Day: February 17, 2013

Sunday, February 17, 2013

“…God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3,4 KJV).

Can someone go to heaven without ever learning dispensational Bible study?

People commonly believe that if they just quit doing bad things, God will accept them into heaven: “I need to stop [name the sinful act], and I need to start going to church, donating money, praying, fasting, et cetera….” Frankly, this does absolutely nothing for them. They are focusing on their symptoms (individual sins), and ignoring their underlying sickness (sin nature). Man’s main problem is not that he commits sinful acts; his primary dilemma is that his nature is wicked (the origin of his sinful actions).

Even after “going through the motions” of religious obligation at church, the sinner is no closer to heaven than if he had stayed at home and done nothing. He may have “quit” certain sinful acts and replaced them with pious works. Nonetheless, his nature is still sinful, still anti-God, and still worthy of hell. Despite his “dealing with the symptoms,” he is still spiritually sick!

Thus, it behooved Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, to completely treat us sinners. He made a “house call,” but not to prescribe more rules to clean up our lives. We needed more than reformation (symptom reduction); we needed regeneration (complete spiritual healing). We lacked spiritual life, so God Himself came to give us His!

Although we do not have righteousness before God in and of ourselves, we can be “made the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus Christ died, not simply to pay for our sins, but to also crucify our sin nature with Himself! “Our old man is crucified with him” (Romans 6:6). When we trust the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as sufficient payment for our sins, God takes our sin and sins and applies them to Calvary’s cross, and appropriates the merits of Christ’s perfect crosswork to us (imputation and justification). We also receive a new nature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) (regeneration).

But, salvation from hell is not just a fire escape….