Divine grace has been preached as an alternate road to the Kingdom of God. Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount (the fifth through the seventh chapters of Matthew) in which he described how men should live. But now we have an alternate route to the Kingdom of God. Instead of doing what Jesus said, it is enough that we "receive Him by faith." Then we will be saved "by grace alone."

Some hard-core Dispensationalists maintain that the Sermon on the Mount is not applicable to the saints because the saints are saved by grace. This one teaching alone should alert any devout believer to the fact that Dispensationalism is the enemy of Christ. Like the Pharisees of old, we have made the Word of God invalid.

The truth is, the Sermon on the Mount contains the eternal laws of the Kingdom of God. Whoever has the Spirit of God in him will say amen to this. Of course the Sermon on the Mount applies full force to the saints of the new covenant! Any teaching to the contrary is not coming from the Lord for it makes His words irrelevant.

Every devout, experienced Christian will recognize the implications of the issue we are raising here. If salvation by grace means God has invalidated the Sermon on the Mount for the believers of the new covenant, then all is safe and well in the camp of the Christians—of which we are a part.

If salvation by grace does not mean God has invalidated the Sermon on the Mount but that the true grace of God in Christ is the Divine plan for enabling us to keep the Sermon on the Mount in this world, then millions of Christians have not understood Paul.

We are raising this issue at the point of Romans 2:6. We are raising it here because we cannot "see" or "hear" what Paul is saying further if our mind keeps on advising us that it does not apply to us because we are saved by grace and not by works.

At some point the view was advanced that we accept Christ because we cannot keep the commandments of God. All have sinned so God has decided to save us apart from our behavior. We cannot save ourselves and so God has given Jesus Christ to us so we can believe and be saved. Since this is true, the only purpose of the commandments of Christ and of His Apostles is to show us clearly that we cannot save ourselves.

This is what I was taught when I came to Christ.

It absolutely is true that all have sinned and have come short of the Glory of God. It absolutely is true that no human being can save himself. Perfect so far!

The problem is what we mean by the word "saved." We mean qualified to go to Heaven when we die to live there eternally in a mansion. This is not what the Scriptures mean by "saved."

Therefore the current view of the Christian salvation is incorrect and destructive of God's purpose in Christ.

To be continued.