If Christ’s death did not affect the cancellation of man’s sins, wherein lies the fault? Does it imply that the sacrifice was not sufficient to cancel the sins, or does it imply that God has not been just toward the sinners, but has accepted a payment from Jesus and is also requiring a payment directly from the individual sinner, as though he had not accepted Christ’s ransom sacrifice? Answer. – Neither of these is implied by the fact that the…
Would it be correct for us to say that our Lord Jesus by his death canceled the sins of the entire human family, so that there is now no condemnation to any? Answer. – No; this would not be a correct statement. The Scriptural declaration is, “There is now no condemnation to them that are IN Christ Jesus.” There is still condemnation upon all who have not yet come INTO Jesus through faith in the precious blood and through a reformation…
Mary Magdalene was honored in being the first to whom our Lord revealed himself. Scholars are generally coming to the opinion that it is a mistake to suppose that Mary Magdalene had ever been an unchaste woman – a mistake to identify her with the woman in Galilee in the house of the Pharisee, who washed our Lord’s feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, and of whom the account says, “She was a sinner.” The name…
“BEHOLD, I AM ALIVE FOREVER MORE.” Part 1 – REV. 1:18. – JOHN 20:11-18. Not only was it necessary that Christ should rise from the dead and become alive forevermore in order to accomplish the great work planned of God and foretold in the prophets, and secured by his own sacrifice, but it was necessary also that indubitable proofs of his resurrection should be given to his disciples, for themselves and for us through them. The necessity for this lay…
While it is well for us to notice the various steps in the progress of our race toward the “mark,” we are to remember that the illustration does not fit perfectly, but that rather while there is this order of progression it is less distinctly marked in our experiences, in which duty-love but gradually leads into the higher forms, remaining, but subordinately, to the end. It is a part of the blessed arrangement of God that those who are running…
That we may clearly comprehend this subject (the mark of the prize, perfect love), let us notice how small were the beginnings of this grace of love in our hearts; and let us hope that many, as they trace the matter here, and compare it with their own experiences, will be able to find large developments in their own characters – that they have passed one after another of the quarter-mile marks in the way, and that they are rapidly…
With foot-racers there is a prize offered likewise, but it is not the prize that is hung out to their view while on the race-course; it is not the prize toward which they run, but the mark. There is the quarter-mile mark, the half-mile mark, the three-quarter-mile mark, and the mile mark at the close of the race; and each racer watches for and encourages himself as he passes one or another of these marks by the way, until finally…
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” – Phil. 3:13,14. – Few in the nominal (or professing) church see any particular mark or any particular prize with definiteness; – to be sought and to be attained. The majority are merely fleeing…
“And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise.” As stated in our last post only if the correct punctuation is applied by placing the coma in the correct position, that is after the word “today” can the harmony of the scriptures be maintained. Consider the following three: “Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from…
Excerpts taken from R1986 “He said to Jesus, Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And he [Jesus] said to him [the penitent thief], Indeed I say to thee this day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:42,43. Those who consider salvation to be an escape from everlasting torture to a paradise of pleasure, and dependent only on accidental circumstances of favor, see exemplified in this narrative the doctrine of election – that our Lord Jesus,…