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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Grace—Replaces the Law or Replaces Righteous Behavior?, #7
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16)
Do the New Testament Writings Stress Righteous Behavior as an Essential Aspect of Salvation?
If the writings of the New Testament emphasize righteous behavior and moral transformation as an essential aspect of salvation, then it cannot be true that Divine grace is a supreme, sovereign, unconditional legal maneuver in which people are accepted of God while they continue in an unchanged state.
If the student will take the time to go through the New Testament and write down every passage that stresses imputed righteousness and compare his list with a similar list of passages that stress actual righteousness of behavior, he may come to the same conclusion as we: it is time for a reformation of Christian thinking!
Righteous behavior is an essential aspect of salvation.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13)
Righteous behavior is an essential aspect of salvation.
To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (I Corinthians 5:5)
Righteous behavior is an essential aspect of salvation.
For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians 5:5)
And so on and on and on!
We think we see today a move in the Christian churches toward repentance and some stress on righteous behavior. People feel the need for moral change even though their basic theology claims that God views us only through the Lord Jesus no matter how we behave.
We believe that revival is here, a revival of repentance in the churches, and that it will expand rapidly. The revival will take place in the midst of great trouble, as we understand the Spirit of God.
If Divine grace indeed is intended to replace righteous behavior as far as we Gentiles are concerned, then the commandments of the Lord Jesus and great portions of Paul's writings must be dismissed as applying only to unsaved people—certainly not to the (Gentile) Church of the Lord Jesus. If such is the case, no revival of repentance is needed or even appropriate. If God sees us only through the Lord Jesus, then every effort at repentance and righteous living is an affront to the supreme grace that God is thought to have provided.
However, the Spirit of God is calling for repentance on the part of God's people. The revival of repentance will be facilitated greatly if God's scholars and theologians will take another look at the sixth chapter of Romans, observing that eternal life comes only as we choose to become the slave of righteousness. If we, having received Christ as our Savior, having been baptized in water, having received the Spirit of God, then choose to be the slave of sin, we are inviting spiritual death. This is what the sixth chapter of Romans teaches clearly and consistently.
To be continued.