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Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8; The doctrine of witnessing part 23

In our study of the doctrine of witnessing Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8; we are examining the doctrines that undergird the gospel so that we can understand how and why it is God alone who made it possible for our so great salvation exclusively by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Eph 2:8-9;

Last time we started on the doctrine of the last judgment that reveals what God must do to those who reject His peace offering of salvation in time by means of grace through faith alone in Christ alone.

We noted that the last judgment is the alternative that is required to maintain God's holiness when someone rejects God's offer of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is the requirement to face God's judgment in eternity because of refusal to face God's grace provision for judgment in time by believing in Jesus Christ.

This is because God's perfect and absolute uncompromising righteousness rejects all human standards of righteousness. This means God rejects the highest good any naturally born person could ever perform.

Isa 64:6; "For all of us have become like one who is unclean. All of our righteousnesses are like menstrual rags, and all of us wither like a leaf, and all of our sins like the wind, and our sins, like the wind, take us away."

This means that salvation cannot be acquired through human righteousness, any system of works, or by being a good person. Eph 2:9; Tit 3:5; Gal 2:16; Heb 6:1. In fact the production of human good becomes the basis for the unbeliever's judgment and consignment to the lake of fire at the last judgment. Rev 20:11-15;

Because believers possess the imputation of God's perfect righteousness no believer is involved in the Last Judgment, Rom 8:1. "There is, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

God's word tells us that the unbeliever has two appointments with God. Heb 9:27-28, physical death and the second death or the last judgment. The second death is the consequence of spiritual death that results in separation from God. This second appointment of judgment is preceded by the second resurrection, John 5:24-29; Dan 12:2.

All unbelievers are resurrected from the Torments section of Hades at the end of the Millennium so that they can be judged by Jesus Christ and cast into the lake of fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels in eternity Matt 25:41;. This Last Judgment follows the second resurrection.

Dan 12:2;"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake to eternal life (first resurrection for believers only), but others to disgrace and eternal rejection."

No sin is mentioned as the basis of this judgment, but rather judgment is based on the unbelievers' human good and righteousness that is based on the good works that they performed during their life in time that God rejects as not being good enough to match His perfect righteousness that is required for eternal life with God.

Two books are opened. The Book of Life that at that point in time only lists the names those who believed in Jesus Christ during their life in time. The book of life is closed because the names of all unbelievers have been blotted out so it is not an issue at the Last Judgment.

The Book of Works lists the name of every person who has rejected Jesus Christ as savior along with all of the good works they have done. When all of the good works that are contained in the books are added up they only add up to relative righteousness.

God is perfect righteousness and to remain perfect He cannot associate with anything less than perfect righteousness. The relative righteousness that the unbeliever possesses therefore becomes the basis for God's condemnation of the unbeliever in eternity.

The righteousness of God is freely available and is imputed to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, Rom 3:22, "Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe."

God is perfect and cannot be anything less than absolute perfection. Because of God's holiness and immutability it is impossible for God to be imperfect. Therefore, God has perfect righteousness. At the moment of salvation through faith in Christ, God imputes His perfect righteousness that comprises the principle of His perfect integrity to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ..

This imputation results in instant justification, Rom 5:1. Justification means that God found a way to declare us worthy us without compromising His perfect righteousness.

This imputation of God's righteousness guarantees God's personal love for every believer and creates the grace pipeline where God's justice targets basic life support blessings to the righteousness of God that every believer possesses regardless of their experiential condition.

This means that both negative and positive believers receive life support from God. Negative believers squander it. Positive believers parlay it into greater grace blessing through their function in compliance with God's plan.

God's integrity, comprised of His perfect justice and perfect righteousness, is the guardian of God's attributes and is mankind's point of reference after the fall. The function of God's grace policy demands that there can be no compromise of His divine attributes. Therefore under the function of God's integrity perfect righteousness demands perfect righteousness and perfect justice demands perfect justice.

Perfect righteousness is the principle of God's integrity. Perfect justice is the function of God's integrity. This means that God cannot accept or bless anything less than His perfect righteousness.

God's perfect justice is the source of all direct blessing from God to the believer. God's perfect justice is only free to provide direct blessing to believers in Jesus Christ because only the believers in Jesus Christ possesses God's perfect righteousness that establishes capacity to receive direct blessing from God.

God's perfect righteousness resides in every believer from the moment of salvation. Therefore, the believer is qualified to receive direct blessing from God in the form of life support and lesser blessings under God's policy of logistical grace.

Unbelievers cannot receive direct blessing from God because they do not possess God's righteousness, unbelievers can only receive blessing by association with believers who do have God's imputed righteousness.

This is why what believers do is so critical to the client nation. The trends of history are completely dependent on believers under the principle of as go the believer so goes the client nation. This means that the problems our nation faces and the evil leadership we presently have are the result of believer's negative volition to God's mandates for their life after salvation.

Because of Jesus Christ's work on the cross grace is compatible with God's perfect justice. His policy of conveying logistical grace to all believers does not compromise God's integrity. Acknowledging any known sin to God for forgiveness and purification in rebound is compatible with the holiness or integrity of God for the same reason. 1John 1:9;

What the righteousness of God rejects, the justice of God condemns. What the righteousness of God accepts, the justice of God blesses. God's justice therefore administers what God's righteousness demands.

God personally loves His own perfect integrity. That is divine self-esteem. Divine self-esteem is the pattern for spiritual self-esteem and entrance into the first stage of the adult spiritual life. God's integrity is not cancelled because some members of the human race reject His provision of Jesus Christ as savior. Rom 3:3-4;

God is glorified simply because He made provision for mankind even if mankind rejects it. Psa 76:10;

God's integrity is not cancelled because believers fail to execute God's protocol plan for the church under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Mankind's lack of virtue or integrity does not cancel the God's integrity. We do not have the power or authority to cancel anything that God's does. This includes our salvation. Rom 11:29; This is why every believer is eternally secure in their salvation. 1Pet 1:5;

God's perfect justice is source of both judgment and condemnation as well as blessing and life support.

God's integrity or holiness is the infinite and absolute. It is intrinsic, eternal and immutable. God's integrity is not established or maintained by anything man does or doesn't do. God's righteousness therefore rejects all human self- righteousness. Isa 64:6;

God's righteousness demands perfect righteousness. What God's perfect righteousness demands God's perfect justice executes in both blessing and judgment. There is nothing mankind can do to destroy or compromise God's integrity because His integrity stands eternally, without any help from mankind.

Mankind's self righteous, do gooder legalism, and attempts to save the world or planet that are religion per 2Tim 3:5; do not promote God's integrity they blaspheme His integrity and are his enemy. God has found a way to bless mankind without compromising His integrity through the imputation of His righteousness to every believer at the moment of faith in Jesus Christ.

God is not glorified by man's sinfulness or man's self-righteousness. Only God's integrity or holiness advances God's glory. Only God can glorify God. This means that only what God provides in grace can glorify God.

What God has provided in grace including salvation by faith alone in Christ alone and rebound by naming your sins does not compromise God's' integrity. Man only glorifies God through cognition and utilization of God's grace provision.

The righteousness of God could have been compromised if human righteousness and human works were a part of salvation, but is not because human works and human righteousness are completely rejected by the requirement of faith alone for salvation.

We are born physically alive and spiritually dead because of the imputation of Adam's original sin to the genetically formed old sin nature. The only solution to spiritual death is faith alone in Christ alone.

Titus 3:5, "He saved us, not from works which we have done in righteousness, but as a result of His mercy, through the cleansing that brings about regeneration even renewal through the agency of the Holy Spirit."

Salvation by works is totally rejected because it compromises God's perfect righteousness. God's righteousness is often attacked by human righteousness by people who want to add something to faith alone in Christ alone for salvation

No one has ever been saved by being good. A spiritually dead person cannot produce any works that will ever provide salvation.

Mercy is grace in action. The last half of Titus 3:5; describes the mechanics of regeneration. God the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit and God the Father imputes His very own eternal life to the human spirit. Simultaneously, divine righteousness is imputed to the newly formed human spirit.

All human righteousness is unacceptable to God so it is never a part of His protocol plan. This includes entrance into His plan through salvation by faith in Christ. There is also no place for human righteousness in God's plan for the believer.

There is a sphere of human righteousness extrapolated from the laws of divine establishment for the unbeliever. When the unbeliever has integrity, it is human self- righteousness.

When the believer has integrity, it is all divine provision. The worst believer in history still posses God's righteousness.

Possession of God's righteousness is the basis for justification. Justification means that God's justice evaluates the believer's relationship to Himself on the basis of the fact that He has to possess eternal life and God's perfect righteousness..

The possession of God's righteousness and eternal life means God has found a way to bless us in our post-salvation life in sin infused mortal bodies without compromising His perfect righteousness.

Everything that has been given to us under His grace policy does not compromise God's righteousness. Divine righteousness cannot be compromised in the things that we receive from God at the moment we believe in Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus Christ was judged for our sins on the Cross, God's righteousness remains consistent under the doctrine of immutability and His perfect righteousness remains uncontaminated by any system of human works to acquire or retain anything from God.


God's righteousness remains intact to provide every Church Age believer the greatest spiritual life of human history that Jesus pioneered in his unglorified humanity. Heb 12:2;

Believers possess God's perfect righteousness so their point of reference is God's love but this relationship is maintained and secured by God's holiness that is comprised of His justice and His righteousness. God can personally love us because neither the justice of God nor the righteousness of God can ever be compromised.

What God does for us cannot compromise His justice or righteousness. This means that your self-righteousness is not the basis of God doing anything for you. Every blessing we have is on the solid ground of grace. People think of grace as God giving out something for free. That is wrong, because that would compromise His integrity.

Grace is an extension of the righteousness and justice of God. Grace is what God is free to do for mankind based on what Jesus Christ did on the cross.

There is love but no emotion in the essence of God, but God's love is not emotional. God has something far greater than emotion He has spirituality. Spirituality is not emotion. Everything that God has provided for us contributes to spirituality under the principle of metabolized doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

Emotion does not have the power of spirituality. Spiritual power that comes from the filling of God the Holy Sprit and the PMA of God's Word is from God so it does not compromise God's perfect essence

This does not mean we are emotionless. It means that whatever we respond to emotionally must be because of what God has provided. Spirituality initiates, emotion responds.

 

© Copyright 2007, Michael Lemmon Bible Ministries. World Rights Reserved.  This document was created on 10/21/2015