Radio Broadcast Wednesday 10/26/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P18 (10-26-22)

God Cleansed You of All Unrighteousness at the Cross so He Could Place His Holy Spirit in You Now

~ God Transforms You Into a Child of the Living God Through Faith in Jesus Christ, Not by Works of the Law. He Cleansed You of All Unrighteousness at the Cross, so He Could Place His Holy Spirit in You Now and Seals You Eternally in Him.

~ “So first, John one nine is not a passage to a believer, because if I have to keep being confessed or keep being cleansed of all of my unrighteousness then I’m standing in my own righteousness to begin with. In other words, I have his righteousness, but then I have my unrighteousness. So I got to be cleansed again of my unrighteousness. Well, that doesn’t make any sense because I never did stand in my righteousness to begin with. So I never had righteousness except his and he doesn’t need cleansed of unrighteousness. So I’m not standing in mine. And if I’m not standing in mine, as a saved person, then what I need to be cleansed from anymore? I had to be cleansed once and for all at the cross, in order to be indwelt by him in his life, and his righteousness. It’s like if any of you have ever done any canning, the first thing that you do you sterilize the jar, what do you sterilize the jar for?”

Justified by Faith

²¹ But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; ²² Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: ²³ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; ²⁴ Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: ²⁵ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; ²⁶ To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. ^{Romans 3:21-26}

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Law & Grace, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store.

Jesus asked how does God love and accept us? And how does he expect us to live the Christian life? To answer those questions, this insightful study explores a vital issue at the heart of the Christian experience, the biblical relationship between law and grace, understanding their role in our relationship to God will bring joy, freedom and spontaneity to your Christian life. Now, let’s take A Closer Look at Law & Grace.

Bob George 0:40
Now, folks, when did that take place? When was the only time that you were cleansed of all of your unrighteousness? At the cross. When was the only time that you were forgiven of all of your sins? At the cross. If you claim that you haven’t sinned, Why we make him out to be a liar and His Word has no place in our lives. In other words, we’re not making those decisions. I’m not saying I haven’t sinned based upon His Word. I’m saying I haven’t sin based upon mine. It’s my thoughts about it, not his. Well, is that unusual? Not unusual at all. You talk to many lost people and they’ll they’ll say no, not not according to my thinking. Am I sinner? That doesn’t make a difference what God says about it, it’s it’s what I say about it. folks before I could be indwelt by Him, and His righteousness, I had to be cleansed of all I had. And that was unrighteousness. I never was righteous in and of myself, that would be called self righteousness. I never was righteous in the sight of God, through what I did, I never obtained self righteousness, I could be self righteous. But it was only my own thinking that made me that way. And so the only righteousness that I could ever stand in, is if that righteousness would be given to me by God. Now, that’s what he did at the cross. It’s what he did at the resurrection, at the very moment that you and I received the resurrected Christ into our hearts as our Lord and Savior. It says, Now, in him, you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, that forgiveness that was provided for every man at the cross is received at his resurrected life that before he the righteous one came to live within us, we had to be cleansed of the only thing we had unrighteousness in order to be indwelt by Him, and His righteousness.

So first John one nine is not a passage to a believer, because if I have to keep being confessed or keep being cleansed of all of my unrighteousness then I’m standing in my own righteousness to begin with. In other words, I have his righteousness, but then I have my unrighteousness. So I got to be cleansed again of my unrighteousness. Well, that doesn’t make any sense because I never did stand in my righteousness to begin with. So I never had righteousness except his and he doesn’t need cleansed of unrighteousness. So I’m not standing in mine. And if I’m not standing in mine, as a saved person, then what I need to be cleansed from anymore? I had to be cleansed once and for all at the cross, in order to be indwelt by him in his life, and his righteousness. It’s like if any of you have ever done any canning, the first thing that you do you sterilize the jar, what do you sterilize the jar for? In order to keep the jar sterilized? Your husband comes home and says, What are you doing? Honey, I’m keeping jars clean. What are you gonna do tomorrow, I’m gonna keep him clean. When he got a new next day, I’m keeping he stays clean, the entire life of the jar is keeping itself clean. Were you ever gonna do anything with them? No, just keep them clean. And I hope that one of these days I’ll be acceptable to whoever wants to store these jars, that they will be clean jars. That’s religion, keeping your jar clean. God cleansed you you clean the jar, you cleanse it of all of its unrighteousness for a purpose, the purpose is to put something in it. And if the jar is not totally cleansed, and you put food in it, the food will spoil, and you ruin everything. So you got to cleanse it of all of its unrighteousness in order to put applesauce in it. Then after that, you seal it. It’s a perfect picture of salvation, cleansed once and for all at the cross of all of your unrighteousness indwelt now by Christ Jesus and His righteousness, and sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit of God. No one can break that seal folks. That’s God’s seal.

And then he labeled your child to God. We don’t like that either. We rip that one off, or cover it over with our own labels. We call ourselves Baptists and Presbyterians and Methodists and Catholics and Pentecostals, and charismatics, and non charismatics, we just got all kinds of labels, that we’ve stuck all over the only label that God ever gave you. And that’s a child of the living God. But once again, we’re not happy with that label. We want to get our own. We’re not happy with being cleansed by him. We want to keep ourselves, we want to keep cleansing ourselves. We’re not happy by being indwelt by His righteousness, we want to go out and try to produce her own. Of course, we can’t get the seal off of that jar. So we have to kind of make this artificial jar around there to put our own righteousness in there, covered over with our own Christian fig leaves. Folks, we have to come to grips with the fact of how arrogant we are as people. The arrogance of a human being to say, Jesus, your death was not enough for me. You didn’t take away all my sins, so I got to keep doing something to keep myself forgiven. You didn’t make me as righteous as I can make myself or even though you say that you made me righteous It isn’t good enough. You just watch me and I’ll make myself more righteous. You said in the scripture that you made me holy, but But Lord, you didn’t make me holy enough. In other words, I can improve upon that. So you just kind of watch my smoke, and I’m gonna go out and I’m gonna improve on that you just see how holy I can be. As we talked about before the church over in Budapest, where the girl went to the United States visiting got a permanent, and then got chastised in front of the whole body for having one. You didn’t make me holy, it’s having straight hair that keeps me holy, those permanents we’ll just do it every time. We are in constantly because of our arrogance. And literally spitting in the face of the finality of what Christ Jesus did at the cross we are in our arrogance, are constantly trying to add to what God did. If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing. If a man could be made perfect through the law, then Christ died for nothing. But those sacrifices repeated year after year can never enable a man to draw nearer to God in perfect worship. You see, folks, the Christian life is a life of rest. It’s a life, that God never intended us to live in the desert, any more than he wanted us to live in Egypt. His desire has always been from the beginning to enter into that Sabbath rest that promised land and rest from your works. Just as Christ Jesus rested from His.

As we were talking about this first John eight and nine, and then you go, realizing now that as a person who was lost, could never be saved, claiming to be without sin, he’s deceived, the truth isn’t in him. On the other hand, a person will agree with God concerning his sins, that God can be faithful, and dependent upon to be faithful and just to take away your sins forgiven, and purify you from all of your unrighteousness so that he can come and live in you and give you His righteousness. If we claim we haven’t sinned, and we make him out to be a liar, who said we have His Word has no place in our lives were deceived beyond measure, and we have no need for Jesus, if I have not sinned, if I have not sinned, I have no need for Jesus at the cross. If I don’t have a sin nature, then I have no need for a new one, which was the purpose of His resurrection.

Now as we go into chapter two, and First John says, My dear children, I’m going to write this to you now that is, in comparison to who he’s been writing to. It’s not that I write this to you, as well as who I just been talking to. Now he’s been talking doctrine in the first chapter, he’s been talking truth that is applicable to all people, the ones who aren’t saved, claiming that they are, and the ones who are, say, being confused by the ones who are claiming they are, but at the same time are claiming things that Jesus said, If you claim them, you’re not. Right. Now, I said, My children, I write this to you so that you won’t sin. But if anyone does, we have one who speaks to the Father, in our defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, if righteousness could be gained through the law of Christ died for nothing, there is only one righteous one, and that’s Christ Jesus. And so it says that we have him the Righteous One. And he is the one who turns aside God’s wrath taking away our sins, and not only ours, but the sins of the whole world. And we have again perverted what that means. And what that literally says, If you’ll look in your footnote, if you have an NIV, you’ll see what that means. And we we turned that around. He’s the atoning sacrifice for our sins. So, that is ludicrous because Jesus did not come to atone for sins, He came to take it away. But just see Bob the subtlety of this where that word atonement has been drugged over by translators into the New Testament when that word is never used in the New Testament, and the original. And the only justification for translating it that way, is what commentaries will tell you through continual theological usage, it’s become acceptable. So it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s true or not just if it’s continually used by a theologian, it becomes acceptable, that, again, is ludicrous. He’s not an atoning sacrifice for our sins. He’s the one who took away our sins, blood bulls, and goats was an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That was called atonement. That’s why it was called atonement. Jesus didn’t come to atone. He came to take it away, not only ours, but the sins of the entire world. God was in Christ reconciling the entire world unto Himself, not counting their sins against them. How many sins are counted against anyone in the world? None. How many are dead? Anyone who has refused life? They don’t get dead they already are. The wrath of God doesn’t come upon you. The wrath of God.is already upon you. Every person is born into this world dead spiritually. How many people are dead spiritually? Everyone born into this world, no one is born alive. No one is born saved. You’re all born dead. And just in the same way, those dead people’s sins that come as a result of their spiritual death, those sins were all taken away at the cross. Now that forgiveness that was provided for everyone at the cross is received in his resurrected life. When you and I come to him not to get forgiven, we come to him to get life from the dead. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is life, eternal life in Christ Jesus. Now, when I come to Him for what He came to give me, life, in that life, I have redemption, we’re told that forgiveness of sins, I don’t go get redeemed. My redemption comes from his resurrected life. When I am in Him, I am in the one, the redeeming one, the one who redeemed me. When I’m in him, I’m in the forgiving one, the one who forgave me. When I’m in him, I’m in the righteous one, the one who made me righteous. When I’m in him, I’m in the justified one, the one who justified me, all of it, folks, everything that we have in our possession is in him. And in him, you’ve been given everything that you need for life and godliness. And until you come to grips with that you’ll never be made perfect. And able to walk into the presence of God realizing it’s been done, because there’s always something left to do. I got more forgiveness to be executed, I have to make myself a little more righteous. I have to get a little more holy. You can’t rest in that, folks. He didn’t make a temporary salvation. He didn’t make a impermanent, something that is not permanent. He made a permanent, complete, perfect salvation for you and me, so that when we step out of Adam into Christ steps out of heaven into us, we have been made complete, there’s nothing else to be added.

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Bob George 14:06
When you came out of your mother’s womb, there hasn’t been anything added. You didn’t grow another nose. You haven’t grown anything new. You were complete. You weren’t mature and grown up yet. But you are complete. Nothing else was added to you. When you and I become a child of God, we’re complete. It’s all been done. We don’t get more. It’s all done. Now. We’re going to grow in that condition. As a human being, as a child of God, I’m going to grow as I’m nurtured on food. As I’m nurtured on his life living in me. I’m gonna grow but it’s his business to grow me. So the law cannot do any of those things for you and me, folks. It can’t do any of it. If God made you complete, then we’re going to have to rest in the fact that I am complete because he made me complete. If I’m going to experience my righteousness, then I’m going to have to experience it based on the fact that he made me that way. I can’t make myself that way. Galatians 3:11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.

Now turn to Galatians 2:16. Galatians 2:16 tells us that know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too, have put our faith in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law. Because by observing the law, no one will be justified. Now we were talking about the fact that you don’t set aside the grace of God that righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing. And clearly no one is justified before God by the law, but the righteous will live by faith. So what does it really mean, to be justified? It means to be made righteous. It means to be made in right standing with God. Some people have kind of, you know, we come up with these cute little phrases that we can do an American I don’t know how that translate out in Japanese, but justify just as if I’d never sinned, and that’s as good as justification ever gets. But you see, justified is not just as if I’ve never sinned. Justification comes as a result of just as if I’ve never seen that was reconciliation, but I’m justified by His life. Justification is made righteous now. In other words, just as if I’ve never sinned just means God looks at me as someone who hasn’t sin. But what about my life? I mean, we were reconciled to God, we’re told through the death of his son, how much more having been just having been reconciled, shall we be saved? By his life, shall we be justified by faith in his life, you see, so when it’s talking about that a man is not justified by observing the law. It’s that a man has never, it’s the same thing as saying to them that no one will be made righteous through observing the law, you’re not justified by observing the law. You’re not made righteous in the sight of God, by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So it says we to have put our faith in this Jesus Christ so that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law, because by observing law, no one will be justified. So by observing law, no one will be made perfect. By observing the law, no one will ever be made righteous. By observing the law, no one will ever be justified in the sight of God. And by observing the law, no one will ever be given life from the dead. So you say are those pretty important issues? Why are we hanging on to what God said is weak and useless? Why are we hanging on to something that will never justify us never make us perfect any sight? And that’s a good question in a pub. Why do we want to hang on to those kinds of things? It’s kind of like just having it up in your attic. Just hang on to it. It’s obsolete. You can’t use it. It’s worthless, but I just hanging on to it. Maybe I’ll use it again someday.

Romans, 3:23 and 24 say that all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption, the buying back that came by Jesus Christ. Bob, when you’re talking about redemption, many of us will remember back in the days when used to have redemption centers. He used to have gold stamps and green stamps and all kinds of colored stamps. And what you would do is when you bought something at the grocery store, or whatever it might be that give you a handful, the stamps and you put them in books and after you got enough books together, you could go redeem them, you turn those worthless stamps in that you couldn’t use for anything else couldn’t mail a letter with those things. You couldn’t do anything with them. They were only good in redemption store. Kind of missed those things. Yeah. So you turn them in and you got a toaster that had some value to it or whatever else it might be. So you and I were bought back. We gave him everything we were just an old stamp. And he gave us everything that he was. And that’s Christ Jesus our Lord, the one who justified us, the one who made us right in the sight of God, the One who forgave and took away all of our sins, that he did it all for us, all of us of sinned, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. But anyone who comes to Him by faith are justified freely by that grace that came through the redemption of Jesus Christ.

In order to receive His righteousness, we had to be cleansed of all of ours that took place at the cross. After being cleansed of all of our unrighteousness, we come to him for life where he now indwells us with himself and his righteousness. And that is what giving life is all about. It’s being raised from the dead. Now, that’s something else that the law could not do. But it also tells us the condition of man, we are born into this world, that in our sins, and the uncircumcision of our sinful nature. And the solution that was God made us alive with Christ, and He forgave all of our sins.

Now in Galatians, 3:21 is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? In other words, the promise of God was the promise to Abraham, that the just shall live by what? by faith. And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. That Abrahamic covenant folks, is one that extends through all time, that’s a promise of God, that that just will live by faith. And apart from faith, it’s impossible to please God. And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, that is the way that man has always been saved. But you see, man again, came along, after Abraham, Moses came along, and gave us the law, as man demanded the law. And so man says, I don’t want to be saved by your promises. Give us that law. Let us live with that. So God says, Okay, I’ll give it to you. It’s the same type of thing above that we talked about with his mentality because it has become a law. Anything that you have to do in order to bring God into action is a law. So we’ve used our first John one nine mentality as a law, if I confess God will forgive meaning, if I don’t, he won’t. And that means that you and I could enter into the presence of God as an unforgiving person. If that’s true, are we complete? Has he completed his work? No, not complete, you can’t say you’re complete when there’s still something left to do. But we very proudly brought that over into the law. And we’ll use that just as I did for years until I found it to be what useless, I absolutely found it to be exactly what he said, all law is, it is useless. And it absolutely can never make perfect one who draws nearer to God, it’s weak. And it’s useless. And it never helped me to do what I wanted to do. And that was draw near to God. That’s why I was doing that was to draw near to God, that’s what you were told you get back and fellowship with God. That’s strange, because there’s no place in the Bible talking about being in and out of fellowship. But I was told you get out of fellowship, whenever you sin, and so you’re preoccupied, did I do this wrong to do that wrong to do this, and I need to get back in so that I can walk into the presence of God again. It says, No man will ever enter in the presence of God through that kind of a law. It’s weak, and it’s useless. What I have to do with it, put it aside. It’s what you’re supposed to do with anything. It’s weak and useless and doesn’t have any, any merit to it anymore. You put it aside, in order to do what latch on to something that is dynamic. And that’s him his life.

So is the law opposed to the promise of God? In other words, was the law that was brought into effect by Moses opposed to the promise? No, it wasn’t it wasn’t opposed to it. It just upheld it. In other words, the promise of God still is that you’re saved through faith. But the law came and said, No, we’re going to be saved by works. He said, Well, you will see how that works. Is that opposed to the promise? Well, no, it’s not opposed to the promise. It isn’t one of those things. It’s opposed to it, if you use the law for what God came to give it to. God’s intention for the law, was to give it to you to show you to be perfectly sinful. We’ve studied that so that you had turned to Christ and have the promise fulfilled in your own life, that you’re going to be saved by grace saved by faith. So what God meant the law to do wasn’t to provide righteousness it couldn’t. It was weakened by us. So God said, I’ll give you the life to the law to show you that you can’t. So that you will turn to the Abrahamic promise, and turn to Me, who can. Right. So it wasn’t opposed not in opposed. For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. In other words, if a law that could have been given that could raise you from the dead, than you’re right standing before God could have come through the law, but Haven’t we already been studying, that no man would ever be declared righteous in the sight of God through obedience to the law? of course. Now Ron Paul said that I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. In other words in Paul’s mind, if I can walk in obedience to the law, it will bring life to me, but he said, No, I found something about that commandment, he had brought death to me. So the law cannot bring life. The law is there to condemn. The law is not there to bring life. Now in Ephesians, four, excuse me, two, four and five, it says, but because of his great love for us, God who was rich and mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace, that you have been saved. What motivated God to come to us? His love. What is he rich in? He’s rich and mercy. He looks down on us and mercy. I wonder some times is those of us who are indwelt by this Christ have mercy. how merciful are we to other people?

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.