Click on the number of the question to go its answer.
1. What is sin?
2. What is death?
3. What is the relation of death to sin for Adam?
What is the relation of death to sin for Adam's descendants?
4. Explain how God reconciles us to Himself.
5. Explain how God "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24) delivers man from sin.
6. Explain how Christ's death as a propitiation turns away God's wrath.
7. Define and explain the righteousness of God.
8. Define and explain the righteousness of faith.
9. Define and explain justification by faith.
10. What is the meaning of the word "law" in the New Testament?
11. What is legalism?
12. Does Paul in Rom. 2:15a teach that all men have the law written on their hearts? Explain.
13. What does Romans 7 teach concerning legalism?
14. What three steps may be found in Romans 7:25b through 8:4 for deliverance from legalism?
15. What is the meaning of the Greek word (sarx)
translated "flesh" in Paul's writings?
Does Paul use the word to mean sinful nature?
16. What is the doctrine of the sinful nature?
Is it taught in Scriptures?
17. What is holiness?
18. What is the holiness of God?
In what sense is God holy?
19. What is love?
20. What is the relation of God's love to His holiness?
21. What is sanctification?
What is its relation to justification?
22. What is the relation of the Christian to sin?
23. What is the relation of the Christian to the Holy Spirit?
24. What is the baptism of the Spirit?
The basic sin is idolatry: trust in a false god. "You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:2: Deut. 5:7). A false god is anything that replaces the true God as the object of man's trust; it is a substitute for the true God. Practically, idolatry is the choice of a false god as the ultimate criterion of a man's decisions. As such, a false god effects all human decisions, intellectual and practical. Thus the sin of idolatry leads to other sins. Idolatry is the basic sin not only because it leads to other sins but because it is the most serious sin. That is, this sin is not only a rejection of the true God but is directly against the true God in that it is trust in a substitute for the true God. Sin is also slavery to sin as slave master; the false god is the slave master that puts into bondage the one who trusts in it. The bondage of sin is not only a limitation of man's freedom of decision but the false god as a slave master denies the very freedom of decision by which a man could reject the slavery of the false god.
Death is that power which reigns over the human race as a result of Adam's sin (Rom. 5:12-17). It separates man from the true God and from his fellow man; this is spiritual death. Eventually and inevitably death separates man's spirit from his body in physical death. Thus death causes spiritual and physical death. Jesus recognized this distinction between spiritual death and physical death when he said, "Let the dead bury their dead" (Matt. 8:22 KJV; Luke 9:60). If a man is not delivered from spiritual death and he dies physically in this spiritual death, he remains in this spiritual death forever (Heb. 9:27). This eternal separation from God is eternal death and is called in Scripture "the second death" (Rev. 20:14). Thus there are three kinds of death: spiritual, physical and eternal death.
God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ, that is, by the death and resurrection of Christ (Rom. 5:10; II Cor. 5:18). God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Cor. 5:19). That is, on the cross Jesus entered into the spiritual and physical death which was passed unto all men from Adam (Rom. 5:12); the death He died there He died for all (II Cor. 5:14); He acted representatively on the behalf of all men. Christ acted not for Himself but for all men He represents; His death was not just the death of a man but the death for all men. This representative work of Christ should not be understood as a vicarious act instead of another, but as a participation, a sharing in the act of another. Christ took part or shared in our situation and condition (Heb. 2:14-15). He entered not only into our existence as a man, but also into our condition of spiritual and physical death. His death is our death. On the cross He died not only physically but also spiritually (Matt. 26:46; Heb. 2:9). We were reconciled to God through the death of Christ (Rom. 5:10). But Christ was raised from dead, and that on the behalf of all men (II Cor. 5:15). He was raised from the dead so that we might participate in His resurrection and be made alive with Him (Eph. 2:5-7). His resurrection is our resurrection. He was raised from the dead for us so that we might participate in His resurrection and have life, both spiritual and physical, being made alive with Christ we are brought into fellowship with God. Hence we are reconciled to God (Rom. 5:10; II Cor. 5:17-19). Reconciliation should therefore be defined as that aspect of salvation whereby man is delivered from death to life. The source of this act of reconciliation is the love of God. Nowhere in the Greek New Testament is God the object of the verb katallasso; that is, in the Greek New Testament it never says that God is reconciled. It is us (Rom. 5:10; II Cor. 5:18) or the world (II Cor. 5:19) who has been reconciled to God.
Redemption is the act of deliverance from the slavery of sin by means of a "price" that is a "ransom" by means of which the deliverance is accomplished (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14). The price is the blood of Christ, that is, His death (I Pet. 1:18-19). Redemption from the slavery of sin was accomplished by the death of Jesus Christ because His death is also the means by which men are delivered from death which leads to sin. The death that Christ died, He died to sin (Rom. 6:10a). And since Christ died for us, we also have died with Him to sin as a slave master. Therefore, we are no longer slaves to sin (Rom. 6:6). "For he who has died is freed from sin" (Rom. 6:7). His death redeemed us from the slavery of sin and now being made alive in Him we have become slaves of God and of righteousness (Rom. 6:17-18).
Christ's death is a propitiation in the sense that it turns away the wrath of God. It turns away God's wrath by taking away man's sin because it takes away the cause of sin, that is, death. Christ's death on the cross is a sacrifice in the sense that the death of Jesus Christ is the means that God appointed for turning away His wrath from the sinner. While God in His love could have mercy on the sinner (Psa. 78:38; Exodus 34:6; Num. 14: 19-20), He has appointed means whereby His wrath could be turned away. In the Old Testament God's appointed means for turning away His wrath were the sacrifices and offerings. When these sacrifices were offered in true repentance and faith, they were an atonement or propitiation. But these sacrifices could never take away sin (Heb. 10:4, 11), that is, bring about repentance and faith, because they could not make alive (Gal. 3:21). They could only cover the sin but not take away sin. The Old Testament sacrifices could not reconcile man to God. But through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ man is reconciled to God (Rom. 5:10; II Cor. 5:17-18), and his sins are taken away. And since there are no sins to cause the wrath of God, the wrath of God is turned away: no sin, no wrath. Thus Christ's death is the perfect sacrifice for turning away God's wrath because by it man is redeemed from slavery of sin. Christ's death is a propitiation because it is an redemption; it both a propitiation and redemption. Propitiation is the sacrificial aspect of Christ's work of salvation and redemption is the liberation aspect.
The righteousness of God is God acting to set man right with God Himself and is synonymous with salvation (Ps. 98:2; 71:1-2, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 46:13; 51:5; 56:1; 61:10; 62:1). Note the parallelism in these passages which clearly shows that the Old Testament writers considered the righteousness of God as synonymous with divine salvation. This righteousness of God has been manifested, publicly displayed, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-22). God was active in the death and resurrection of Christ for man's salvation. Because He is the act of God for man's salvation, Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God (I Cor. 1:30). The gospel tells us about this manifestation of the righteousness of God or salvation (Eph. 1:13). But also in the gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or made effective and actual (Rom. 1:17). When the gospel is preached, God is acting to set man right with Himself. The idea that the righteousness of God is that attribute of God which requires that God punish all sin and reward all good works is a legalistic misunderstanding of the righteousness of God. This legalistic misunderstanding reduces and equates the righteousness of God to justice, that is, giving to each that which is his due with a strict and impartial regard to merit (as in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics).
The righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:11) is that right personal relation to God that results from faith in the true God (Rom. 4:3). To trust in God is to be righteous (Rom. 4:5). In general, faith is not just belief that certain statements are true but is the commitment of oneself and allegiance to something or someone as one's own personal ultimate criterion of all decisions, intellectual and moral. Saving faith in Jesus Christ is the commitment of oneself to Jesus Christ as one's own personal ultimate criterion ("My Lord and my God" John 20:28). The living person, the resurrected Jesus Christ, not just what he taught, becomes in the act of faith our ultimate criterion (Rom. 10:9-10). To acknowledge Jesus as Lord is to believe God that He raised Jesus from the dead. And to believe God that He raised from the dead Jesus who in faith we confess as Lord is to be righteous, in right personal relation with God (Rom. 4:23-24).
The Biblical concept of righteousness of faith is revealed in the story of Abraham. After God revealed His promises to Abraham, the Scripture says about Abraham, "Then he believed the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6; see Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6). Abraham believed the promises of God and his faith was reckoned by God to him as rigteousness. And Abraham's faith was reckoned to him as righteousness because faith is righteousness. Righteousness is not a something, merit, but a right relationship. A man is righteous when he is in right relationship with God. And faith in God, believing the promises of God, taking God at His word, trusting in God is to be in right relationship to God. The righteousness of faith is the opposite of sin; sin is trusting in a false god and righteousness is trusting in the true God. Just as man's basic sin is idolatry, man's basic righteousness is trust in, allegiance to and the worship, from the heart, of the true God.
Justification is that act of God whereby He sets or puts man right with God Himself. Justification is not just a legal pronouncement about something but is an action that brings about something; it is not just a declaration that man is righteous before God but is a setting or putting of a man right relation with God: a bringing him into a right personal relationship with God. Justification is then essentially salvation; to justify is to save (Rom. 6:7). Hence Paul can say that God is He "that justifies the ungodly" (Rom. 4:5), that saves the ungodly. In justification God saves the ungodly from their sins by setting or putting them into a right personal relationship with God Himself. He does this by bringing them into the righteousness of faith (See question 8 above). To be right with God is to have faith in God (Rom. 4:5). Hence justification is through faith (Rom. 3:20) and out of or from faith (Rom. 3:26, 30). Justification is a free act of God's grace (Rom. 3:24) and not by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20, 28; 4:6).
In the New Testament the word "law" which translates the Greek word nomos is used in several different ways:
Legalism is basically an idolatry of the law. The law is absolutized; it is made into God or God is identified with the law. This is the first of the four characteristics of legalism and its misunderstanding of the law.
No. Paul teaches that the work of the law is written in the hearts of the Gentiles who do the things of the law (Rom. 2:14). Paul in this passage is not talking about having the law but about doing or fulfilling the law. He says very clearly (twice) in verse 14 that Gentiles do not have the law. It is the work or doing of the law, not the law, which is written on their hearts. When they do the things of the law, that is, do actions in harmony with the law, these Gentiles are a law to themselves in the sense that not the law but the work of law is written on their hearts. For it is from the heart, where the decisions are made, that the work or doing of the law comes. Now if Paul here were saying that the law was written in their hearts, then he would have been saying that the Gentiles had the law in a more intimate way than the Jews had it. The Jew had it written only on tables of stone or in a book (compare Jer. 31:33). Also he would have been saying that the Gentiles already had what was promised in the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-33). Paul here in this passage is not teaching that man has an absolute standard written in his heart, a Stoic-like law of nature, lex naturae.
In chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans Paul is discussing the Christian's relation to the law. This discussion began with the statement in 6:14 which raised the question in 6:15 and its answer in 6:16 through 7:6. The Christian is not under law because he has died with Christ to the law (Rom. 7:1-6). For the Christian to be under law is for him to be under the authority of the law and to be a slave of the law; this would be equivalent to an idolatry of the law which is basically what legalism is. The Christian becomes entrapped in this legalism because he has accepted a legalistic claim that the law is the way to be delivered from the dominion of sin. But the law does not deliver from the dominion and slavery of sin, rather the passions of sin are aroused or energized by the law (7:5). The law is not thereby sin (7:6), but sin finding an opportunity in the commandment "Thou shalt not covet" works all kinds of covetousness (7:7-8). Being under the law, instead of delivering from the dominion of sin, leads instead to the enslavement to sin (7:14, 25b). Instead of leading to life as legalism promises, the commandments leads to death (7:10). Sin uses the commandments as an opportunity to come alive or active (7:9, 11). This legalism leads to the moral dilemma: the contradiction between what man is and what he ought to be (7:19). The end is defeat and despair (7:24). Paul's analysis in 7:23-24 shows that the law of death, the "other law", makes one under law captive to the law of sin (compare 8:2); that is, death leads to sin.
In Romans 7:25b through 8:4 there are three steps in the deliverance from legalism:
According to the doctrine of the sinful nature, sin is misunderstood as intrinsic to human nature as an inherited sinful nature, an intrinsic inability to do righteousness and a definite necessity to do sin. This doctrine of the sinful nature is nowhere taught in Scripture. None of the passages of Scripture usually cited in support of this doctrine (Psa. 51:5; Job 14:4; Eph. 2:3) say that man since the fall has a sinful nature, that is, that man sins because he is a sinner by nature. According to Rom. 5:12-21, all men sin because they are spiritually dead. All men are sinners because they sin. Psa. 51:5, which says,
"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,means either that David's birth was an act of sin (that is, his birth was illegitimate, which it clearly was not) or that he sins from birth as Psa. 58:3 says:
and in sin did my mother conceive me",
"The wicked go astray from the womb,Job 14:4, which says,
they err from their birth, speaking lies."
(See also Isa. 48:8)
"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?means that righteousness can not come from the unrighteous and that a sinner can only bring forth sin; from its context this verse does not seem to be referring to the birth of the sinner. None of these passages say why man sins from birth. Paul explains that in Romans 5:12d: "because of which [death] all sinned".
There is none."
"In which [sins] you formerly walked according to the course of this world,The "flesh" here is the body, which Paul contrasts with the mind; "the wishes of the flesh and of the mind". See question 15 above. The NIV totally mistranslates this phrase as "the craving of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts". The RSV correctly translates it: "the desires of body and mind". Also Paul says, "we were by nature children of wrath", not "by nature sinners". Paul is here not saying why men sin, but only that men are naturely objects of God's wrath, since they have sinned.
according to the prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh,
indulging the wishes of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest."
The doctrine of the sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology by Augustine in the early fifth century A.D. to explain why man can not save himself by his meritorious works. Instead of denying that salvation has anything to do with meritorious works, he assumed that salvation is by meritorious works which the grace of God enables a Christian to do. He taught that man since the fall because of his sinful nature cannot do meritorious works apart from the grace of God. But according to the Scriptures (Rom. 4:4-5; 11:6) salvation has nothing to do with meritorious works, the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary to explain why man cannot save himself. Man cannot save himself because he cannot make himself alive by the law (Gal. 3:21; Eph. 2:4-5; 8-9), not because he cannot do meritorious works.
The root meaning of the Hebrew word as well as the Greek word translated "holy" in the Scriptures is "separation". Something is holy when it is separated from common or human use and is separated to God. Hence with respect to persons and things it means "dedicated or consecrated to God". This is clear from the phrase "holy unto the Lord" (Lev. 27:9, 14, 21, 23, 30, 32; see also Lev. 20:24-26). It does not mean "sinless" or "morally perfect". This may be seen from the use of the term to describe things as well as persons. In the Old Testament some things that are described as holy are "the ground" (Ex. 3:5; Josh. 5:15), "the ark of the covenant" (II Chron. 35:30), "the vessels of the tabernacle" (I Kings 8:4) and the place where they rested (I Kings 3:6, 8, 10). Since things cannot sin, they cannot be sinless. But they are holy; they are separated unto the Lord. Things and people are holy in virtue of their relation to God himself; whatever is separated unto and consecrated or dedicated to a deity or deities is holy apart from its ethical or moral purity. This nonethical meaning is clear from the use of the term to describe male and female temple prostitutes of some pagan gods (Deut. 23:17-18; II Kings 23:7). As the titles indicate they were sacred ministrants attached to the Canaanite cults of the deity of fertility. They were holy in virtue of their relation to the deity. It does not refer to their moral character. Of course there are moral and ethical implications of the worship of the true God. But this is secondary and subordinate in the concept of holiness. What is primary and foremost is the separation from false gods unto the true God.
"You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am Holy,
and have separated you from the peoples,
that you should be mine." (Lev. 20:26;
see also Lev. 11:44-45 and I Pet. 1:15-16)
According to the legalistic misunderstanding of God's being, the holiness of God, like His righteousness, is misunderstood in terms of the law. Holiness is understood legalistically as conformity to the law, moral perfection and sinlessness. The holiness of God is therefore considered to be the eternal conformity of God's will and mind to His being which is law. God always thinks and acts in conformity to His holy being. It is impossible in the very nature of God for Him to do otherwise. According to these legalistic theologies, the absolute holiness of God is the purity and moral perfection of His being. It is accordingly the fundamental and essential attribute of God or, more exactly, the consummate and infinite moral perfection of all the attributes taken together. Each attribute has its perfection; holiness is the infinite moral perfection of the whole together. According to this legalistic theology, holiness is not one attribute among others but the total moral perfection of the Godhead that sets Him transcendently apart from and above all the creatures. As such holiness is the regulative principle, norm and standard of all of them. Accordingly, God's love is holy love; His power is holy power; His will is a holy will. They are holy because He always acts consistent with His essential being which is law. Thus in this legalistic theology, the holiness of God is misunderstood legalistically.
According to the Scriptures, God is holy (Lev. 11:44-45;
19:2; 20:26; 21:8: Josh. 24:19; I Sam. 2:2; 6:2;
Psa. 22:3; 99:3,5,9; Isa. 5:16; 6:3). He is the Holy One
of Israel (I Kings 19:22; Psa. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18;
Isa. 1:4; 5:24; 10:20; 16:6, etc.). But the Scriptures
do not understand holiness legalistically as sinlessness.
God is holy, not because of His sinlessness, but because
He is separated from His creation and from all false gods,
which are a deification of His creation.
In the Old Testament, there are three senses in which God is holy.
These defines the holiness of God.
"18 To whom then will you liken God,God is not like the wooden idol made by the craftsman;
or what likeness compare with Him?
19 The idol! a workman casts it
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is impoverished chooses for an offering wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skilled craftsman to set up an image that will not move...,
25 To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him?
says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power, not one is missing."
(Isa. 40:18-20, 25-26)
"Have you not known? Have you not heard?Thus God is holy in the sense that He is separated from all false gods. It was in this sense that Isaiah was overwhelmed with the holiness of God during the vision in the temple (Isa. 6:1-5). Isaiah feels the contrast between the true God and all the false gods that his people are worshipping. The worship of the true God by the seraphim brings conviction to Isaiah of the uncleanness of his lips and of the people's in the midst of which he dwelt. With their lips they worshipped and praised false gods, not the King, the Lord of hosts. Seeing the Lord, Isaiah recognizes the awful character of their idolatry. "Woe is me! For I am lost!" God is holy because He is the Creator of all things; He is not to be confused with any of them; this distinguishes Him from all false gods.
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth."
(Isa. 40:28)
Love is a relationship between persons, the person that loves and the person that is loved, and in this relationship the person who loves does good to the person loved. Paul's summary statement in Rom. 13:10 that "love does no evil to one's neighbor" may be stated positively, "love does good to one's neighbor". Thus love may be defined as the choice of a person to do for another person that which is good for him, This love is not a feeling but a choice, the choice to do good to the person loved. The commandment to love is addressed to the will and one must choose to obey the commandment. It may be accompanied by feelings of compassion and caring, but Agape-love is the choice of the will to do good to the person that may be unloveable and evil. Thus God loves the sinner, not because the sinner is inherently loveable, but God chooses to do good to him and save him. Because love is a choice, it can be commanded and it can be obeyed. There are other kinds of love, but the kind of love that God commands is Agape-love. This love is not acquisitive love, that wants to acquire its object; neither is it caused by its object because of the value or the goodness of its object (Eros-love). Agape-love creates value where there is no value; it does good to the person loved. Agape-love gives what the person loved needs, what is good for him or her. This love is perfect love.
Thus Agape-love must be defined as the choice of a person to do
for another person that which is good for him,
This definition of love raises the problem of the good:
"What is the good?"
The Biblical solution to this problem was given in Jesus' answer
when He was asked,
"Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark. 10:17).
Jesus answered,
"Why do you call me good? No one is good but God." (Mark. 10:18).
That is, God is The Good, the Absolute Good, and all others are relative
good; that is, they possess their good in relation to the Absolute Good,
God Himself.
When God created the earth and its inhabitants, He saw that they are good.
"And God saw that it was good." (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25).
"And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
(Gen. 1:31).
All that God has created is good, not evil,
but it is relative good, not absolute good.
And God has specified man's relationship to the Absolute Good in His
commandment,
"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heartThis excludes the sin of idolatry, which is the absolutizing of the relative. The relative good must not be made the absolute good, as god.
and with all your soul and with all your might." (Deut. 6:5 NAS)
"You shall have no other gods besides Me." (Exodus 20:3 NAS margin)Because this command prohibits the basic sin of idolatry it is the first and great commandment of the law.
"36 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?'The second commandment specifies the relative good; man shall do good to his neighbor, even as he does good to himself. The Apostle Paul also made this clear in his comments on love in Rom. 13:8-10.
37 And he said to him,
'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
39 This is the great and first commandment.
40 And a second is like it,
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these commands depend all the law and the prophets.'"
(Matt. 22:36-40; cf. Mark 12:30-33).
"8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another;Love does no evil to one's neighbor when it does good to him or her.
for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
9 The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,
You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet',
and any other commandment, it is summed up in this word,
'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'.
10 Love does no evil to one's neighbor;
therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
(Rom. 13:8-10 ERS).
God is holy because He is love and this love is Agape-love;
that is, the choice of a person to do for another person
that which is good for him. This truly sets the true God
apart from all false gods. They are everything but Agepe-love.
The true God is holy because He is love.
Holiness is that which sets the true God apart from all other gods and
also from all creatures, and that is the feature which is most
characteristic of God Himself, His love. "God is love" (I John 4:8, 16).
This love is not just an attribute of God; it is what God is in Himself.
Before God ever created anything outside of Himself
and thus created beings for Him to love outside of Himself,
love existed in God. Since love is the choice of a person
to do for another person that which is good for him, a person
cannot love without another person to love. Love involves a
relationship to another person. And since God has made
Himself known as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, there is another person in God for Him to love.
These three persons of the Godhead love each other (John
3:35; 5:20; 15:9-10; 17:23-26; 14:31). And God is love
in Himself because these three persons love each other.
Now God created beings outside of Himself not because he needed objects for His love (these already existed within Himself) but because of the abundance of His love that existed within Himself. Love is creative and this is true in the supreme sense of God Himself. Creation and salvation are the overflow of the love of this triune personal God of love. When man fell from the image of God because of his sin, God provided a way to take away man's sin and to restore him to the image of God. This involved God sending His Son to become man to die for him. But God raised His Son from the dead. And in this resurrected God-man, Jesus Christ, the Son of man, who is the image of God, man is being and shall be restored to the image of God. God provided this salvation because He is love. This "so great salvation" (Heb. 2:3) is the outflow of His superabundant love.
"9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us,The love of God is the source of our salvation from death, from sin and from God's wrath.
that God sent His only Son into the world,
so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God
but that He loved us and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
(I John 4:9-10 ERS)
God did not have to love; there was no nature or inner necessity that caused God to love. God has freely and sovereignly chosen to be love. His choice determined the good. The good is what God wills. And it is not whimsical or arbitrary because it is God who has willed it. God's will is not determined by His nature; His nature is His will; He is what he chooses to be (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 45:7; 46:8-11). And God has chosen to be love and He has revealed that choice in the history of children of Israel and supremely in Jesus Christ, His Son (John 3:16; I John 4:9-10). The true God is a God of sovereign love, not of sovereign justice nor of holiness misunderstood as sinless perfection. God does not have to fulfill any condition before He can act in His love to save us; God's love is truly free and does not have to satisfy a supposed divine justice before He can act in love. God can freely forgive man's sin because he is not bound by any prior conditions in His nature. And according to the Scriptures, He will forgive when a man will repent and turn from his sin (Ezek. 18:21-23,32; see also Ezek. 33:11).
And since a person becomes like the god he worships (Psa. 115:4-8; 135:15-18), a Christian becomes like the God of love he worships and serves, and this sets him apart from the world. Love is that which makes Christians saints, holy ones, and sets them apart to God. Jesus said,
"34 A new commandment I give to you;
that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
that you also love one another.
35 By this will all men know that you are My disciples,
if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35 NAS)."7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God;
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God,
for God is love.
9 In this the love of God was manifest among us,
that God sent His only Son into the world,
so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us
and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another.
12 No man has ever seen God; if we love one another,
God abides in us and His love is perfected in us."
(I John 4:7-12 ERS)."16 And we have come know and have believed the love
which God has for us.
God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God,
and God abides in him.
17 By this, love is perfected in us,
that we may have confidence in the day of judgment;
because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love;
but perfect love casts out fear,
because fear involves punishment,
and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
20 If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother,
he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother
whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 And this commandment we have from Him,
that the one who loves God should love his brother also."
(I John 4:16-21 NAS).
Sanctification is the act of God by which man is separated from the worship of a false god and is dedicated to the true God. The term is not basically a moral or ethical concept. The idea of sanctification is soteriological before it is a moral concept. The idea of sanctification, which word has the same root as holiness in the Greek and Hebrew, is first of all a religious term and secondarily a moral term. It does not mean basically to make sinless or morally perfect but to separate from common or human use to God's use, to belong to God. It means to dedicate and consecrate to God. To be sanctified is to be dedicated to God. The RSV correctly translates the verb as "consecrated" in I Tim. 2:21. Sanctification denotes first of all the soteriological truth that the Christian belongs to God. Paul uses the term to denote another way of looking at salvation (I Cor. 1:30). Justification emphasizes the right personal relation to God, whereas sanctification emphasizes belonging to the true God rather than to a false god. The view that justification designates the beginning of the Christian life while sanctification designates the development of that life through the internal work of the Spirit is an oversimplification of the New Testament teaching and obscures this important truth. The legalistic interpretation of justification as the imputation of the righteousness or merits of Christ leads to this misunderstanding of the relationship between it and sanctification. The word "sanctification" occurs only once in Romans (6:22) and is significantly omitted from the steps leading to glorification in Romans 8:30. This is because sanctification is just the other side of justification, and need not also be mentioned when the other is.
Because the Christian has died with Christ and has been raised with Him into new life to God, he is no longer a slave to sin but to God and to righteousness (Rom. 6:1-10). He is to reckon himself dead to sin and alive to God to Christ (Rom. 6:11). He is therefore to stop letting sin as a slave master reign in his mortal body to obey its desires (Rom. 6:12). Neither is he to present the member of his body as instruments of unrighteousness to sin as a slave master but he is to present himself to God as one who has been brought from death to life and the members of his body to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom. 6:13). According to this passage, and others, the Christian does not have to sin and should not sin. Christ has saved him from sin as well as from death. Christ has set him free from the slavery of sin. He can sin but he does not have to sin. He does not have a sinful nature that makes him sin or because of which he will sin. He is free to sin or not. And if a Christian sins, it is because he chooses to sin, not because his sinful nature makes him do it.
But why do Christians choose to sin? The scriptural answer to this question is twofold: because he yields to the desires of the flesh (James 1:13-14) or because he is under law (Rom. 6:14); that is, he is trying to live or walk by the law. This is legalism and in Romans 7 Paul explains what happens when a Christian becomes entrapped in this legalism. See question 13 above. Legalism causes sin and when it tries to solve this problem of sin in the Christian life, it fails. Then it tries to explain its failure by blaming sin on the sinful nature. The real problem is not the sinful nature but legalism, that is, being under law. The Christian will sin when he is placed under law (Rom. 6:14). The doctrine of the sinful nature contributes to this problem. Christians who believe that they have a sinful nature, expect that they will sin; and of course they do when they expect that they will. Again, Christians do not have a sinful nature (See question 16 above.) and they do not have to sin. Temptation to sin is not sin and the tendency to sin is not the sinful nature; the desires of the body are not inherently sinful.
If a Christian has choosen to sin for either reason, there is deliverance from sin. If he confesses his sin, he is forgiven and is cleanse from his sin. The Apostle John writes,
"5 And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you,This is the present tense of salvation.
that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness,
we lie and do not the truth;
7 but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar,
and His word is not in us."
(I John 1:5-10 NAS)
"1 My little children,
I am writing these things to you that you may not sin.
And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous.
2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins;
and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."
(I John 2:1-2 NAS)
True Christians (not nominal Christians, in name only) have the Holy Spirit. True Christians have accepted Christ and put their faith in him and his death and resurrection. And as such they have received the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2). To be born again and to be alive to God is by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does this by revealing Christ and convicting (convincing) the unsaved of their need for Christ (John 16:7-11); He presents Christ to the unbeliever in the preaching of the Gospel. To receive Christ is also to receive the Holy Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8:9 to the believers at Rome, "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone have not the Spirit of Christ, this one is not his." To be "in the Spirit" is to be saved, and to be "in the flesh" is to be unsaved (Romans 7:5). But not everyone who has the Spirit dwelling in him is filled with Spirit; some are not "walking according to the Spirit", but "according to the flesh" (Romans 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25). And to walk according to the flesh is to attempt to live the Christian life by human effort alone apart from the Spirit of God; such ones attempt to live up to divine standard in the law. They are under law and thus experience only defeat and frustration (Rom. 6:14 and Rom. 7:18-19). They are trying to do what only the Holy Spirit can do. To be under law is to walk according the flesh (by human effort). To walk according to the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit is not to be under law (Gal. 5:18). Those who walk according the Spirit bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be had apart from the Spirit; no human effort can produce that fruit. These who walk according the Spirit fulfill the law without being under law. "For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law" (Rom. 13:8-10). The goal is not moral perfection (conforming to the divine standard in the law) but love; love of God and love of our neighbor. This goal can be reached only if one is filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18-20).
The phrase "to baptize with the Holy Spirit" was first used by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33) of him who was to come after John, that is, the Christ or Messiah. Luke reports in Acts that the risen Jesus said, "John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5). This is obviously a reference to the coming of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost, of which Jesus also said,
"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;This baptism with the Holy Spirit was an empowerment for service. Later Peter refers to Pentecost as the baptism with the Spirit when he explains what happened at the conversion of Cornelius, the centurion:
and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem
and in all Judea and Samaria
and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on themHow did Peter recognize that Holy Spirit fell on them? Because the same thing happened to them that happened to Peter and the others at Pentecost, they spoke with other tongues or languages (Acts 2:4; 9:44-47). This baptism with the Spirit of Cornelius, and those with him, was a sign to Peter, and those with him, that the Spirit was also given to the Gentiles. Luke also refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as being filled with the Spirit;
just as on us at the beginning.
And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said,
'John baptized with water,
but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'
If then God gave the same gift to them
as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was I that I could withstand God?" (Acts 11:15-17).
"And there appeared to them tongues as of fire,This coming of Spirit to them, which is the baptism with the Spirit, is the initial in-filling of the Spirit. Later they were again filled with Spirit (Acts 4:31). We believe that each believer, like these first believers, may be baptized with the Spirit as the initial in-filling of the Holy Spirit and may be refilled with the Spirit as the Spirit sees fit. Paul exhorted the Ephesian believers to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). If anyone objects to the use of the phrase "baptized with the Spirit" to refer this initial filling of the Spirit, I will not quibble with him, as long as he recognizes that Christian believers should be filled with the Spirit and that there must be a first filling of the Spirit which may occur at conversion or later. Whether he speaks in tongues at this first filling of the Spirit, which he may do as the Spirit leads, is between him and the Spirit. But I will tell you that if anyone makes an issue with God of not speaking with tongues, he may not be filled the Spirit until he yields. This yielding to the Spirit is the necessary condition for being filled with Spirit. Paul makes it clear in his letter to Romans that presenting our bodies and its members to God is the logical implication of our acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord and Savior (Rom. 6:13; 12:1-2); and that includes presenting or yielding one's tongue. This does not mean that the Christian believer has become morally perfect or that he must clean up his life before he can be filled with the Spirit; the Holy Spirit will take care of cleaning up the believer's life after he is filled with the Spirit.
distributed and resting on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in other tongues,
as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:3-4).
One more point; speaking in tongues at the initial filling of the Spirit is not the gift of tongues of which Paul speaks in I Cor. chapters 12 to 14. While all believers may speak in tongues at the initial filling of Spirit, not all have the ministry of the gift of tongues and the accompanying gift of interpretation of tongues. The Spirit distributes the gifts of the Spirit as he wills (I Cor. 12:11). As Paul makes clear in I Cor. 12, the gifts of the Spirit are manifestations of the Spirit in the body of Christ for the common good (I Cor. 12:7). The empowering of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit are to be concrete expressions of love for one another in the body of Christ and those outside. The preaching of Gospel should be and is accompanied by signs and wonders:
"It (the so great salvation) was declared at first by the Lord,
and it was attested to us by those who heard him,
while God also bore witness by signs and wonders
and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit
distributed according to his own will" (Heb. 2:3-4).