As I have noted from time to time, this ministry functions as God’s Light which shines into the spiritual darkness in which the unwitting victims within the Institutional Catholic/Protestant Religious System reside. I, along with a few others, work night and day to beam the Lord’s light into the hearts of the 2.4 billion unwitting victims of history’s most successful manipulator of minds about whom the Apostle Paul wrote in Second Corinthians 4:3,4. There the apostle proclaims that God’s true Gospel has been hidden from those who are lost, “whom the god of this world (Satan) has blinded” from the Truth of the Holy Bible, thereby shutting them off from “the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, Who is the image of God, so that it cannot shine unto them.”

Of all of the Satanic beliefs, doctrines and customs embraced by those living in the spiritual darkness collectively called “Christianity,” by far the most deadly, and most adamantly defended is the belief that the Lord’s Ten Commandment Law, by which He governs His people, was done away with 2000 years ago and therefore has no place in the life of the true Christian. In this series we will focus on Paul’s epistles to the church at Rome and to the churches of Galatia which are most often used to “prove” that God’s eternal, sin-defining (1 Jn. 3:4), “holy, just and good” (Rom. 7:12) Law was “nailed to the cross” of Jesus Christ (Col. 2:14), and that His stone-written rules of life died along with Him on that fateful day.

As The Lord’s Holy Scriptures will prove to those with hearts (minds) willing to accept His Words as proof, nothing could be farther from the Truth (God’s Word–Jn. 17:17). It is to that holy Word that we will turn in order to learn from the Master Himself what are His Truths and what are Satan’s lies. It is God’s Word that we must believe and obey in order to qualify for eternal life that will be awarded at the return of Jesus Christ to earth. Read The Hope of Salvation and Born Again. Key words–Hope and Born respectively. In order to expose the “law nailed to the cross” theme that has wreaked havoc on professing Christendom for many generations, we will first turn to Paul’s often-referenced but totally misunderstood and often deliberately twisted (2 Pet. 3:16) letter to the church at Rome.

As far back as I can remember, Romans was the book that was most often referred to when the subject of the Law was broached. Relative to the Law, the common theme was: “If you don’t get Romans, Romans will get you.” The church’s “truth” was that Romans proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Law was an Old Testament entity enforced by God, and that Jesus came to correct the errors His Father had made. First and foremost, He would do away with the old, no-options, His-way-or-the-highway set of rules by which the Father had ruled a not-so-bright group of spiritual losers.

Conversely, Jesus would deal with a much more enlightened, more intelligent group which would be allowed to create a much more self-directed, user-friendly system fitting for a more intelligent, more enlightened group of people who would be known as “the church”–a collage of conflicting, competing, contradicting churches, faiths, denominations, assemblies, etc. who would call themselves “sinners saved by grace.”

In Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, the majority of whose members were Gentiles, the apostle’s theme involved JUSTIFICATION, not salvation. Justification is the removal of all of one’s PAST SINS, thereby rendering the justified one RIGHTEOUS (SINLESS), which is one of the first of many steps one must take in order to be saved. Read The Process of Salvation. Key word–Process. In his letter, Paul mentions justification, justified, just, etc. 21 times. Righteousness relative to having received justification is mentioned 22 times. Salvation is referred to only 12 times, and then only as the end result of sustained justification (righteousness). Read Romans 5:21 and 6:22. Notice that salvation is the END RESULT of righteousness and holiness which must follow justification which renders one righteous and holy. As Paul makes clear, Justification (righteousness) must be maintained throughout one’s life through strict obedience to God’s Law as Romans 5:21 and 6:22 attest. As he says in Romans 2:13, we must be DOERS OF THE LAW AND NOT HEARERS ONLY IN ORDER TO REMAIN JUSTIFIED. God defines sin as “the transgression of the Law” in First John 3:4. Once justified, one must retain one’s justification by keeping sin out of one’s life by obeying God’s Law. Jesus told the prostitute and the man at the Bethesda pool, following His forgiveness of their past sins they must “SIN NO MORE” (Jn. 5:14; 8:11). Nothing has changed.

In 3:1,2 Paul asks the ultimate question relative to the justification-righteousness-salvation question. He asks what advantage did Jews have over Gentiles when it came to being justified? The answer was that the Jews’ advantage was “MUCH IN EVERY WAY” BECAUSE THE JEWS ALREADY HAD THE ORACLES (COMMANDMENTS) OF GOD, which the Gentiles did not have. Having been born into a Law-observing society, they Jews did not have to learn the commandments upon embracing Jesus Christ as their Lord (Master) in this life and their Savior in the next life. The Gentiles, on the other hand, had to not only learn the Law, but had to learn how to obey it until the end of life in order to be saved. IF THE LAW WAS NOT TO BE OBEYED FOLLOWING JUSTIFICATION, WHY WAS ALREADY HAVING AND KNOWING THE LAW AN ADVANTAGE FOR THE JEWS?

The church’s basic mistake is that she does not distinguish between justification and salvation. They are not the same. Justification is the removal of all past sins at a point in time. Salvation is the end result of keeping oneself sin-free throughout the remainder of one’s life by obeying God’s Law. As I have asked before, why would Jesus suffer and die to remove one’s past sins, then allow him/her to continue to commit sin afterwards? That makes absolutely no sense. Especially when He died so that man could receive the Holy Spirit by which he/she would resist the temptation to sin. Jesus said in Revelation 3:21 that only those who OVERCAME AS HE DID would join Him in paradise. Read First John 3:1-10 and 2:3-5.

The subject of the Book of Romans is HOW TO BE JUSTIFIED, SPECIFICALLY, MUST A BELIEVER OBEY THE LAW IN ORDER TO BE JUSTIFIED? The answer is NO. JUSTIFICATION IS AWARDED ON THE BASIS OF THE BELIEVER’S FAITH AND GOD’S GRACE. However, once justification has been awarded, THE BELIEVER MUST OBEY THE LAW (REMAIN RIGHTEOUS) IN ORDER TO RECEIVE SALVATION AT THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST (Mat. 10:22). Paul asks in 3:31: “Do we nullify the Law through our faith?” His answer is: “GOD FORBID. THROUGH FAITH WE ESTABLISH THE LAW” in our hearts, just as Jeremiah said would take place (31:31-34) and as Paul wrote to the Hebrew converts in 8:8-13. The Old Covenant (testament) Paul refers to in verse 13 was the “law that was added” because the Israelites refused to obey the Ten Commandments they had previously received from God at Mt. Sinai. More on that topic next time. L.J.