Classic Christianity – Resurrection Life – 9-02-26
~ Salvation is the impartation of eternal Life, and that Life is found exclusively in Jesus Christ Himself, the sole Giver of Life. Jesus declared in John 14:6 that He is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no other source from which this Life can be drawn. No amount of works will do. No amount of self-righteous behavior will do. To receive this gift, a person must come to Him freely and put aside ALL independent religious traditions and belief systems. These man-made frameworks offer no true spiritual vitality. A person must abandon their own efforts and stand exclusively in His total Propitiation that was done at the cross. Through His death, Jesus provided forgiveness for everyone. However, while the cross removed the barrier of sin, true salvation is the actual reception of His resurrected Life. It is only when a person places Faith in Him that He gives you His Holy Spirit Life. As 1 John 5:11-12 testifies, whoever has the Son has life, and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Salvation is passing from death into eternal life by being filled with the very Spirit of the resurrected Christ.
Life is Found Exclusively in Jesus
- John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
- 1 John 5:11-12 “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
- John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.”
- 1 John 5:20 “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”
Salvation from Death to Eternal Life
- Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
- John 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
- John 10:27-28 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”
- John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 21:1,2
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Pray to God:
Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?
Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”
~ Bob George discusses the importance of choice, emphasizing that God gives us choices. He criticizes hypocrisy in religious leaders, urging adherence to Jesus’ teachings over legalistic interpretations. Bob highlights the need for Christians to focus on faith, grace, and the New Covenant, rather than adhering to outdated laws or ceremonial practices. He stresses the importance of walking by faith, forgiveness, and the transformative power of Jesus’ sacrifice, urging believers to live self-controlled, upright lives and to proclaim Jesus above all else.
Salvation, salvation is life. When we were God’s enemies, it said we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son. How much more now, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by His what? His life. Again, you’re not saved by the death of Christ. You’re saved by the resurrected life of Christ. The only thing can fill the void of an empty heart.
So Jesus came to this earth to identify with us in our death, so that we could identify with Him in His resurrection. Salvation, therefore, is restoring man to his true humanity. Paul said, “I have become a servant by the commission that God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness, the fullness of the gospel. And guys, how many of us have heard half gospels? Now I’m emphasizing the fact that so many times because of our emphasis on the cross, we have stopped there, and people do not go on to that there’s a consequence to sin that is called death that has to get corrected, and we have to understand the meaning of that. But we stop at the cross and say, “Well, who doesn’t want to get their sins forgiven? So we come to Christ for forgiveness and go back to our pew as empty as we went to the altar. That’s why they call them pews. There’s so many dead people sitting in them, and we have to realize the truth of that, because you’re not saved by just saying, “Oh yeah, I took Jesus and He forgave my sin, so I’m saved. No, you’re not. No, you’re not. That’s preparatory. That’s what God had to do to prepare you for salvation. Salvation is understanding that there’s a consequence to sin called death. That includes all of you. There’s not a one of you that we’re not dead spiritually. And if you’re in here today and you’ve never accepted life, you’re dead spiritually. You didn’t again how bad you are. It’s how dead you are. And if you’re dead, the only solution, because the solution to that death has been offered to us, that’s what’s called grace. He’s offering you life. Now, there’s two things you can do: refuse it and remain dead, or accept it and come alive. You say, “Well, there’s a gamble to that. No, there really isn’t a gamble to it. It’s the fact that you’re going to come to reality. In other words, you’re going to come to a point of believing what God said about you. And if I can’t believe what God said about me, who am I going to believe? People I work with, people I’m around?” ~ Bob George
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Announcer 0:13
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.
Bob George 0:28
Well, let’s pick up in John 20, chapter 20th chapter of John. We’re going to study the account that was given to us by the Apostle John, in regard to the events that took place that day, when Christ Jesus was indeed raised from the dead. It says early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that a stone had been removed from the entrance, and so she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and that’s talking about the author John, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they they have put him. So Peter and the other disciple started to the tomb. Both were running, and of course, it had to be mentioned that one outran the others. And so, Peter was very quick to realize he was the first one to get there. He outran Peter. John was the first one to get there. Outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked at the stripes of linen lying there, but did not go in.
Now, folks. Again, you know you have all kinds of things that are taking place today, and I think so many times of these newscasters that say I’m going into Israel to try to discover something about Jesus, and say, How you think you’re going to discover something about Jesus 2000 years later? Why don’t you just read the scriptures and it’ll tell you about Jesus, but of course that’s just too easy. So we don’t want to do that. But you think about the fact of how some people say, “Well, some thief came and stole the body. Well, who, if you stole the body, wouldn’t you steal it with wrappings and all? Wouldn’t you steal the body with with the head piece on and all the wrappings that went around him, or would you sit there and very carefully take those things off and then steal the body? It just doesn’t make any sense. All of his grave clothes were left in the tomb, and he was gone. The headpiece that is they they so carefully designed was there in its form. You know, you wouldn’t steal a body and leave that and then take the body out. There are so many times that people are coming up with all kinds of harebrained ideas as to what happened to Jesus. But what happened was he was raised from the dead just as he had predicted for over 2000 or more years, and the Bible was a prediction of the fact that Messiah was going to come and be raised from the dead, but they didn’t understand it at that time.
And so it says that Simon Peter, who was arrived behind him, arrived and went into the tomb, and he saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. Now, why did he record that? For this very reason that you don’t steal a body and leave the grave clothes. The cloth was folded up by itself, and it it was folded up separate from the from the linen. And finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside, and he saw, and it said he believed. They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. What did they believe? They believed that the tomb was empty, and they had no explanation as to how it got that way. They knew they didn’t steal it. They knew that it was not even beyond comprehension that somebody else stole it and left the grave clothes there. They certainly knew that a man had been beaten as no man and had his arms and his legs pierced through with nails and had been up all night and exhausted. Certainly didn’t have the strength to rejuvenate himself and and go move a big old stone and get out. They said they had enough sense to realize the truth of that. And the only thing they could come to the conclusion is that tomb is empty. As a matter of fact, that’s the only tomb in the world that’s popular for who isn’t in it-the man who was raised from the dead. That’s what separates Jesus, my friends, from every other person who ever walked on the face of this earth, he was raised from the dead, and thus salvation was secured. The the everything that Jesus had to do in order to save us was now done. His death, His burial and His resurrection.
Now we’re told that God’s provision under grace is that we are saved by the life of Christ Jesus. That’s the meaning of the resurrection. That is why the apostle Paul said, “Without the resurrection, we’re to be pitied of all people and are still in their sins, the resurrection is the key. We put the cross as the key, but the cross was preparatory to salvation. You’re not saved by the cross; you’re saved by the resurrection. The cross is what prepared us for salvation, but the cross in and of itself is not salvation. It’s what God had to do in order to give us salvation. Salvation is being raised from our state of spiritual death. We know what physical death is, but we can’t see spiritual death. We can experience the result of spiritual death. If there’s anyone within the sound of my voice that has never come alive spiritually, you know full well you’re bouncing prayers off the ceiling. You know full well that there’s no meaning to life. You’re sitting there constantly wondering what’s it all about, Alfie, which was what was going on in my life when I was saved. Is what is it all about? There’s got to be more meaning and purpose to life than getting up every morning and working your tail off in order to make some money, in order to go to bed at night, in order to get up the next day and work your tail off again to make some money, in order to go to bed at night and get the next day and work your tail off again. There’s got to be more to life than that, you know that, and so do I. But that’s the condition that you’re in when you’re not whole, when you have not been yet made complete. You’re still searching for something, and what you don’t know is that you’re searching for God. You know about God, but you haven’t come to a point of knowing God through a personal experience.
And so the whole purpose of resurrection is to make you and me whole, to complete in us what we had lost in Adam-the Spirit of God living in us. That’s why man turns to alcohol to escape. He turns to affairs to escape. Turns to business where you’re working all the time and working because you can’t stand to be alone. You can’t stand to be by yourself for five minutes because of how I got to face me. And so that’s why you do these things. You have to come to understand why am I this empty? What is causing this emptiness? And what’s causing the emptiness is you’re empty. You don’t have Life living in you. Just like that bulb up there, that bulb could give no light at all if it weren’t plugged into electricity. Why? Because electricity in a bob’s indispensable to the function of the bob can’t function without it. You go out and buy a $60,000 car, and the dumb thing won’t work without now $5, $4, $3 worth of gasoline, whatever they want to charge, but it won’t work because it’s indispensable to the function of the car. Why do you and I need God living in us for us to function? We’re made that way, just like a car was made to function with fuel in it, a light bulb is made to function with electricity in it, an oil lamp is made to function with oil in it, and you and I were made to function only with God living in us, and we have the tendency to turn to everything else except the only thing that can make you whole. The only thing that could enable you to take a deep breath and say, “I’m complete. I’m complete for the first time. I’m not searching for something anymore. Why? I found it. I’m not thirsting for anything anymore. Why? I’ve drunk of the living water. I’m not hungry. Why? I’ve participated in the living Jesus. It fills your heart. It fills your soul, and it’s the only thing that’ll do so.
You can make all kinds of money, and you’re always looking for more. You can go from one woman to the next, and always looking for more. One man to the next, and always looking for more. It doesn’t fill the emptiness of the heart. There’s nothing that can fill the emptiness of the heart of mankind except Jesus living in you, which is our only hope of glory. Not being narrow-minded, just a fact. And anyone who has not come to Christ, you’ve been trying desperately, just like all of us tried desperately, using everything that we could come up with in order to find fulfillment. And you know, and I know that you have never found it. And the reason you haven’t found it, if you’ve been looking in the wrong places, just like. All of us did. You don’t need to be the lone ranger. That just happens to all of us. We are looking in the wrong direction. Isn’t that right, brother?
Salvation, salvation is life. When we were God’s enemies, it said we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son. How much more now, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by His what? His life. Again, you’re not saved by the death of Christ. You’re saved by the resurrected life of Christ. The only thing can fill the void of an empty heart.
And now He says, when you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave how many of our sins? All of our sins. There again, my friends, as a Christian, and I’ll tell you, I’ll be hammering this in your head and in mine for the rest of my life. That until you come to finalize the cross, you are never going to realize the dynamic of the resurrection. When you’re still fiddling around with forgiveness and you’re still asking God to forgive you instead of thanking Him for what He has already accomplished because God was in Christ reconciling the whole world unto Himself, not counting their sins against them. Is that true or not? If it didn’t, throw the Bible away. And if it is, start thanking him for what he has done instead of asking Him what in Christ you already have. But until you have come to grips with the finality of the cross, you are never going to experience the reality of the resurrection. Now you say what in the world is so hard about coming to the reality of the cross that ought to be the best news in the world, unless you think that you’re okay. You know we live in a society, don’t we? I’m okay and you’re okay. I’m going to write a book sometime called “I’m Not Okay” and you’re not “You’re Not Okay, but that’s okay. That’s more honest, unless we think that we’re so good. And you know, we we we we kind of get God’s kind of grading on the curve. Well, I’m not so bad, and and everybody’s basically a good fella. You’ve heard that. You see that on television. Person down there killed three people and raped nine, but basically, is a good person, and when you think that you’re basically a good person, folks, you’re not ready for the cross because Jesus didn’t come to die for some good people. He only came to die for who? Sinners. And until you are willing to admit that you’re a sinner, there’s no way that you’re going to accept the totality and forgiveness of God. If you think I’m 80% okay, all you need is a 20 20% of Jesus. And I want to tell you something, guys. There is no 20% Jesus. There’s no 20% Jesus. Just 100% until you see yourself as God sees you and quit seeing yourself as you see you, or how you think others see you. Because I want to tell you something. Whatever you think others think about you, they don’t. That’s just that’s just fantasy. The whole issue is that until I see myself as God seed me, and as Paul said, “Wretched man that I am, who will free me from this bondage of sin and death. Why are you wretched? Because you’re under the death penalty, and the wages of sin is what? Death.
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Bob George 14:09
What is the gift of God? Life. Who’s life? The life of Jesus living in you, which is your hope and the only hope of glory. It’s the best news on the face of the world, on the face of the earth, my friends. He says a thief comes to steal and to kill and destroy, but I, Jesus said, I’ve come that ye might have what? Life, and have it to the fullness, have it abundantly. I came to give you life. Now, folks, if I don’t have life, I need life. But if I don’t know that I don’t have life, or if I think that I already have life, what do I need Jesus for?
You see, guys, the whole issue of salvation is not how sinful you are. The whole issue of salvation is how dead you are. The wages of sin is what? Death, and in case we hadn’t figured out, death’s the worst problem in sin. And so the whole issue isn’t how good you are. The whole issue isn’t how bad you are. The whole issue is how dead you are. And all of us are born into this world dead spiritually. What is death? The absence of life. I don’t have the life of God living in me. No one was born except Jesus with the life of God living in me. That’s why Christ is the only man that could ever lay down his life for you. He’s the only one ever had a life to lay down. Now, when you’re walking around, guys, with this self-righteous attitude, thinking, “Boy, I am one spiritual dude, and about five minutes, I’m going to make my ascension into heaven. I’m sure of it because I’m so good. You are deceived, and you’re not facing reality. I have had for years of people that call in on the radio and tell me how holy they are, and I asked if I could interview their wife. One guy’s dumb enough to let me do it. We have to see and look at things from God’s vantage point. God said in the Garden of Eden, “Of all these trees, you are capable, and you have the privilege to eat from. Except the one tree, you cannot determine right from wrong and good from evil, you cannot determine what is good and evil for you because you’re sitting around thinking I’m so good because I do this and this and this and this. He says it doesn’t make any difference what you think. If the issue is what do I think, what is my opinion of you, and what his opinion of you and me was until we were saved, you’ve sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and all have sinned. Then there’s none righteous, no, not one. You say, “Yeah, but I’m obeying the law. He says, “No man will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God through obedience to the law. No man will ever be justified through obedience to the law. And if the law could give life, and Christ died for nothing. So it looks to me like from God is saying is we’ve had it, but He had to identify that to you and me. It’s got to be revealed to you and me that we’ve had it before we’re ready to get it, because until I see my own wretchedness, and I see that I am not ready for salvation, and so Christ came to give us life.
It says in John 14, in Him was life, and that life was the light of men. That’s the only light that you and I are ever going to have is the light of of men. He said, “I’m the bread of life, he said. “You diligently search the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. There are many, many people who study the scriptures for no other purpose than to get to know the scriptures, and you miss everything. That’s one of the problems with higher education. That’s one of the problems you get with seminaries. Is basically, it is designed to say to the Bible that you don’t know what you’re talking about when you said that no eye has seen or ear has heard or mind has conceived of those things that God has prepared for those who love Him, but it must be revealed by the Spirit. And they said, No, no, no, no, no. Revelation of the Spirit doesn’t mean anything. You just come and we’ll teach you Greek and Hebrew, and we’ll teach you how to dissect verbs, and we’ll teach how to parse verbs, and we’ll teach you how to do all this type of thing, and and so we go and get intellectually smart, and we miss Him. We miss the Author and of of our faith, who is Christ Jesus, our Lord. He said, “I am the light of men. I am the bread of life. He says, “You diligently search the Scriptures because you think by them the Scriptures that you possess eternal life. But my friends, those Scriptures are the ones who point to Jesus, and yet you refuse to come. Jesus said to me to receive what? Life.
Are you contented to have a salvation that consists of merely forgiveness? Are you content to say that my salvation is that Jesus took away my sins and that’s it? That’s good enough for me. I don’t need your life. You just haven’t seen how good I am. You just haven’t heard me pray, Lord. You need to listen a little more carefully to how well I pray, and you haven’t seen my church attendance, and you haven’t seen how many people I minister to, and you just haven’t seen what’s been going on with me. Are you satisfied to have a forgiveness salvation, but not a life salvation? Because if you got one of those, you’re not saved. The only salvation available to man is through the resurrection, the day we celebrate today. Jesus cried out, “I am the way, I am the life, or the truth, and I am the life. He didn’t say I’m a way. He didn’t say I’m a truth. He didn’t say I’m a life. He said I’m the way. I am the way to God. I am the truth about the Father, and I am the life of the Father. So, if you want to know me, you want to know the Father. You get to know me. The wages of sin we’re told is death, and again, what is death? The absence of life, the gift of God. It says, on the other hand, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Because of His great love for us, we’re told that God, who is rich in mercy, made us what? Alive with who? With Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions, it’s by grace that you have been saved. Jesus said, “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live. You also will live. Do you realize, guys, what we have as born-again believers? Do you realize the fact that we are indwelt by the living Christ, by the resurrected Christ, and that when we get out of these stupid bodies of ours, that we’re going to be absent from the body and present with the Lord and live with Him eternally. That’s the offer God’s making to people. It’s such a tough deal. It’s really tough. You’re going to be able to go into the presence of God and live forever, and we reject that. Why do we reject it? Well, because I may not be able to do all the things that I want to do. Let me tell you, folks, when Christ comes to live within you, He changes your want-er. Said, “Why no? I want to keep drinking. God isn’t interested in what you drink. He’s interested in what’s in your hands. He’s interested in your hands. He’s interested in you. What do you have to give up? Misery, hangovers, feeling terrible, guilt, lying. Got to give up all that terrible stuff in order to walk in the newness of life in Christ Jesus. To have friends that are genuine instead of phonies-that’s all a part of this good news of Resurrected Sunday. Before long, he said, “You won’t see me, but because I live, you also will live. I tell you the truth that whoever hears my word and believes in Him who sent me-that’s God the Father, has eternal life, and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life. We’re born dead. We cross over into the realm of spiritual life through the cross that took away the sins of the world, so that we’re able to walk in to the presence of God as sinless creatures.
So Jesus came to this earth to identify with us in our death, so that we could identify with Him in His resurrection. Salvation, therefore, is restoring man to his true humanity. Paul said, “I have become a servant by the commission that God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness, the fullness of the gospel. And guys, how many of us have heard half gospels? Now I’m emphasizing the fact that so many times because of our emphasis on the cross, we have stopped there, and people do not go on to that there’s a consequence to sin that is called death that has to get corrected, and we have to understand the meaning of that. But we stop at the cross and say, “Well, who doesn’t want to get their sins forgiven? So we come to Christ for forgiveness and go back to our pew as empty as we went to the altar. That’s why they call them pews. There’s so many dead people sitting in them, and we have to realize the truth of that, because you’re not saved by just saying, “Oh yeah, I took Jesus and He forgave my sin, so I’m saved. No, you’re not. No, you’re not. That’s preparatory. That’s what God had to do to prepare you for salvation. Salvation is understanding that there’s a consequence to sin called death. That includes all of you. There’s not a one of you that we’re not dead spiritually. And if you’re in here today and you’ve never accepted life, you’re dead spiritually. You didn’t again how bad you are. It’s how dead you are. And if you’re dead, the only solution, because the solution to that death has been offered to us, that’s what’s called grace. He’s offering you life. Now, there’s two things you can do: refuse it and remain dead, or accept it and come alive. You say, “Well, there’s a gamble to that. No, there really isn’t a gamble to it. It’s the fact that you’re going to come to reality. In other words, you’re going to come to a point of believing what God said about you. And if I can’t believe what God said about me, who am I going to believe? People I work with, people I’m around?
You know, we are so prone, are we not? So prone to have our identity based upon what we think others think of us. But you see, my friends, as I’ve said, you know I tell people a lot of times, don’t worry about what people are thinking about you. They’re not. They’re thinking about themselves. And yet we base everything upon what others think of us, guys. That’s not the issue. What others think of us. The issue is, what does God think of you? What does God say about you? And I must come to grips with what God said about me before I’m ready to say what He said about His Son. It’s an offer, guys. It’s an offer of life to you and me. Come unto me, He said, and I’ll give you life. It’s the greatest offer that man has ever been given, and God identified the true problem of man in order to give us a true solution. So Paul said, “I have been given to become a servant by the commission God gave me to present you the Word of God in its fullness-not a half gospel, but a full gospel that includes both the death and the burial and the resurrection-it’s called a mystery. It’s been kept kept hidden, we’re told, for ages and generations. But it’s now disclosed to the saints, and to them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, your hope of glory.
So, what did God do? He restored in us what we had lost. Mankind had lost in Adam, that being the Spirit of God living in man. For God in the man is indispensable to the humanity of the man. You’re not a true human as far as God’s concerned until you’re indwelt by the Creator. Anybody in here that needs years restored, need a life restored, to come back to reality-that what reality is-is Jesus. Because if you do, He’s waiting for you today. He says, “Open up your heart, and I will come and live in you. How do you enter into that? By faith, by believing what you’ve heard.
Announcer
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 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.