Peace With God, Christ In You The Hope Of Glory

Having been ordained by God as an exhorter in the church, and being a proponent of the Arminian theological persuasion, I have had a propensity throughout my ministry to both encourage and warn myself and other Christian believers to pursue and perfect holiness in reverence of God. I have consistently and continuously written on the benefits of doing this and the dangerous and devastating consequences of failing to do so. Namely, death, Hell, and every negative thing in between. I believe my exhortations are in keeping with the teachings found in the scriptures, therefore, they are necessary and essential to a vital and valid spiritual life in Christ. Nevertheless, in this approach, there is the danger of focusing more on our sins, instead of focusing on Christ and His atonement for our sins! In my attempts to deter my readers from giving license to their sins, my exhortations could be construed as a legalistic approach to sanctification. God forbid!

Religious legalism is grossly lacking and devoid of the benefits of the revelation of grace through faith because no human flesh can be justified in God's eyes through adhering to a set of rules, regulations, or laws. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for every one who believes." The flesh (sin nature) has been judged and crucified through the cross of Christ, therefore we must not try to justify or save it through works of law. Instead, we must reckon it dead! To attempt to reform the flesh through imposing laws upon it would be the equivalent of putting the cart before the horse. Good works follow a living faith in God, not the other way around. “Show me your faith without your works (of faith), and I will show you my faith by my works (of faith.)” “It is faith alone that saves, but faith that saves is not alone." Therefore, to get this wrong by attempting to justify oneself through adhering to rules, regulations, and/or laws, as opposed to exercising a living faith in the living God, would lead only to frustration. It would also lead to religious pride and therefore would seriously hamper our progress on the road leading to peace with God. “God gives grace to the humble but resist the proud.”


Peace with God is not available to human beings through giving them a license to sin, nor is it available through imposing legalism on them in an attempt to deter their sins. Peace with God is only available by grace through faith based on trusting God's promises and obeying His commandments. As the old hymn of the church rightly proclaims, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, we must trust and obey." Nevertheless, to encourage obedience to Christ's commandments without equally encouraging a trust in His promises could result in an imbalanced emphasis on sound Christian doctrine and distort the full council of God.


So, I’m concerned that in my efforts to encourage faithfulness to God’s commandments regarding the pursuit and perfecting of holiness, I may have inadvertently diminished my readers’ faith in Christ’s accomplished work on the cross by consistently pointing out the dangers of continuing in our persistent, willful, deliberate, highhanded, and rebellious sins.


"Now abide faith, hope, and love, these three!" We must not neglect the importance of our hope in Christ regardless of our moral failings and sins. The revelation that we need to abide in is "Christ in us the hope of glory." And this must be trusted in because of and in spite of our sins!


This essential revelation also incorporates the fact that our old man was executed with Christ at His crucifixion, and our sins were judged in His broken and bruised flesh. Now, through His resurrection from the dead, we have been granted a new life of righteousness in Him. In other words, we were made innocent of our past transgressions and actually made new creations in Christ Jesus. To neglect this great truth, while only focusing on our need to pursue and perfect holiness, would be a terrible oversight indeed. The reason that this is true is because our faith in Christ’s redemptive work on the cross is the very means to our sanctification in Him! The revelation that accompanies our faith in Christ’s redemptive work that not only grants us forgiveness for our sins, but also deliverance from them, is the very revelation that gives us the power “not to let sin dwell in our mortal bodies that we should obey it in the lust, thereof.”


If I am guilty of neglecting this fundamental truth or not emphasizing it sufficiently, please know that it was not my intention to do so. I hope to balance out this potential oversight through this teaching. I pray that in doing so, I will become more accurate in rightly dividing the word of truth, by not only warning Christian believers to obey Christ's commandments, but also by encouraging them to completely trust in His great and precious promises. We must know that the essence of our Christian faith is a trust and reliance upon Christ for salvation.


In other words, in order for us to have peace with God, we must learn not to focus on our sins, but to focus on God’s faithfulness to "perfect that which concerns us." We must know that, "He is faithful to complete the work that He began." We must learn to trust in His faithfulness to, "sanctify us wholly, spirit, soul, and body unto the coming of the Lord." "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace."

On the cross, "Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Jesus testified of Himself, "As the serpent was lifted up on a pole in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. For if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me."

In the wilderness, God brought forth His judgment against the Hebrew people because of their complaining against Him and His servant, Moses. This judgment was executed through the manifesting of deadly serpents in the camp. Many of the people were dying from the bites of these poisonous serpents. When the people repented of their sins, God in His mercy commanded Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and place it on a pole. When the people gazed upon the serpent on the pole, they were healed of the deadly bites that they had received and lived.

MERCY REJOICES AGAINST JUDGMENT

Jesus identified Himself with the serpent on the pole when He, the sinless Son of God, allowed Himself to become sin on the cross on our behalf and in our stead. He, Himself partook of death and Hell on the cross, which are the just judgments for our sins so that we would not have to! "Mercy rejoices against judgment."

As Christian believers, we must keep our eyes and minds stayed on the accomplished work of Christ on the cross, instead of focusing on our sins if we want to have peace with God. For "He was wounded for or transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and by his stripes we are healed."

"Therefore, being justified (made innocent) by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Paul addressed many of the churches, with these words of encouragement; "Grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ." He also said, "The kingdom of Heaven is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Regardless of our many failings on a multitude of human levels, we must not focus on them beyond our confessing and forsaking them. We must rather keep our eyes on the Prize if we are to have peace with God, because we have this promise, "I will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Me."

The Holy Spirit will convict us of our sins leading us to godly sorrow, repentance, and faith towards God. Satan will accuse us of our sins and seek to cause us to feel condemned for them. If we allow him to do this, it will drive us further and further from God. We must not give him any place in our hearts and minds. We must protect ourselves against the wiles of the devil through putting on the breastplate of righteousness (the free gift of right standing with God) and the helmet of salvation. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!" "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Christian believers are saved (justified), are being saved (sanctified), and will be saved (glorified) through the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. It is through His grace and faithfulness that we are saved.
Thus says the Lord,"My arm is not short that I cannot save." “Bless the Lord oh my soul and forget not all of His benefits, who forgives all your sins, and who heals all your diseases.”

Again, it is only through beholding Him and His accomplished work on the cross, as opposed to focusing on our sins, that we can have peace with God. This does not mean that we are not responsible to acknowledge, confess, and forsake our sins when convicted of the Holy Spirit. It simply means that we are not to focus on them, but rather to gaze intently upon Christ and His atonement which covers our past, present, and future sins with His own blood.

"They turned their faces unto Him and were radiant, and their faces did not blush with shame."

Following are lyrics from a song that the Lord gave me. I think it would be a good way to sum up this lesson.

I Look Away To You
© 1994 Rob Johnson

I look away to You,
and I see my righteousness,
I look away to You,
and I see my holiness,
I look away to You,
and I see my innocence,
In you O God, in you my God.

I look away to You,
and I see my joyfulness,
I look away to You,
and I see my peacefulness,
I look away to You,
and I see my healthiness,
In You O God, in You my God.

I will be satisfied
when I awake in His likeness.
I travail again in birth,
till Christ is formed in you.
When He returns,
we will see Him as He is,
for we’ll be like Him,
we’re going to be just like Him!

But now I look away to You,
and I see my righteousness,
I look away to You,
and I see my holiness,
I look away to You,
and I see my innocence,
In You O God, in You my God.

We must learn to look away to Him in faith, not focus on our failures and faults, if we are going to have peace with God.

The other day, an unbelieving associate of mine, who I had witnessed to in the past, pointed out something that he had observed in my life that was not, in his estimation, in keeping with my Christian testimony and witness. He had actually done this kind of thing before on more than one occasion by pointing out what he perceived to be a couple of my shortcomings that were not in keeping with his understanding of the Christian message that I claimed to follow. Regrettably, this dear fellow appears to be possessed of a judgmental and critical spirit and is full of humanistic pride. He is a very accomplished, intelligent, and self-disciplined individual and apparently quite proud of it. We have discussed his humanistic leanings on more than one occasion and I have pointed out to him the scriptural reality that, “pride goes before a fall.” He has also told me that he has a problem with the claims of Christ to be the only way to the Father and seems to have a greater problem with folks like me who believe this and preach it.

On the particular day mentioned, he and I, as well as a couple of other guys that we work with, were going out to lunch. He accused me of the sin of vanity because I didn’t want to ride in a convertible and mess up my hair. I had long hair at the time, and the weather was hot and humid. We were going to be working with some top executives in our company later that day, and I wanted to keep as neat as possible instead of looking like a porcupine! He was incensed and outraged at my concern about my appearance and called me “Sally” in front of my fellow associates! We all had a good laugh at that snide remark, especially me.

Later, while we were all at lunch, he asked me if vanity was in keeping with my Christian witness. I quickly agreed with him on his assessment of my being vain, and then I said, "Hey buddy, I’m full of sins, thank God for Jesus!" God’s peace was upon me, and my associates, including this dear fellow, were notably impacted by my loving, honest, humble, and faith filled response. Rather than allowing him, or myself, to focus on my perceived “shortcoming,” I turned our attention to the goodness of Christ and His accomplished work on the cross on our behalf and in our stead!

The moral of this lesson is, let’s keep our eyes on the Lord’s victory and not on our defeats, because the battle is the Lord’s, and the victory is ours!


"His strength is made perfect in weakness and His grace is more than sufficient for our salvation."