Confession

Is Confession a fad or a fact?
By Abraham Israel

The Bible speaks about confession in various places and we will see one after another to fully understand the full potential of living a life of confession which will unleash the potential which we have in Christ within us to the outside world. Most of us who want the power of Christ to flow through us want to know the secret to live such lives. Even people who lived during the time of the great miracle ministry of Jesus, wanted to know the secret to live such lives. The people who saw Jesus perform signs on those who were diseased, and the multiplication of five loaves and two fishes to feed the multitudes asked Him, “…..“What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” (John 6:28-29). Here most of these people were Jews, so naturally they thought that they should live according to some rules and regulation for a certain period of time, so that when God sees it, He will be pleased and will use them to do the mighty works of God like Jesus. This is the religious cluttered mind-set that thinks that they can please God by keeping the rules and regulation of the perfect law of God. But Jesus pointed to them that they cannot work but God will start to work in them and through them, once they start to believe in Him [i.e. pointing to Himself] whom He [i.e. Father God] sent. When people were eager to do the works of God, Jesus pointed to himself as the work of God through whom all the works of God are going to come to all humanity. In other words Jesus pointed that there is no more works of God but only one work of God [i.e. pointing to himself as the perfect work of the Father] through whom all the works will be done through as many as of those who will believe Him from that time onwards (Mark 9:38-39; 16:19-20).

Here a question may come to us, what does it mean to believe in Jesus?

To that the Bible says in Rom 10:6-13, “But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.””.

Here we see two things that the scripture points out,

1) First to get saved one has to first confess with his mouth, Jesus as the Lord of his life. In that Instant he confesses Jesus as the Lord of his life, his dead spirit inside him will be born anew by the pouring out of the Spirit of the Lord in him by Jesus Christ from heaven (Titus 3:5-6; John 3:3,5-8; Ezek 36:25-27). This is the greatest miracle of all miracles because from that moment of time we are saved forever by the Lord Jesus from all wickedness and evil of this world. As a result of this event Jesus’ eternal heavenly God’s life is infused in to us (1 John 5:11-13). From that point you will be able to believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is alive and real because you will feel a God-connection inside you from that point of time onwards (1 John 4:14-15).

2) Then once a person becomes a believer the next verse in Rom 10:10 points out the secret to live a life of victory for the believer by saying “…with the heart one believes unto righteousness”. The believer has to keep on believing the promises of God from that point of time in order to be right with God because God will notice the thoughts and intents of the heart of every believer and will reward him according to it (Prov 12:5; 1 Samuel 16:7; Ps 44:21; 58:11; 94:11; Matt 9:3-4; 12:25). Then the believer will come to know of the deceitfulness of His own soulish heart and will start to seek for the precious thoughts of the Lord in heaven, this is where the relationship of a believer gets cemented with the love of God ( Jer 17:9-10; 13:10; 16:12, 17; Prov 17:20; Eccl 9:3-10; Ps 139:17-18; 1 Cor 2:10-16; Rom 8:37-39; 2 Cor 5:13-15). This is the place where God will be pleased with the believer’s faith. This Rom 10:10 does not stop there but continues with the expression of the believer’s faith through one’s mouth saying, “…with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” What does it mean? You can have faith in God and God will also recognize and will reward it (Rom 14:22-23), but unless you speak out with your mouth what you believe in your heart, you will not experience salvation (Rev 12:10-12).

Here the word used in Greek for salvation is soteria [pronounced - sō-tā-rē'-ä] which means deliverance, preservation, safety, salvation a) deliverance from the molestation of enemies b) in an ethical sense, that which concludes to the souls safety or salvation 1) of Messianic salvation 2) salvation as the present possession of all true Christians 3) future salvation, the sum of benefits and blessings which the Christians, redeemed from all earthly ills, will enjoy after the visible return of Christ from heaven in the consummated and eternal kingdom of God. This deliverance, preservation, safety, salvation by the power of God from enemies of God [i.e. Satan and his evil demonic cohorts] will manifest in the natural physical realm only when a person starts to confess with His mouth what He believes in his heart to be true of his life by what Jesus Christ has achieved for him personally through His birth, death and resurrection. The bottom line is, even though a believer believes in the promises of God in his heart, only when he starts to confess it with his mouth, he will be able to experience the power of God to be active in his life’s journey with God. This reminds us of the importance of the confession of the promises of God in a believer’s Christian life.

(i) The first type of confession is to one’s self and to others. The apostolic way of activating the power of God in a believer’s life is through this type of confession. That is why Paul said in His epistles to Corinthians, “And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,”we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.” (2 Cor 4:13-15). Here we notice how Paul was activating the grace of God to abound in people’s life for the glory of God. He spoke the word of God and as they believed it and had the same spirit of faith, he expected them to speak the same word of faith, and as a result when they spoke the same word of faith as Paul himself, it caused the grace [empowerment, activation of the power of God, strength of God, divine character, favor] of God to be received in greater measure in the lives of the believer’s. In other words without speaking forth the promises of God with the spirit of faith, one cannot experience the empowerment of God in one’s life. If we ask to whom we are speaking it to? We are speaking it to ourselves and to others which will activate the grace of God in us and others by strengthening our soul and others by faith. For example in the New Testament Apostle Paul spoke to himself and to others by saying, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13) which activated the grace of God mightily in His life. King David was a sort of apostolic man in the Old Testament who did the same thing by “… strengthening himself in the Lord his God.” (1 Sam 30:6) while he was going through one of the toughest trial of his life. David was a man who always confessed the promises of God and as a result experienced the mighty grace and the power of God in his life (Ps 39:3; 40:3,9-10,16; 44:8; 45:1; 27:1). This is also confirmed by Apostle Paul in Philemon 6 where he said “that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.” In other words he is saying, only when you confess and acknowledge the good things which is in you in Christ Jesus, only then your faith will become effective [i.e. to release the grace of God in to your life and other’s lives (Eph 2:8; Rom 5:2)]. So only we need to make it our habit and discipline ourselves to confess who we are in Christ Jesus.

You are what God says you are, so confess the following good things which are in you in Christ Jesus. Make your faith to be effective by accepting, admitting, recognizing and confessing the truth of the existence of His grace in you.

I AM – A Child of God (Romans 8:16)

I AM – Redeemed from the Hand of the Enemy (Psalm 107:2)

I AM – Forgiven (Colossians 1:13,14)

I AM – Saved by Grace through Faith (Ephesians 2:8)

I AM – Justified (Romans 5:1)

I AM – Sanctified (I Corinthians 6:11)

I AM – A New Creature (II Corinthians 5:17)

I AM – Partaker of His Divine Nature (II Peter 1:4)

I AM – Redeemed from the Curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13)

I AM – Delivered from the Powers of Darkness (Colossians 1:13)

I AM – Led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14)

I AM – Free From All Bondage (John 8:36)

I AM – Kept in Safety Wherever I Go (Psalm 91:11)

I AM – Getting All My Needs Met by Jesus (Philippians 4:19)

I AM – Casting All My Cares on Jesus (I Peter 5:7)

I AM – Strong in the Lord and in the Power of His Might (Ephesians 6:10)

I AM – Doing All Things through Christ Who Strengthens Me (Philippians 4:13)

I AM – An Heir of God and a Joint Heir with Jesus (Romans 8:17)

I AM – Heir to the Blessings of Abraham (Galatians 3:13, 14)

I AM – Observing and Doing the Lord’s Commandments (Deuteronomy 28:I2)

I AM – Blessed Coming in and Blessed Going out (Deuteronomy 28:6)

I AM – An Heir of Eternal Life (I John 5:11, 12)

I AM – Blessed with All Spiritual Blessings (Ephesians 1:3)

I AM – Healed by His Stripes (I Peter 2:24)

I AM – Exercising My Authority over the Enemy (Luke 10:19)

I AM – Above Only and Not Beneath (Deuteronomy 28:13)

I AM – More than a Conqueror (Romans 8:37)

I AM – Establishing God’s Word Here on Earth (Matthew 16:19)

I AM – An Overcomer by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of My Testimony (Revelation 12:11)

I AM – Daily overcoming the Devil (I John 4:4)

I AM – Not Moved by What I See (II Corinthians 4:18)

I AM – Walking by Faith and Not by Sight (II Corinthians 5:7)

I AM – Casting Down Vain Imaginations (II Corinthians 10:4, 5)

I AM – Bringing Every Thought into Captivity (II Corinthians 10:5)

I AM – Being Transformed by Renewing My Mind (Romans 12:1, 2)

I AM – Reigning in Life Through Christ Jesus (Romans 5:17)

I AM – The Righteousness of God in Christ (II Corinthians 5:21)

I AM – An Imitator of Jesus (Ephesians 5:1)

I AM – The Light of the World (Matthew 5:14)

I AM – Blessing the Lord at All Times and Continually Praising the Lord with My Mouth (Psalm 34:1)

[the preceding I am excerpts taken from savedhealed.com]

(ii) The second type of confession is to the Lord where we agree with the law of the Lord and say to Him that we have sinned, when we do sin in our lives (1 John 1:9; 2:1-2; Ps 32:1-6; 38:18; 51:1-10). Jesus Himself will act on our behalf by supporting and advocating on our behalf to the Father God, so that God the Father can continue to show his favor on us from whom all good things proceed (James 1:17). Jesus Christ is the Apostle and the High Priest of our confession as the Bible says in Heb 3:1. Here the Bible is connecting the apostolic office of Jesus Christ with His office of High Priesthood because once we confess our sins to Him, immediately He as our apostle in heaven will release the grace of God [i.e. apostolic breakthrough anointing] to overcome that particular situation that is affecting us (Heb 10:23). Confessing to Jesus Christ our High Priest who is in heaven is equal to us approaching the throne of grace in the holy of holies in the Old Testament tabernacle, where the earthly High Priest entered in once a year with the blood of goats and bulls to make atonement for the nation of Israel and bring the favor of God back in to their lives (Heb 4:14-16; 9:7). Once we receive His grace, through it we can drive out all the devil’s demonic schemes, oppositions and completely immobilize his advancing strategies. This confession is very important for the grace of God and the undeserved favor of God to continue unhindered in our lives. As this sort of relationship with Jesus continues, we as the priest of God should offer sacrifices to Him by praising and thanking Jesus continually which will make Jesus to be delighted and be more active in our lives (Heb 9:7). Because He will take those incense prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God the Father who will in turn cause His favor to super abound in our lives and through us to others (Heb 13:15-16; 1 Peter 2:5,9; Rev 1:6, 5:8-10, 8:3-6). We prepare the incense as the priest of God through our thanksgiving, praises and prayers by working along with Jesus through the confession of our mouth. Tomorrow’s destiny of the world is in the hands of today’s body of intercessory priest and believer’s of God in the Church of Jesus Christ in this earth because God acts by our prayer.

(iii) The third type of confession is more like a ‘command to the spiritual realm of Satan and his demonic cohorts’. This we do based on the authority that we possess through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus himself challenged the believer’s in Mark 16:17 by saying, “….these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons…..”. Here the word ‘cast out’ in the original Greek means ‘to send out forcefully with the idea and belief of violence, to drive out (cast out), to expel a person from a society, to compel one to depart, to draw out with force, tear out, to reject with contempt, to cast off or away’. This does imply a violent attack that the believer does by the command of his mouth in Jesus Name. This includes driving a demon out of a demon possessed person and also the demonic oppression [i.e. in the area of both soulish and physical realm of every believer] that comes against a believer. And also Jesus has said in Luke 10:19, “Behold, I give you the authority [ exousia.gr ] to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power [ dunamis.gr ] of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Here we see that Jesus Himself has personally entrusted His power [here the word used for power is not ‘dunamis’ which means ‘ability, strength, fire power…’ but ‘exousia’ which means ‘authority, complete governmental control, to rule over…’] over the evil world of demons and devils to the believers and has guaranteed that He will make sure that nothing by any means will hurt you when you exercise the authority He has given you personally to exercise it. The whole of heaven and God’s angels will defend the authority of Jesus when you exercise it believing His word (Phil 2:9-11; Eph 1:18-23). So do not believe what people say about commanding to the devil, but know absolutely because you are a child of God, all the evil spirits [i.e. Satan and all his demons] are under your authority already. Some people say that the Bible does not say that authority has been given for the believer to speak against Satan and his demons in to thin air. To that the Bible says that Satan is the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2). The Bible also warns the believer to “….. submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) and to “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” (1 Peter 5:8-9). Here the word resist in Greek is ‘anthistēmi’ [pronounced än-thē'-stā-mē (Key)’] which means ‘to set one’s self against, to withstand, resist, oppose, to set against’ in both the above verses. My question to you is? If Satan is the prince of the power of air [with all his demons under him acting under his command through the air] and if he and his demonic cohorts are walking to and fro in the air, How do you resist him and see him flee if the confession of command is not given out in to the thick or thin air? For example in the natural, if an air missile is going to strike you through the thin air, will you as a commander in-charge fire your missile in to sea or in to the air? The Bible says, “We walk by [spiritual] faith, not by [physical] sight” (2 Cor 5:7). According to this above verse we resist Satan and speak against him and his demons even if we don’t see them with our natural eyes. In other words whether we see those demons and devils present in the air or not, we believe the Bible and speak against them in to the air when we feel oppressed by their activity of stealing, killing, and destroying our blessed abundant life which Christ has given to us (John 10:10).

Satan and his demonic subordinates do not know your thoughts because as the Bible says only your spirit man and God only knows all your thoughts (1 Cor 2:11; Ps 94:11). So you cannot resist the devil by thinking against them but by only speaking against them with the authority that Jesus has already given to you. Satan and his demons will all come to know that you are resisting them, only when you start to speak against them with your mouth. So only the Bible clearly says in Rev 12:10-11, “Then [when? The moment Christ said “It is finished” (John 19:30;12:31-33)] I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come [to the hearts of all believer’s in Christ (2 Cor 6:2; Luke 17:21; Eph 3:16-17, 20)], for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down [from representing or guarding every man on earth before God (Job 1:6-7,12; 2:1-3; Zech 3:1-5; Matt 18:10)]. And they [i.e. believers in Christ] overcame him [i.e. Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” From the preceding verse we see that only by confessing to God about the sin that you have done, you are submitting to God your petition for the need for being covered with Christ’s Blood and automatically the blood of Jesus will cleanse you and restore your connection with God immediately (James 4:7; 1 John 1:9,7), the moment you do that you are equipped enough to speak against Satan and his demons by the word of your testimony and cast them out. This type of submitting to God and resisting the devil can be equated to dying to self life [i.e. described in the preceding verse as “they did not love their life to death”] because you are acknowledging to God your inability to protect yourself, and the need for the blood of Christ to cover you for protection from all evil and condemnation.

The Old Testament scriptures too agree with this view point of speaking against the devil and his demonic weapons of destruction. The Bible says in Isaiah 54:17,“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment, You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their righteousness is from Me…”. A question may arise and you may ask how do you know that it is spoken against Satan and his demonic cohorts. To that you must turn to preceding verse in Isaiah 54:16 and should see in context, that God is referring to Satan in a veiled way saying “….I have created the spoiler [destroyer] to destroy [Cross ref: Exo 12:12,13,23; Heb 11:28 Note: God was not killing the first born but allowed the destroyer who was using the plague or death virus to kill all the first born of the Egyptians. God covered the Israelites but allowed the destroyer to kill the Egyptians firstborn to make a difference between His blood bought people and the Egyptians who had no faith in the blood].” This verse in Isaiah 54:17 implies that you should Make sure you use your heritage as the servant of the Lord, standing in the righteousness of the Lord and condemning [i.e. speak against verbally] every demonic tongue [i.e. demons rarely speak audibly, but mostly will enforce deceptive, wicked and perverse thoughts in to your mind constantly] that is rising against you in judgment. This can only negate the enemy’s strategy that you will be facing in your life.

Again in Jeremiah 10:11, God is encouraging the believer to say and declare against the so called demonic gods, that they will perish from the earth in the coming days and instead the glory of the real creator God will arise forth because He owns it and sustains it as described in the succeeding verses 12 and 13 and preceding verse 10.

All these clear exposition of the scripture points to one thing, the believer should confess and speak against all satanic forces to get delivered from all their evil demonic attacks. Jesus will not rebuke from heaven because He has already given His authority in to the believer’s hands and have entrusted them to fight against His enemies and our enemies [i.e. Satan and his demons]. If the believer does not boldly do such things, he will be oppressed all his life. That why Jesus said, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36). In other words Jesus was saying, ‘Because you believe in Me, I have already set you free forever and have given you authority over all satanic devils and demons, it is up to you to use the authority I have given you personally.’ Are you ready? You are asking me for what? To use the authority that Jesus has given you. Jesus is waiting and watching with expectation to see you use it, which will bring Him the glory that He only deserves!! Praise the Lord!

Is once saved always saved right?

Is once saved always saved right?

By Abraham Israel

To fully understand the answer to this question we must first ask ourselves ‘what is salvation?’. Jesus said “Salvation is of the Jews [i.e. Jewish root of true religion which Jehovah the Lord instituted through Moses]” pointing to Himself through whom God provided to mankind the grace of salvation through faith (John 1:17), as that answer to mankind’s desperation for deliverance from evil. Also when Zacchaeus being convicted by his past lawless life tried to cleanse his conscience by the law of Jewish restitution when Jesus visited his house, Jesus immediately pointed to Himself as the only means of salvation and corrected his wrong understanding of salvation, “And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:9-10). In other words Jesus said to Zacchaeus, ‘Salvation is not in what you do to set your relationship right with God, rather your very salvation is in me who as a person have already come to your house. Don’t try to get saved; you are already saved because of your faith in me and in the purpose of my coming to this planet earth.’

Here we see that Jesus was pointing Zacchaeus also as a son of Abraham. Is He pointing to Zacchaeus physical relationship of his with Abraham in the natural as his father because of Him being a Jew? By no means. The reason Jesus called Zacchaeus as also the son of Abraham was given in verse 10 where Jesus is pointing to His very own mission of seeking and saving the lost as an answer to Zacchaeus quest for salvation. This clarifies that Jesus was pointing to Zacchaeus spiritual connection to Abraham based on his faith in Him qualified him [i.e. even though a lost sinner who only deserves hell if judged according to the law] also to be a son of Abraham to enter heaven because of his faith in Jesus. “For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” (Rom 4:3-5). Zacchaeus too by faith in Jesus Christ is also a son of Abraham because he too believed God like His father Abraham [no matter how much sin he has done in the past].

The Bible says in Galatians 3:7-9, 29, “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” By this we know that only those of us who are of faith are the true sons of Abraham. This shows that it is not by what we do we are saved, but it is hundred percentage of what Jesus Christ has done for us through which we are saved. The Apostle Paul very clearly conformed this by saying, “…we shall be saved by His life [Whose life if we ask ourselves? By the perfect sinless life that Jesus Christ lived as a substitute for every one of us in this planet earth as a perfect man].” (Rom 5:10).

After receiving Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, many believer’s slowly and steadily slide in to doing some works to be added to their faith even without realizing their wrong thinking. Many stumble in to works because it is very easy and comfortable for our fleshly mind to depend on it. They want something more than just faith in the finished work of Calvary to depend on. To these people the Bible warns, “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” (Rom 4:4).The Galatians believer’s because of false teachers tried this sort of transition in which they who started with faith in Christ slowly started to add their works by keeping the Law of Moses to be saved. Apostle Paul rebuked them by saying, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:1-5). A believer receives the Spirit by hearing and accepting the crucified Lord Jesus as His Savior and Lord. He will be on the safe ground as long as he continues in the truth. The moment they try to add some works of the flesh to the already wrought salvation [i.e. the person of Jesus Christ], they start to deflect from the truth by disobeying it.

A believer is saved as long as He walks in the eternal truth of salvation or else whatever they have suffered to lose for receiving the message of the cross becomes a waste. The very nature of the salvation that we have received is eternal because the person of Jesus who is our salvation is eternal. Jesus has become our salvation (Heb 5:9;Ex 15:2; Is 12:2). This truth of the gospel opens a channel of relationship with Jesus as their shepherd and guide throughout a believer’s life, which will give the believer a qualified entry in to heaven. This is why Jesus emphasized relationship factor as the foremost necessity of a saved person by saying “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” (John 10:27-30). Apostle Paul always emphasized this faith [i.e. relationship with Jesus Christ on a daily basis] factor by saying, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.” (2 Cor 13:5-6). Here he exhorts the believer to check whether Jesus Christ is in them by faith. In other words the Apostle Paul is asking the believers to be sure that they have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ through His Spirit. At the same time he is also encouraging them and telling them that they are not disqualified because Jesus is faithful to save them in the future. He is encouraging them not to become unnecessarily fearful. This shows that a person who loses his relationship with Jesus by rejecting His voice consistently for a long period of time is in danger of Judgment (Genesis 6:3, 5-8).

When a believer is judged, he will be judged in the flesh so that his soul and spirit willl be saved because of their faith in Jesus (1 Cor 5:1-5; 1 Peter 4:6). So only Apostle Peter warned the Church that “… the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17). This is the Judgment that was manifested in the Corinthian Church when they did not discern the Shed Blood and the Broken Body of Jesus Christ while taking communion. As a result of God’s Judgment [i.e. removal of God’s protecting hands] which manifested inside the Church, Paul said to the Corinthians, “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.” (1 Cor 11:30-32). In this same book of 1 Corinthians Apostle Paul confirmed that every believer’s work that is burned [i.e. that which will be considered useless because it was done with wrong motivation and intention outside the leading of the Spirit] will receive no reward, yet the believer will be saved because of what Jesus has achieved for him (1 Cor 3:15). This is also confirmed in the book of Hebrews which says, “so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” (Heb 9:28). The believers are the one who actually wait for Christ’s second coming where the future part of the salvation of the believer’s will be fulfilled when they will rise up in the brand new resurrection body.

All the believers will rise up in that day of resurrection. This is what happened to those people who were disobedient during the days of Noah, all those disobedient believers died along with the unbelievers, but they were saved when Jesus preached [declared to them the salvation] to them who were kept in sheol till they were resurrected along with Jesus (1 Peter 3:18-20;Isaiah 26:19; Matt 27:52-53). Even the Israelites who were disobedient in the desert died because of God’s judgment, but their souls were saved. You may ask how do you know that? Because God Himself said that, “He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen wickedness in Israel. The LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a King is among them.” (Num 23:21). These were the same people who died because of plague due to harlotry with the women of Moab later (Numbers 25:1-9). Did God change his mind regarding the salvation status of these Israelites. The answer is no because He himself has said through Balaam, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Num 23:19; Rom 8:38-39). God also has said in Psalm 89:34, “My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.” In other words God’s faithfulness toward fulfilling His spoken word and His long suffering toward those to whom He had promised is salvation (2 Peter 3:15).

Salvation is a blessing of God to his people and no one can reverse it, especially Satan cannot reverse it through sin or his deceitful temptations (Num 23:19-23). Only he can push God’s people to become involved in sin which will make them to be judged by God which is what Balaam deceitfully did to the Israelites (Num 25:1-4; 31:16,8). But those who deny Him and His covenant will be denied salvation. What it means to deny Him? To deny is to say to God, ‘Do not bother me when we are convicted by the Holy Spirit of God.’ To deny is to turn the grace of God in to lewdness [unbridled lust, excess, licentiousness, lasciviousness, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, insolence] (Jude 4). The Greek word used for the English word ‘deny’ is ‘arneomai’ in Jude 4, 2 Tim 2:12 and also in Titus 1:16. The various meanings for the word deny in Greek is ‘to deny, to deny someone [to deny one's self, to disregard his own interests or to prove false to himself, act entirely unlike himself], to deny, abnegate, abjure, not to accept, to reject, to refuse something offered’. These people always will profess themselves to be godly people but in their works they will deny Him. In other words when God convicts them when they do wrong they will not care to repent of their deeds but will continue to go their own way and do their own things as they will (Titus 1:16). These people will have a outward form of godliness but will deny the power of God when God wants to transform their lives through it (2 Tim 3:5). Many of these people will start to think and act as though they are going to earn their salvation by works. They will be having faith in what they do for God to save them rather than a relationship with God. Because of lack of faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, these people will start to habitually live in sin believing that what they do for God through His anointing will save them from eternal death (Matt 7:21-23). But one thing that they forget to consider is that even Satan was a anointed person who have started using it for Himself and thus became the author of all sin. Satan was able to continue in the power of the anointing because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Ezekiel 28:14-15; Isaiah 14:16-17; Rom 11:29). With out faith in Christ’s sacrifice, every man will sink in to sin because of lack of relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Only our faith in God through Jesus Christ will only give us the power to restrain ourselves from continuing in sin (1 John 3:4, 9).This is the reason we need to fight [i.e. against the devil’s unbelief, lies, sinful and lustful desires] in order to win for the conservation of our faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. This is described as common salvation (Jude 3).

Faith is one of the most important thing in a believer’s life. Faith is not something that we produce by mentally believing the promises of God. It is rather a sovereign act of God’s impartation that comes in to us when we first start to hear God (Rom 10:17). Jesus is the one who is the author and the finisher of our faith. Our job is to focus on Him as long as we live (Heb 12:2). When we humble ourselves before God and live in submission to his love, we will be able to stand fast and stead fast in the faith against all the temptations of the devil who will try his best to make us give up our faith that God has given us as a gift (Eph 2:8-9; 5:24; 1 Peter 5:5,8-9; 1 Cor 16:13). This is why Jesus knowing the weakness of the fleshly inclination of Peter which was going to make him deny Him, prayed that Peter’s faith may not fail during the crisis time (Luke 22:31-32). Peter denied Jesus three times, but Jesus was faithful enough to restore him back in to relationship with Himself because of His love towards him. Peter was able to return to Jesus because his faith in Jesus did not fail through the crisis (Luke 22:31-32; 22:61-62; 2 Tim 2:12-13). Peter wept with godly sorrow which led him to the path of repentance unto life but in the case of Judas it was worldly sorrow which led him in to the path of repentance unto death (Matt 27:3-5; 2 Cor 7:8-11; Rom 2:4). Because of Jesus’s faithfullness in praying for us believer’s, our faith is kept safe from failing (Rom 8:34). If a believer has no chance to fall away from faith why should Jesus have prayed for Peter and also for us unnecessarily? Hence faith is the factor that determines whether we are saved only for a period of time or for eternity.

Apostle Paul Himself at the end of his life’s journey declared triumphantly, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim 4:7). Hence we too need to keep our faith until our end. When we have done that, we too can triumphantly declare that we have kept the faith and look forward to our reward which we will receive from the Lord in heaven. If we reject Jesus and His offer of salvation, He too will deny us (2 Tim 2:12-13). What does it mean to reject? It means to remain stubbornly in sin with out humbling and submitting ourselves. It means to practice sin willfully, habitually and without restraint or sorrow for having done it. This is equal to falling away from the faith that God has given to a believer, they will have a hardened heart because of continuously living with an unrepentant heart for a long period of time. Since they have become unrepentant, it is equal to crucifying again for themselves the Son of God and putting Him to an open shame (Heb 6:6; Rom 2:5; Luke 23:33-34). This is described as willful sinning in which the sinner who has been redeemed and separated to live a holy life will completely become hardened because of living completely in sin and will finally reject the voice of God which will convicts Him, so that it will become impossible for him to receive righteousness from God because of him rejecting to appropriate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as his substitute (Heb 10:26, 29; John 16:8-11).

As long as the believer will have an iota [i.e. smallest dot] of worldly thought in him, the Holy Spirit will convict the believer of sin and will turn Him to righteousness pointing to the judgment which has taken place on a substitutionary basis for them on the cross by our Lord Jesus Christ. These verses in Heb 10: 26-32 is speaking about people who were formerly obedient to the truth of the gospel because of illumination or enlightenment, therefore the Apostle who wrote this Book of Hebrews is encouraging these believers not to throw away their confidence which is faith (Hebrews 10:32,35; 11:1). Finally he says that the secret of a believers life is that they will live by faith in Jesus Christ and hence encourages the believer not to draw back in to the old ways of sinning with out restraint or becoming hardened and unrepentant towards God (Heb 10:38-39). Is once saved always saved? The answer is yes as long as the believer does not consciously draw back to perdition or destruction by rejecting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

A sinner is justified [i.e becomes just as if he has never sinned] only by his faith in Christ (Galatians 2:16). After having been justified [i.e. in the present time] we shall be saved from wrath [i.e. in the future when every human who has ever lived will be judged for their works (Rev 20:11-15)] through Him [i.e. through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for our sins which deserves God’s wrath] (Rom 5:9). So only the moment a person confesses with his mouth the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour and believes in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead [i.e. remembering God’s promise of already having forgiven all our sins of past, present and future (Eph 4:32)], from that same moment he will be saved forever (Rom 10:9). This person is saved because of the promise of God. Here we must consider the salvation of this particular person who is saved as a journey with God to his destination [i.e. heaven]. In other words God has promised that He will be with this saved person no matter what happens to him on the way, no matter how many times he falls completely because of hardship and even overconfidence in his own ability to live the Christian life, God has promised to raise him up because of His very own faithfulness (Prov 24:16; Ps 37:23-24; Heb 13:5-6). We should notice here that salvation has been achieved by our Lord Jesus Christ once and for all time [i.e. past, present and future]. The promise of the Lord stands true forever. The only thing that we need to do on our part is to keep walking towards the destination by faith until we reach the end. We need to hold on to the promises of God and walk in faith toward the destination where the salvation of God [i.e. resurrection of our corruptible body which by then will be transformed in to an incorruptible body forever] will be manifested physically. This is the real salvation.

Some people may ask here what about Phil 2:12 which says, “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”? Here we must understand that many people quote to prove and justify that we need to work out our own salvation. But the main thing they miss is in the next verse which gives the answer in context to our own salvation by saying, “for it is God [who works 100% and we do not even have to work 0.01% by our self effort] who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). Hence we work out that which He works in us. In other words because God works hundred percentage in us, we are given a choice to allow Him and co-operate with Him to work out the salvation [which is already present in our spirit (Heb 12:23; 1 Cor 6:17)], by resisting the soulish influence by the power of God working in us (Eph 3:20). The Bible also says that the nature of the salvation that we have is an eternal one because salvation is the person of Jesus Christ rather than just a belief on our part (Heb 5:9). So only salvation is all about following Jesus and obeying Him in everything. The only way a person can lose this eternal salvation is when he intentionally walks away from Jesus, who is the only way any human can be saved. The Apostle John pointed to this particular sin that leads to death but he said that all unrighteousness is sin (1 John 5:16-17). What does this mean? It means that all sins can be covered under the blood of Jesus except the sin of turning away from Him which has no other way out but only death. In other words it also means that a saved person can never be lost unless and until “….they fall away [i.e. stopping or abstaining from continuing to walk under the Lordship of Jesus Christ by voluntarily indulging in sin and saying no the voice of Jesus like Cain (Gen 4:4, 16; 1 John 3:11-12)], to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” (Heb 6:6).

To fall away is to be enticed by sin completely and to reject the Son of God’s sacrifice which was achieved for us to walk in victory through obedience to His voice (Titus 2:11-15). This will not even come under over confident sin [i.e. to fall in to sin because you are confident of overcoming its power by your own ability]. In order for the readers not to misunderstand the meaning of this scripture, in Heb 6:6 the Apostle who wrote the Book of Hebrews explains this verse using a metaphor in the preceding verses. These verses compare a saved person to the earth which naturally has the ability to produce crops. Salvation is compared to the ground to which God continuously supplies water which is represented by the power of the Holy Spirit and the person of the Holy Spirit. If that person uses the power of the Holy Spirit and His supernatural protection from evil to be used to promote himself and his own lustful desires, it will produce only a harvest of weeds in the end which will not be useful to anybody (Jude 4). But if he uses the person and the power of the Holy Spirit to stay connected to Jesus and be obedient to the voice of Jesus, he will produce fruits in his life which will bring glory to God the Father which is the ultimate purpose for which we are saved. Is once saved always saved right? It is right as long as our focus in on Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith! You servants of the Most High God, Rejoice because “God is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.” (Jude 24-25). Praise the Lord!

Submissive Woman? What about Galatians3:28?

Question?

I have been reading some commentary on your blog . Again, excellent. Although, I do still have a problem with the submissive women. Though I do agree with divine order in the household. There are some other points I disagree with, based on the scripture below. How do you interpret this scripture.

Galatians 3

26For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.
27For as many [of you] as were baptized into Christ [into a spiritual union and communion with Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah] have put on (clothed yourselves with) Christ.
28There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male [b]and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29And if you belong to Christ [are in Him Who is Abraham's Seed], then you are Abraham’s offspring and [spiritual] heirs according to promise.

Answer!

So glad that you have been reading some commentary and articles in the blog. Thank you. ‘Submissive women’ in the scripture is based on the relationship within the family setting first. Then in the church based on the one whom God has ordained in the church as a spiritual overseer. The Galatians 3:28 is a wonderful explanation of every one’s [i.e. believers] relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ there is no difference [i.e. based on gender or in social status there is no difference or in other words God has no favorites with in these categories].

Whether man or woman, slave or free, all can relate to God equally and are equal in God’s sight. In those days women were not considered equal in Jewish religion with the men worshippers. Hence Paul made it clear by explaining it to them that they were equal in God’s sight and that they can relate to God equally because all who have faith are the sons of God [i.e. mature personality who can intimately relate with God in a deeper way and not like a child]. This Vertical relationship with God which Paul is speaking about should not be mixed with the Horizontal relationship with in a family or in the bigger family of God [i.e. the Church].

I have told these things based on the contest of the scripture which Paul is emphasizing to the Galatians Believers, who have started to be legalistic by falling from grace by rejecting faith formula for law of Moses, which is not God’s New Testament way of living, and also this is not a exhortation or correction for dispute that has happened either in the family or in the church because of gender issues or social difference. I believe I have made some sense with my view point. I don’t expect you to agree with all that I write. Any way for me scriptures are the absolute plumb line for all my revelatory writings. If a scripture has no support within the scriptures then the doctrine will be feeble.

To God my Love!

To God My Love!

By Abraham Israel

“What do you mean when you say God?” or to put it another way, “Who or what is God to you?”

To me God is my creator and because He is my creator, He becomes my father in a spiritual and physical way. In essence all I can say is “….God is love.” (1 John 4:8). Just because He loved me, He created me and brought me in to this beautiful God’s garden of planet earth. Not only that, because I have been born with a sinful nature, He sent his only begotten Son [Jesus Christ] to redeem me from all my sinful self-destructive ways. Not that I loved Him first, but He loved me first to redeem me from all my sins by drawing and wooing me toward Himself through His love that He expressed through His Son Jesus Christ (John 3:16).

Many people in this world usually have ideas like, ‘Love is a emotion, feeling or our desire to have someone or something’. But from my personal experience, I found out that ‘Love is a person’. And the person is none other than Jesus Christ. This is so real to me than the things that I see with my eyes.

To feel a thing tangibly, you need to touch with your hand or feet and may need to see with your eyes to make sure something is real. But you don’t need that much effort to know God because the Bible says, “for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring [because He is our creator].’” (Acts 17:28). God has structured this beautiful planet earth for us to seek and find Him, as also the Bible says, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27). All of us no matter what part of the world we live, we are of one blood, created for the sole purpose to be God seekers and God finders. O what a Love! God is closer than the air we breathe.

We humankind were groping for the real God desperately, Jesus Christ who is the person of Love who was sent from God arrived in this planet earth two thousand years ago as one among us and promised us that those who believe in Him [as one sent from God to reveal God], will know God tangibly through Him. He declared to humankind “….I am the Truth [that you are searching for]….” (John 14:6) and also He declared when He was on earth, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.” (John 16:12-13). Here He promised us that the Holy Spirit [who is in us the moment we believe Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour], will hear from the person of love [Jesus Christ] and will speak the words of Love to us because Jesus is no more physically in this earth, but He has left this earth two thousand years ago itself, to represent and be a mediator for us before God. This is what I have experienced in my life, I hear the words of Love and encouragement always from the person of Love [Jesus Christ] through the person Holy Spirit who is in me. Before I found this love, I was the most confused and miserable person in the world according to me.

Now after I have found this Love [which is unconditional in nature], I have realized that this is what I have missed my whole life in the past. This is what my heart longed for, but I could not understand at that time. I have found His love to be unchanging. When I don’t feel like loving Him sometimes, I have realized that He still loves me. When I feel so happy sometimes, I have realized He still loves me. When I feel sad and burdened many times, I have come to realize that He still loves me and encourages me through His Spirit. Whenever I get depressed due to the storms of life, I have realized his love and encouragement that lift me out from gloom and zooms me in to this life abundance which Jesus gives (John 10:10). To me He is more than anything to me. All I can promise you is His Love is unchanging and is the only ultimate constant in this changing world.

His Word says in Hebrew 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” My life is totally different now. I am so Joyful because of finding this person of Love in my life. He loves me always.

You too can have this person of Love in your life, if you invite Him in to your life and can experience this abundant life as you follow Jesus daily. He loves you as much as He loves me every day, because He created you too out of that one blood, for the same purpose of seeking and finding your loving creator. And the greatest thing that I found out in my life is that He comes after me singing lullabies, no matter how I react to His precious Love. This is why King David spoke by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by saying, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm 139:7-10). O what a Love!

This is the reason I love to sing this song and dedicate it to the love of my creator,

The love of God is greater far

Than tongue or pen can ever tell

It goes beyond the highest star

And reaches to the lowest hell

The guilty pair, bowed down with care

God gave His Son to win

His erring child He reconciled

And pardoned from his sin

Could we with ink the ocean fill

And were the skies of parchment made

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky

Hallelujah (3x)

O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

Theological definition of God!

Theological Definition of God
By Abraham Israel

Berkhof: “God is one, absolute, unchangeable and infinite [never ending] in His knowledge and wisdom, His goodness, and love, His grace and mercy, His righteousness and holiness”.

This is a wonderful definition describing God because God is truly infinite in all His attributes. God says in His word, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.” (Rev 22:13). In the Greek language, the first alphabet is Alpha and the last alphabet is omega, just like in English language the first alphabet is A and the last alphabet is Z. The Greek people considered Alpha as the beginning infinity because there is no more any alphabet to describe anything or use in vocabulary before it, the alphabet Omega was considered the ending infinity because there are no more alphabets to describe anything or use in vocabulary after it. In other words anything that has to be described before alpha or after omega is incomprehensible and unfathomable to our human mind.

This is what God exactly is. He cannot be described with finite words and expressions. If a person says, why I cannot know God with my human mind? To that the answer is the human mind is limited. If we first want to prove God by our calculation and science, then first we need to crack out alpha and omega infinity. Then with equality we can sit in the same table with God to comprehend Him. This is what every man is logically trying to find out, which he cannot fully find because always the greater one [Creator] can choose to reveal himself or conceal himself by His own choice to the lesser one [Humankind]. So only if God places Himself and His attributes in us [now the Lord God is the Spirit who is in us (2 Cor 3:17;John 16:7;14:26)], whom we have lost in the Garden of Eden and if it [our spirit connection to God (1 Cor 6:17)] becomes active again, then as His children we can relate and know this God bit by bit as He reveals Himself. Only then we can start to understand God and His ways.

The Creator God who created us is not a tyrant, but a person full of Love toward us humans. So accordingly God decided that if He placed Himself in a human body, then his creation whom He loves can come to fathom God in that human person (Heb 10:5-7;John 1:1-3,14). Hence God decided to declare Himself to humankind in the eternity past. This is what God did in Jesus Christ (John 14:9-11). The God who created us placed Himself in a human body to be born as a baby and die as a man (Matt 1:23). But the greatest miracle was that He rose again after three days to live forever as a mediator for us in heaven (Rev 1:18;Heb 9:24). This person of God was born as a perfect man and increased in the fullness of God’s attributes such as wisdom, knowledge, goodness, grace, righteousness, love and holiness because of His perfect obedience to God the Father (Luke 2:40,46-52). The only man who was born after the first Adam to have no sin nature in him was Jesus Christ that is why the Bible calls Him uniquely the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45;Luke 3:38). The first Adam sinned and as a result had made the whole humankind to fall short of the glory of God [God connection of God through His Spirit](Rom 3:23). But the last Adam had no sin in Him and He never ever sinned even once, such was His perfect obedience to God the Father (2 Cor 5:21). Even His enemies cannot accuse Him of any sin (John 8:46). He learned perfect obedience through suffering in the flesh (Heb 5:7-8;1 Peter 4:1-2). He lived as a perfect absolute example of who God is, so that we humans too can fathom God and follow Him to become a perfect child of God (Matt 19:21). To those who believed in Jesus Christ God decided to place His very seed [sperm of the Word] in those people to make them His very own adopted children (1 Peter 1:23;John 3:3;Rom 8:15-16). Praise the Lord!

After God achieved His ultimate on behalf of all the humans He loved, then He gave a open invitation to all humankind and promised that whoever will seek God will find God by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as a child of God (Acts 17:27;John 1:12;Luke 11:9-13). In other words God has instructed to all humans, ‘If you want more information about me, seek me and you will find me.’

Unfortunately because of one man’s disobedience the whole of humankind lost this God-connection and His divine attributes to relate to God, when our forefather Adam fell in the Garden of Eden (Rom 5:12,19). But because of the love of God, God has restored this connection back by sending His only begotten Son to this planet earth in our likeness to die for us all and then live for us all forever (Rom 5:19;8:31-35;Heb 1:1-4;2:14-18). When man lost Godlikeness forever, God has no other way to restore it except by coming in the likeness of man to reveal His love towards them and to restore them back (Gen 1:26-31;Phil 2:5-11). Now through the Son of God Jesus Christ, we can relate to God and know Him intimately. Thank God for such a privilege!

Without the Son of God no one can find God or relate to that infinite God in any way as God Himself has said in His word (John 7:11;Matt 11:27;Luke 10:22;Gal 1:16). This infinite God says in His word, If you really want to know me, “Be ye Holy as I am Holy” (1 Peter 1:16;Lev 19:2;20:7-8). This Holiness is received as a gift of God through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord only (John 17:16-19;Rom 1:4-5;12:14-15). Hallelujah!

Do we have to sin?

The Fall and the Redemption
By Abraham Israel

Do man have to sin? Why do men choose to sin?

Man is a fallen being. His spirit is dead. Due to one man’s [i.e. Adam’s] disobedience all have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). That means all have sinned against God. If we try to be religious that is also waste because God rejects religion because it is made by man to substitute God-longing eternity in every man. Religion is not God ordained thing for any human, but a relationship with God is what was designed by Him for every human to experience and cherish. Religion always says Do! Do! Do! And God says it is all done for you, only believe what I say and live an abundant life in this planet earth!

And God’s Word says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10). If a religious man breaks one law in His religious pursuit of God, he is guilty of breaking all the laws of God and deserves only Hell, such is the perfection and justice of a just creator God. So religion is not the answer.

Every man should not only realize his need for God, but also should realize that he is a sinner and that he doesn’t have the ability to please God and be perfect in his own strength. If man realizes this, then God has an answer for this sin problem. The problem of sin was solved when God sent His only begotten Son to this world to die for us and reconcile us back to God inspite of our sinful condition so that we can live a fearless and abundant life of peace with God and men (John 3:16; Rom 5:8; 8:3, 4). This abundant life is a life of overcoming sinful habits through the power of the Spirit of God who lives in us to empower us.

The Bible says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16). God sent his Son and condemned sin in the flesh and has justified all who believe in Him. And “He made the spirit of just men [those who believe in Jesus] perfect” (Heb 12:23). And through this spirit man He will speak to us and will makes us strong to over come sin. So man does not have to sin.

Man chooses to sin because he has a free will. And he chooses to sin rather than obeying God and be under His authority. Man chooses to have his own way and enjoys the world rather than God. God says in His Word, “And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:17). This enjoyment of doing sin and having our own way by rejecting God is not for ever, it is temporary and that too it can be continued only till a man dies and after that he will be judged by God for all his works after the final day of this existence of this present earth. After this the people who have sought God and His relationship with Him through His Son Jesus will live with God forever and ever in continual joy and bliss.

This is what the Bible says as, the man who does the will of God lives for ever. Where? In the blessed new planet earth. It is up to man to believe in what God says or do his own will. God says sin is not the problem, but man obedience to what He says is?When we believe what God has said in His word, we do not become instantly a sinless saint, but from the moment we believe His word we become saints who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God and are being perfected day by day in to the image of Jesus Christ our Lord. Hence a believer in Christ will choose not to sin habitually and intentionally by resisting the devil through the power of the Holy Spirit who resides in every believer! Hallelujah!

Is Theology Necessary?

The Word was God
By Abraham Israel

Is Theology necessary and essential to Christian faith?

Theology -> Theo [God] + logia [Study of the Word].

‘Theologia’ is Greek word that is translated as theology in English. As a whole it means ‘the study of the word of God’ [i.e. The Bible].

Theology is necessary because people need to rest their faith not on shaky doctrines or vain philosophies, but on sound doctrines. The meaning of doctrine is ‘the most important belief in a particular religion’.

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew that they “… strain and take a gnat out of their mouth and swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:24). If we see in the Old Testament, both the animals are unclean animals. In other words Jesus was telling them that their whole approach toward theology is completely wrong. The man made commandments of the Pharisees always insisted on doing things for God, rather than doing things that God requires the most.

God says in 1 Samuel 15:22, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.” The written word of God when quickened by the Spirit of God becomes the voice of the Lord (Deut 8:11, 19-20; 15:5; 17:18, 19). And every one of us need to heed the voice of the Lord than sacrifice our life to God. So only sound doctrine is needed to lead us in the exact way the Lord wants us to go.

For this reason, every preacher needs to be a theologian, then only he will not only practice what he knows in His life but also he will be able to teach and impart that thing to others. As Jesus also emphasized this message by saying, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:17-20).

And also Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23, “…You keep all the small doctrines, but you leave all the important or weighty matters of the law, woe to you hypocrites…” (Paraphrased). So we as the Church should also take the warning Jesus gave to the Pharisees and Scribes, and give importance to sound doctrines and serious theology. The Weightier matters of the law are: justice, mercy and faith (Matt 23:23).

We should always differentiate in our Christian faith, the major [orthodox doctrines] and the minor [the present restorational doctrinal truth]. Dissension in most of the Christian community occurs due to focussing on minor doctrines rather than major doctrines. According to Jesus, the major or weighty doctrines are justice, mercy and faith. We as the followers of Jesus Christ, this should also be our thrust and empphasis in our present day churches. Thus doctrines are very inportant.

God also said in Jude 3, “…Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” As said in the preceding verse the doctrine that we have will always either build our faith or destroy our faith. In other words the amount of faith that we have depends on the accuracy of the sound doctrine that we believe and practice in our daily life. This is the reason we must earnestly challenge for the faith by keeping the accuracy of the doctrine which has once for all has been given to us by Jesus and all the Founding apostles during the first century. The need of this hour is not to quarrel among ourselves by contending on minor doctrines, but we need to return to the major doctrines that are the base on which the church can stand in the major storm of apostasy that is going to come in the end time in the coming years. But if we do not return to the major doctrines and keep fighting on minor doctrines, the warning of Jesus still stands for us too, “How terrible it is for you Pharisees…..” (Matt 23:23).

Unity in Essentials [Major doctrines],
Diversity in Non-Essentials [Minor doctrines].

Is the Holy Spirit Essential?

The Real Person is working

By Abraham Israel

How significant is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the Church and to the believers?

When Jesus left this earth he did not command the disciples to wait to build a church or temple, but He told and commanded the disciples to wait for the ‘Promise of the Father’, which is nothing but receiving the Holy Spirit in power. From this we can easily know that the person of the Holy Spirit is the most important participant and executive in launching out the work of God that Jesus has told us to do. He is the most important person in the Church. When Jesus promised the disciples that He will send the Holy Spirit for them to be a witness for Him, He not only promised them but also to us who have believed Jesus’ words through His disciples (John 17:20). So Jesus’ commandments are for all of us believers! Praise the Lord!

He also spoke about the Holy Spirit to the disciples and believers and said to them, that the world neither sees Him nor knows Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. Here He described the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth (John 14:16-17). In the same 14th chapter verse 6 Jesus said, “….I am the truth….”. What does this imply to us, it implies that we cannot know Jesus the truth without the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus also said in John 8:32, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. This is the reason why most of the body of Christ is in bondage and is extremely suffering is because they have neglected this most important truth of the teaching about the Holy Spirit. This is also the reason why so many believers in today’s churches are completely influenced by the lies that come from the world system of governance which has made them feeble and weak against its evil influence. If Jesus took such a care to explain and teach about the Holy Spirit in relationship to Himself and His [Jesus’] future relationship with the Church through the Holy Spirit in the future building of the church, my question to you is, how can the church neglect it as something optional and still expect to stay free from bondage of the evil one and be powerful against him. How can the church neglect such an important teaching and expect the gospel to be preached in all the world. Absolutely impossible without Him.

So the church [i.e. the body of Christ] should stop playing games with God and should allow the Holy Spirit to work in our midst as He wills. When we do this the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of truth will reveal all of Jesus in His fulness to His church. And He will empower the church to do and teach all that Jesus has instructed His apostles and disciples as in the first century two thousand years ago (1 Cor 12:11). Without the Holy Spirit there will be no liberty inside the church because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit who releases the Heavenly liberty in the church’s spiritual atmosphere and will bring the church in to the glorious liberty of the children of God (2 Cor 3:17; Rom 8:21). This is the reason many are playing churchianity and maintain their religiosity without the liberty of the Holy Spirit.

The bottom line is God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). If anybody will allow the Holy Spirit to take His place in the body of Christ, the latter rain revival will come mightily upon the earth (Zech 10:1;Isaiah 32:15; Hosea 6:3). Jesus will always come to His people like a rain poured upon a dry ground, if they seek after Him though the Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord!

If we obediently welcome the Holy Spirit in to our lives and our churches, we will not be lamenting to God at least in the coming outpouring like the prophet Jeremiah lamented for His nation of Israel saying, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!” (Jer 8:20). Hence the conclusion of the whole matter is that the Holy Spirit is the most significant person to the church and to the believers. If only we are hungry and thirsty for more of the Holy Spirit in our lives and Churches, only then we will ultimately find the truth of Jesus which will set us free and will take us in to the glorious liberty of the chilren of God.

Did the Holy Spirit function differently in the Old Testament?

The Holy Spirit never worked differently in the Old Testament because the Holy Spirit is God and He has said in His word, “For I am the LORD, I do not change….” (Malachi 3:6). But the Holy Spirit used different plans and strategies to fulfill God’s timetable. He empowered the chosen men of God in the Old Testament and used them in the physical realm mostly, all because He wanted to fulfill God’s timetable which was only for the nation of Israel through which God planned to bring the Savior of the whole world (Eph 2:11-12; Rom 11:15,25; John 4:22). In the Old Testament, the war against Satan was physical as Satan concealed His identity. So only if you take note of it in the Bible, you can see that the word Satan was used only on few occasions or 3 times approximately. When the fullness of time had come in the timetable of God, God who spoke through the prophets in the times past [i.e. O.T Times], sent His son in to the world to purge us from our sins [past, present and future] (Heb 1:1-3).

The Holy Spirit was the one who took Jesus from heaven and placed him in the womb of Mary and the rest is history as God has fullfilled His plans through Him. The Holy Spirit was the same, and is the same amd will be the same because He is not an influence but He is the Divine 3rd person of the Trinity.

In the New Testament because of what Jesus has done for us, the Holy Spirit can now stay in us and will be with us “even until the end of the age” as promised by Jesus (John 14:17; Matt28:20). So it is a great privilege to know and experience the third person of the trinity deeper than the prophets and saints experienced Him in the Old Testament because Jesus has made it possible for us in the New Testament with which we base our relationship with God (2 Cor 3:8-9,18; 13:14; Matt 11:11). In the New Testament the Holy Spirit uses us in the Spiritual realm against the forces of darkness which are our real enemies which work against God and us through influencing people’s state of mind in a wrong way. In reality unbelieving people are used as pawns in the hands of Satan and his evil demons (2 Cor 10:3-6; Eph 6:12).

There are various ways in which the Holy Spirit relates to us,

1) The Holy Spirit is in us – to guide us with His Wisdom (Gen 41:38-39; Deut 34:9; Dan 4:8, 9; John 14:17).

2) The Holy Spirit is with us – to protect us from all harms and dangers (Ex 33:14; Josh 1:9; John 14:17; Heb 13:3).

3) The Holy Spirit is upon us – to make us a witness for God by empowering us to do mighty deeds (Judges 6:34; 11:29, 32-33; 14:19; 15:14; Acts 1:8; 4:8; 13:9-12).

He related to the men and women of God in this same way both in the O.T and N.T times as we have seen above, but in the N.T because of what Jesus has achieved for every believer by dying for them on the cross for all their sins [past, present and future], We in the N.T have assurance from God that the Holy Spirit will stay with us, in us and upon us forever and ever which was not the same in the O.T times (Heb 13:5; Ps 51:11;1 Sam 16:13-14; Isaiah 63:10-11).

What is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit?

Doctrine means the most important teaching in a religion. One of the most important teachings in Christianity is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit because He is the third person of the God head who connects us humans to the other two persons of the Trinity (1 John 3:24; 1:3-4;Eph 2:18). He is the God whom we worship through our intimacy with Him and He works along with us and through us (2 Cor 13:14; Mark 13:11). Now to us in the earthly realm, the Lord [i.e. the Master whom we relate to] is the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17). He is not an influence, power or emotion, but He is the very person of God who created us on the day of creation (Ps 104:30). He is our sustainer who prolongs our very life (Ps 104:29;Job 34:14-15). He has got intellect, emotion and will, just like any one of us. He is a person. He is a gentle man who is very sensitive and is the loveliest person in this planet earth. The Holy Spirit loves each and every one of us individually (Rom 15:30).

We cannot be saved by ourselves, it is the Holy Spirit who saves us and we become a brand new born again Christian (John 3:3,5,8). He is the same in essence and equal to the other two persons of the Trinity (Matt 28:19). Jesus Himself said that the words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing (John 6:63). In other words the words that Jesus speaks, the Holy Spirit quickens it in the now realm and supplies it to our human spirit which will in turn receives the life of God which is in it because the word of Jesus has life in it (Psalm 119:50). The Holy Spirit is the one who transfers the life (John 14:6) [i.e. the eternal life] of Jesus in to our spirit man.

The Holy Spirit never condemns a person, but convicts the person of His wrong doing! (John 16:8). What a great gentle man! He never forces anybody and He respects the decision, choice and the will of a person. The Holy Spirit is the one who is our teacher who makes us to understand more of Jesus as we ask Him to open our eyes and ears to understand His word (John 14:26). It is only through the Holy Spirit we can know about God as our Father and how he became our Father through Jesus Christ. We can make a decision to welcome the Holy Spirit in our life and enjoy a lifelong relationship with Him as you senior partner and your best friend. Ask for more of the Holy Spirit in your life and God the Father will give to you more and more of Him as you thirst for Him (Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit will not speak about Himself but whatever He hears from Jesus who is now in heaven at the right hand of God, He will speak to you exactly those same words in your inner spirit man (John 16:13-15). Hallelujah! Will you ask for more of the Holy Spirit in your life, if yes, you are a blessed man to have Him in greater measure!

Relating to God’s Power!

Relating to God’s Power
By Abraham Israel

How would we personally relate to God if He were a force [power] or principle [theory / belief / code]?

If God is just a power and not a person, there is no way we can relate to Him. If it were so, we can only relate to God as we relate to gravitational power or other types of power. There can be no power with out a source that controls it. So Power in itself is of no use unless a person holds it and controls it to be used for a particular purpose. This is why God is not a power, but God holds the infinite power of all universe. God is omnipotent. He is all powerful. David the king as a person who personally experienced the power of the mighty God says, “God has spoken once, twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God.” (Psalm 62:11). Here He explains that the real supernatural power is with God. As we all know that man is always limited in power. If we want to relate to God who is infinite in power, then we need a cordial relationship with the greater person. For example, from the greater flows the lesser because the greater is the source.

If we hear and know what is the way in which we can receive power from the greater one, then we can relate to him to receive the power. God says, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be a witness of Me…. to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8). Here the Greek word for power is ‘dunamis’ from which the English word ‘dynamite’ comes from. This gives us an idea that we can only relate to the power of God in His terms only because the power that comes from Him is like a dynamite power that may blow us off if it is not restrained and handled properly.

And this power is not given to boast or do magic before everybody. This power can be tapped only if we are willing enough to do what He says and that too in His own terms. If we are willing enough to be a witness to all the people and are ready to tell what we experience, then this power [dunamis] can be experienced.

And this experience can be experienced through the Holy Spirit who himself is the greatest power in the universe. In the Old Testament, many people who did and fulfilled the will of God experienced awesome power to do what God wanted them to do [David, Samson…..]. In the New Testament, many people experienced God’s anointing [Healing power].

If God were only a principle [theory/belief/code] we cannot relate to Him absolutely, because we are not only physical, but ultimately spiritual.

Only a spirit being can relate to another spirit being. For example through code and theory the Israelites absolutely failed to relate to God (Matthew 13:14, 15).

Is Knowing the Resurrection of Christ Important ?

The Resurrection Factor
By Abraham Israel

What is the theological [study or knowing of God] significance of Christ’s Bodily resurrection?

If we ask the same question to the disciples of Jesus during the first century, what would have been their answer be? To the core, it means everything to them. The disciples thought when Jesus died on the cross, all their hope about the kingdom of God established in Israel, with Jesus as their Messianic king and they as His friends with authority was gone. They felt miserable and hopeless. Even Apostle Paul felt the same way if it had not been for the one thing, the resurrection of Christ. He said, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.” (1 Cor 15:13-14). Here Paul is speaking about the object of our faith. The object of our faith is the risen Christ who is in heaven, who has promised us that we will be resurrected back to life in our physical body, through His life and power in the coming day of resurrection of all believers during the rapture of the Church. By believing and living in hope with love toward God and man, is the one thing that makes us receive the life of Jesus which is eternal life (Rom 1:17). A life without end. If this should happen in reality, then our body which is under the bondage of corruption must be revived with the very life of God [i.e. without sickness, pain and death of spirit, soul and body]. This is what Jesus does through His Spirit who lives in us the moment we believe in Jesus Christ which will fully be fulfilled on the day of rapture.

God raised Jesus as an object of our faith. We cannot have faith in faith because faith needs an object to believe and a direction to look towards. Even the gospel is preached to the unbelievers with Christ crucified and Christ [as risen from the dead] as the central theme of the message of the gospel in which they believe and put their hope. God has made Salvation so simple and significant that anybody who believes in Jesus will be saved. Another important significance of Christ’s bodily resurrection is, only when someone believes in the message of Christ’s Bodily resurrection, then only the Holy Spirit can come in to their life and quicken their mortal bodies thus providing healing to one’s spirit, soul and body (Rom 8:11). Paul wrote his whole theological argument in his epistles based on the Bodily resurrection of Jesus. Thus an unbeliever cannot become a Christian without this message of Christ’s bodily resurrection and a believer cannot continue to be a Christian because it is all the work of faith based on the Bodily resurrection of Jesus. This proves the importance of the message of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Atonement and the resurrection work of Christ

The early church got it right when compared to the present time, their understanding about the ‘Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ’. They considered the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ as a,

i. Victory over Satan,

ii. Meeting the just demands of Divine law,

iii. Offering of a sacrifice and

iv. The reversal of the sin of Adam.

First of all we must understand that the Atonement and the Resurrection work of Christ was planned by God even before the foundation of this world (Rev 13:8). The Holy Trinity had discussed and Jesus voluntarily agreed, the Father God approved and the Holy Spirit executed it (John 10:17,18). When God began the adventure of creating the earth, he took the risk of creating a free moral being and also took the risk of placing angels as the spiritual guardian over their lives (Matt 18:10;Psalm 91:11;34:7). Because of this risk involved He knew that if something goes wrong because of the risk involved in it, He loved us humans so much that He was ready to step in to this planet earth to become one of them to rescue them from its devastation (Heb 2:16-17). Oh what a love! One of the reason that God gave aid to us Humans and not angels was because the rebellion of angels was a conscious decision without any outside influence (Rev 12:3-4). But Humans were deceived in to rebellion with a conscious choice, but with an outside influence [i.e. Satan and his Demons] (Genesis 3:1-8).

Even when God started executing the project planet earth, according to Him [i.e. in His mind] Christ His Son was already slain because Christ surrendered His will to the Father to fulfill His project at that time itself. This is such a reality to God, that the moment a person surrenders His will to do a particular thing that God says [i.e. In this case only if something wrong happens], according to God it is like already done. Christ voluntarily surrendered His will as God Almighty, to the Father even before the creation of the planet to fulfill God the Fathers plan as a servant participant (Genesis 1:1-5; Col 1:15-20). So only in the Gospel of John once His earthly mission was about to be completed, Jesus said to the Father, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” (John 17:4-5). The scripture also speaks, “Therefore, when He [Jesus Christ] came into the world [i.e. before becoming a baby in the womb of Mary to come in to the world system of governance (Matt 4:8-11)], He said: “Sacrifice and offering [blood of bulls and goats] You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me [where? Down on planet earth]. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I [Jesus Christ] said, ‘Behold, I have come— In the volume of the book it is written of Me— To do Your will, O God.’” (Heb 10:5-7). Thus the Bible clearly shows that God had planned and set the time for Christ’s coming to the earth as a sacrificial lamb to offer Himself for the sin of the world (Heb 1:1,2;John 1:29). It did not cost us anything, but it did cost God His very own Son.

It is not a religious rites that Jews had been following by keeping the law and sacrificing bulls and goats, but it is a shadow of the good things to come [when Messiah comes] and not the very image of the things (Heb 10:1-4). The good things include God having forgiven them in the Old Testament time itself by their faith in God by their Sacrificial Atonement of Blood, all the true saints who lived during the O.T times believed that their Messiah will come one day and make atonement for their sins, because of this faith they had in Jesus the Messiah, they were raised in their new resurrected body when Jesus rose from the dead (Ps 79:9;65:3,4; Isaiah 26:19;Matt 27:52-53).

It was God the Father’s will that Jesus Christ [the Son of God] should come to the earth and offer Himself, so that every person who believed and will believe in God should be redeemed and have eternal life. God decided to forgive the erring humanity once for all thorough this one perfect sacrifice for all generations (Heb 10:12). From this we know that this unique sacrifice was initiated and ordained by God and not by any man’s will (Gen 3:21; Gen 4:2-7;Heb 11:4;Gen 8:20-21). We know that God is personal to each and every one of us. Each man is born once and dies once in this earthly realm. Thus as a perfect substitute for each and every one of us, He [Jesus] was born once in this earth and died once and rose again to live forever, thus giving us the hope that we will also live forever like Him because through Him we who believed Him have been forgiven by God for all our sins.

This is the ultimate reason, Jesus visited this earth once as a God-man and died for us once (Heb 9:27-28), or else He needs to come and die for every man in every generation from the foundation of the world (Heb 9:26). Jesus did not sacrifice Himself to fulfill the demands made by the devil, but by a just God who justified the ungodly by His Son’s sacrifice (Rom 4:5). Jesus gave up His rights and privileges [God’s sovereignty which He used in the past] and became a man in his likeness (Phil 2:7). Even though He became a man, He was still God in the flesh (John 14:8-11). As the Bible says, “who [Jesus], being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil 2:6-8). Jesus voluntarily took the form of a bondservant to God by coming in the likeness of men (Is 49:6). By obeying the perfect will of God the Father, Jesus died on the cross and got forsaken for a moment as a substitute for a sinner [i.e. a person of lawlessness] (Mark 14:36;Phil 2:8). Hence the central reason for Jesus Christ to visit this planet earth is to die on the cross as atonement [compensation] for our sins.

The other important thing to understand is that the law made nothing perfect (Heb 7:19). As many as are working the works of the law are under a curse because no one can truly keep the law without breaking one of it, which is equal to breaking all of it (Gal 3:10;James 2:10). The law was not given for us to keep it, the law was given for Jesus Christ to fulfill it through His life and death so that by having faith in Him and His atoning work we are Blessed (Matt 5:17;Gal 3:10-14). The law is a tutor which brings us to Christ, giving us the understanding that we cannot keep the law by our own effort. The law will make us realize our inability to please God by ourselves and by our own good works (Gal 3:23-24). Once we come to Christ, we will receive faith in Him which will automatically please God, thus after we come to Him we don’t need the tutor because we will find our master in Christ (Gal 3:25). The law will keep us under guard to keep us from being lawless before we come to Christ. But once we come to Christ we don’t need the law completely because after we come in to a living relationship with God through Christ, It is He who will live His life in us and through us and the very life of God will flow in us and through us as His sons (Gal 4:4-6). Jesus Christ came to this earth 2000 years ago and fulfilled all the law of God by His perfect obedience without breaking even one law, even one time. So through Him now we can reach God the Father because of the relationship that Jesus has established for us by getting us adopted in to the family of God. Thus we can boldly call God as “Our Father” and He will respond to us immediately as “My child”.

The resurrection of Christ is the central message that gives us hope and assurance of eternal life as Christians. It is the other half of the work of Christ for us. Christ not only died on the Cross for our sins, but also rose again or else there is no hope that we will live eternally like Him (1 Cor 15:1-4, 12-19;Luke 24:36-43;Acts 1:11). If Christ is not risen, we will still be in our sins because for a promise to be effective the one who promises should die. After a testament come in to force by the death of a person, He must come alive for that promise to be fulfilled for others if that same blessing is to be given to others (Heb 9:16-22, 26-28). Hence through the risen Christ only we can have the assurance and faith for our future.

Through one man’s disobedience all have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Through one man’s obedience all were made righteous (Rom 5:19). God is speaking in 1 Cor 15:47,45 in context of the creation of Man. Here God is speaking that “through Jesus Christ the restoration of the image of God in man is restored [i.e. all were made righteous].” (1 Cor 15:49;Rom 5:19;8:29).God not only justified us, but made us the very righteousness of God [i.e. having the very character of God in the inner man] through recreating the perfect spirit man inside us which is exactly in the image of God, for those of us who have believed in Jesus (Rom 5:1;2 Cor 5:21;Heb 12:23;Eph 4:24).

The most important thing to be understood in the fall of man and the salvation of man is that, even though Adam was perfect in the Garden of Eden he had a will to obey God in which he disobeyed. After the fall of man still he was having a will to obey God by choosing to accept God’s remedy for the restoration of mankind to himself through Jesus Christ, which is God’s will for mankind’s redemption. God never imposes His will on anybody. So only, the false doctrine of universal salvation [i.e. universal salvation of men by God making all of them righteous without them taking a choice to follow God] is absolutely a nonsense theory. This kind of theory is absolutely out of God’s will for mankind. From the above we can conclude that the work of Christ [i.e. Christ’s Atonement Death and His Resurrection] is the basis of our Christian Faith. Praise the Lord!