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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Judgment, Redemption, and the First Resurrection, #38
And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. (I John 2:3-5)
Partly because of a spirit of deception, partly because of ignorance of the whole counsel of God, and partly because of a willingness to please people in order to gain their support, the Christian ministry of today is teaching that being saved by grace means we are not obligated to do what the New Testament commands. We do not have to keep the commandments of the Lord in order to enter life.
To hold that we are saved apart from deliverance from the person and works of Satan is to claim we are saved apart from being saved. Salvation is our deliverance from the person and works of Satan and our union with God. The person who remains in the bondage of the devil has not been saved from sin.
But, some may object, being saved means only that we will escape the wrath of God and go to Heaven when we die.
The truth is, being "saved" in the full New Testament meaning of the term includes infinitely more than being saved from wrath. The fullness of salvation includes the entire inheritance of a son of God, the inheritance that includes "all things." Being saved from wrath says nothing about our participation in glory as an heir of God, it means only that we have not been assigned to destruction.
The belief that the Christian salvation only or primarily is escape from Hell is a very weak concept of God and of the salvation He has provided for those who love and serve Him. The truth is, the Christian salvation offers an awesome inheritance to every person who will press forward in faith.
The current teaching is dangerously misleading because it implies that God has changed the penalty for sin in that if we believe in Jesus, God does not see our sin.
The truth is, God never shall change the penalty for sin. The Lord Jesus did not come to change the penalty in any manner but to deliver us from the behaviors that always will bring down the wrath of God upon us.
The doctrine that we are saved independently of a change in our personality and behavior is without doubt the most destructive error ever to enter Christian thinking. It is the same as teaching that we are healed apart from any change in our physical condition. It is a "false prophet," a spirit of religious delusion. It is a masterpiece of deception. No concept could be more suited to Satan's desire to perpetuate his kingdom than the idea that the Christian salvation is in name only and is powerless to break the hold of Satan on the individual.
To be continued.