dunamai - meaning possibility and;
ou - meaning NOT!
It is impossible to see God’s kingdom unless we are born again. And Scripture is clear that being born again/conversion is a miraculous work of God:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules (Ezekiel 36:25-27).
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
Avatar is boring. "Your Best Life Now" – yaaawwwwn! But becoming a Christian is a supernatural transforming work of the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 5:21 is exhilarating! It is about double imputation – what is that I hear you ask? Imputing the sinners sin to Christ and imputing Christ’s righteousness to the sinner. It is about God treating the righteous as if he lived the sinners life so that He can treat the sinner as if he lived the life of the righteous one. That is unbelievable good news. As grace is favor that we don't deserve, so double imputation is a credit to our account earned by Christ and a debt laid upon Christ's account owed by us. It is a system where God gets all the glory and we should give all the praise.
You would think that message would be the central message of every preacher, shouted from the roof of their church building. But how is it possible for me to attend an evangelical church for 10 years and never hear about this. I’ve heard preachers ask the question “is the Gospel ONLY about forgiveness of sins” like it is no big deal. What is going on here? People seem to be more interested in therapy and self esteem than double imputation. A tree of humanism has been allowed to grow in the soil of a wrong view of God and a wrong view of man.
To be continued on Wednesday where I will examine this tree of humanism!
Go On To Part 2
2 comments:
Amen, good post.
You know, I've just this week ran into this, yet more from the angle of when does this act of double imputation take place. Never before have I been so mocked, verbally abused, pleasantly threatened with violence and wonderfully slandered as I have this week.
All because we challanged the excepted belief that a baby recieves faith and understanding from God and becomes a christian and follower of Christ during the act of infant baptism. We stated that every man must believe on Christ as saviour repenting of there sin, being wonderfully and completely born-again!
Who knew that Lutherian priests could be made so mad through the simple question "Where does it say that in Scripture?"
We still say " Sola Scriptura"!
Thanks Cam
Christ’s imputed righteousness holds a special place in my heart, as it was one of the central doctrines that helped me when I was suffering from depression and low self-esteem.
But rather than build my self-esteem like the counselors and psychologists were trying to do, it removed my self-esteem altogether and put me in my correct position, under God and totally reliant on him.
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