By ignoring the fact that we potentially possess the glory of the Kingdom upon receiving Christ, and do not possess the Kingdom until we have entered it through much tribulation, Christian theory has created a schizophrenic condition. The individual has withdrawn from reality, believing and stating that he is and he possesses something other than what is true.

He has not changed in personality. But the Christian teacher beholds him as a hero of faith, a warrior of steel—all because he professes belief in Christ.

The concept that we have all things in Christ, not differentiating between the fact that we have all things potentially but must journey through a desert of testing before we actually enter the land of promise, causes justification to abolish the need for separate experiences of sanctification and consecration.

The concept that being saved by grace is the waving of a magic wand that makes us something in God's sight that we are not, that no time period, suffering, or exercise of determination and patience is necessary for the final accomplishment of what God has spoken concerning us, is an intriguing theory that captivates the mind and leads it rapidly away from the truth that is in Jesus.

We must learn to define justification as an ascribed righteousness that has not as yet transformed our personality and not attempt to include all of God's work in this one initial step of faith.

Conceiving of justification by faith as the entire redemption has created many serious perversions of Divine truth. From this concept comes the error that once a person is saved (justified) he never can be lost to the purposes of God—this in the face of passages of Scripture that teach the opposite.

The doctrine that man is saved by "belief alone" apart from any necessary change in personality is as destructive as any heresy that has afflicted Christian thinking. The result of the Christian theory of an all-inclusive justification is the morally defeated churches of today.

The doctrine of all-inclusive justification by "faith" does not know—has never heard of—the God of Israel. It is not armed for the battle. It is a stranger to rugged, cross-carrying discipleship. The enemy mocks it for the delusion that it is. The wall of its kingdom is a mental vapor easily penetrated by Satan. It cannot cast out demons.

Modern Christian justification, along with its associate in error, the dispensational scheme of interpretation, is being discarded by the new generation of saints because they are returning to the old paths, to the ways of prayer and holiness. They will stand because they are doing what the Lord said. But the "justified" church members, having only a magical, delusive, illusory form of "grace," will be blown away by the hurricanes of judgment that are on the horizon.

Water baptism represents not only the death of our first personality with Christ on the cross but also the resurrection and ascension of the new man. Our new born-again life is raised and hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1-4).

After we have been baptized in water we are, by the Lord's help, to start behaving as though we have died to this evil world and have been raised into newness of life in Christ. While we are abiding in Christ His righteousness is imputed (ascribed) to us—given freely to us.

To be continued.