All men are born dead in sins. The question is not if we spiritually dead. Of course we are! The question is how can a dead sinner live. Man’s religion tells us that we can have eternal life by deciding to accept Jesus as our personal Savior. But is that what the Bible says? No. The Bible says eternal life is a gift that God promised to give His people before time began through the Lord Jesus Christ. No sinner can earn eternal life. If we would live we must receive eternal life as a free gift of God’s grace. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2). Eternal life is the sure promise of God in Christ Jesus so everyone for whom Christ died will have eternal life.
To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.
John Owen
IMPUTATION ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES
God is the holy and just Judge. The very purpose for which Christ was crucified was to manifest the righteousness of God. Therefore, the just Judge only imputes to a man what the man is made by a prior act. God imputed sin to Adam because of Adam’s prior act whereby Adam transgressed God’s law in the garden. But Christ knew no sin. He is the spotless Lamb of God who would not sin against his Father. Therefore, Christ, the Just One, laid down his life for the unjust by presenting himself to be made sin by God for his people. (Mt 26:39; 2 Cor 5: 21) On the cross, we behold God justly imputing sin to Christ because of that prior act whereby Christ was made sin. Faithful men of the past and some of the present have taught that it is by imputation that we are made sin and made righteous. But according to the scriptures God does not make anyone sin or righteousness by charging them as such. God clearly declares how he imputes in Leviticus 17: 3. God commanded that the blood of a sacrifice must be brought to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. If a man disobeyed this command then he was guilty of blood. God declared that blood would be imputed to that man, not to make him guilty of having shed blood, but “blood shall be imputed unto that man” because of this prior act, “he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people.” (Lev 17: 4) God imputed sin to all Adam’s seed, not to make us sin, but because “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” God imputes righteousness to all Christ’s seed, not to make us righteous, but because “by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” (Rom 5: 19) Those who are taught of God are capable of declaring things in error though their heart’s desire is to declare the glory of God. But when God makes his child behold the truth according to God’s holy word then we say, “Let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, That thou mightiest be justified in thy sayings, and mightiest overcome when thou art judged.” (Rom 3: 4)
Pastor Clay Curtis
“Christ was delivered to die by the priests for envy; by Judas for gain; by the people in blind zeal; by Pilate for political advantage; but by God to accomplish the redemption of his elect.”
Older
Top
