Is a Gradate of Northwestern University in 1911
"THE WAGES of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4 NKJV). This is God's law. It is far more unalterable than the laws of the Medes and the Persians. God's own righteousness demands that his law be held inviolate; the penalty of the law must be enforced. There can be no exception made. Not one sin can he overlook, even the smallest. God, sitting as Judge, would be unjust if he did not impose the death penalty of his law upon all.
The voice of his law has stopped every mouth and declared everyone guilty before him (Romans 3:19). There is no human means of escape, but God has provided a means whereby he might remain just and yet deliver the sinner from the death penalty of his sins.
The sentence has been imposed. Sinning humanity stood guilty before the Judge, awaiting the execution of the sentence, but before the execution took place the gates of heaven were opened. the Son of God was sent forth. He was given a body which was in the form of sinful flesh, but he was not sinful. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth" (First Peter 2:22 [See also Isaiah 53:9]). He was as "a lamb without blemish or defect" (First Peter 1:19). the centurion was right when he said: "Surely this was a righteous man" (Luke 23:47).
Because he was sinless, he was not under the condemnation of the law, but he presented himself to God the Judge to ransom those who were under that condemnation, and paid the death penalty on their behalf. Thereby those who accept him as the one who paid the penalty of the law in their stead shall not die, but live.
He, himself, said that this was the very reason he came into the world. "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10). "The Son of Man" came "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). "I have come that they (the sheep) may have life" (John 10:10).
This giving of his life was a voluntary act on his part. He said, "No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18).
God the Judge accepted his offering and "laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (Second Corinthians 5:21).
"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (First Peter 2:24). "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God" (First Peter 3:18).
In that great event that took place on Calvary's hill, God, the righteous Judge, sitting in judgment, took the sins of sinning mankind and laid them on his own Son. Then he carried out the execution of the judgment upon him. Everyone standing before God as a guilty sinner who will acknowledge this death of the Son of God as paying the penalty for his sins is immediately declared by God as having fully satisfied the demands of the law and is free from its penalty. Because Christ died on his behalf, he is then in the sight of the law as one dead. He is dead to the law and from that time on the law, as the only giver of death, has nothing to do with him. Paul states this fact clearly and repeatedly: "So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ" (Romans 7:4), and again: "But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law" (Romans 7:6), and still again: "For through the law I died to the law" (Galatians 2:19).
The substitutionary death of Christ then means that he was put to death in the place of the sinner to satisfy God's law that demands that "The soul who sins shall die." Thus the death sentence has not only been imposed; the sinner who believes in Christ, has in the Person of Christ been executed and from then on he cannot be condemned by the law for he is dead in its sight. Thus one who has been saved by being ransomed by the death of Christ cannot be lost.
"Payment God will not twice demand,
Once from my bleeding Surety's hand
And then again from me."
Some are able to accept this truth insofar as it affects sins committed prior to the time they were saved, but believe that sins committed afterward may cause one to be lost. To such there are several answers.
In the first place, did Christ die for their sins at the moment they accepted him? No. it was almost nineteen hundred years before a single sin has been committed by them., When he died he did so for the sins of the whole human race which have been committed over a period of six thousand years. Therefore it cannot be a question of the time sin was committed.
Again, it must be remembered that God doesn't work according to the calendar. When he looks at the life of any particular individual it isn't as a biography of successive events, but as a composite portrait of sinful and righteous acts. This must be so, for he saw everyone before the foundation of the world, before time was. In taking an individual's sins then, and placing them on Christ, whether it was those of a saint of the Old Testament or of one living today, he considered the entire sin element of that life and passed judgment on it. As far as the penalty of God's holy law and the demands of his righteousness are concerned, the sin question is settled once and for all the very moment an individual believes that Christ paid the penalty in his place.
If one who has been saved and is dead to the law by the body of Christ could be lost, then it would be possible to put the same person to death, twice. This is impossible. Therefore, to say that it is possible for one who has been saved to be lost, is to deny the value of the substitutionary death of Christ.
But God does not leave this question open. He has given the most definite assurance that those who have been saved by the death of Christ shall be eternally saved. He says: "But God demonstrates his own loves for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!" (Romans 5:8, 9).
You have read a chapter from the book _"SHALL NEVER PERISH" by J. F. Strombeck you can read the entire book at,
Shall Never Perish - By J. F. Strombeck
Grace Bible Church (Click Here)
(A 10 Minute Video)
Shall Never Perish - By J. F. Strombeck
Grace Bible Church (Click Here)
How
God Saves Men
Believing
Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing
Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.
Read
Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4
(A 10 Minute Video)
E-mail
this BIBLE STUDY to all your friends
No comments:
Post a Comment