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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Distorting the Scriptures
He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters ["these matters," meaning making every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him]. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (II Peter 3:16)
Did you ever wonder about the above verse?
Now think about this. What things did Paul write that are hard to understand? And how are these things distorted?
Paul said the following:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. (Romans 4:5—NIV)
God justifies the wicked. Isn't this just great! This is just what we need today in America in order to please the lukewarm believers.
Can you see how such a statement could be distorted?
Compare:
He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD. (Proverbs 17:15)
The Bible says the person who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
Well?
I asked the Lord about this, because in several places Paul maintains that if the Christian continues to walk in his sinful nature he will not inherit the Kingdom of God. God does not justify the wicked according to the other writings of Paul.
I asked the Lord why He would permit Paul to write that God justifies the wicked, knowing it would cause numerous people to get the wrong idea about salvation.
The Lord said to me it is necessary that this statement be in the Bible because of those who would be convicted of their behavior after a life of wickedness and seek forgiveness. They must understand that God is willing to forgive them in spite of the way they have behaved in the past. The atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient to forgive the worst possible human behavior.
But ignorant and unstable people will distort God's intention and destroy themselves by so doing. They will maintain that the Christian life consists only of a continual justifying of their sinful behavior. This is the Christian doctrine of today.
Paul told us in Acts that we must perform works that reveal sincere repentance.
First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. (Acts 26:20)
It is true that the wickedest of mortals can come to the cross and find total forgiveness. But if this mercy and grace do not lead to repentance and newness of life, a thorough renunciation of the former life of malice and wickedness, then this individual through his ignorance and instability destroys himself.
Our common sense ought to tell us that God has no intention of repeatedly blessing and forgiving a person who seeks to take advantage of the Lord's love and mercy by continuing to obey his sinful nature.
But then, religion has a way of destroying common sense! (from A Scribe for the Lord)