Old Testament people were unable to fully obey the Law, not knowing God’s purpose for the Law was never for them to keep it, but for the Law to bring everyone to Christ Jesus (Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:19, 21-25), for the Old Testament is explained in the New Testament.
When the Lord Jesus, the resurrected Christ, died on Calvary’s cross, two amazing things happened: 1) God baptized all humanity into Jesus so we all died when Jesus died (Romans 6:1-3; 2 Corinthians 5:14), and 2) God heard and answered Jesus’ prayer on the cross (Luke 23:34), by giving us new life—making all who believe and receive Jesus as supreme Lord—newly created in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), as if we had never lived or sinned.
But this raises a question. If all humanity was baptized into Jesus so all humanity died when He died, then all humanity should already be dead to sin and alive in Jesus, the Christ (Romans 6:4-14). The answer is in verse 11, where we are to “reckon” (a bookkeeping word meaning “thoroughly check our account”); for Dr.
Samuel Horton told me, “God put us into Jesus for Him to remove our sickness and sin, and God put Jesus into us for His healing, health, righteousness, and likeness to become our likeness” (John 17:22-23;1 Corinthians 1:30-31; 2 Corinthians 5:21), because as His body, we become what He is (1 John 4:17; Romans 8:29).
This is why Hebrews 2:1-4, commands us to keep our salvation (Christ Jesus—Luke 2:30), in an active, personal relationship with Him (John 15:1-17), and never neglect but cherish our sweet, intimate, personal relationship with Christ, our Salvation, for then we would become “lukewarm”; neither hot or cold; thus, He would vomit us out of Him right into the lake of eternal fire (Revelation 3:15-16).
We taught our young children truth, when we taught them to put their little hand over their heart, when we asked them where Jesus lived, for they truly believed Jesus lived in their heart, and God honored their faith (Hebrews 11:6), but we destroyed their faith as teens. We told them they had to repent of their sins and receive “another” Jesus, in order to be a Christian.
Now as teens and young adults, they struggle with faith, believing they must diligently seek God, hoping in some way, He will forgive their “wickedness” and let them become Christians.
Faith is not in the seeking but in the believing; faith believes God and His word; believes God’s word the way it says, and not what fits someone’s doctrine (1 John 5:1).
We fail to understand who our Lord is, for Acts 2: 36, says He is “both Lord and Christ”; and Colossians 3:23-24, says we “serve the Lord Christ”. Then Jesus, as Lord, did for us all God requires us to do (Philippians 2:5-11); and Jesus, as Christ, became for us all God requires us to become (Colossians 2:8-10); therefore, all God now requires of us is to believe, love, and obey our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s precious Son (John 16:33; 1 John 5:1-5). Just believe God’s word!
Jim Nabors
