Part #02 of “SALVATION – A JUDICIAL ACT OF GOD”
“There is something in Scripture in this Age of Grace that God has separated.”
When it comes to marriage, Scripture tells us that what God has ‘put together’, let no man separate.
But when it comes to Law and Grace, what God has ‘separated’, let no man put together.
God has two programmes on His timetable that run parallel to each other.
One is for the Jew, the nation Of Israel, ‘under the Law’.
The other is the Church, the ‘Body of Christ’, which is ‘under Grace’.
And what was under the Law ‘does not mix’ [CRUMB 0030] with what is ‘under Grace’.
Remember that according to ‘HIS’ Divine and eternal purposes, God has separated them.
Everything to do with the Jew, the nation of Israel is and will be a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.
The Church, the ‘Body of Christ’ is the ‘mystery programme’ of God, ‘NEVER’ revealed in the Old Testament.
It was a ‘mystery’ kept secret in the mind of God and revealed ‘only’ to the Apostle Paul [Romans 16:25].
You and I today are a product of that ‘mystery programme’ and not the ‘prophetic’.
Apart from the one above, we also see it in [Ephesians 3:4-5], [Ephesians 3:9] and [Colossians 1:25-27].
God wants us to see, learn, understand and know this!
The Greatest Book On Earth
We just want to help people to understand The Bible for themselves, because it’s the greatest Book on earth.
But you know there are so many that won’t even attempt to read it because they say, “Well I can’t understand it.”
But, oh yes you can!
The whole secret to understanding The Bible and having it come to life for us is to pay attention to whom a particular portion of Scripture is written to.
And do not confuse Israel with the Church, the Body of Christ.
Don’t hesitate to ask the question!
God was careful in separating the two, and we should be also.
“What God has separated, let no man put together”.
For Common Men
The Bible is for the everyday run-of-the-mill common man, like you and I.
It’s certainly not by any means exclusive just to the higher echelons of the church clergy.
As William Tyndale put it, “for every plough boy in England’.
He translated the Bible into English and got it into the hands of common men, paying for it with his life.
He openly denounced a lot of wrong practices and wrong beliefs that had crept into the church.
The higher authorities and clergy of the Holy Roman Empire, bishops included, falsely charged him with heresy in 1536.
He was found guilty and condemned to be burned to death,
And he was just 42 years old when this happened.
Men and women over the centuries have put their lives on the line.
And they have done so, that we can have this greatest Book on the planet in our hands.
All Life’s Questions
It is this Book that answers all of life’s questions, past, present and future. and sets us on course to a real heaven in eternity.
Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose? Where have I come from? Where am I going?
These are all just some of the several questions that lie latent in the deepest part of every human spirit.
And they surface from time to time in our lives, sending us into deep contemplations and reflections, leaving us wondering.
But when that human spirit is made alive to God, through believing the Gospel, our understanding begins to open.
And the meaning of life, both with all its goodness and wretchedness, gradually begins to make sense.
That’s why we have today, the Inerrant, Authoritative Book of life, the Bible, the greatest Book on earth, for just that.
Prophecy For Israel
All prophecy, that we find in the Old Testament, is God dealing exclusively with the Jew, the nation of Israel.
Yes, in God’s Divine Sovereignty, there were one or two exceptions.
For example, we find Naaman, the Syrian General, who was healed from a bad case of leprosy [2 Kings 5:1-14].
Another example is the Zarephath widow, who was supernaturally provided for during a severe famine in [1 Kings 17:8-16].
We find both these incidents being mentioned by Jesus Christ Himself in [Luke 4:25-28], which riled up the Jews.
Even though Jesus Christ came strictly for Israel [Matthew 15:24], at His first advent, He also Sovereignly made exceptions.
HE ministered to the Roman Centurion, a Gentile in [Matthew 8:5-13], and also to the Canaanite woman in [Matthew 15:21-28].
Exclusively For Israel
So, the prophetic programme was exclusively for the nation of Israel.
And they were placed under the law, likened unto a tutor or school master, like Paul mentions in [Galatians 3:24].
Along with the covenant promises, it was a highway to prepare them for receiving their foretold Messiah and coming King.
And that would follow shortly by the setting up of the promised physical Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
They would then be the top dog of the nations.
Israel, every Jew would be unto God, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
It was a conditional promise based on their obedience, made in [Exodus 19:5-6].
And Peter reminds his ‘Jewish audience’ he is writing to, of this promise in [1 Peter 2:9].
And with Christ Jesus as King of Kings on David’s throne, ‘Israel’ could then carry out the great commission of [Matthew 28:19].
All Old Testament prophecy pointed to that.
SO do keep all that has been written so far in view as we move forward.
Picking Up Where We Left Off
Picking up from where we left off in the last Crumb 0118, we want to address this water baptism issue.
But before we do, we are using this article to get a few more basics in place.
In relatively recent times, water baptism has turned out to be both a controversial and confusing issue.
And yet, if we examine the Scriptures carefully, we find there is ‘NO’ confusion whatsoever.
There are no shortages of opinions and doctrines out there relating to this, and all claiming to be Scripture based.
And the question is, are we understanding the Scriptures correctly?
For if we don’t separate what God has carefully separated, we’ll never get the right understanding.
Because, for the most part, we just tend to spiritualize everything, especially in the Old Testament.
And that can be very misleading, and we end up missing the real point.
The Bible, though supernatural, is not a book of sensationalism, but ground zero, common sense and logical truth.
But so many of us get hooked on to that element of sensationalism, drawing us away from the real truth.
And in the process, we lose the plot!
God’s Blue Print
Therefore, we must all, always go back to the drawing board of God’s Blue Print from time to time.
God has put everything perfectly in place according to His timetable.
And we have no business taking it out of its place and placing it somewhere else.
Putting what was ‘under the Law’ into what is ‘under Grace’ is like forcing a square peg into a round hole.
And the result is untold damage and confusion.
If Christendom had rightly divided and separated the Scriptures, it would not find itself in this big mass of confusion today.
But unfortunately, it does, because it has refused to do that, and continues to do so.
So called ‘church doctrine’ has replaced ‘true Biblical doctrine’ which comes only by the way of the Apostles Paul’s epistles.
He laboured endlessly to the point of a beheading death, to reveal to us, our ‘liberty in Christ’ [Galatians 2:4].
It was purely by divine revelation that Paul separated Law from Grace.
And we all know Paul’s background, as Saul of Tarsus, before he had that crashing encounter with the Lord on Damascus Road [CRUMB 0051].
Back To Paul Or On To Despair
“Christendom either has to go back, back, back to the epistles of Paul, or it is on and on to apostasy and despair.”
One of the former presidents of Princeton University who served back in 1888-1892, quoted this.
Now he spoke that many years ago, and what a loaded truth it was.
It is either back to Paul and his epistles, or it’s on to apostasy and despair.
And this is what Christendom for so long, for the most part, has done.
They’ve gone on to apostasy and despair, and the apostasy is running rampant today, for they have not separated Law from Grace.
They have reverted back to religious bondage with its legalism.
This has resulted in many out there staying far away as possible from the Church.
Many have departed from the faith seeking some kind of spiritual guidance elsewhere, as deception runs wildly rampant.
And many have had their faith shipwrecked.
Study To Be Approved
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed…….”
This is what the Apostle Paul admonished Timothy with in [2 Timothy 2:15].
Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, his son in the faith, while in prison, shortly before he was martyred.
This is the only place in the entire Bible we are told to study the Word.
But it doesn’t just stop there, but carries on to show us, ‘how to study it’.
“Rightly dividing the Word of Truth”, which simply means to separate it.
We are to separate what was ‘under the Law’ from what is ‘under Grace’, and study it accordingly.
The two do not mix!
The Law was what God ‘demanded’.
Grace was what God ‘provided’.
We close by repeating, “God was careful in separating the two, and we should be also.”
“What God has separated, let no man put together”.
We will continue this in the next Crumb which is to follow shortly.
(Please note, all that is written in the orange colour, are connecting links, so do read them. You will find them to be very useful.)
