How To "Obey The Gospel" of Jesus Christ

The Apologetic Dog

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You said that this was essentially one of those things that led you out of the Church of Christ, is studying the doctrine of imputation, double imputation, the great exchange.

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I've heard Caleb Robertson on another occasion make this same argument. He, I remember it quite clearly, he got up on TV, he took his

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Bible, he crossed his arms, and he bowed his head, and I'm not working my way to heaven.

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I'm just trusting on the blood of Jesus. That's all I'm trusting on. You cannot say in the same breath, all you're doing is trusting in the finished, of the sacrifice of Christ, and then insist that one is justified by a system of faith.

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No unbelieving Jew would disagree with the gospel presentation that Caleb presents.

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And all of the Second Temple Judaism, and the sources, they all centered around one thing.

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Grace got you into the covenant, but it was maintained by your behavior. If their understanding of Habakkuk 2 .4

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is the understanding of a unbelieving Jew, then the unbelieving

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Jew would say yes and amen, we agree with everything on what you're saying, it's just we don't agree with the idea that Jesus is the

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Messiah. And that was not what the only thing that the unbelieving Jews were against them at that time.

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But as you saw here, they have a way of redefining this. They have a lens that they read these verses through, and they say, of course

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I believe that. Of course my faith is credited as righteousness. But did you also read what

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David is quoted in Romans 4 .7? It's the forgiveness of sins, Jeremiah.

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It's not imputation of actual righteousness, it's only the forgiveness of sins.

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And when it's not my righteousness, that means I don't make up my plan to get into heaven.

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I just follow the faith as delivered by Christ. And he's promised to save me. Don't you believe,

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Jeremiah? Don't you believe what Jesus had to say? Why don't you do what he has to say? But when you're a careful student of the word, these phrases don't just appear out of nowhere in the

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New Testament. They are rich in the Old Testament. They have preceded this time that they're quoted in the

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New Testament. For example, the notion of God's righteousness,

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Zephaniah 3 .5, the Lord within her is righteous. He does no injustice.

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Every morning he shows forth his justice. Each dawn he does not fail. This is something that God actively does, the perfection of God himself.

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And this notion of our righteousness being a plan that we come up with, actually the law says in Deuteronomy 6 .5,

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and it will be righteousness for us, or some versions say our righteousness if we are careful to do all the commandments before the

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Lord our God as he commanded us. Sound familiar, guys? Matthew 6 .1,

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beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.

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These were things that God had commanded for the covenant people to obey. It was their righteousness.

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It's not made up. And also, Ezekiel 18 and verse nine says, defines the person who is righteous.

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It's the person who follows my statutes and faithfully keeps my ordinance. That man is righteous.

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That's the person who will live. So it's something far more than just simple forgiveness.

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You have to have that positive righteousness or you cannot stand before our holy

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God. Their gospel message is not the message that Jesus delivered on the

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Sermon on the Mount. And I want to really hone in on that. Some of the opening words that Jesus gave in Matthew 5 .6

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were, blessed are those who are hungry and thirsting after righteousness, because, get out there and do it for yourself.

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No, because they will be satisfied. That is a future passive verb.

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This is something that Jesus gives to people, to him, who believe in him.

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And he told people that they should be seeking the kingdom of God first and his righteousness in Matthew 6 .33.

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And Paul made this absolutely clear as to what this righteousness is about in Romans eight through four.

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For that which is impossible with regards to law in that it was being weak through the flesh,

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God did by sending his son in likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh in order that what the righteous requirements of the law may be fulfilled in us who are not walking according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

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It's not enough to have your sins forgiven, folks. You have to have positive righteousness to be considered righteousness, considered righteous.

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I want you to really think about what John the Apostle said in Revelation three, verse 18.

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Jesus counseled church people of all people, I counsel you to buy from me gold purified by fire in order that you might be rich.

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It's not enough to pay your debts. Jesus wants to make you rich.

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You can't take the gospel message that's being preached by the churches of Christ and come out as someone who's rich in the eyes of God when you accept

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Jesus. The only reason why we are in Christ is because of what

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God did for us. And first Corinthians one in verse 30. The only reason why we have any reason to boast is because we are people who boast in the

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Lord. Jeremiah the prophet said when he prophesied concerning the future restoration of Jerusalem, that Jerusalem will be called the

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Lord is our righteousness. This was a central message of the gospel, the hope of Israel people.

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This isn't a trivial issue. This is what the prophets were hoping for.

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But instead we have people who are just as Paul says in Romans 10 in verse three and verse four, they're ignorant of the righteousness of God and they're seeking to establish their own righteousness and they won't submit to the righteousness of God.

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Why? Because the end of the law is Christ.

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It results in righteousness to everybody who believes. That's what

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Jesus wants for us. And that is not the message that the churches of Christ preach. They are keeping

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Jesus from you. Jesus has a perfect gift that he wants to share with everybody who believes in him.

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And I know there are people who believe in him in the churches of Christ who are in desperate need of hearing that.

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They live in shame, they live in fear. They live in doubt because they don't have assurance.

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When God looks at you, he sees Jesus. That's important folks.

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And don't anybody walk away and say, this is a doctrine that Martin Luther came up with or John Calvin came up with.

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Because you can go to the second century and read something called the epistle to Dionysius.

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And it tells us, oh, the sweet exchange, the inscrutable creation, the unexpected benefits that the iniquity of many should be concealed in one righteous man.

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The righteousness of one should justify many that are iniquitous. Having in them their former time demonstrated the inability of our nature to obtain life and having now revealed a savior able to save even creatures which have no ability.

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He willed that for both reasons, we should believe in his goodness and should regard him as a nurse, a father, a teacher, a counselor, a physician, mind, light, honor, glory, strength, and life.

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There are people as early as the second century who noticed this. It wasn't a sea of darkness.

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The gospel shined as a pure light even then. There were people saying your only hope is the exchange that Jesus offers.

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There is no exchange with the church of Christ. It's a false hope. It's not the gospel of Christ.