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| Justified freely by the grace of God is the CAUSE; Justified by your faith in Jesus Christ is an EFFECT. These are two distinct justifications: |
They are distinct
and separate acts.
One is the CAUSE,
the other is the EFFECT.
Justified freely by the grace of God is the CAUSE;
Justified by faith in Jesus Christ is an EFFECT.
Justification freely
by God's grace is NOT the justification by our faith.
In the justification
by God's free grace, there is the imputation of Christ's righteousness to your
account (as in Rom 3:24, 8:30)
In the justification
by your faith, there is the imputation of your faith to your account (like Gen
15:1-6 account)
The two are very
distinct and different acts.
Why do so many
confuse the EXPERIENTIAL justification by their faith as their LEGAL
justification by God's grace through their faith?
Why the confusion? Is it because many cannot differentiate between SOUND and SENSE anymore?
But many, at least
those who brand themselves after a Genevan, have enough sense to admit that
they must have life first in order to believe, i.e. regeneration precedes
faith.
However, stranger
still, there are those calvinists (the Reformed Baptists) here in malaysia who
insist that regeneration precedes faith, BUT ALSO that one must believe in
order to have eternal life (all stated in black and white in a official
theological paper issued in the names of 7 churches!) They say that
regeneration gives the ability! It gets more bizarre, implying that there can
be ability WITHOUT life.
How can't they see
the same truth that the removal of condemnation of death and bestowal of
righteousness of life in justification by God's free grace MUST PRECEDE the
activity of believing?
At least the Old
Baptists declared this: "The reason why any are justified IS NOT because
they have faith; but the reason why they have faith IS because they are
justified" - Circular Letter of the Philadelphia Baptist Association,
dated October 4, 1785.
But a whole new
generation has arisen that believes the EXACT opposite - all the modern
calvinists and the reformed baptists, the whole world over!
It looks like the time
spoken of by Apostle Paul is here:
3 For the time will
come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall
they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall
turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
'Fables' are
FICTIONS. The condemned (unjustified by God) believes in order to be justified
is a FICTION, and a deceiving lie.
Tom Sellier
What came first, the
chicken or the egg? We know the chicken came first because God created the
chicken with the ability to have baby chickens with the roosters help, of course, through the absolutely astounding process of a fertilized egg. Of all things. Nature
has no such imagination. Keith you are right but I have a slightly different
take on it. The reason is today's Christian has become a reader of christian
books written by men instead of students of the Bible. I say put down the books
and write your own.
Tom Sellier
And you know, Sing if
you look at who Jesus said He came for, most of us can't articulate the mechanics
of our salvation, but we KNOW we are saved. I just pray for the weaker that no
one be able to talk them out of their salvation because that is the goal of the
devil and his minions these last days.
Sing F Lau
Absolutely no one is
able to talk them out of their ETERNAL salvation... not even Satan himself.
Each one is as safe in the hand of Christ as ever.
But so many are
already deprived of their TEMPORAL salvation... having been deceived that their
justification before God is conditioned upon their faith! Where is assurance
and comfort from such a belief, if a man is honest before God?
A justification by
faith must necessarily be maintained by that same faith! And that is precarious
at best!
A justification
secured by faith shall logically, and justly, be forfeited by faithlessness.
There would be unending uncertainty to maintain that state of justification. Is
it faith of the right kind, is there enough faith, etc.. Where is assurance
with such uncertainty!
But if
justification, by God's free grace based on the solid foundation of Christ
finished and perfect righteousness ALONE, is evidenced by faith, then the
weakest faith in the Savior evidences that secured and completed and perfected
state of justification by God's free grace based on the equally secure,
complete and perfect righteousness of Christ.
Jason Sides
Sing while you and I
am sure agree with many of the writings of John Gill, I would like to ask you whether you evangelize as many do not believe John Gill promoted it; in fact have labelled him a hyper calvinist.
Sing F Lau
Brother Jason, some
of the greatest LIARS ever lived on earth would have to be those that accuse
John Gill of not evangelizing. He most certainly did evangelize, maybe not
their frivolous and men-centred 'finneyite' idea of evangelism.
Read these articles by George Ella to convince yourself that it was not for evangelism that they
charged Gill with hyper-Calvinism.
http://evangelica.de/articles/biographies/john-gill-and-the-charge-of-hyper-calvinism/
http://evangelica.de/articles/biographies/john-gill-and-his-successors/
Take a look. Ella is
a rare and objective theological historian!
And get hold of this
book and read for yourself and find out the FACTS about John Gill.
I wrote this satire:
'It is like a
Genevan who believes that milk and baby clothes are necessary for the
conception of a child, calling a Chinese brother a ‘hyper-calvinist’ just
because he believes that milk and baby clothes are necessary only for the
growth and development of the child already delivered. How bizarre can the
world get! It gets even more bizarre when a Genevan misrepresents the Chinese
brother as saying, “milk and baby clothes are not needed at all for newborn babes.”
A smart aleck ‘standard reformed’ brother boldly retorted, ‘If justification is
before faith, then there is no need of faith at all; then what need is there
for preaching!’ It is like a man saying to his wife, ‘darling wifey, you said
milk and baby clothes are not needed for the conception and the delivery of a
child, then what need is there to shop for these things for our baby?’ The
wifey rolled her eyes and said, ‘Get me the rolling pin, quick!
[pg 64 of 'A
Pruning of Seven Deformed Branches']
Sing F Lau
Amen, Brother Keith.
The principle of 'first thing first' will save many from deception and
delusion... I went through it all. It took quite a long while to wean myself
from ingrained errors. I went back to Scriptures, and unlearned lots of
man-centred (i.e. deluded Arminianism, and twisted Calvinism) errors. I am only
beginning to learn the Scriptures.
[Keith has deleted his comments!]
Jason Sides
Sing, can you send
the above article/hyperlink as a message to me, as I would like to share it with
some others.
