When we considered going on the Internet the thought came that we should emphasize righteousness, not imputed or ascribed righteousness but actual righteousness of conduct. Perhaps the most important subject of the Bible, next to the revelation and work of Jesus Christ, is righteous behavior.

God's purpose in giving us a new covenant is that we might have the Divine grace necessary to enable us to live righteously, that is, in honesty, moral purity, faithfulness, truthfulness, upright dealing with other people.

But Divine grace has become an alternative to upright, godly behavior. The result of this perverting of the Divine intention is Christian churches that give a dim moral light or no light at all.

How did this misunderstanding come about?

The view of grace as an unconditional amnesty that operates independently of our moral behavior (which is antinomianism, an ancient heresy) proceeds from a misunderstanding of the early chapters of the Book of Romans.

Paul is speaking primarily to Jewish Christians in these passages of Romans. The Jews already were trained in the laws of righteous behavior even though in some instances they did not obey them. Paul went to the heart of the new covenant and exhorted the Jews to look up from the Law and put their faith in the Lord Jesus for salvation.

Along come the Gentiles. Most of us have not had the excellent training in righteousness given to Jews in the time of Paul. When we read that we are justified freely by the grace of God through Christ we think, "Whoopee! I ought to try to do good but since I'm justified freely by grace I will go to Heaven no matter how I behave" (added confusion in that Paul was not referring to going to Heaven but to salvation in the Day of the Lord).

Paul was not presenting Divine grace as an alternative to godliness (as the remainder of his writings reveal beyond all doubt) but as an alternative to circumcision, not eating pork, and all the other statutes of the Law of Moses including the moral injunctions codified by the Law.

By offering faith in Christ, Paul was not saying we can go ahead and commit adultery, steal, covet the things of our neighbor, and murder people. Paul says several times that if we break the eternal moral laws of God, of which the Ten Commandments are a special edition, we will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

We see then there is enormous confusion today concerning grace.

Grace is not an alternative to righteous conduct. If we do not behave righteously, as God helps us, we will not inherit the Kingdom of God. We will be removed from Christ, from the Vine.

The blindness to this simple biblical truth must be of supernatural origin because devout, otherwise brilliant scholars keep on advising the Christians they do not have to endure to the end in order to be saved.

We have thwarted the purpose of Divine grace. It is time to start preaching the truth. God wants His children to keep His commandments. Let's quit the excuses and start doing what the Bible says. Maybe God will have mercy on us before the good old USA slides into the ocean.

(And please . . . let's stop calling people legalists who are trying to get the believers to keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles! They are only trying to fulfill the Great Commission. Thank you kindly.)