Victory over Your Worst Sin

9/19/10

 

There is nothing more real to the consciousness of the honest Christian than the moment by moment struggle with the presence of evil in his mind and the desire to commit evil.

 

The understanding that our wretched, sinful natures have not been eradicated after a believer has become a Christian is a critical awakening that God brings about in every Christian’s life.

 

The purpose of our Father leaving our wicked natures within our minds is to cause us to abandon all hope in our ability to overcome our sinful habits and to trust exclusively in His revelation concerning what He has done for us through His Son’s cross/work.

 

Purpose: To learn from Scripture alone to abandon all self effort to have victory over our worst sin and to look away from ourselves

 i.e. our feelings and experiences, to the finished work of Christ, to rest in His victory alone over our sin natures by means of the Holy Spirit’s power alone.

1. Victory over sin by what Christ accomplished alone.

Read Romans 6: 1-13

 

Rom 6:2  Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Rom 6:3  Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Rom 6:4  Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,

even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Rom 6:5  For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,

Rom 6:6  knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with,

that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Rom 6:7  For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Rom 6:8  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

 

    Rom 6:11  Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom 6:13  And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin,

but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

 

So many Christians believe that they are to die to sin by means of their experiences.

In other words, they think there are things that they are “to do” experientially in order to have victory over their worst sin. 

 

Many Christians are taught that they can die to sin through specific experiences, i.e. speaking in tongues, second blessings of the Holy Spirit,

removing generational curses, through willful resolutions to stop sinning and a host of other nonbiblical, counterfeit systems of subjective, heart-centered spirituality.

 

Nowhere in the Word of God are we commanded, exhorted, or encouraged to die to our sin by means of our feelings and experiences.

 

However, we are commanded to believe the Biblical doctrine that we did die to our sinful natures over two thousand years ago

by means of what Christ experienced through His death on the cross.

 

Consequently, in order for every Christian to receive victory over their worst sin will never be found in what they can do about their sin

but in what Christ has already done about it.

 

Christians are looking for victory in all the wrong places.

 

They have bought into Satan’s lie which states that if you can experience it and feel it then it is real.

 

In other words, Satan says that power, and victory is accomplished by what you spiritually experience.

 

Eastern mysticism always is focused on the inside (subjective) and on what is felt.

 

However, Biblical Christianity is focused outside of you (objective) to what is written in the Word of God

which states that power and victory come through what Christ experienced in His cross/work alone for the Christian.

 

God does not ask us to feel this or to experience what Christ experienced. But to take Him at His Word

and BELIEVE that He has provided everything that we need for life and godliness through the KNOWLEDGE of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Christianity today is irrational because it is emotional.

 

The Christian life is not about feelings and experiences but all about non-experiential truth, doctrine, knowledge and logic from the mind of God.

 

2Pe 1:3  as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,

2Pe 1:4  by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature,

having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

 

2Pe 3:18  but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

    Hos 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

 

1. Victory comes by means of sovereign Grace and not by the principle Law.

 

Rom 6:14  For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under (the rule of) law but under(the rule of) grace.

 

       The Biblical word for grace means God’s unmerited, unconditional, uncaused favor.

 

Grace means that we live by means of what the Lord has done alone and through the power of the Holy Spirit alone.

 

In contrast to this revelation from God, the principle of law means that we live by our power alone.

 

         The Nature of Grace

          by William R. Newell- Romans verse by verse pages 245-246

 

1. Grace is God acting freely, according to His own nature as Love; with no promises or obligations to fulfill;

 and acting of course, righteously—in view of the cross.

 

      2.  Grace, therefore, is uncaused in the recipient: its cause lies wholly in the GIVER, in GOD.

 

Rom 3:24  being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

 

1.  Grace, also is sovereign. Not having debts to pay, or fulfilled conditions on man’s part to wait for, it can act toward whom,

and how, it pleases. It can, and does, often, place the worst deservers in the highest favors.

 

1. Grace cannot act where there is either desert or ability: Grace does not help— it is absolute, it does all. 

 

Isa 26:12  LORD, You will establish peace for us, For You have also done all our works in us.

 

1. There being no cause in the creature why Grace should be shown, the creature must be brought off from trying to give cause

 to God for His Grace.

 

Rom 9:11  (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand,

not of works but of Him who calls),

 

1. The discovery by the creature that he is truly the object of Divine grace, works the utmost humility:

for the receiver of grace is brought to know his own absolute unworthiness, and his complete inability to attain worthiness:

yet he finds himself blessed, —on another principle, outside of himself!

 

Eph 1:2  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Eph 1:4  just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

Eph 1:5  having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

Eph 1:6  to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

 

1. Therefore, flesh has no place in the plan of Grace.

 This is the great reason why Grace is hated by the proud natural mind of man.

But for this very reason, the true believer rejoices!

 

For he knows that “ in him, that is, in his flesh, is no good thing” (Roms 7:18) ; and yet he finds God glad to bless him, just as he is!

 

Rom 8:3  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,

 on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

Rom 8:4  that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:5  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit,

the things of the Spirit.

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

Rom 8:8  So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

 

                           Things Which Gracious Souls Discover

 

1.    To “ hope to be better” is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.

 

2.    To be disappointed with yourself, is to have believed in yourself.

 

3.    To be discouraged is unbelief,– as to God’s purpose and plan of blessing for you.

 

4.    To be proud, is to be blind! For we have no standing before God, in ourselves.

 

2Co 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,

 

5.    The lack of Divine blessing, therefore, comes from unbelief, and not from failure of devotion.

 

Jas 1:5  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Jas 1:6  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

Jas 1:7  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

Jas 1:8  he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

 

6.    Real devotion to God arises, not from man’s will to show it; but from the discovery that blessing has been received

from God while we were yet unworthy and undevoted.

 

Php 2:13  for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Rom 5:8  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom 5:9  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

Rom 5:10  For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled,

we shall be saved by His life.

 

7.    To preach devotion first, and blessing second, is to reverse God’s order, and preach law, not grace.

The Law made man’s blessing depend on devotion; Grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing: our devotion may follow,

but does not always do so, – in proper measure.

 

Three errors have troubled the church concerning the right relation of law to grace: 

1. Antinomianism– the denial of all rule over the lives of believers; the affirmation that men are not required to live holy lives

 because they are saved by God’s free grace,”They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him,

being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Titus 1: 16).

“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation;

ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude verse 4). 

2. Ceremonialism– the demand that believers should observe the levitical ordinances.

The modern form of this error is the teaching that Christian ordinances are essential to salvation. 

“And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said,

 Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). 

3. Galatianism – the mingling of law and grace; the teaching that justification is partly by grace, partly by law,

 or, that grace is given to enable an otherwise helpless sinner to keep the law.

Against this error, the most wide-spread of all, the solemn warnings, the. unanswerable logic, the emphatic declarations

of the Epistle to the Galatians are God’s conclusive answer.

“This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish?

 having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:2- 3). 

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

which is not another [there could not be another gospel]; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you,

let him be accursed”

(Gal. 1:6-8).LAW AND GRACE   C I Scofield

 

Gal 3:1  O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ

 was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

Gal 3:2  This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—

Gal 3:3  Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

Gal 3:4  Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Gal 3:5  Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law,

or by the hearing of faith?

The Holy Spirit alone gives the desire and the power alone to have victory over your worst sin by focusing our minds on what Christ accomplished.

 

Gal 5:16  I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Gal 5:17  For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that

you do not do the things that you wish.

Gal 5:18  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

 

 Php 2:13  for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

 

Rom 15:13  Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Joh 16:13  However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority,

 but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 

Joh 16:14  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

 

Rom 7:4  Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ,

that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

 

Rom 7:6  But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by,

so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

 

Rom 11:6  And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace;

 otherwise work is no longer work.

 

Joh 1:17  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

 This marks the beginning of a new ruling factor in a believers’ life.

 

Exo 19:5  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant,

then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.

 

Deu 28:1  “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His

 commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.

 

2Co 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,

2Co 3:6  who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills,

 but the Spirit gives life.

2Co 3:7  But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel

could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,

2Co 3:8  how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?

2Co 3:9  For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.

 

Gal 2:19  For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.

 

Gal 3:10  For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written,

 “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT CONTINUE IN ALL THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO DO THEM.”

 

1Co 15:56  The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

 

Act 15:22  Then it pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company

to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren.

Act 15:23  They wrote this letter by them: The apostles, the elders, and the brethren, To the brethren who are of the

Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings.

Act 15:24  Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying,

 “You must be circumcised and keep the law”—to whom we gave no such commandment—

 

Act 15:10  Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

 

Tit 2:11  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,

Tit 2:12  teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

Tit 2:13  looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

Tit 2:14  who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

 

Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:2  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Rom 8:3  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son

in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

Rom 8:4  that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:5  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

Rom 8:8  So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Victory over Your Worst Sin

9/19/10

 

There is nothing more real to the consciousness of the honest Christian than the moment by moment struggle with the presence of evil in his mind and the desire to commit evil.

 

The understanding that our wretched, sinful natures have not been eradicated after a believer has become a Christian is a critical awakening that God brings about in every Christian’s life.

 

The purpose of our Father leaving our wicked natures within our minds is to cause us to abandon all hope in our ability to overcome our sinful habits and to trust exclusively in His revelation concerning what He has done for us through His Son’s cross/work.

 

Purpose: To learn from Scripture alone to abandon all self effort to have victory over our worst sin and to look away from ourselves

 i.e. our feelings and experiences, to the finished work of Christ, to rest in His victory alone over our sin natures by means of the Holy Spirit’s power alone.

1. Victory over sin by what Christ accomplished alone.

Read Romans 6: 1-13

 

Rom 6:2  Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Rom 6:3  Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Rom 6:4  Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,

even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Rom 6:5  For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,

Rom 6:6  knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with,

that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Rom 6:7  For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Rom 6:8  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

 

    Rom 6:11  Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom 6:13  And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin,

but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

 

So many Christians believe that they are to die to sin by means of their experiences.

In other words, they think there are things that they are “to do” experientially in order to have victory over their worst sin. 

 

Many Christians are taught that they can die to sin through specific experiences, i.e. speaking in tongues, second blessings of the Holy Spirit,

removing generational curses, through willful resolutions to stop sinning and a host of other nonbiblical, counterfeit systems of subjective, heart-centered spirituality.

 

Nowhere in the Word of God are we commanded, exhorted, or encouraged to die to our sin by means of our feelings and experiences.

 

However, we are commanded to believe the Biblical doctrine that we did die to our sinful natures over two thousand years ago

by means of what Christ experienced through His death on the cross.

 

Consequently, in order for every Christian to receive victory over their worst sin will never be found in what they can do about their sin

but in what Christ has already done about it.

 

Christians are looking for victory in all the wrong places.

 

They have bought into Satan’s lie which states that if you can experience it and feel it then it is real.

 

In other words, Satan says that power, and victory is accomplished by what you spiritually experience.

 

Eastern mysticism always is focused on the inside (subjective) and on what is felt.

 

However, Biblical Christianity is focused outside of you (objective) to what is written in the Word of God

which states that power and victory come through what Christ experienced in His cross/work alone for the Christian.

 

God does not ask us to feel this or to experience what Christ experienced. But to take Him at His Word

and BELIEVE that He has provided everything that we need for life and godliness through the KNOWLEDGE of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Christianity today is irrational because it is emotional.

 

The Christian life is not about feelings and experiences but all about non-experiential truth, doctrine, knowledge and logic from the mind of God.

 

2Pe 1:3  as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,

2Pe 1:4  by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature,

having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

 

2Pe 3:18  but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

    Hos 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

 

1. Victory comes by means of sovereign Grace and not by the principle Law.

 

Rom 6:14  For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under (the rule of) law but under(the rule of) grace.

 

       The Biblical word for grace means God’s unmerited, unconditional, uncaused favor.

 

Grace means that we live by means of what the Lord has done alone and through the power of the Holy Spirit alone.

 

In contrast to this revelation from God, the principle of law means that we live by our power alone.

 

         The Nature of Grace

          by William R. Newell- Romans verse by verse pages 245-246

 

1. Grace is God acting freely, according to His own nature as Love; with no promises or obligations to fulfill;

 and acting of course, righteously—in view of the cross.

 

      2.  Grace, therefore, is uncaused in the recipient: its cause lies wholly in the GIVER, in GOD.

 

Rom 3:24  being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

 

1.  Grace, also is sovereign. Not having debts to pay, or fulfilled conditions on man’s part to wait for, it can act toward whom,

and how, it pleases. It can, and does, often, place the worst deservers in the highest favors.

 

1. Grace cannot act where there is either desert or ability: Grace does not help— it is absolute, it does all. 

 

Isa 26:12  LORD, You will establish peace for us, For You have also done all our works in us.

 

1. There being no cause in the creature why Grace should be shown, the creature must be brought off from trying to give cause

 to God for His Grace.

 

Rom 9:11  (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand,

not of works but of Him who calls),

 

1. The discovery by the creature that he is truly the object of Divine grace, works the utmost humility:

for the receiver of grace is brought to know his own absolute unworthiness, and his complete inability to attain worthiness:

yet he finds himself blessed, —on another principle, outside of himself!

 

Eph 1:2  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Eph 1:4  just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

Eph 1:5  having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

Eph 1:6  to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

 

1. Therefore, flesh has no place in the plan of Grace.

 This is the great reason why Grace is hated by the proud natural mind of man.

But for this very reason, the true believer rejoices!

 

For he knows that “ in him, that is, in his flesh, is no good thing” (Roms 7:18) ; and yet he finds God glad to bless him, just as he is!

 

Rom 8:3  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,

 on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

Rom 8:4  that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:5  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit,

the things of the Spirit.

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

Rom 8:8  So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

 

                           Things Which Gracious Souls Discover

 

1.    To “ hope to be better” is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.

 

2.    To be disappointed with yourself, is to have believed in yourself.

 

3.    To be discouraged is unbelief,– as to God’s purpose and plan of blessing for you.

 

4.    To be proud, is to be blind! For we have no standing before God, in ourselves.

 

2Co 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,

 

5.    The lack of Divine blessing, therefore, comes from unbelief, and not from failure of devotion.

 

Jas 1:5  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Jas 1:6  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

Jas 1:7  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

Jas 1:8  he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

 

6.    Real devotion to God arises, not from man’s will to show it; but from the discovery that blessing has been received

from God while we were yet unworthy and undevoted.

 

Php 2:13  for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Rom 5:8  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom 5:9  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

Rom 5:10  For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled,

we shall be saved by His life.

 

7.    To preach devotion first, and blessing second, is to reverse God’s order, and preach law, not grace.

The Law made man’s blessing depend on devotion; Grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing: our devotion may follow,

but does not always do so, – in proper measure.

 

Three errors have troubled the church concerning the right relation of law to grace: 

1. Antinomianism– the denial of all rule over the lives of believers; the affirmation that men are not required to live holy lives

 because they are saved by God’s free grace,”They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him,

being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Titus 1: 16).

“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation;

ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude verse 4). 

2. Ceremonialism– the demand that believers should observe the levitical ordinances.

The modern form of this error is the teaching that Christian ordinances are essential to salvation. 

“And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said,

 Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). 

3. Galatianism – the mingling of law and grace; the teaching that justification is partly by grace, partly by law,

 or, that grace is given to enable an otherwise helpless sinner to keep the law.

Against this error, the most wide-spread of all, the solemn warnings, the. unanswerable logic, the emphatic declarations

of the Epistle to the Galatians are God’s conclusive answer.

“This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish?

 having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:2- 3). 

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

which is not another [there could not be another gospel]; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you,

let him be accursed”

(Gal. 1:6-8).LAW AND GRACE   C I Scofield

 

Gal 3:1  O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ

 was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

Gal 3:2  This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—

Gal 3:3  Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

Gal 3:4  Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Gal 3:5  Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law,

or by the hearing of faith?

The Holy Spirit alone gives the desire and the power alone to have victory over your worst sin by focusing our minds on what Christ accomplished.

 

Gal 5:16  I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Gal 5:17  For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that

you do not do the things that you wish.

Gal 5:18  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

 

 Php 2:13  for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

 

Rom 15:13  Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Joh 16:13  However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority,

 but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 

Joh 16:14  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

 

Rom 7:4  Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ,

that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

 

Rom 7:6  But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by,

so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

 

Rom 11:6  And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace;

 otherwise work is no longer work.

 

Joh 1:17  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

 This marks the beginning of a new ruling factor in a believers’ life.

 

Exo 19:5  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant,

then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.

 

Deu 28:1  “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His

 commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.

 

2Co 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,

2Co 3:6  who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills,

 but the Spirit gives life.

2Co 3:7  But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel

could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,

2Co 3:8  how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?

2Co 3:9  For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.

 

Gal 2:19  For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.

 

Gal 3:10  For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written,

 “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT CONTINUE IN ALL THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO DO THEM.”

 

1Co 15:56  The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

 

Act 15:22  Then it pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company

to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren.

Act 15:23  They wrote this letter by them: The apostles, the elders, and the brethren, To the brethren who are of the

Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings.

Act 15:24  Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying,

 “You must be circumcised and keep the law”—to whom we gave no such commandment—

 

Act 15:10  Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

 

Tit 2:11  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,

Tit 2:12  teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

Tit 2:13  looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

Tit 2:14  who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

 

Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:2  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Rom 8:3  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son

in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

Rom 8:4  that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:5  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

Rom 8:8  So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.