| Author | Message | ||
| Max |
I'M HOLY AND PERFECT! HOW ABOUT YOU? How dare I make so bold? It's easy. I take the Bible seriously. 1. So how am I holy? It's right here in Hebrews 10:10 NIV: "By that will [God's], we [believers] have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all [time and people]." Conclusion: I am holy -- I am DECLARED holy just as I am declared righteous -- for I am a believer. Can you say the same for yourself? 2. And how am I perfect? Same way -- just a couple of verses further on in Hebrews 10:12-14 NIV: "When this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Conclusion: I am perfect -- I am DECLARED perfect just as I am declared righteous and holy -- for I am a believer. Can you say the same for yourself? I await your responses in Christ alone, Max | ||
| Colleentinker |
I agree, Max. In Him we have a new identity. We are saints! Praise Him! Colleen | ||
| Max |
Thanks, Colleen, I like your "new identity" take. I've heard you use that term before, but I never really applied it to our holiness, righteousness, perfection and sinlessness in Christ. | ||
| Susan |
Hi Max! Nice to have you back. I've been away for awhile and I'm trying to catch up on all the posts. Glad you're still around. What a wonderful thread! Those of us who are in Christ, certainly have a new identity as Colleen pointed out. We can claim holiness and righteousness through the blood of Christ alone. Jesus Christ imputes to us His perfection (required to approach the Holiness of the Father), because he perfectly fullfilled the atonement necessary to save anyone. He is our divine mediator who interceds continualy for us. In our sinful and human nature we could never earn salvation. If it takes works of any kind to earn it or to keep it, then we would all fail. Jesus Christ perfectly made the one and only way for salvation. And He alone can make us perfect and holy. Praising Him for my "new identity"! Susan | ||
| Max |
Praise God for you, Susan! You put your finger right on the most important pulse in the body of Christ, at least as far as Adventists and former Adventists are concerned: ^^ In our sinful and human nature we could never earn salvation. If it takes works of any kind to earn it or to keep it, then we would all fail. ^^ Our friends the Adventists don't believe we have to earn our salvation initially. That's not their heresy. Their heresy is that they believe it takes works in order to keep our salvation. They look at sanctification from the wrong end of the telescope. EGW said it is "the work of a lifetime," meaning you have to earn your sanctification over your lifetime. On the other hand Scripture is abundantly clear that sanctification is as instantaneous as justification. Paul, for example, begins almost all his letters with by calling his readers "sanctified ones" or "saints." Adventists read those introductions with their eyes glazed over. They don't have spiritual eyes with which to see, as Jesus prophesied. Sanctification is indeed the work of a lifetime, but we grow in grace because we already are perfectly sanctified, not in order to become perfectly sanctified. Thanks so much for pointing that out. | ||
| Darrell |
Max and Susan, thanks for your inputs. I have noticed that the way the words "sanctified" and "sanctification" are usually used in Christianity they have a different meaning than in Paul's epistles. Paul generally uses the words to mean "declared holy", which would be justification, but I believe this verse in Hebrews uses the other sense, meaning to grow and produce the fruit of the Spirit: Heb 10:14 "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are [being] sanctified." (NASB, "being" is a marginal reading) According to my online Bible program, "has perfected" is in the past perfect tense, active voice, meaning He (God) has COMPLETED it at a point in the past (ie: the cross), while "are being sanctified" is a present participle, passive voice, meaning it is being done to/for us and continuing in the present. The passive voice emphasizes that this is not any work of ours. By the way, the word for "perfected" is from the same root word as what Jesus said on the cross: "It is finished", which underscores that the perfecting was completed at the cross. So Heb 10:14 supports exactly what you (Max) said above: "Sanctification is indeed the work of a lifetime, but we grow in grace because we already are perfectly sanctified, not in order to become perfectly sanctified." | ||
| Max |
Wow, Darrell! I had no idea you are such a formidable Bible student! With you around I'm going to have to be very very careful in preparing my posts. God bless you, my friend. | ||
| Darrell |
Max, I have become excited about Bible study lately, because I found I have a powerful set of tools which I had not been fully utilizing: a free online Bible program running on an obsolete old Mac, a "Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testement Words" which my wife purchased for a Precept Romans study she has been doing, and an Interlinear Greek/English New Testement which has been sitting on my bookshelf for too many years. Of course, don't forget the most important tool, the Holy Spirit. These types of things are accesssible to anyone with the desire to study. | ||
| Max |
Yeah, Darrell, but there's more -- your mind, energy and commitment. |
