PRIESTHOOD OF BELIEVERS AND SALVATION
#848 PRIESTHOOD OF BELIEVERS AND SALVATION
Scripture Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-6, NIV Orig. May 14, 1988
Passage:
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Titus 3:5-6
5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior….
Purpose: Continuing a Church Training study on the Priesthood of the Believer, here relating our understanding to salvation.
Keywords: Doctrine Priesthood
Timeline/Series: Baptist Beliefs
Introduction
Display Cel #6 “We are a holy and royal priesthood with the calling to worship and to witness. Our priesthood had origins in the Old Testament and is rooted in Christ, the Great High Priest.”
The above is a link to previous study unit. Briefly refer to the three-part outline: The Jewish Priesthood; The High Priesthood of Jesus; and The Priesthood of Believers. See if there are any comments or questions related to this prior study.
Display Cel #2. Underline Chapter 3. We will major this evening on the ways that the Priesthood of the Believer relates to salvation. Display the three-part outline of this chapter (Cel #7).
The Equality of Access to Salvation
The Personal Nature of Grace
The Voluntary Nature of Faith
Use Cel #7a as a kind of overview of this triumvirate. “Every person has the privilege of uncoerced personal access to God’s grace through Jesus Christ.”
Pass out the seven question cards. Responses!
1. How do the four gospels reveal Jesus as being available to all persons?
2. Who helped you come to trust Christ as your Saviour?
3. Do all persons have equality of access to God’s grace for salvation? What about those who’ve never heard?
4. Explain: “Salvation is not church by church, community by community, or nation by nation. It is lonely soul by lonely soul.”
5. Explain (Martin Luther): “Before God all Christians have the same standing.”
6. Dr. Shurden1 points out that Jesus’ love was a barrierless love. Do you have a problem loving certain people?
7. What are some ways people try to substitute for the gospel?
I. The Equality of Access to Salvation. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
A. The gospel thus portrays Jesus. Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Heavy laden—referred to animal loads. John 12:32, “I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”
All men without exception?
All without distinction?
B. Mullins “religious axiom.”
1-Equal access
2-The inalienable right of every soul to deal with God for itself.
3-Article in Friday paper (NSW 5-13-1988). Interview with Marilyn Vos Savant—identified herself as agnostic. Would be more open to a God defined in terms of one world religion.
4-Equality of access to God’s grace for salvation is not rooted in human capability. God is sovereign; His sovereignty can accept a wide corridor of human understanding or a narrow one.
C. A definition of salvation.
1-Greek—soteria—health, wholeness: Health as to fragmented bodies; wholeness as to fragmented relations; salvation as to fragmented spirits.
2-Salvation is God’s act on behalf of our helplessness.
D. A longer look at Ephesians 2:11-22
1-A man-made distinction: circumcised v. uncircumcised.
2-These distinctions are broken down in Christ. Actually, Hebrews were divided from each other. Courts of: Gentiles, Women, Israel, Priests; but even they were restricted from inner portion. But Christ brought deliverance alike to all. Ephesians 2:17, “And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access. . . .” Access: to bring to.
E. Examining Jesus breaking down barriers.
Luke 6:15 Zealot—political distinction
Luke 19:5 Zacchaeus—religious distinction
John 4:27 Woman at the Well—sexual distinction
Mark 7:26 Syrophoenician—racial distinction
Matthew 8:10 Centurion—national distinction
Matthew 11:19 Sinners—social distinction
II. The Personal Nature of Grace. I John 1:2, “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”
A. Thus, grace is God acting to make Himself known where otherwise He would not be known.
1. “Eternal life” is another reference to salvation.
2. He is making this truth known to those whose it is.
Apocalypsis—is an unveiling
Phaneroo—is personal revelation
B. God’s intervention in history was: personal, relational, individualistic. John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Matthew 1:23, “Emmanuel”—God with us.
C. Dealing with a persistent heresy—gnosticism.
1. Its teachings—Matter is evil/spirit is good. Salvation was through secret knowledge.
2. Dealing with it—Jesus was a real person with a real body. He sought to touch lives relationally. Salvation is through faith in a personal Saviour. It can only be accomplished one person at a time.
3. Proxies have no entrées to grace.
III. The Voluntary Nature of Faith. Exodus 19:8, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.” Luke 15:11-24 story of the prodigal: without reading all recall that shepherd went for sheep/woman searches for lost coin/the father can only wait until the son chooses to return.
A. What is at stake?
1. Freedom
2. Soul competency
3. Love cannot be forced.
4. Conversion can only be by conviction, not by compulsion.
B. What we can therefore conclude:
1. Mass evangelism is not a true concept. Billy Graham early went to train counselors, on site, to pair off with people making decision, even in films.
2. There can be no proxy salvation. Parents can not baptize an infant and assume that opens the door to faith.
3. A state church has always fallen into the pattern of coercive action. Even in early American life it emerged. Roger Williams, a Puritan himself, was banished from his Massachusetts church for soul competency. Read p.290 (S3).
4. The primacy of the individual is never to be so magnified as to produce anarchy.
5. And the opposite is true as well. The individual must never be treated as without private worth.
6. Freedom to express one’s own views must be seen to be inviolate. “No person . . . shall be in any wise molested, . . . for any differences of opinion (that) . . . do not actually disturb the civil peace . . . colony.”
7. Changes worldwide can only happen one person at a time.
Conclusion
Avoid truth by substitution: proxy—infant baptism.
Avoid truth by addition: Judaizers—become Jews to become Christians.
Avoid truth by subtraction: humanists—would dispense with sin.
Avoid truth by multiplication: works—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.
Shurden,Walter https://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Identity-Four-Fragile-Freedoms/dp/188083720X
Lewis, C.S. Books - Official Site | CSLewis.com
1Shurden, W.B. (1993). The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms. (14th Edition). Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc.
PUTTING OFF AND PUTTING ON
#022 PUTTING OFF AND PUTTING ON
Scripture Ephesians 4:17-24 NIV Orig. 11/14/71
Rewr. 10/3/85 (10-79)
Passage: 17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Purpose: To lead my people to consider the willful response of the believer to become a new person in Christ Jesus.
Keywords: Assurance Holiness Obedience Revival
Introduction
Paul shares a different kind of expression with us by way of his instruction to the believers in Ephesus. “Putting Off and Putting On” is an exclamation of his faith that in Christ we become new people. It is not a new concept. We are quite familiar with such terms as “the new birth” or “born again.” These terms, falling into contemporary jargon, are losing their significance to us, however.
The Christ-life itself is not now, nor has it ever been, an impossible ideal. But we must understand that the hope and joy of that life, is not so much in its fulfillment as in its aspiration, something of which Robert Browning wrote:
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man seeks a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
Paul here encourages the Ephesians about “Putting Off and Putting On.” They are to “put off” the old man, the deceiver, the corrupt one. They are then enabled to “put on” the new person, being recreated to honor God.
Years ago, E. Stanley Jones labored for Christ in India. This great missionary statesman, earnest and deeply committed believer, maintained a hope that Christianity would become culturalized into the very essence of the life of India. He knew that little headway would be made as long as his faith was looked upon as a “religion of foreigners.” Mahatma Gandhi, the great liberator of India, was his friend. Mr. Jones asked what could be done to accomplish such a goal. There were three suggestions:
That all of you Christians begin to live more like Jesus.
That you practice your religion without toning it down.
That you present yourselves by love, for love is the central soul of Christianity.
I. Put Off the Old Man of Corruption. Put on the New Person of Obedience. V23 “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” We are not given any false notions that this is easily done.
Our age is a critical age. It is not a time of peace. It is a time of war. Revolution is a way of life. Korean evangelist Billy Kim survived the Japanese occupation of his country and the Korean War, was educated in America, and delivered a speech entitled “I Speak for Democracy.” Wimpy Smith, missionary to Argentina, said that country was like a phonograph record, 33-1/3 revolutions per minute. The only time an assassination in the Third World captured my attention was when Fritha was in Liberia.
Perhaps we don’t expect to hear of these things, but we do not abhor them. We make light of the struggles going on.
The Bible pictures this Christ-life accomplished under adverse conditions. Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the whole armor of God.” II Timothy 2:3 “Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. As Christ’s soldier, do not let yourself become tied up in worldly affairs, for then you cannot satisfy the One who has enlisted you in His army.”
Dr. E.V Hill, pastor of a church in Watts, defines their sign: Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Conservative-Liberal-Militant: He says, “Conservative, because we believe every word of the Bible. Liberal, because we try every means available to get the job done. Militant, because we will not take ‘No!’ for an answer.”
Obedience is to desire those things that will better enable our service for Christ’s sake. It is more than living within the framework of a book. It is that! The Bible! It is letting that book change us. The Hebrews had the book, but living without it they failed. We Christians can carry a New Testament in our pocket or purse, but is Christ in our hearts?
V 21,22a “If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: That you put off your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts.”
II. Put Off the Old of Doubt, Put On the New Person of Assurance. V23 “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” The substance of this assurance is that Christ is Lord. This link in Paul’s life is clear. I Corinthians 2:2, “I am determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Philippians 1:20 “So now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death.”
It is just as clear that this is God’s will for us all. You admire this in religious leaders. You insist upon it in pastor and staff. You desire it in deacons. You respond to it in Sunday School teachers. And you should! But it is the goal of God for all believers. Look ahead to V30. The believer is “sealed for the day of redemption.” The “seal,” then as now, declares ownership.
Such assurance declares that you are traveling the available road Godward. In Galatians 3:27, Paul uses this very idea of “putting on” Christ through baptism. It is clearly a step Godward. Baptism implies repentance, remorse over sin, a turning. Its use here takes us another step Godward. We put on the teaching of Christ. We seek that that He offers. It is to take the garments of Christ to cover our lack. Colossians 3:14 “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.”
Remember all the while that any other road is a road to Godlessness. There is a place of eternal loss. Punishment in the spiritual sense is the worst kind of punishment.
III. Put Off the Old Person of Worldliness, Put On the New Person of Holiness. V24 “And that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness.” It is a newness of life that instills a new and different purpose. We need to remember that it is accomplished by degrees, rarely in great, sudden surges, more often in slow, predictable change.
We must also recall that Christ, Himself, only achieved this response to God absolutely. We may go forward for a time, lose ground, start, as it were, over.
But once enlightened through Christ, we are never set adrift. Isaiah 32:18 “My people shall dwell in . . . sure dwellings.” 2 Corinthians 5:1, “We have a building of God, an house not made with hands.” I Peter 3:13 “Who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good?”
It is a purpose that separates us to the will of God: to live in His will with or without material advantage; to rightly interpret the bounds of warranted pleasure; to interpret God’s will on the basis of the Word.
Conclusion
In Shaw’s play, Saint Joan, an interesting dialogue takes place. Joan of Arc, as she would later be called, is hearing the voice of God, and is then told to declare to the king what she has heard.
Dauphin: “O your voices, your voices. Why don’t your voices come to me? I am the king, not you.”
Joan: “They do come, but you do not hear them. You have not sat in the field in the evening listening to them. When the Angelus rings, you cross yourself and have done with it, but if you prayed with your heart and listened to the thrilling of the bells in the air after they stop ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do.”