Misunderstanding the purpose of Divine grace. This is why the current teaching of grace is so destructive. It glosses over the problem of disobedience. It is implying that God no longer requires stern obedience. It is stating, rather, that God has paid the price of redemption and now is ignoring the original problem. He has decided to overlook man's disobedience and to bless him in his sin and self-will. Can you see what a fundamental misconception of the Judaic-Christian redemption the current Christian teaching is?

Before restoration can take place there must be obedience. Today's Christianity presents a restoration apart from a correcting of the problem of disobedience. It brings people to Paradise without changing the people. It does away with the Kingdom law of sowing and reaping.

Current theology claims we can sow death, and then reap life by the grace and mercy of God. It sends an unchanged Adam and Eve back to the garden and gives them access to the tree of life. What, then, will prevent a reoccurrence of the original rebellion?

Will Christ continue giving "grace" to Adam and Eve so they can continue disobeying God and yet enjoy eternal life in Paradise? Or is it true that physical death removes sin and rebellion from us? Or is it impossible for the believers in Heaven to sin (a surprising notion given that sin began among the angels around the Throne of God)?

Obviously the present understanding is faulty. It neither is scriptural nor logical. The fact is, nothing can be restored to us until our behavior meets God's standard.

It absolutely is true that the vilest of sinners can come to Jesus and be accepted of God immediately, if he repents and asks God to cover him with the righteousness of Christ. It also is true that no individual who practices the laws of righteousness apart from Christ can attain the righteousness of those who believe in Jesus. Eventually every person who has been born on the face of the earth will be brought face to face with Christ, with his Creator. In that day he cannot rely on his own righteousness. He must receive the righteousness of God through Christ.

The above statement does not mean, as is taught commonly, that God despises the efforts of people—Christian or not—to live in righteousness. The teaching that God despises and ignores all attempts of human beings to follow their conscience or their moral code is one of the incomplete concepts of the simplistic "four steps of salvation."

God most certainly does honor the integrity and righteous behavior of all honorable people and is quick to punish the unrighteous, whether they are Jews, or Christians, or natives living in the bush.

Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: (Romans 2:9,10)

To be continued.