Radio Broadcast Wednesday 11/30/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P32 (11-30-22)

Truth: All Your Sins Were Taken Away at the Cross

~ “So you say what are you going to do under that? What are you going to do under the law? If as a Christian, you’re still under the Law, what are you going to do with the violation? So we’ve come up and said, Well, no, the wages of sin as a Christian is no longer under the law. It’s out of fellowship. All we come up with all kinds of things that God’s grace is positional, but experiential. You’re really getting whacked. There’s no punishment, up in heaven, but down here, he’s going to beat the daylights out of you. Folks, there’s no such thing in Scripture as positional truth and experiential truth. That is a doctrine that is absolutely contrary to anything the Scripture. It is taught in some of our leading seminaries. There’s truth is truth. It is not truth that is positional, it is truth that is truth. So if, indeed, my sins have been taken away in heaven, that’s not positional, then they have been taken away in earth. God does not draw a cloud in between heaven and earth and says that’s true up here. But it’s not true down there. So Truth is truth, Jesus died for my sins, that is not a positional truth. That is a truth that I walked by faith in down here. If it talks about the fact that I had been seated in the heavenlies, with Christ Jesus, that is a truth that as far as God is concerned, that is truth.”

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 0:39
So you say what are you going to do under that? What are you going to do under the law? If as a Christian, you’re still under the Law, what are you going to do with the violation? So we’ve come up and said, Well, no, the wages of sin as a Christian is no longer under the law. It’s out of fellowship. All we come up with all kinds of things that God’s grace is positional, but experiential. You’re really getting whacked. There’s no punishment, up in heaven, but down here, he’s going to beat the daylights out of you. Folks, there’s no such thing in Scripture as positional truth and experiential truth. That is a doctrine that is absolutely contrary to anything the Scripture. It is taught in some of our leading seminaries. There’s truth is truth. It is not truth that is positional, it is truth that is truth. So if, indeed, my sins have been taken away in heaven, that’s not positional, then they have been taken away in earth. God does not draw a cloud in between heaven and earth and says that’s true up here. But it’s not true down there. So Truth is truth, Jesus died for my sins, that is not a positional truth. That is a truth that I walked by faith in down here. If it talks about the fact that I had been seated in the heavenlies, with Christ Jesus, that is a truth that as far as God is concerned, that is truth. So as far as I am concerned, I might as well go ahead and just see myself seated there, because that is where I am from his standpoint, because he’s not limited by time and space. But I am limited by time and space. So I just realized that down here, I’m not realizing, but one day, that is where I am going to be. And as far as he’s concerned, I’ve been there already. They’re already there. So that is not positional and experiential. It is truth that we walk by faith in that I have eternal life that has not. In other words, I’m not absent from the body and present with the Lord yet, but do I have eternal life that’s not positional. That’s true. I have eternal life. And as a result of that, I walked by faith in that truth. And so the sooner that we can get away from these theological terms that they’ve laid upon these things, positional forensic forgiveness, instead of No, just forgiveness, you just taken away that’s not forensic. It’s not positional, it’s truth. And if it’s truth, what does he want me to do with it, walk in it, walk by faith in it.

Now religion, and we talked about last week in Matthew 23:25, Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, and noticed he, he’s talking to the teachers, because we’re the ones that need to need to talk to. Because we’re the ones in many instances that are influencing people’s minds in regard to the Word of God. Woe to you teach us on the lawn Pharisees, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup of the dish, but on the inside, they’re full of greed and self indulgence. In Matthew 23:27, he goes on Woe to you, teachers of the law. And Pharisees, why would we think that that was for them way back then. But it doesn’t apply to us today, just because we don’t call ourselves Pharisees. But I want to tell you there are legalistic Christian churches called Christian churches that are more pharisaical in their attitude than the Pharisees ever thought of being. So what is true back then is also true today. You have teachers of the law and Pharisees and they’re hypocrites. That’s what Jesus said, you’re all hypocrites. You’re like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones, and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside, you appear to people as righteous in other words, is it possible for a person to appear to people as righteous? Well, of course it is. But on the inside, you’re full of hypocrisy and wickedness. I can walk around in a robe and with a collar. And I can walk around and look looking very theological. I’m not sure I could. Even if I got dressed, I’m not sure I could. But people do and oh, you can play that part. And you can you can, you can just like an actor can you can learn to put expressions on your face. It just appeared to be so pious that you’re about ready to make your ascension into heaven. And so on the outside, you’re appearing to be righteous, but he said, your a hyprocryte that’s full of hypocrisy, There is none righteous, no, not one. There’s not a one of you that are righteous. And if a person is exemplifying righteousness, it’s because he’s in communion with the righteous one. And if any righteousness that comes out of me is because of what has given been given to me, then I don’t need to be walking around in my robes, or looking pious. I’m going to be looking what I am, humble over the fact that something is coming out of me that is not generated by me. How many times Bob, have you heard me say that I am never shocked when anything bad comes out of me? What I’m shocked at is when anything good comes out of me. Because that is not of Me. That is of God. What comes out of me in a fleshly means doesn’t shock me at all. It shocks me when love comes out of me. Unconditional love towards somebody that shocks the daylights out of me because it is another thing that’s of God. So he’s saying to us, if people are walking around acting pious on the outside and righteous on the outside, there’s one thing you could look at them and know for sure, based on the Word of God. They’re hypocrites. They’re wicked inside in their hearts. They’re full of greed and self indulgence, because that mostly is the motivation for that kind of behavior is I have achieved this part, this point of holiness. And if you will touch the hymns of My garment, and give me enough of your tithes, why that some of that goodness and righteousness will flow over to you. And you can at least say you’ve been around a righteous one. Yeah. And it’s full of self indulgence, self praise, greed, hypocrisy, in its ultimate form, and wickedness in its ultimate ultimate form. There is no room for a true born again, Christian, for pride, and ego, and all of the things that plague us. There is no room for strutting around on stages acting like King Kong in action. There’s no room for that, that is not of God, that is self indulgent pride in its ultimate form. That if any of us are outward actions are going to be a reflection of what is true, if we are truly born again. It is an outward reflection, of seeing myself as what I am weak. But in my weakness, I can take joy because his strength is made manifest in our weakness. It’s not walking around like we are somebody, somebody, the anointed ones walking around. We’re walking around in humility, as to the fact that Christ Jesus has done it all. And we have done nothing.

The only harsh words that you really ever heard Jesus talking, were the words to the self righteous, to the Pharisees, to the teachers of the law, to people who are practicing this type of hypocrisy. We sometimes think, well, this man who is a minister is a hypocrite because he sometimes says things or does things that maybe doesn’t seem quite appropriate. Well, you said that that depends on what is true, if he is preaching a doctrine of law. And if he’s teaching the fact that boy because I’m in Christ, I am one righteous dude. Why then if you saw them do something that was somewhat inconsistent with who they are, drive down the street and someone fall in front of them, roll your window down, just scream your your voice app trying to try annihilate somebody, you could say, and then look over and inside the car and say, hi, Pastor. Why, but But you see, if, if, if so if a person is teaching that boy, I, I’m just, I just walk in sinless perfection, when you’d say, Man, that’s a, that’s a hypocrite. But if if if a person is teaching what is truth that all of us have the capability of falling on our faces. Well, then how can that be hypocritical when we do? It’s just the fact of being of giving in to the desires of the flesh in some way or another. But that is not inconsistent with what the teaching of grace is all about. Because God never did expect you and me to live in sinless perfection and never said we would never thought we could. As a matter of fact, the only thing some people say that I’m a failure, somebody says, Oh, I’m a failure, say, Well, God never expected you in the face to be anything except to play a failure. That’s what you were designed to be is a failure. Someone who is designed to crumble up and fall into a grave doesn’t have a real exciting future ahead of them when you stop to think of a future being lasting forever. So your future at the very most is short lived, it’s pretty hopeless, when you stopped to think of what your destiny is, and that’s six feet under.

So, when when, when you’re teaching, when when you’re teaching is consistent with the Word of God. Do we really have a right to be judgmental toward one another? And the answer to that is no we don’t we we can certainly dislike what somebody does, we can even be disappointed but disappointment comes from an unrealistic expectation. Somebody someone asked me at the last seminar Do you think God is disappointed with us? Say that how could he be disappointed? He doesn’t have any unrealistic expectations toward you never expected anything out of you anyway. So how can he be disappointed? disappointment comes from an unrealistic expectation that I expect something out of you, but they didn’t behave the way that I expected. So I’m disappointed. Well, if you didn’t have any expectations, you wouldn’t be disappointed. And for sure, God has no unrealistic expectation towards you and me, so he’s never disappointed, he knows us, he knows what we’re capable of He knows us inside out. And that’s why extended to us the only thing he could, if he was going to retain a relationship with His created beings, and that was the extension of grace. And with the fact that in that grace where I don’t have to fear condemnation, that I’m very free now to be open, to communicate with God concerning my weaknesses, and my trials and tribulations, which he knows all already anyway, but to communicate those things without fear of condemnation, but to be able to be restored, that Lord, I need help.

It’s strange in it, Bob, how we substitute, you don’t go into and pay $100 an hour to some shrink to get condemned. I mean, if you walked into a psychiatrist and said, Here’s $100 An hour and he sat there, and he said, you little worm, she got a job. You know, you need to be beaten half to death with with what your why I don’t think you’d go back, probably not. But you see, he, he’s there at least gives the impression that he’s there to restore. And we’re willing to pay 1000s of dollars, to somebody that we think loves us and wants to restore us is not condemning us, because you’re not gonna make a living condemning people, as a psychiatrist, you’re gonna have to agree with them and try to shift the blame onto somebody else and to understand them and try to restore them. Now, you’ll pay any amount of money for that. And here’s a God that absolutely went to a cross, so that there will never be condemnation for you, only a spirit of restoration for you. And we say, I don’t want to go to you, I’d rather go to a shrink. Who’s having the same problems you are but just doesn’t tell you. There’s no psychiatrist or psychologist that is without problems. Most of them are having more problems than you are. And most of them, quite frankly, went into psychiatry to begin with, because they were so messed up that they’re trying to find out the solution to their problems. And that’s a true fact. And so, but we are so anxious to go to man instead of to God.

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Bob George 13:50
So folks, Christ came to annihilate this, this mindset of the very law that he gave not to annihilate it in regard to its effect upon the loss, but to annihilate it in regard to the effect upon the saved. He said, This law has a purpose, to show you your hopelessness of ever trying to achieve righteousness, life, justification before God by your own effort. I’m showing you your hopelessness in it.

As a matter of fact, as we pick up in First Corinthians 1556, that the sting of death, this is on page 56. It says the sting of death is sin. And the power of sin is the law. The sting of death is sin. That’s what brings it about, and the power of sin is the law. And so folks, you’re sitting there and many people come up with a thing says Christianity doesn’t work. And I’ll say, well, the kind of Christianity that you’re involved in, indeed does not work. The law standard is perfection. And if the power of sin is the law, is it any wonder that we say Christianity He doesn’t work? We say that because it doesn’t not that form. The power of sin is in the law. You keep yourself and allow yourself to remain under the law if you are indeed born again. And folks, if you’re not born again, there is only one step to take. And that is to be born again. That is to ask the living Christ, to come into your life as your Lord and Savior, recognize your spiritual death, not just words that are coming at you. But let those words speak to your heart. Recognize that you are a sinner, recognize that you are hopeless to ever achieve a right standing before a living God through what you’re doing. And come to the end of your own self sufficiency and to be able to say, Lord Jesus, if I’m ever going to go into heaven, you’re going to have to take me there because I am not going to be able to take myself, if I’m ever going to have eternal life, you’re going to have to give it to me, because I for sure cannot earn it. Lord, if I’m ever going to be a totally forgiven perfect person, you’re going to have to just do it for me, because I can’t keep up with all of them. You come to the end of your self sufficiency and surrender your life to the living Christ and say, Lord, Jesus, I’ve had it come on in and take over my life, I’ve had it, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’ve had it, I want you to come in and be my Lord and Savior. Now, if you’re lost, that’s the only thing left to do there in a sense, and you’re trying to improve your flesh, because if you ever got it and proved it and go in a place anyway, except in the grave, so there’s it really doesn’t make much sense and trying to shape it up. But if you’re saved, you need to leave the law where it belongs, in the grave. Because you’re now in dwelt by something stronger than the law ever thought of being and that’s the Holy Spirit of God, that’s God himself living in you and me, our hope of glory. And we have to realize that the power of sins and the law and you keep yourself under the law, you keep yourself under the power of sin, and then let Satan beat you to death for sinning. Or if he won’t, many times, the pastor will. So here we preach the law to people to try to shape them up. The power of sin is in the law, and your people sin, and then you beat him to death with more law trying to shape them up. And then they sin again, and you beat him to death with more law. And after a while a person says, I’ve just been beaten for the last time I’m out of here. And they rebel and think they’re rebelling against God, but they’re not. They’re rebelling against false teaching, which Paul said, is no gospel at all. It’s not the gospel of grace at all. You’re turning to a different gospel, which is no gospel at all.

Now, the Scriptures tell us in Romans seven, that when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law, we’re at work in our bodies, so that we bore the fruit of death. Under the law, all you have to do as an example, to get a kid to want to do something is tell him, don’t do it. That’s all it takes. Just tell him don’t do it. You make him want to It’s the power of sin, controlled by the passions, sinful passions that are aroused by the law, you we all have sinful passions, that is not unusual. What are those sinful passions aroused by? the law that says you shouldn’t do that. So sin seizing its opportunity afforded by the commandment, Paul said produced every kind of covetous desire and me for apart from the loss in his dead, I wouldn’t even have known what coveting was. Had the law not said Don’t covet. But when it did, it said sin, seizing that opportunity, stirred up every kind of covetousness desire inside of me. And he said, I just died.

Now folks, we have to realize this simple truth, that if you are today saved, then you have stepped out of Adam. And you say, what are the conditions under Adam? under Adam, you’re under the law, which keeps you under the wages of sin, which is death, there is no life available under the law. So I am in Adam, dead in my sins and the uncircumcision of my sinful nature. I am in Adam, when you were dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, I’m dead. I’m in Adam. I’m lost. I am in darkness. And folks in darkness and light in the Scripture is lost and saved. There is no exception to that. There is no way for a born again Christian who is in the light of God to ever get in darkness because God cannot get in darkness. And if you’re in Christ, and he is in you, then he can’t get you’re not going to get there either. So there’s none of that. bouncing back and forth. From darkness to light any more than there’s there’s such a thing as bouncing back and forth into fellowship and out of fellowship. If you’re an Adam, you’re lost. You’re an Adam you’re dead. In your atom Your father has said is that of the devil. If you’re in Adam, you’re in a hopeless condition. So if you have now stepped out of Adam into Christ, as a result of Christ, stepping out of heaven into you, and you are born again, you are a brand new creation, you are now in the light as He is in the light. You have now been freed from the law that killed you. It was through the law, Paul said that I died to the law. So you need to die to what killed you the law, so that you can come alive to the newness of life that has been given to you, in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So that as Romans seven says, By dying to what once bound as the law, we’ve been released from the law, how come? so that we serve in the new way of the spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

We’re going to now go to page 57 In our workbook and kind of see if we can wrap this thing up. In Galatians, 2:20, through 23. Paul is giving us an admonishment in regard to what we have been talking about. He said, since you died with Christ, to the basic principles of this world. Now again, folks, when you when Christ died, it says we all died, there was a reason for our death, our spiritual death. When we died, remember, we talked about the the illustration that was given in regard to marriage under the Hebrew law, that as long as your husband is alive, if you divorce and marry somebody else, you’d be called an adulterous. But if your husband died, you’re free from that law of marriage and therefore free to marry another. Now it wasn’t given that was not given for us to use that, as an example of life it was given that was the Hebrew law, that absolutely, they again, came up as we would do today, with every every exception in the world to that. But the issue is, that was not the reason for the illustration, the reason for the illustration is that you are born, just like when you were married, that was a contract, you were born into this world under the contract with Satan, that you were dead, spiritually. You were under the law, the law killed you, and you died. And when you died, you died to the law, so that you could be raised in the newness of life, as we talked about, at the end of this last break, dying to what once bound , us we’ve been released from that law, so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. So as a child of God, we do not serve in the old way of the written code. We don’t serve under the Old Covenant, we’re not under the Old Covenant anymore. We’re under a New Covenant, we’ve been released from that law. So when I’ve been released from the law, I’ve been released from the law of sin and death, I’ve been released from the punishment of the law, from the condemnation of the law, from the demands of the law, from the hopelessness of the law. And, and, and given the privilege of being married to another. So that we literally are called the Bride of Christ. Now he’s saying, as Paul said, I’m crucified with Christ. Why did he say that? To really I’m I died, I’m died to that law. Christ died to free us from the law to give us a New Covenant. He said, I died with him, I’m also free from the law. And so he said, I’m crucified with Christ, but nevertheless I live so I’m living in New Way of Life. Nevertheless, I lived yet not I but it’s Christ that lives in me and the life that I live. In this flesh I live, quite frankly, the only way you can under grace I live by faith in who? The Son of God, the One who loved me and gave himself for me. So people will come down and they’ll hear the fullness of the grace of God and they say, well, then how should we then live kind of like Francis Shaffer’s book? How then should we live? What do we do? What do we do? Well, what did Paul say he did? said that life I live I do what I live by faith in who? The living God who lives in me, faith in him to do what? Complete the work he began in me live his life through you. I’m convinced that he’s able to complete the work faithful as he who called me who also want to do it. What do you live by faith by, in the God who lives in you, Christ Jesus, to live his life through you did by His Holy Spirit to continually be involved in disciplining your mind, teaching you truth, setting you free and leading you therefore, in the path of the very righteousness that has been given to you by Christ Jesus.

Now, you can’t do that under the law. You cannot serve in the old way of the law and in the new way of the Spirit at the same time. You’re serving two masters folks. When it says a double minded man is unstable in all ways who can know it? Is not talking about just somebody said, Well, maybe I will. And maybe I won’t. You’re talking about a double minded man, he talking when somebody who’s trying to live under the law and under Grace at the same time. They’re unstable in all ways. That’s why the most unstable people that I know, are legalists, who claimed to be Christians, you’re better off is just a sheer unadulterated last legalist. Then you are as someone who was born again, who was trying to come and go long grace, you can’t do it. You’re unstable in all ways.

And so Paul is admonishing us in Colossians 2:20, since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world. Why is though you still belong to it? In other words, you should still belong to the world do you submit to its rules? Now, folks, you are in the world, but you’re not of the world. You are, You were created by God as a spiritual being to be in the world, but not of the world. Now, let’s give me let me give you an example of that a ship is in the ocean, but it is not of the ocean. If it ever becomes of the ocean, it’s got a hole in the ship. And it’s going to be very sorry that it is in the ocean. Because ships don’t live in the ocean, they can float on it, but they don’t live in it. They’re not all of it. They’re in it, but they’re not all of it. When you and I are out swimming in the ocean, we’re in the ocean, but we better hope we don’t become of the ocean. Because if we do, we’re going to be dead in the ocean. So you see folks that were in this world, but we’re not of the world. I’m just kind of floating around in here. But why am I not of the world because my citizenship is in heaven. And if my citizenship is in heaven, then I live here, but I’m not of this place. And as a matter of fact, the Scripture says I’m an Ambassador.

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.