saved. What is natural man made up of? Hebrew Gentile, alike anyone who’s out of Christ. And then you’ve got the what’s called the church, or the ecclesia, which is born again Christians, has nothing to do with belong to a club has nothing to do with being a Baptist, or Presbyterian or anything else. It has only to do with whether you’re in Christ or whether you’re not. And to both of those categories Hebrew and Gentile. And then the church made up of who? Hebrew and Gentile saved.

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Bob George 14:01

What's the world? Hebrew and Gentile lost. What's the church? Hebrew and Gentile saved. There is neither in Christ Hebrew or Gentile, Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to his promise. In Christ today, if you're in Christ, whether you came out of a Hebrew background or a Gentile background or what kind of a background is totally irrelevant the very moment that you came in Christ you were made into what? A new Cree ation. All things have passed away and behold, all things have become new. What's it mean? You got a new identity. No, I don't think of myself as a Gentile anymore. I wouldn't say myself as a Hebrew anymore. I'm a child of a living God. That is an identity that is forever and ever, and a part of the internal inheritance that was given to you and me, as a result of the promise to Abraham, it is through his seed, that the world will be blessed. And that seed is Jesus Christ. And when you and I have come to Him by faith, we became a part of this huge body of Christ that we are in today. You belong to Christ, and you're Abraham's seed.

Now turned back very quickly to the book of Ephesians chapter two, and let's begin in verse 11. Therefore, remember, the former you who are Gentiles by birth are also called uncircumcised by those who call themselves to circumcise, that done in the body by the hands of men. That's all that amounted to. Remember, at that time, you were separated from Christ didn't know about being excluded from citizenship and Israel, foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who are ones far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made the to one, and has destroyed the barrier, this dividing wall of hostility, the hostility that exists in the world, manifested in the world, in so many ways, the hostility between Hebrew and Gentile has been broken down in Christ. In Christ, there is no way for a spirit of anti semitism, or a spirit of anti Gentile ism. If there's such a word, there is no wall of hostility. In Christ. There is no Hebrew or Gentile in Christ, with just one. There's no slave nor free. Just brothers and sisters in Christ. He abolished in his flesh, the law with its commandments and regulations, folks, He abolished it. With its rules and regulations that was against us, it was taken away. His purpose of doing that was to create in himself one new man out of the two out of the two. How did God look at the world? Separated Hebrew Gentile. Said I'm gonna make a new man, it's gonna be called the ecclesia, the church, children of God. Who you going to use to make those? Hebrew and Gentile together. Did the Hebrew understand that? Oh, no. How could How could those Gentiles ever come to the Lord? And, and the Gentile sitting over there, if I had asked like that, who would want to be one? I would want to go to all those ceremonies. And, and all that other. So in other words, that hostility was there. So he said, I'm going to do something that the world cannot understand. I'm going to create one new man out of the two. And people aren't going to understand that. One new man out of the two that's making peace and in his one body now to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death, their hostility. The cross is the way to salvation for both the Hebrew and the Gentile. There are people walking around saying, Oh, you're gonna be saved because you're a Hebrew. That's a bunch of hogwash. resaved because you're in Christ. Whether you're a Hebrew or Gentile, or a slave or free, there's only one way for salvation to all men. There's no other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved. That's Christ, Christ Jesus.

I have people so I just can't imagine that my father's done in heaven. Well, what about my father, my father had to come to Christ the same way yours has to come to Christ. And my dad didn't come to Christ as much as I loved him. If he didn't come to Christ by faith, he is not going to be in heaven. Sit around, say, Well, how could a wonderful movie, not my dad? That's pride. That's ego. Every man comes to Christ in the same way. Every man comes to face to the same way. There's no difference Hebrew, Gentile, slave or free. Every man has been reduced to nothingness by the law. The law has silenced the mouth of every man so that no man I can boast before God that I am worthy of coming into your presence. It's neutralized all of us. And so he said, he prepared for himself. One New Man Out of the two that's making peace and through this one bodied reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death or hostility, he came and preached peace to you who are far away, and peace to those who were near. In both instances, Hebrews who were near Gentiles who are far away, same message, peace, I leave under you, peace I give unto you, not as the world gives out there give I unto you. In my Father's house are many mansions if we're not so I would have told you and I go to prepare a place for you. That's peace. For through him, we both have access to the Father, by the one Spirit. Consequently, you're no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens, with God's people and members of God's household built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as a chief cornerstone. In Him, the whole building is joined together, and rises to become a holy temple of the Lord. You know how God perceives you and me? As a temple, not one built with hands back in Israel, that people walking around on the face of this earth and indwelt by the living Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. And that's what he calls our bodies is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. In Him, you too, are being built together, to become a dwelling, by in which God lives by His Spirit.

You know, it's a neat thing, to celebrate the birth of Christ. When you know what that meant. All of this was the master plan of God. He came to be born, to identify with us and our humanity. So that we in turn, through His resurrection could identify with Him and His deity. To be able to join, be joined together with God, to be able to see that there is no wisdom on this earth apart from him. The wise man is the man who sees that wisdom alone comes from God. I just wonder sometimes, folks in our own attitudes of our minds, how many of us really have come to see the truth about that? How many of us are still leaning on our own understanding? Instead of acknowledging him, and letting him direct our paths? How many of us have that tendency to do that? In the eighteenth chapter of Proverbs, it says, a fool, finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing his own opinions. How many of us delight in airing our own opinions, instead of coming to understand the things of God, where we would much rather voice our own opinions about things than to come to understanding that can only be bought by Christ. It says natural man cannot understand. It's talking about understanding now the things of God. It sounds foolish to him.

\There's something in the heart of the natural man, that's apt, even though he can be exposed to spiritual things. says I don't understand it doesn't sound right. I'd rather live by my opinions. I'd rather do it my way. The Bible says Don't lean on your own understanding, but in all things, acknowledge him. And he then will direct your paths. We come to live this life and I thought about this the other day as Amy and I think maybe she she's probably the one who brought it up. As we were talking. We said can you imagine Jesus trying to live by principles? In other words, Jesus trying to live the Christian life. Here he was born God and he said, you watch me folks live by my principles. You watch me now live by my laws. You will you watch me not try to live my life. It sounds ludicrous. That sounds. Christ didn't live by principles. He didn't live by laws he lived his life. What do you do? Well, as he went through life, he met life. He met life where it was and responded by the wisdom of his Father. He said, I'm not gonna do anything, I'm only what the Father tells me to do. And so he responded to the difficulties of life and the trials and tribulations of life. He responded to those with God's wisdom. And then he initiated as God initiated through him toward the world. So responded to the world, he initiated to the world only through the wisdom of God himself. In other words, he said, There is nothing that I'm going to do in the energy of my own flesh. I'm going to listen to my Father. And I'm going to do what he tells me to do. And incidentally, he said, As the Father sent me, so send I you. When we come to the point, of realizing and delighting not in the airing of our own opinions, but in finding pleasure, in understanding truth, to understand the truth of God, that will do what? Set you free, folks. Why do we want to live in bondage? When we can be set free? Why do we want to live expressing our own opinions, when we can speak the truth of God to people? That's why Christ came. He came, born of a virgin, born under the law in order to walk on this earth, showing us what a man was to be like, a man who was able to walk in total dependency upon his Father, he took that humanity of his to the cross, to pay once and for all, for all of the sins of the world. And folks, the grace of God is greater than all the vileness of your and my sins.

Announcer 27:11
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