Frustrating the Grace of God, No. 4

Reconciliation and Sanctification - CSP004

The younger you are, the more important that should be. You can live a life that is not a bunch of bungling muddling around. You can live a life under divine wisdom guidance and under great empowerment. The older you are, the more you can appreciate the fact that grace enables you to keep making corrections in your course, and keeps you in line with God so that, until He takes you into His presence, you're very important in His service. The grace way of life means maximum blessings in time on earth, and maximum rewards in heaven for Christian service under the leading of the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:17

The Old Testament

In Christ

Frustrating the Grace of God

Either He means it, or He's lying to us when He says, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you." So what are you worried about? What is it that concerns you, that you would like to do for Him but you're just so afraid to step out on faith and live that life?" That is what this is all about – frustrating the grace of God. It is possible for you and me to be able to produce divine good works in God's service. The Jew had a very hard time doing that in the Old Testament. The whole 613 laws of the Old Testament system were not to be able to develop somebody spiritually. They were to show the Jews that they could not make it on their own, and that they were bummers from the word "go." It took an act of God to carry them through. They had to constantly be dependent upon walking by these rules and these regulations, so that they were under the blessings of God.

We may summarize the difference this way: In the Old Testament, the principle was, "If you'll be good, I'll bless you." But in the New Testament, it says, "Be good, because I've already blessed you with all heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus. You've got it all. There isn't anything now more than what God has already given you. You've got it all." The problem is to live under that kind of a marvelous system of grace blessing.

Producing divine good works in God's service, and storing treasures in heaven as rewards to enjoy for all eternity – that's possible for us, but never before. The old way of life was enslaved to the sin nature. The unsaved man who was out of Christ had no hope at all. But that's all gone for us. All of the Christian's daily life is now under the potential power and wisdom of the indwelling Holy Spirit. I am telling you, the more you stay in temporal fellowship; quit saying, "No" to God; quit grieving Him with unconfessed sin; and, quit walking in dependence upon human capacity instead of by means of the Holy Spirit, you're going to find that prayer becomes an enormous potential power in your life. "I will never leave you nor forsake you. Whatever you ask in My name, within that which is the will of God, which is what the name of Christ represents, you will absolutely have it. I don't care how simple or humble a thing it is in your life, God is interested in it. All of a Christian's daily life is now potentially under that power.

So that's why it does grieve us when we look around at Christians we know. Some of them are our relatives, and they do not interest themselves in the things of God. They have a life where they wake up in the morning; they go off to some employment; they earn a livelihood; they sit down; they eat; they come home; they eat; they sit in front of the television; they work on their house; they work on this thing or that thing; they work on their investments; and, then they go to bed. The next day, they get up and repeat it all again. But they're never focused upon what they can do for the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what life is all about under grace. These people are all under grace, but they're all acting as if they were poor, incompetent, graceless Jews of Judaism.

The Doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

Powerful preaching voices in our world, on television especially, are there telling people things that are wrong. They are teaching exactly what is the opposite of the course of blessing for them. These are all the people that everybody folds their hands in awe and admiration over. They are false leaders. Yet, they are genuine in what they think they're doing. And the place they all miss it is on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Here's the summary:

1. We pointed out in the previous session that the baptism of the Holy Spirit did not occur in the New Testament era before the day of Pentecost. That was the first day on which it occurred.
   
   
2. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was predicted by the Lord Jesus Christ. It was to come following His ascension to heaven 2,000 years ago. It could not come until He went back to heaven.
   
   
3. At the point of salvation, the believer is permanently entered into the Lord Jesus Christ. This is in contrast to being in Adam, which is a place of death. To be in Christ is eternal life. To be in Adam is to be in the place of eternal death. That is what has become new. You are no longer in Adam. As God looks upon you, you are now in Christ. That's the new thing that is taking place. The potential of what you can be in Christ is enormous, but it takes knowing doctrine, and it takes living by the principles of the techniques of the Christian life.
   
   
4. The baptism of the Holy Spirit creates a bond of unity with all Christians in the royal family of God. We have a special attachment to one another. We have our relatives, and they make us shake our heads. But our Christian brethren (the worst of them) are held in our esteem because we have a special relationship to them in the family of God.
   
   
5. The baptism of the Holy Spirit creates a genuine equality of believers before God without any social distinctions. It doesn't matter who you are. You're on the same ground in the family of God as the result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
   
   
6. The baptism of the Holy Spirit identifies believers retroactively with Christ on the cross. It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that puts you into what Christ did on the cross, so you were, in effect, hanging there with Him, paying the penalty of death.
   
   
7. The baptism of the Holy Spirit began the dispensation of the church. The church did not exist in the Old Testament because the baptism of the Holy Spirit was not in the Old Testament. In Matthew 16:18, the Lord has been interrogating Peter concerning what he thought about the Lord Jesus: Who is it that He is? And Peter says, "You are the Christ, that is the Messiah, the son of the living God. You are the God man Messiah."

   In verse 17, Jesus said to Peter," Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father, who is in heaven." Jesus was saying, "That was a tremendous thing for you to say that, Peter, and for you to recognize that I am the God man, and that I am the Messiah Savior that God has promised to Israel, and thus, to the gentiles. The rabbis didn't teach this to you. They don't understand it. They all reject Me as such. But, Peter, you have seen through to the truth."

   Then Jesus makes a declaration. It is interesting that this first mention of the new species of human beings (Christians in the body of Christ, called the church), is when Jesus is outside the borders of Israel. They have crossed over into gentile territory when they are having this meeting. They are over in the district of Caesarea Philippi. They are outside of the borders, and it's almost symbolic that there is something new, and this new thing has to do, particularly, with gentiles.

   Yes, it began with Jews. For seven years, it rolled along, and nobody but Jews were becoming Christians. Nobody but Jews were entering the body of Christ. Nobody but Jews were experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then they came to the household of Cornelius, the military man, the Centurion. And there, for the first time, the crossover was made to bringing in the first gentiles into the body of Christ. Then as things got rolling, the Jews turned more and more against the gospel of the grace of God, and the gentiles received it more and more readily. Pretty soon, the gentiles became the dominant group within the body of Christ.

   So fittingly, Jesus tells these disciples something that He had never told them before. They wondered really what it was that he was saying to them, because they all thought He was going to set up the kingdom. That's what He came for. They all thought now that the kingdom was going to be set up, and the millennium was going to begin.

   So in verse 18, after Peter's profession of confidence and faith in Christ as Messiah Savior, Jesus said, "And I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock." Here you have to have a little Greek, and we don't want to get too much into that. But the name "Peter" means "little pebble." But the word "rock" means "big boulder." There are two different Greek words that the Holy Spirit put in there. This is because Peter is not the foundation of the church. He is not the one upon whom this new species of human beings, the church body, will be built. That's what the Catholics say, and they use this verse. But because we know a little Greek, we know that they are wrong. When Jesus uses "rock," the big boulder, He's pointing back to the confession and the profession of Peter that, "You are the Christ. You are the Son of the living God." That is the basis on which the church is built.

   So he says, "Peter (little pebble), upon this rock (the boulder of your confession) I will build My church." There are five dramatic words. "I" indicates that Jesus Christ will do the building. "Will" indicates that it's in the future, and it has not been done before. "Build" indicates that it's going to gradually be built – block-upon-block. "My" indicates that it will belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. "Church" ("ekklesia") indicates an assembly of separated believers – a new species from all the rest of humanity and all the rest of believers through all the ages.

   And he says, "The gates of hell are not going to overpower this institution of the church." So, indeed, it has never been able to do.

   The baptism of the Holy Spirit was, in effect, predicted by Jesus Christ when he predicted that the church was going to come. In Acts 1:5, Jesus makes another statement that follows up on this: "For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. To be specific, this meant ten days. That baptism of the Holy Spirit had never occurred before. It was going to happen. With that baptism, the church was born.

   He had said to them, "I'm going to build my church." That's all He said. The full information on that had to be revealed by the Holy Spirit to the writers of the New Testament Scriptures. "John has baptized you with water. Now you're going to have a different kind of baptism – something has never happened to people before." When you're baptized, you're baptized to associate with something. That's what the word "baptism" means. It means "to associate." "You are going to be associated with a new body of believers – the church."

   When did this happen? It happened in Acts 2:3. Please notice all these believers (120 of them in the upper room) on the day of Pentecost, ten days after Jesus had ascended: "And there appeared to them tongues as a fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them." Then verse 4 tells us that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and the evidence of that experience was to speak in foreign languages as the spirit gave them utterance.

   That was predicted in Isaiah. We're not going to go back to that here, but Isaiah said, "When God comes along and He begins His new work, the sign is going to be speaking in languages other than Hebrew – in foreign tongues. What will be spoken? The marvels of the grace of God – the salvation work. That was an amazing prediction by Isaiah.

   So how do we know that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is what actually took place here? Well, we have to go over to chapter 11, so we can clarify it, because that's very important. In Acts 11:15-17, Peter, seven years later, has been called to Joppa, to the home of the Centurion. He had that marvelous experience. Now he goes back to the other apostles, and he has to defend the fact that he has declared that these gentiles are part of the church as well. The other church leaders and the other Christians, being Jews, resisted this. So Peter says, "I'll tell you why I know that that's the truth. I'll tell you what happened to them. I stood there and I was amazed as much as all of you that this was happening to these gentiles for my very eyes."

   In Acts 11:15-17, Peter says, "As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning (on the day of Pentecost). I remembered the words of the Lord, how He used to say, 'John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' If God therefore gave to them the same gift (the gift of the Holy Spirit) as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who am I that I could stand in God's way." Of course, Peter was quite right. But from this passage, we know what happened on the day of Pentecost. They were baptized by the Holy Spirit, and at the same time they were filled.

   The baptism only happens once, because you can only be placed into Christ once. You can't ever get back out. But the filling is the power base. That's the power dynamic of the Christian life. You are in fellowship with God your heavenly Father. You have all known sins confessed. You're not saying, "No" to him when He places a burden upon your heart to do something in His service. You're not grieving Him by your moral conduct. You're walking not in dependence upon your cleverness; your smarts; and, your sin nature capacity. You're walking by means of the Holy Spirit, which is a lot nicer. He's telling you where to find the things you lost. He's telling you what you should do with your life, and with your possessions. He's telling what to do with your time. And that's a lot better way of living.

   So here he reminds us of what he told the apostles: "You understood the baptism with water. Now you're going to get a different kind of baptism that has never taken place in the world before. And, lo and behold, it also happens now to gentiles." So Peter said, "That's how I knew that they were in the body of Christ too, and that they were in the church. They had the same identifying experience as we did."

   This is where the charismatics blow it. They say, "You're saved, and then someplace down the line, you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Pat Robertson is forever running little programs on TV, and in all the places he goes, for people to take some actions in a public forum who want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

   I used to have a couple of women in our church years ago when I first came, and I remember one of them, particularly, standing up one evening and giving her testimony. She said, "On such-and-such a day, I was saved. Then, on such-and-such a day (sometime later), I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit." And I cringed. I knew I had somebody with a false doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and the devil was having a field day with it. That's what he has done to the charismatics.

   What is the result? The result is that they have to do everything by emotions. They have to do everything on the basis of human capacity. They're not producing divine good. They're producing a lot of wonderful works that are human good. You should cringe and fear God, and pray that He would protect you from wasting your life and your means on human good works.

   The baptism of the Holy Spirit began on the day of Pentecost; that's when the church dispensation began; and that's when the body of Christ started to be formed. How long is it going to go? When the last person who belongs in that body is saved, that will close the era. We are now living in the final stages of the building process of the church age. We are now in that final stage of developing the body of Christ. That's why the United States now is in a turmoil of self-destruction, and it will continue in that self-destruction. Just wait until you see what happens in this coming presidential election. You may find a big surprise. If the potential happens, start packing your bags, folks, because the Lord is at hand.

   In fact, I think the Lord gave me an idea the other day. I was thinking about some Scripture, and I thought to myself, "I should end every service at Berean Church with that little biblical phrase, "The Lord is at hand." That would be just to remind us what our timespan is. We're not living back 2,000 years ago. We're living in the climactic end of the dispensation of the church.

8. The baptism of the spirit is the basis of current positional truth – the truth relative to our daily lives. Ephesians 1:3-6: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Do you see what I told you a moment ago? There is nothing more that God has that you can earn in blessings than what you already have been allotted. You've got it all. The problem is entering into what He has given you. There are blessings to enjoy in time, and then blessings to take along with you into eternity. When you have spiritual blessings, you have material blessings. As 2 John says, "I want you to be in as good health as you are in good spiritual health." The more mature you are spiritually, the more it affects your physical body.

   Verse 4: Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." Yes, the old song in some of the hymn books says, "I found him. Oh, I found him," referring to the time that you found Christ and salvation. Yes, you found Him. But this verse tells you that you weren't looking for Him when you found Him. He was looking for you, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Before He ever created the world, He named every one of us and said, "I want you in the royal family of the church age." Things were set in motion, from the time of our spiritual birth, and the time of our entrance into that family. "Before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love." We should be holy living under the filling of the Holy Spirit, and we should be blameless – not sinless, but blameless. How do you live the blameless life in the age of grace? You live it by admitting when you're out of line with the Spirit of God. That's confession. Confession of known sins is what "blameless" means. While you are a sinner, yet nobody can accuse you of anything. Nobody can hold you in blame. God will not hold you in blame.

   Please remember that it is 1 Corinthians 11 that says, "If you would judge yourself, I won't have to judge you. If you admit where you're out of line, where you're resisting my will, then I won't have to hit you over the head to get you in line. Verse 5: He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will." Some of us might think that He decided to predestine us to salvation because of our pleasant personalities. We're so wonderful; we're so gifted; we're so capable; we move through the world; and, the world is impressed with us. Of course, God wants us in His family.

   No, He predestined us. You didn't predestine yourself. You didn't choose to go to heaven. He chose it for you, and then He worked on your will so that you chose to accept Christ, "As sons through Jesus Christ to Himself. According to what? "According to the kind intention of His will." What does "kind intention" mean in Greek? "His good pleasure." That's pretty nice. God said, "You know, I brought you into My family because I enjoy having you there." It's pretty bad when somebody brings us under His wing as God has to us, so that He could enjoy us, then we act like rats so that He does not enjoy what He has done for us.

   Why did He do this? He did this, "To the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the beloved." He did this to freely bestow on us. He did this by His grace, and He did this so that He could bestow on us the marvelous position of being in the beloved. I think it is time to resurrect that choir number that we used to sing out of the old Old-Fashioned Revival Hour songbook, "In the Beloved." That was a terrific hymn based upon this: to be in Christ.

   We're back to what? The baptism of the Holy Spirit. That's what happens at the point of salvation. Is it any wonder that the devil has loused up and botched up this doctrine in the minds of people? That's exactly what you would expect him to do.

9. And finally, the baptism of the Spirit is not an experience. It does not include speaking in tongues or ecstatics. We know this in part from 1 Corinthians 12:13. It says, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body." This word "baptized" is in the Greek aorist tense. That is a tense that says, "Here, once and for all." The Greek present tense says it happens again and again, repeatedly. But when it's aorist, right away, we know we were all baptized. Furthermore, how many of us? We were all baptized. All of you nice guys, or you lowlife guys, we were all baptized into the body. Whether Jews or Greeks; or, slaves or free? And we were all made to drink of the Spirit. We were all filled with the Holy Spirit. That is our heritage. Because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we're in, and it happens only once, because once you're in the family of God, you cannot get yourself unborn again.

Hebrews 12:14-15

Peace through Reconciliation

There was the Jew, and he had his Judaism. There were the gentiles, and they had their religious practices. If they came under Judaism, they came into spiritual understanding. Now, God has abolished the Mosaic Law. Don't be disturbed when I tell you that if a Jew did not give 10% of his income to God, he was robbing God. That's what Malachi says. But if a Christian gives only 10% of his income to God, he's robbing God. The Jew only owed God 10%. 90% was his. The Christian doesn't have any part of it. He is the steward of God, and it all belongs to God. If all you give is 10%, and you could give more, you're robbing God. You don't need more. You could well do without a lot of what you're holding. You're robbing God.

Now, you can do that. But I guarantee you, when you come to the Judgment Seat of Christ, the Lord's going to say, "Why on the earth were you sitting on 10% when you knew better (that was Jewish stuff), and you stole what was Mine? Why did you think that that would be better for you – that I would prosper you in your endeavors in life on earth, and that I would reward you here in heaven?" Well, it is very short-sighted. He himself is our peace. He abolished the law in His flesh (in His death on the cross). He fulfilled the law. The law is gone.

Verse 16: "And he might reconcile them both (Jews and gentiles) in one body to God through the cross (the body of Christ – the church), by it having put to death the enmity" (that is, the antagonism between them.) Then he quotes Scripture: "And He came and preached peace to those who were far off (we gentiles) and peace to those who are near (the Jews). For through Him, we both (Jew and gentile) have our access in one Holy Spirit to the Father." It is a pity that so many Jews don't understand that. They're trying to get to God by bypassing Jesus Christ. When they bypass Jesus Christ, they bypass the power of the Holy Spirit which would bring them into a relationship with God so they have peace with God.

Sanctification

"And raised us up with Him." You died with Christ in the sight of God, and when Christ was raised up with sin paid for, your sins were paid for. "He raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heaven in Christ Jesus." Remember where you're located. As far as God is concerned, you are to act as if you're walking in heaven every day. You're associated with the angels. You're associated with the believers. You're associated with the Lord Jesus Christ. So don't be a crumb bum.

"In order that in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." That's why we refer to grace-age believers as trophies of the grace of God. God wants to show us off: "Do you see what I did with this man? Do you see what I did with this woman? Look at the way they live now. Look at the way that I am their all-in-all. Their life revolves around the Lord Jesus Christ, and serving Him, and looking for the day of coming to be with Him."

Then comes our familiar verse 8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that (salvation) not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast." But having been saved, so what? Where do you go from here? Well, here's verse 10:

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." The grace Christian does not sit back on a bed of roses. He has power to move heaven in behalf of himself and all those about him. That's the grace power system. We are God's workmanship, and we have been created by the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Christ. Why? For good works. Which good works? The ones that God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in Him.

If you walk in openness with the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're walking in fellowship with God your heavenly Father, He's going to burden your heart for what you should do in His service, and you will know this is what He wants you to do: "Sam, this is what I want you to do." "Suzie, this is what I want you to do. This is what my purpose is for your life."

God is free to treat Christians in grace because of the divine work of these two acts: reconciliation; and, sanctification. We've all received total reconciliation that has brought us into peace with God. Once we were back-to-back. Then Christ provided the payment. And now, when we turn, we're face-to-face. We're reconciled to Him. Our clock is set to the divine clock. That's what reconciliation means. And we now have sanctification. We have been made holy. We have been made how holy? As holy as Jesus Christ. We are as perfect in God's sight as His Son. No one could come to God apart from these two realities: the peace that comes from reconciliation; and, the sanctification that comes from our union with Jesus Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

In Hebrews 12:15, we enter the astounding marvels of the consequences of having been reconciled to God's standard of absolute righteousness (as perfect as Christ), and having been sanctified (having been set apart in Christ) to be a new species of human being. Then we have the sobering warning. Make no mistake. The first line of verse 15 is a warning: "See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God." Nothing is more tragic in the Christian life than to fall from grace, and to frustrate the grace of God that He has ready to pour out into your life, because you've lost your way with the world's system.

Next time, we shall look at this very solemn warning, and we shall look at the terrible consequences if we do not pay attention to staying within the great system of living to which we've been called.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1999

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