First the Question: All who have life in Christ Jesus are, RIGHT NOW, alive from the dead. Romans 6:13. True or False?
Please take a moment to respond at the LLM Question of the Day
And now the answer to the LLM Question of 10-27-2011
Question: No Spirit-taught Child of God can read Romans 6:13 and Ephesians 2:5-6 and believe in the heathen doctrine of soul-sleeping. True or False?
Answer: TRUE! Surely, no Spirit taught Child of God can read Romans 6:13 and Ephesians 2:5-6 and then go on and believe in the heathen doctrine of soul-sleeping. Many religious church-members, including some who are saved, just do not seem to appreciate having been raised up and made to sit down in the heavenlies in Christ, alive from the dead. Now, out of the 689 responses we received to this question, 100% of you got it right! Praise God! Therefore,
Today let us consider, THE GOSPEL OF JOHN....THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, pt. 25 of 30
ETERNAL LIFE WHICH GOD PROMISED BEFORE THE WORLD BEGAN
According to Titus 1:1-3, God, Who cannot lie, promised us eternal life BEFORE the world began. When we read John 3:16, let us read it, “God, (Who cannot lie), so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Now pay attention, because of the appalling ignorance of the message and ministry and Dispensation of the Grace of God, which the RISEN Christ revealed to and through the Apostle Paul, it is perhaps true that more believing sinners have been preached into the Body of Christ by hearing and believing John 3:16 than by all of the Grace messages in Paul’s writings. Most of the evangelists and other Christian workers, who specialize in John 3:16, generally quote with this verse Paul’s message to the Philippian jailer, “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.” (Acts 16:31).
However, many people who claim to believe both John 3:16 and Acts 16:31 are not saved. This is because they DO NOT believe, and apparently do not want to believe, that faith in Christ the Savior means to accept the truth that He was delivered for our sins and raised again for our justification (Romans 4:24-25), that believers are reconciled to God by the death of Christ (Romans 5:10), that the saving gospel is the truth concerning the vicarious death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). For this reason evangelists, who preach John 3:16, should always be sure to include John 3:14-15, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” When we read Christ’s words in John 6:47, “verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth in Me hath everlasting life” and in John 6:51, if any man eat of Him, the living Bread from heaven, he shall live for ever, we should read the rest of this verse, “the Bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Hear again the words of the Prince of Life in John 12:24, where we have another “verily, verily” (25 of which are in John’s Record), “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
So think again of the glorious Grace gospel of 2 Timothy 1:9-10, the salvation that the believer has because of the work of Christ, with Christ’s words at the time He raised Lazarus from the dead, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26).
In John’s First Epistle believers are told how they can know that they have passed out of death into life; that they have been made alive. In Romans 6:13 believers are told what to do to please God because they are “alive from the dead.” In John’s Gospel sinners are told how to pass from death to life. In the recorded messages of both Paul and John we are told that sinners are required to do nothing to receive God’s free gift, Eternal Life, except to BELIEVE. By BELIEVING they pass out of death into life. (John 5:24-25, John 11:25, John 3:16, John 3:15). So we read in John 3:36, “he that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life.” But in John 8:24 we have these solemn words of the Prince of Life, “if ye believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins.”
In the very beginning of John’s Record we read concerning God in human form, “in Him was life: and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4). Near the close of His life on earth the LORD Jesus prayed to His Father, “Thou has given Him (Christ) power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.” (John 17:4). When we read this statement in John 17:4 with John 6:37, “all that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out,” we think of the statement concerning Paul’s ministry in Acts 13:48, “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”
But of course we must not exclude human responsibility, remembering the words of the LORD Jesus in John 5:40, “ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” We are asked frequently how we can reconcile this with Christ’s statement in John 6:65, “no man can come to Me, except it were given unto him of My Father.” (John 6:45). Our answer is, we preach God’s sovereign grace and omniscience and man’s responsibility, and permit the Holy Spirit to do the reconciling. Surely if you have carefully compared Romans 9 with Romans 10, you know how utterly helpless is any theologian or Bible teacher to reconcile the truth contained in them or to explain to the satisfaction of all the truth of Ephesians 1:4-5 and Ephesians 1:11 concerning the Body of Christ. In these verses we read, “according as He (God) hath chosen us in Him (Christ) before the ‘overthrow’ of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”
But now to the good news of Romans 8:1-39, beginning with “no condemnation” for the believer, and ending with “no separation” for the believer. With this good news read John 10:28-31. In Romans 8:36-39 we learn that though believers may be counted as sheep for the slaughter, no thing or no person can separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Now the wonderful words of Christ, the glorious good news in John 10:28-30, “I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, Who gave them Me, is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and Father are ONE.”
Every person, by the Faith in the crucified and resurrected and ascended LORD Jesus Christ, passes out of death into life. By the same act of the Faith, at the same time, that person is justified from all things. (Acts 13:39). A justified believer has righteousness, redemption, and sanctification, BECAUSE he has Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:30, Ephesians 1:6-7, and 2 Thess. 2:13).
As we wonder why the words “righteousness,” “redemption,” “justification,” “forgiveness,” “reconciliation,” “hope” and “salvation” are NOT found in John’s Record (except the two verses John 4:22 and John 16:10), whereas they are found in the Apostle Paul’s ministry about 200 times, it IS interesting to note that in John’s Gospel and in his First Epistle we find “eternal life” or “everlasting life” more than in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and all of Paul’s fourteen Epistles and in his recorded oral ministry in the Book of Acts. In these two Books by John, “eternal life” or “everlasting life” is mentioned 22 times; only 20 times in the other eighteen Books. These two words together are not found in any of the Apostle Peter’s recorded ministry or in the Epistle of James. They are found once in Jude.
Surely the theme of John’s Gospel is “everlasting life.” Many times in this Record the word “life” and “live” refer to everlasting life. The LORD Jesus said, in John 14:19, “because I live, ye shall live also.” Note in Revelation 2:8 how the RISEN Christ is described, “the first and the last, Who was dead, and is alive,” yes, “alive for evermore.” (Revelation 1:18).
Surely no Spirit taught Child of God can read Romans 6:13 and Ephesians 2:5-6 and believe in the heathen doctrine of soul-sleeping. Many religious church-members, including some who are saved, do not seem to appreciate having been raised up and made to sit down in the heavenlies in Christ, alive from the dead, but find a fiendish delight in trying to prove by Ecclesiastes 9:5 and Ecclesiastes 9:10 that Paul was mistaken when he said, “absent from the body present with the Lord.”
“Believe on the LORD Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” Acts 16:31, while there is still time!
So There You Have it!
Spread this message to everyone you know, far and wide. The time is short
Grace be to you and peace, from God: our Father, and The LORD Jesus Christ.
In The LORD Jesus Christ,
The Lion and Lamb Ministry
Pastor David Picos, D.D.
Minister and Ambassador for Christ in the Ministry of Reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20)
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