Point 2 of Christ’s commission involves His martyrdom and the two incredible feats He accomplished by submitting to the death sentence His Father had pronounced on Him.  In part A we discussed how His death enabled mankind to receive justification–forgiveness of all PAST sins through man’s faith and the Father’s grace–unearned favor.  Through the Lord’s grace and man’s faith in His Word, sinning man can receive justification and be converted from the wretched, sin-saturated, Satan-serving “old man” he has been and be turned (converted) into the holy, Scripture-believing, Scripture-obeying New Man the Lord wills His most precious creation to be.  Over time and through spiritual maturation man can become a human version of God as did Jesus of Nazareth.  When asked by a disciple to “show us the Father,” He replied: “I have been with you for so long, yet you do not know Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the Father.  So how can you say to Me, ‘Show us the Father'” (Jn. 14:9).  Recall that Jesus severely chastised the disciples when they failed to do the things He did.  For example, he rebuked them when they failed to calm a storm (Mk. 4:39) and when they failed to cast out a demon (Mat. 17:14-21).  Then, after Peter had walked on water for quite a distance, He rebuked him for having “little faith” (Mat. 14:23-31).  Why was Jesus perturbed with them?  BECAUSE HE EXPECTED THEM TO DO WHAT HE DID.  God is no respecter of persons.  He expects His true believers to do everything He did and even greater things (Jn. 14:12).  He expects His Very Elect to walk as He walked (1 Jn. 2:6), to be pure as He is pure (1 Jn. 3:3) and overcome Satan’s temptation to sin as He did (Rev. 3:21) and thereby be as righteous as He was as a man and still is.  Jesus said that any man who hungers and thirsts for righteousness can be filled with righteousness (Lk. 6:21), just as He was while on earth and continues to be.  Part B of this second point in Christ’s commission involves the above-stated, Scriptural promises.

In order to do something one must possess the power to do it.  This rule included the Son of God who confessed that He did not come to earth on His own accord, but in obedience to His Father (Jn. 7:28).  He also testified that He could do nothing on His own power (Jn. 8:28), that even His Words were given to Him by His Father (Jn. 12:49).  Jesus was truly a man who was totally dependent on power coming from on high.  Let us be reminded that we are commanded to “walk as He walked”–live as He lived–and to be as pure “as He is pure,” and to overcome “… as I (Jesus) overcame.”  He said that (only) those who do so will “sit with Me on My throne” in the Kingdom of God (Rev. 3:21).  Jesus was born of a woman like all other men, lived and worked like all other men, was tempted like all other men and, though a man like all other men, walked in holiness.  After being supposedly “saved,” how many people walk (live) the God-pleasing life as Jesus did and AS WE ARE COMMANDED TO DO in 1 John 2:6; 3:3; 14:12, Revelation 3:21 and elsewhere?  How many enter the Father’s strait gate and walk His narrow way that leads to eternal life?  Following the so-called “born again experience,” how many answer His call to holiness?  Jesus said that “few” would do so.  Why only a few?  Over the past 2000 years since the founding of the New Testament Church billions of people have professed to have been “saved” and “born again.”  Today approximately 40% of mankind (7.5 billion total) claim to be part of “the church.”  However, Jesus said that only a “few” people “find” His Father’s “strait” (exclusive) gate and walk His “narrow” (difficult) way that leads to eternal life, and that, though many are called to do so, few answer His call.  Out of the hundreds of billions who have claimed oneness with God over the centuries, only a “few” have actually “walked together” with Him in total agreement with His Word (Amos 3:3).  Again, why so few?

Within professing Christendom consensus holds that it is impossible for man to do what God requires him to do in order to inherit eternal life, therefore Jesus does for man what man cannot do for himself  The system works something like this:  Satan, through Adam, makes man a sinner from conception by miraculously infusing his sin gene into man’s spiritual dna.  This makes sin a “natural” part of man’s life which, like eye color and height, cannot be changed.  God then requires holiness of man which man cannot produce due to his “natural” sin gene.  Knowing this, Jesus died and, by doing so, satisfied God’s holiness requirement for man by meeting that requirement for him.  All man has to do is believe this and perform certain prescribed rituals.  Having fulfilled those requirements, man is then free to do what comes “naturally”–sin.  To remain in good standing with God, the sinner need only attend church regularly, celebrate couple of heathen holidays, repent of his inevitable sins, believe that they have been forgiven and he/she is free to do more of what comes “naturally.”  Why does today’s churchman believe this?  Because his ancestors tried to obey God and failed.  To save face they covered up their spiritual deficiencies by declaring that obedience is not only impossible, but unnecessary.  Enter, Satan, whose false prophets repeatedly assure those in his church system that, as the Serpent assured Adam and Eve, they can sin and “not surely die.”  And the rest is ancient history and current reality.  The prevailing theory is that God commands of man what He knows man cannot do.  This removes any responsibility on man’s part to obey Him.  His only requirement is to believe.  In His Word the Lord repeatedly condemns the above-stated church heresies.  GOD REQUIRES MAN TO OBEY HIS WORD.  THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR OBEDIENCE.  The ultimate question then becomes: WHY CAN’T CHURCHMAN OBEY GOD AS GOD, CHRIST AND THEIR APOSTLES COMMAND HIM TO DO?  Read John 8:31; 15:10,13,14/ Matthew 12:46-50; 14:15,23; 15:9; 19:17/ Luke 6:46/ Rom. 2:13; 8:14/ James 1:22; 2:10,14,20,26 and Ephesians 4:13.  These clearly-stated, Spirit-inspired Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:14-16) will prove beyond a doubt that faith alone cannot save the soul.  So then, if obedience to God’s Word (“works”) is required, why doesn’t man obey His Word as commanded?   The answer can be summed up in three words: CHURCHMAN LACKS POWER. L.J.