Justification Isn’t What Paul Says It Is
Part 4 of 4
March 2005
In reading this message from the beginning to the end, please keep the following in mind: (1) God is immutable – He changes not (Malachi 3:6) and He did not send Jesus with the saving message to mankind and later Apostle Paul with a contrasting message. (2) The Bible, the Law, God’s Word (Psalm 78:1; 119:72; Isaiah 51:4) is written to Believers laying out His plan of salvation and the rewards and punishment that accompany it as written in both the Old Testament and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (3) God’s only begotten Son is Jesus, and Jesus’ Words take precedence over the words of Apostle Paul.
Old And New Testament Differ
On Just/Justified Interpretation
Somewhere you have learned that to be JUST or justified…
You have heard all of that before and much more.
In the Bible there are clearly two distinct meanings of the word JUST (root of justification, justified, justify). In the Old Testament the word JUST means to morally “turn to righteousness”; and in the New Testament it means forensically “to be made innocent or free.” Side by side the meanings in the Hebrew and the Greek look like this:
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Hebrew |
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Greek |
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Just (tsaddiyq
from tsadaq) |
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Just (dikaios) |
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Justification = n/a |
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Justification (dikaiosis) |
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Justified (tsadaq)
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Justified (dikaioo) |
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Justify (tsadaq) |
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Justify (dikaioo) |
The word JUST in the Old Testament and the Gospel has to do with morals – relating to good and evil. JUST in the New Testament epistles is in the forensic sense – relating to acquittal or approval and is opposed to condemnation. Both the Hebrew and the Greek meanings have a semblance of righteousness until looking closely you see the omission of the verb turn in the Greek meaning and instead have the verb be. (1) The verb “turn” means to change position; or cause to change position. The verb turn has come to be identified with God and holiness; or passing from the state of disobedience to God’s Commandments/Word to that of total obedience. To “turn to righteousness” meaning for the word JUST says that the person has their part to do in becoming righteous; they have choices to make in life. (2) The verb “be” in “to be righteous” means something or someone else (God) is responsible for making the Believer’s righteous and as is taught, the Believer has nothing to do but automatically receive an infusion of righteousness from God into their spirits because of their faith in Jesus Christ. The latter is nowhere written in the Old Testament nor was it preached by Jesus. Once again the Believer is faced with messages given by Jesus and Paul being unparalleled.
God’s Characterization Of A Just/Righteous Person
Early on in the Bible God defines who is JUST in His eyes and what it means to be JUST.
Noah was a just [righteous in a moral sense] man and perfect [sincere in heart/spirit toward God] in his generations, and Noah walked with God [lived a life of obedience] (Genesis 6:9).
Noah was a JUST/righteous man in the eyes of God and perfect in his generation because (1) Noah was obedient to God’s Word which meant he was determined to live holy to please God, and as a result, he had absolute trust/faith in the Words God spoke to him about Who He is and what He will do; and (2) Noah was perfect in that his heart was sincere and totally sold-out to obeying God and what He commanded while hating sin. The Lord further confirms that to be JUST is to be righteous when He tells the JUST man Noah…
Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation (Genesis 7:1).
Church, the JUST person is the righteous person; the righteous person is the obedient person. Leading up to Noah being found righteous, precisely how had he behaved himself that God placed him in the category of a JUST or righteous person?
1. when the rest of mankind on earth was corrupt only Noah understood and sought God (Genesis 6:12-13);
2. when the rest on the earth were whoring around, Noah believed God when He said He was going to destroy the earth and for him to make an ark before He sent the flood waters (Genesis 6:13-17).
3. he obediently built the ark and collected the animals as God commanded him and that pleased God (Genesis 6:19-22).
Church, from the beginning God defined the “JUST man” as being one who is morally righteous or upright through holy living that emerges out of obedience to His Commandments/Word that results in absolute faith/trust in Him. The JUST or righteous shall live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4), yes, and one doesn’t have faith simply because they believe Jesus is the Son of God; Satan believes that also. Faith comes after one has decided or chosen first of all to turn to righteousness and obedience to God Commandments/Word. Faith is not required for one to turn to righteousness, it is the will of the person to want to live that kind of life.
This has not changed and neither was it nailed to the cross with Jesus.
The words ‘JUST’, ‘righteous’, and ‘upright’ are synonymous and because they are, they are often interchangeably used.
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Just/Justified/Justification: tsaddiyq - turn to righteousness |
Righteous/Righteousness: tsadaq – Just; turn to righteousness |
Upright/Uprightness: yashar – just; be right |
Church, you must be the judge based on God’s Word whether or not the Believer becomes JUST/righteous by their own moral choices/works in life or if justification is automatically imputed to the Believer because of their faith in Jesus.
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Interjection: The Hebrew word for works is maaseh and it means an action (good or bad). Believers do have works to do that weren’t done by Christ on the cross and they are moral works of obedience to the Word of The Lord – choices – choosing to live righteous over the life of sin. “Works” are Believers choosing to, and putting forth the effort to not sin before God so that in the end their moral works of choices are either accounted as righteousness or unrighteousness. So that you will know the difference between the works Jesus did, which cannot be done again, and the moral works Believers are required to do until facing Jesus, the Bible makes it very clear that God’s people have there part to do in securing eternal happiness. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them [chooses to obey them], he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him (John 14:21). (Others: Psalm 62:12; 141:4; Proverb 24:12; Matthew 19:17; John 14:15; 15:10) For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works [actions in regard to the decision to be righteous and holy or disobedient to God’s commandments] (Matthew 16:27). Church, these are not works of righteousness that had to be done to bring the prospective Believer to salvation; there is no such thing. When God knocked on the door of the prospective Believer’s heart, the prospective Believer had to choose to open up and let Him in; God did not force His way in. Once God was allowed in, He presented His case to the prospective Believer by spelling out the criterion that had to be met (effort/work) or that had to be activated in the Believer’s life before God would, by His loving kindness/grace, give the prospective Believer the opportunity to possess the kingdom in the end and eat from the Tree of Life. The prospective Believer has to want salvation before becoming Born Again, and once Born Again, has to believe the essential teachings while living them, for God to make and keep him/her as a True Born Again-er headed for eternal happiness. This was why Jesus came preaching a moral Gospel with consequences because salvation hinges on the free-willed individual’s moral choices/works in life with respect to his/her every thought, word, and action. |
And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us (Deuteronomy 6:25).
“If we observe to do all these Commandments” means “we” have to choose to obey them if we are to be credited with righteousness; not God making us righteous. Righteousness/uprightness/justification is in our hands because we have to choose to obey God’s Commandments/His Word/the Bible since it is our salvation roadmap to eternal happiness. If it wasn’t in the hands of the Believer to personally choose to do right, then Jesus would not have preached a moral Gospel with consequences – “rewards and punishment”. (Don’t forget, the Bible is written to us, the Believer, and not the world.) Further, the Bible is full of “walk in the way I’ve commanded,” “amend your ways and doings,” “choose life over death” because every one of us has to make moral choices/works in life to obey or not obey God. The Biblical fact that we do have out part to do (choices/works), means that we’re not all that Paul says we are when it comes to automatically being made JUST/righteous when we believe in Jesus.
for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness (Isaiah 26:9).
Church, if our righteousness isn’t left in our hands why would The Lord say that people “learn righteousness.” Given that people “learn” righteousness, that means that God doesn’t hand it out willy-nilly. When people learn something that means they gain knowledge that will change them one way or another depending upon how they allow the knowledge to affect their lives. It’s about choice. The sum of the matter is, people learn righteousness and that means people choose to want to be righteous based on their understanding and obedience to God’s Word – the Law – His Commandments.
The just man walketh in his integrity [moral teachings] (Proverb 20:7).
To walk in the moral teachings of God means that the Believer exercises free will in making moral choices. Again and forever, it is about freely making moral choices/works that please God and with the favorable outcome of it being credited to us as being JUST/righteous/upright. No, it is not because we have faith in Jesus and the crazy notion that we are automatically infused with righteousness that we are made JUST/justified. It’s because the JUST are those who have received the knowledge of God’s plan of salvation and put it to work by the moral choices they make or their walk in life. This is the time-honored JUST person going all the way back to Genesis.
Paul’s Justification Doctrine Originated In Rabbinical Judaism
One of the central teachings in Pauline theology is the doctrine of justification by faith. For many years Paul was a Pharisee and a teacher of the Law, so it should not be surprising to find this [doctrine of justification] was originally a Jewish teaching (Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Randall Price, Harvest House Publisher, Eugene, OR, p 180, 1996).
Paul’s teaching on justification is positively a Jewish teaching and not a teaching that had it’s origin in Heaven with The Father.
Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to
condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon
all men unto justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered, that the
offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans
5:18-21).
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
Paul’s justification doctrine in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 is derived from the “First Man Adam” Rabbinical teaching.
Justification is the key to Paul’s philosophy of history. He holds that God’s central over-arching purpose in His ordering of world-history since the fall [of Adam and Eve] has been to lead sinners to justifying faith.
God deals with mankind, Paul tells us, through two representative men: ‘the first man Adam’, and ‘the second man’, who is ‘the last Adam’, Jesus Christ…(1 Corinthians 15:45; Romans 5:12). The first man, by disobeying, brought condemnation and death upon the whole race; the second man, by His obedience, has become the author of justification and life for all who have faith… (Romans 5:16). (The New Bible Dictionary. J.D. Douglas, organizing editor. William B. Berdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI, p 684, 1962).
Saints of God, Paul’s teaching on “First Man Adam” did not originate with God; and it is nowhere written in the Old Testament or the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Paul teaches. Paul’s “First Man Adam” teaching is unmistakably a Jewish teaching that arose sometime during the 450 years between Malachi and the Gospel (Intertestamental Period) when God was not speaking to the Jewish people. God didn’t speak to them because of their rebellion and consequently there were no prophets for Him to speak through. God had stopped speaking but the Jews kept on writing as they were led by the “other” voice in the world: Satan.
Jews did not stop writing for centuries between the Old Testament and the New. The Intertestamental Period was a time of much literary production. We designate these writings as Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha…They did not attain canonical status, but some of them were cited by early Christians almost on a level with the Old Testament writings, and a few were copied in biblical manuscripts. Some New Testament authors were familiar with various non-canonical works, and the Epistle of Jude [Jude 14-15] made specific reference to at least one of these books. They were ultimately preserved by the Christians rather than by the Jews. (Holman Bible Dictionary. Trent C. Butler; Holman Bible Publishers; Nashville, TN, P 69, 1991.)
Apocrypha, means "things that are concealed" or works not inspired by God. These are 15 Old Testament Apocrypha books that were written between 200 B.C. and A.D. 100. Pseudepigrapha, means "writings falsely attributed" to well-known Bible personalities, thus considered counterfeit. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha works contain 52 writings that were forged under the names of highly venerated men of God so that the message of the writer had some credibility.
These books are considered legendary and untrustworthy. They are uninspired. They were not accepted into the Christian or Jewish canon of Scripture. (A Manual of Church History: Volume I. Albert Henry Newman. American Baptist Publication Society; Philadelphia, PA, p 42, 1911.)
These works are false – dishonest, and regardless of the mere fact that the deception of these works was embraced by the Jewish people and some in the early church, the works are not from God because He would never encourage such lies. It’s clear that Satan with his vast knowledge was behind the deception to throw Believers off-track in their defense against the gates of hell triumphing over the Church of Jesus Christ. These writings may not have been intentionally fraudulent, but are fraudulent nonetheless and are not to be trusted. It’s evident Satan was speaking because of the clashes between the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha writings and those writings that were inspired by God through His true prophets, and His Son Jesus Christ. You be the judge after carefully reading a few excerpts from those writings.
From the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha you have…
O Lord, who bearest rule, thou spakest at the beginning, when thou didst plant the earth, and that thyself alone, and commandest the people, and gavest a body unto Adam without soul, which was the workmanship of thine hands, and didst breathe into him the breath of life, and he was made living before thee. And thou leadest him into paradise, which thy right hand had planted, before ever the earth came forward. And unto him thou gavest commandment to love thy way: which he [Adam] transgressed, and immediately thou appointedst death in him and in his generations, of whom came nations, tribes, people, and kindreds, out of number (The Holy Bible Vol III, Saint Matthew to Revelation, The Apocrypha, 2 Esdras 3:5-7. The Ballantyne Press, London, 1611, p 811).
And yet tookest thou not away from them a wicked heart, that thy law might bring forth fruit in them. For the first Adam bearing a wicked heart transgressed, and was overcome; and so be all they that are born of him (Ibid., 2 Esdras 3:20-21, p 813).
For the grain of evil seed hath been sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning, and how much ungodliness hath it brought up unto this time? and how much shall it yet bring forth until the time of threshing come? Ponder now by thyself, how great fruit of wickedness the grain of evil seed hath brought forth (Ibid., 2 Esdras 4:30-31, p 818).
O Lord, my Lord, behold, the present years are few and evil, and who can inherit that which is unmeasurable in this short time? And The Lord answered and said to me: With the Most High no account is taken of much time and of few years. For what did it profit Adam that he lived nine hundred and thirty years and transgressed that which he was commanded? Therefore, the multitude of time that he lived did not profit him, but it brought death and cut off the years of those who were born from him (The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1, 2 Baruch 17:3. Edited by James H. Charlesworth, Doubleday, New York, 1983, p 627.)
For when Adam sinned and death was decreed against those who were to be born, the multitude of those who would be born was numbered (Ibid., 2 Baruch 23:4. Edited by James H. Charlesworth, Doubleday, New York, 1983, p 629.)
O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants. For what good is it to us, if an eternal age has been promised to us, but we have done deeds that bring death (The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1, The Fourth Book of Ezra 7:118. Edited by James H. Charlesworth, Doubleday, New York, 1983, p 541.)
From the Talmud you have…
R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar further stated: In all those years during which Adam (‘the first man’) was under the ban he begot ghosts and male demons and female demons, for it is said in Scripture, ‘And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his own image,’ from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image. An objection was raised: R. Meir said, Adam was a great saint. When he saw that through him death was ordained as a punishment he spent a hundred and thirty years in fasting, severed connection with his wife for a hundred and thirty years, and wore clothes of fig [leaves] on his body for a hundred and thirty years (The Babylonian Talmud. Erubin 18b. Edited by Isidore Epstein, Socino Press, London, p 126, 1978).
As you can see from the above Psuepegripha and Apocrypha teachings, the Talmud as well, the First Man Adam teaching was passed down orally through the Jewish teachers before going on to printed pages. You have to conclude from this that the ‘First Man Adam” doctrine did not come as some new revelation from God to Apostle Paul; Paul carried the doctrine over from his days as a Pharisee studying under Gamaliel and this is not acceptable by God and it’s not Christianity.
The Truth Of The Matter Is…
Adam’s sin was never passed down to us. If Adam was genuinely responsible for sin and condemnation coming into the world, according to Paul’s Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 epistles God most certainly would have addressed that in the early chapters of Genesis. If Jesus Christ, supposedly the “Second Adam” according to Apostle Paul, brought the free gift of many offences unto justification, He too, unquestionably would have addressed this when preaching the Gospel on earth. But, no, it was neither addressed in Genesis or the Gospel and wasn’t because the doctrine did not come from God, but from Paul and his Rabbinical training.
The Church teaches that all mankind contracted sin (“original sin”) from Adam even though the sin in the garden was his own personal sin. Humans contract diseases from others; not personal sins of others. Adam’s sin was not transmitted to his posterity and nowhere does God state such.
Interjection: The Catholic Catechism teaches…
We must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part I, The Profession of Faith, No. 388, Doubleday, NY, p 109, 1994).
How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam ‘as one body of one man.’ By this ‘unity of the human race’ all men are implicated in Adam’s sin,as all are implicated in Christ’s justice (Ibid., No. 404, Doubleday, NY, p 114, 1994).
God did not pass or “visit” the sins of Adam up all creation. The only time The Lord God visits the sins of the father upon the children is when He is hated by the father and He expresses this in the second of the Ten Commandments after decreeing in the first Commandment that HE IS GOD AND TO NOT PUT ANY OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM. Very important -- -- most important. Next in importance, God decrees we are to…
not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me…(Exodus 20:4-5).
When it is very obvious to God that He is hated by someone who has chosen a graven image to be the god that they bow down to and serve, God sees that one as His enemy and pronounces punishment in the passing on of the father’s sin to the descendants. Other than for that very grave reason, God doesn’t pass the sins of the father on to the children and He didn’t in the case of Adam and Eve. Church, the Word of God states explicitly “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father…” (Ezekiel 18:20), and there is no exception to that other than the second Commandment.
Again, Adam’s sin was his own personal sin and not that of the whole human race. If Adam’s sin brought sin and death into the world, why didn’t Apostle Paul explain how that was transferred to Adam’s off-spring. Why didn’t God explain that when He spoke their punishment? Why didn’t Jesus explain that as He preached the knowledge of God to bring mankind to salvation? The hope is that you are not wrongly accepting the curse as the transfer of the sin of Adam to all mankind. Church, the curse meted out to both Adam and Eve is not their sin but the punishment phase for having sinned. The curse is punishment for their sin – not the act of their sin being laid on all mankind by us having to work hard for a living and experience excruciating pain during child birth. The curse God spoke on Adam and Eve has to do with it being a permanent reminder to all mankind of the consequences of sin until God the Father and the Son reign here on earth, but is not the sin of Adam itself.
God created Adam and Eve without sin by creating them in a state of innocence/purity – blameless. They were created blameless but yet created with the free will to choose to sin or not and it’s the very same with every human being born into this world until they reach the point in life whereby they choose to obey or disobey – sin or not sin (generally around the age of 5 or 6). As with Adam and Eve, when one chooses to disobey God the “veil of blamelessness” is removed as they come into knowing good and evil and they are forever held accountable for their moral choices in life.
Adam and Eve were also pure or blameless until they chose to disobey God. The Garden of Eden was for the innocent; those not knowing good and evil. Once Adam and Eve learned good and evil through disobedience, they had to be removed from the Garden. Church, you have to believe that Adam and Eve and all mankind after them are blameless until they consent to sin. All of mankind is born blameless because the initial breath of life into the human to make him a living soul comes directly from God Himself (Genesis 22:7) and God, who knows no sin, cannot breathe sin into a human’s life. No one, positively no one is born with sin on them even the ones who have it visited upon them as a result of the father. (At what point in life the father’s sins are visited upon the children, I do not know.)
The Bible proves that no one is born with Adam’s sin. In Deuteronomy 1 Moses spoke to “all” Israel in the fortieth year just before going in to possess the land of Canaan. He spoke to them concerning all that The Lord had given him in commandment, and how God had taken care of them and guided them but yet they did not believe The Lord God when He told them to take possession of the Amorites’ land. Israel had feared the Amorites except for Caleb and Joshua. “And the Lord heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, and sware, saying, Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land which I sware to give to your fathers” (Deuteronomy 1:34-35) except for Caleb and Joshua and the little ones. Moses continued recounting the Lord’s Words as he said…
Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it (Deuteronomy 1:39).
God said that the little ones and the children had no knowledge between good and evil. This covers infants up to about the age of five or six. This is positive proof that no one is born with the sin of the first man Adam! People are born in a state of blamelessness or innocence, which is precisely the state Adam and Eve were in until they reasoned that Satan’s lie to them about eating from the forbidden tree was the truth.
Church, if people are born with the sin of Adam (“original sin”) on their souls, why did God state in Moses’ reminiscence of all that had transpired that the “little ones” and the “children” in that day had no knowledge of what was good and what was evil? Adam and Eve did not know what was good and what was evil – all they knew was happiness until the sin. This now brings us to Paul’s doctrine on justification that originated from his “first man Adam, last man Adam” doctrine. Church, in the first place, that doctrine never did apply or line-up with God’s plan of salvation that Jesus came preaching. It’s false. Paul’s teaching on justification/righteousness that was birth out of his First and Second Adam teaching is a lie and typifies the gates of hell attempting to prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ since its commencement. Knowing that Paul’s justification/righteousness doctrine has its roots in the Rabbinical teaching of the First Man Adam, how can being automatically imputed with the righteousness of Christ when first saved be a true teaching from the Heaven of heavens, God’s throne room? If the core of anything is rotten, in this case the First Man Adam teaching is a rotten lie, then everything that comes from the core is rotten – in this case Paul’s justification/righteousness doctrine is a rotten lie as well. Paul’s teaching on justification/righteousness that came out of the First Man Adam Rabbinical teaching, is now laying bare before you. Who do you believe Paul or Jesus?
What It Really Means To Be Justified By Jesus
Speaking through Moses, The Lord said…
I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him (Deuteronomy 18:18).
Put His, God’s Words in His, Jesus’ mouth, that He should speak what God commanded was God speaking of sending Jesus with the knowledge of His plan of salvation to preach to mankind. This spoken knowledge was to get man to rethink his sinful ways and repent. Isaiah prophesied concerning Jesus’ preaching of knowledge and it justifying mankind.
by his [Messiah Jesus] knowledge shall my righteous servant [Messiah Jesus] justify [turn to righteousness] many; for he shall bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11)
This prophecy from God through Isaiah foretold that God’s Son, Jesus (Righteous Servant) would share the message of the plan of salvation whereby many receiving it would be justified or would “turn to righteousness” upon understanding the Word of God, taking it to heart, and walking in it obediently. The word knowledge means one’s awareness of something enlightening.
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The Hebrew word for knowledge is daath from the word yada meaning awares; be learned; to have understanding |
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The Greek word for knowledge is gnosis from the word ginosko meaning be aware of; understand |
God wanted mankind to be enlightened so that they would no longer be ignorant concerning His spiritual expectations of them. With knowledge/understanding one is then held fully accountable for living according to God’s standards which means God is not liberally making Believers justified/righteous/upright simply because they believe in Jesus. Without knowledge/understanding we cannot possibly obey all that God commands and there is no excuse for that. “a good understanding [knowledge of God’s Word] have all they that do his commandments…” (Psalm 111:10). Through the knowledge of Jesus Christ preached to enlighten mankind, it was and still is, to turn them to righteousness. The verb turn means to change or cause to change one’s life in this case. When one’s life changes it is due to them personally having wanted the change upon hearing and receiving the salvation message of the Kingdom because God never, ever forces anyone to come to Him – not ever.
Not only did Jesus with His knowledge preach about God’s Plan of Salvation, but He was prime example that being in the flesh, mankind can live a righteous life tagged as a JUST person. This is how God’s “righteous servant justify many” or turn many who believe to righteousness. Church, it’s not “make” them righteous by automatically zapping them with 220 volts of righteousness just because they believe in Jesus. “Making” them righteous would be entirely too easy. It’s all about them “turning” to righteousness – moral choices/works in obedience to God’s Commandments.
Conclusion
Brothers and sisters in The Lord, please understand what is about to be said. If The Lord said…
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins… (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Doesn’t “turn from their wicked ways” mean that it is within His people’s (Believers) own power and by their own will to stop sinning? Yes, and that also means that since it is within our power to turn from sin, we can also within our power and by our own will “turn” to righteousness when we hear and receive the Word of God and obediently walk in it. The above verse of Scripture is proof that we have moral choices/works to make in life to become righteous considering righteousness is not automatically infused into us based on our faith in Jesus. Righteousness is not given to us by the grace of God. The JUST/righteous person is acknowledged by God as such when we choose to live the kind of life a JUST/righteous person lives.
Mankind is to “achieve” right living as God has ordained. God has made it easy for us by giving us His Word not only written and planted in our hearts, but the Word made flesh (Jesus) to live out God’s Word as a pattern for our walking upright before Him. God has made it very easy for us by having given His Son Jesus to shed His precious blood in that we don’t have to have a bunch of animals on hand for sacrificial atonement to be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to Him. God has also made it most uncomplicated for us by giving us His Holy Spirit to succor us in our walk. God did not do all of this just to later on send Apostle Paul to tell us, “uh, that’s okay. I’m automatically making you JUST because of your faith in My Son.” No, Church, that’s not right. God never, ever says one thing and then later on changes it. Therefore, the message of Apostle Paul’s on justification is totally from somewhere else other than God’s throne because it goes against what God sent Jesus to preach. Jesus preached as the Old Testament teaches that the JUST person is linked to moral goodness in a person and the person’s personal responsibility in attaining that. Apostle Paul preached that the JUST/righteous person is that one who is automatically declared righteous by God from the past and secured for the future no matter what. Church, our righteousness is nothing that God does toward us; it is what we do toward God through our obedience to His Commandments/Word.
The reason The Church has continued on in believing so many false doctrines such as “justification by faith” is because of her acceptance of Apostle Paul’s gospel that is mostly based upon Rabbinical teachings from the time period when God had no prophets in Israel to speak through. Israel was without God and only the voice of Satan was speaking with much fabrication (false revelations, false dreams, and false visions) that countered the voice of the real God of the universe. Church of Jesus Christ, the source of what you perceive to be truth does matter. Now that you have been exposed to the truth about who and how one is tagged as a JUST/righteous person, you have got to join ranks with those who are rejecting these false doctrines because it does matter what you believe as truth; it does matter that you reject that which is not truth. Church, the question to you is, do you really believe that God automatically makes you justified/righteous once and for all because you believe in Jesus; or do you believe that you have moral choices/works to do to be justified or to become righteous? Who do you believe, Paul or Jesus?
Now that you have been informed, should you continue to conform to Apostle Paul’s teaching on justification you will have chosen death over life.
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In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments…(Deuteronomy 30:15-16). |
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Church, the question to you is, do you really believe that God automatically makes you justified/righteous once and for all because you believe in Jesus; or do you believe that you have moral choices/works to do to be justified or to become righteous? Who do you believe, Paul or Jesus?
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Afterthought: |
Ladies and gentlemen! We are not even justified or made righteous by the blood of Jesus as Romans 5:9 claims. The blood of Jesus does not justify or make anyone righteous. It was never shed for our righteousness; it was shed for the offender to be forgiven of sin and to be reconciled to God as the guilt of sin is removed (Isaiah 53:12; John 1:29). The blood of Jesus for atonement and reconciliation is our admission ticket to the journey of living a JUST/righteous life based on the moral choices/works we make that give rise to opportunity for living in a JUST/righteous state. Church, it’s all about the kind of life we live based on the moral choices/works we make that we become JUST/righteous people. |
Bless The Lord God of all creation! He is on the
throne and His Word is forever IMMUTABLE. Amen!
Related Must-Read Messages
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Part 1 of Grace Series |
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Part 2 of Grace Series |
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Part 3 of Grace Series |
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Part 4 of Grace Series |
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The Marriage Between "Jesus Did It All" And "Once Saved, Always Saved" |
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