The Epistle to the Hebrews part CXXXXVII

Romans 3:26a
"To declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness: that he (God in Christ) might be just,…."
What does it mean to be just? Fair! With no room for controversy and so God is just in doing what? Justifying the person who receives the inspiration and then does what? Believes it. Oh I love these verses! How it just screams against the works religion. We’re redeemed by placing our trust in His faith in the shed blood of Christ. We are justified when we receive the inspiration and then believe this Gospel, that Christ died, was buried and rose again and that God saw us in Him through it. And God is perfectly just in declaring us as justified, righteous. He’s Sovereign. He can do that. But how are we justified, whats the hidden meaning and purpose or Will of God.

Now that’s a concept that’s beyond mere human understanding. How can he take this sinner, born of Adam, and by my simply trusting in what He has done there at Calvary, He declares me "just as if I have never sinned. That’s justification." That doesn’t mean I won’t sin. Don’t ever think that. Ask my wife! But, so far as God is concerned, I’m ‘just as if I have never sinned.’ That’s what justification does for us.

We’re to live with that concept. Listen, if you go through life knowing that God has declared you as bought out of a slave market, justified from all things - doesn’t that give you incentive to do your part? Not for Redemption, but as a result of it. Sure it should. And it should behoove every believer to do everything we can as Paul instructs in his Epistles to "flee the things of the flesh and to avoid every appearance of evil."

We’re going to Romans chapter 7 and the whole idea is that as a result of our redemption, God has now redeemed us and justified us. He has given us the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. He has placed us into the Body of Christ. He has declared that we are now children of God and on and on I could go, with all the things that came in the moment we were redeemed or saved as a result of the whole process of salvation, by simply believing Paul’s Gospel. We'll find out just what we're to believe in chapter ten, again Jesus alluded to it but could not reveal it as it had not happened yet, so it remained veiled and for most it remains veiled even now. Because they've not come out from under the first or old Covenant because it alone carries the veil. Which veil is only removed in Christ. Through the second blessing or the promised New Covenant.

But, that’s not just for a fire escape. We are to be productive. We are to do all we can to win others but not on our own or in our own sufficiency. Now I remember way back, in some of our early years, I used an example out of Time Magazine. It was a little box on the bottom of the page and they had interviewed a young Communist worker in Moscow. And I shared, how that young man said that as soon as he got off work, say at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, he couldn’t wait to get down to Communist Headquarters to work for the Party. And he would work for the Communist Party until 10 or 11 o’clock at night, for the sole purpose of promoting Communism.

I said at the time, would that some believers have that kind of motivation. But most Christians are just content to sit and let the rest of the world go by. We should be motivated to get out there and do something that will bring somebody to Christ. See? Alright the other one is, right now today. Who are the militants? The Muslim or Islamic world. And what do they really want? World dominion. And what are they going to do to get it? Work day and night. And we sit on our duff and do nothing. But that’s not what God intended. God intends us to be productive but with this one difference we're to be led by the Holy Spirit. While all others are doing it by self sufficiency and demonic powers.

Romans 7:4a
"Wherefore, my brethren, (Paul writes) ye also are become dead to the law…"
We’re not under Law. See that’s the same thing he’s telling these Hebrews. Get away from the legalism, get away from your old dead religion because its a works based thing. Get out from under Judaism and step out into this which is so much better. And so he says: