Let Them Alone

Let Them Alone

Matthew 15:14

Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

The words of the title were the words of Christ referring to the religious leaders of His day, the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 15:1). The disciples of Christ were concerned that our Lord Jesus had offended these elders because He said to them: “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias (Isaiah) prophesy of you, saying, This people draw nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:7-9). Our Lord Jesus explained to His disciples: “Every plant, that my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” (Matthew 15:13). In these words our Lord informed His disciples that these scribes and Pharisees were not: “trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD,” (Isaiah 61:3) but, that they were tares, and therefore would, in their time, be rooted up. (Matthew 13:36-43). The Lord Jesus by this counsel taught His disciples and every one of His people of all ages the will of God: in that He said, “Let them alone”: for it is the work of God to search out His sheep; as it is written: “For thus saith the LORD God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.” (Ezekiel 34:11-12).

These men, the scribes and Pharisees, were not “children of the covenant” (Act 3:25), they were not “children of the promise” (Galatians 4:28) for God’s promise, is to the children of the promise, that is, His elected people, those whom He chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, (Ephesians 1:4); and predestinated unto the adoption of children (Ephesians 1:5). Those scribes and Pharisees demonstrated that they were children of the devil: as it is written: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. (John 8:44-45). The disciples therefore were instructed to “Let them alone” these religious men were dead in trespasses and in sins (Ephesians 2:1) as all men are by nature; and they will remain in that condition to all eternity unless the Spirit of life from God will come unto them and make them alive (Ezekiel 37:5; John 5:21): for, the Son quickeneth, that is, makes to live, or makes alive, whom He will.

All and every one of the children of the covenant of grace will infallibly be found of God the Holy Ghost, and will be given life; of the life that is in Christ Jesus. For Christ Jesus said “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” (John 10:28-29). Those who hear the gospel and are made able to believe by the gift of life that is in Christ Jesus entering into them make manifest their election of God (John 5:24; I John 5:11; Colossians 3:4; Ephesians 1:3). Those who are never concerned about the gospel, the glory of God, or the life beyond this perceptible world, show themselves to be the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Those who are continually hostile to the things of God and are given up to our natural aversion of the gospel, have no part in the covenant of grace, they will not be sought out of the Holy Ghost and be convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, (John 16:8-11) for it is His work, it belongs to His office in the covenant, to arrest and apprehend the children of the covenant (Philippians 3:12), He will “bring them into the bond of the covenant” experientially (Ezekiel 20:37) by giving them new life, a new heart of faith, and a new spirit of delight in the things of God: for, their new life is in Christ Jesus.

There are a great many today who are of the spirit of the Pharisees, which is the spirit of antichrist: for they deny the essentials of the doctrine of Christ (II John 1:9-11). Our Lord Jesus commanded His disciples: “Go ye therefore, and teach all  nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. A-men.” (Matthew 28:19-20). Baptism is to be administered in the name of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity because of the united love and participation of each Person in the salvation of the elect. Each of the three persons of the Godhead is active in the salvation of the children of God, the Father chose the objects of His everlasting love and named them in the covenant of grace before the foundation of the world in Christ ( Ephesians 1:4; Hebrews 12:23), God the Son redeemed those the Father had chosen with His own precious blood (I Peter 1:18-19), and God the Holy Ghost calls the chosen and  redeemed children of the everlasting covenant by His infinite power “which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” (I Thessalonians 2:4-5; 13).

Our modern Pharisees deny the work of the Father for they deny the thing the Father did, they deny His election of grace. They deny that The Father chose some to everlasting life, and did not choose others. The Preachers of our day, know the word of election is in the Bible, they cannot deny that truth, and so they pervert the truth to say that God knew who would believe and because of that, He chose those persons to eternal life. But; again this is a perversion of the word of God: “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” (Galatians 5:9) That is, one false precept must be supported by another until nothing is left of the truth. Those who the Father chose to eternal life “MUST be saved” (Acts 4:12; Matthew 1:21; John 6:37) for the covenant is sealed by the precious blood of Christ (Hebrews13:20) therefore the terms of the covenant must be met (Genesis 6:18; 9:11; 17:7, 19,21; Ezekiel 16:60, 62) and certain it is that it shall be; for “and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:”(Hebrews 8:10).

Redemption by the blood of Christ is also denied by this generation of preachers and parishioners, according to most modern preachers Christ actually redeemed no one until the sinner makes his blood effectual to the redemption of his soul by the sinner’s choice. The truth is that Christ redeemed all the church of all ages by one offering, (Hebrews 10:10, 14; Zechariah 3:9). If Christ died for all men and every man, then all men must be saved, for Christ died to put away the sin of His people, so that if He died for all men, then no one has sin that was not put away by the death of Christ; consequently all men must be saved, which things are contrary to scripture and to the experience of the rich man who refused Lazarus help (Luke 16:24), and is now in hell. And if Christ died for all men and put away the sin of all men, then the sin of unbelief can make no one guilty; for by himself he purged our sins, not us from our sins, but our sins (Hebrews 1:3; Isaiah 1:18), if in this verse the word our refers to human kind collectively, and not to the election of grace distinctively, then all men must be saved: which is again, contrary to the scriptures. Christ Jesus bought the church of God with His own blood, as said the Apostle Paul: “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (I Corinthians 6:20). Christ Jesus bought His church: that is, the whole and entire “remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5), and none else, He gave himself a ransom for the many, as many as the Father has given Him (John 17:2); and as many as are ordained to eternal life (Acts 13:48). Christ Jesus is the good shepherd that gave His life for His sheep (John 10:11) and there are many who are not His sheep (John10:26).

The effectual call of the Holy Ghost is denied by this generation, for today preachers say that the call may be overcome, resisted, and not obeyed, preachers of our day deny the effectual nature of the call to salvation. But the psalmist has said: “As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.” (Psalm 18:44). And again it is written: “Strangers shall submit themselves unto me: as soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me.” (II Samuel 22:45). And our Lord Jesus Christ has said: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:63). To whom the Lord Jesus will, He speaks the word of life: (Philippians 2:16, see I John 1:1) and so speaking by His Spirit He gives eternal life (John 10:28). To this may be added the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; who hath saved us, and have called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” (II Timothy 1:8-9). Notice reader: It is God who has saved us, and when? Before the foundation of the world by choosing us in Christ Jesus, the Father gave us to the Son before the worlds were made, and accepted us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:4, 6). In the purpose of God, and according to His determinate counsel, Christ Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world and then actually at Calvary (Acts 2:23; Isaiah 53:10: Revelation 13:8), but why? To justify His people from all things (Acts 13:39) So that God “might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” (Romans 3:26). The work of salvation is a finished work, and finished by Jesus Christ alone. (John 17:4). Repentance and faith are characters of the living, those to whom the Lord Jesus has given eternal life: the spiritually dead cannot exhibit characteristics of life. Therefore “Let them alone” until such time as the Lord of life and glory may, according to His will, grant them life, who are heirs according to the everlasting covenant of grace. 

AJ Ison

See the writers blog at www.hebrews915.blogspot.com hear the true gospel of the free and sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus preached at www.13thstbaptist.org webcasting live at listed service times.

      

 

A Reconciled World

A Reconciled World

II Corinthians 5:18-19

And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given unto us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation

This World is created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10) who is the Head Stone of the corner, the Foundation Stone upon which this world is built (Psalm 118:22; Luke 6:48). To the Majority of the Jews in former days this Sure Foundation Stone was a Stone of Stumbling and a Rock of Offense (Romans 9:33) but to the citizens of this world Christ Jesus is elect and precious (I Peter 2:7; Isaiah 28:16). This is that world whose sins the Lamb of God has taken away (John 1:29; Revelation 1:5; Romans 8:32) this is the world that God so loved that whosoever believeth on His Son should not perish (John 3:16). This world hangs upon the arm of Jesus Christ (Isaiah 53:1) the government of which world is upon His shoulder (Isaiah 9:6). In this world all things are made new, its citizens have new eyes, ears, and hearts, for the apprehension of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (revelation 21:5: II Corinthians 4:6). In this world sin is not imputed (Romans 4:6-8; II Corinthians 5:19) for this world is reconciled to God by the death of His own well beloved Son, who is the Sun of righteousness in this world (Malachi 4:2), who shines on all the citizens of this world, and enlightens them in the knowledge of God their Savior (I Timothy 1:1; Titus 3:4) whom to know is life eternal (John 17:3; I John 5:20). This world is established in Blood, it is the Blood of the everlasting covenant of grace (Hebrews 13:20), the Blood of the New Testament (Matthew 26:28), the Blood of God (Acts 20:28).

And all things are of God: God has created this new world for Himself: “This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise.” (Isaiah 43:21). It was the good pleasure of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to create this world, that the objects of His eternal and immutable love might rejoice in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:3) in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). It is according to the good pleasure of His goodness (II Thessalonians 1:11; Exodus 33:19) that He has purposed to make His dear children (Ephesians 5:2) rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory (I Peter 1:8) in Christ Jesus. For He saith: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’S hand double for her sins.” (Isaiah 40:1-2) Christ Jesus will have His spouse comforted in this world, while she endures the assaults of her own Adam nature (Romans 7:24), the afflictions of the gospel (II Timothy 1:8), and the hatred of the world of the ungodly, and more especially the world of the religious lost. (John 17:14, 20; II Peter 2:5; I John 3:1)

Who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; First it should be noted, who it is, that is reconciled: it is God who is reconciled; and He is reconciled to those to whom the ministry of reconciliation is given, that is, the church of God. It is not the world of all men, without exception or distinction to whom God is reconciled, God is not at peace with all the worlds but only that world for whom the blood of Christ was shed, which is the world of God’s elect. The word, reconcile, means: “To restore peace, friendly relationships, to settle a quarrel (Oxford English Dictionary). God had a quarrel with His people for they had sinned in Adam, and had sinned actually in themselves. Christ Jesus came in their nature, sin accepted, and made peace through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20), He settled the quarrel by putting away the sin of His people through His death (Hebrews 9:26). Now it is the mission of the church of God to inform all who, are taught of the Spirit, that Jesus is Lord, that they are the children of God, heirs of the promise of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and are of the household of God: (I Corinthians 12:3; I John 5:1; Romans 8:17; Ephesians 2:19).

The Holy Ghost is the great teacher of the everlasting covenant of grace, as it is written: “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34) This teaching of the Holy Ghost is a revelation from God through the preached word (I Peter 1:23), which is made effectual by the power of God the Spirit. It is by the preaching of the gospel in the church of God that the children of promise are taught of their inheritance (Galatians 4:28). “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.” (Galatians 4:6) These are sons by the election of the Father, children of God from everlasting, who must be taught of their inheritance. As it is written: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:” (Matthew 25:34).

To wit, that God was in Christ, for the human nature of Jesus Christ is “the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” (Hebrews 8:2; 9:11) “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” (Colossians 2:9) Christ Jesus is God manifest in the flesh (I Timothy 3:16) and God purchased His church by His blood in the Person of Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28). Those who worship God, worship God in Christ Jesus. Our Lord Jesus said to Phillip “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Phillip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” (John 14:9)

Reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Almighty God, sent all His billows of wrath over His own Dear Son, because of the love He bore toward the children who He had chosen in covenant and given to Christ Jesus before the world was made, for, Christ Jesus is Surety of the children of the covenant (Hebrews 7:22). “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” (Psalm 42:7) The prophet Jonah, as typical of Christ Jesus said: “For thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. (Jonah 2:3) Gods billows of wrath swept over Jesus Christ until the ocean of His indignation against the sin of His people was at a perfect calm: God at rest, because of the satisfaction of His justice, the insult offered to His glorious righteousness had been drown in the blood of His own Dear Son. The sharp sword of His justice had tasted the blood of the Holy One of God; and found satisfaction. Therefore God’s report is: “Fury is not in me” (Isaiah 27:4; 53:1) toward His church, for His wrath is, in righteousness, exhausted in the bosom of Christ. God is reconciled in the sufferings, and blood of Jesus Christ, the sins of the church of God are not imputed to them for those sins were laid on Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God; and therefore in justice they cannot be imputed to His people.  In this new creation, created in Christ Jesus there is no imputation of sin to the children of this world, for the Surety of the New Testament, Jesus Christ: “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” (I Peter 2:24).  

Now that this work of reconciliation is accomplished for the citizens of this new creation, God, “will rest in His love” to His dear children. As it is written: “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17) This is the good news, the gospel: That God is reconciled through the finished work of Jesus Christ. And has committed the word of reconciliation to the church of God. It is the object of the church to tell all the brethren of Christ, that God their Father is reconciled, in the blood of their Redeemer. Therefore God is reconciled to all who the Holy Ghost, teaches of their adoption in Christ: by teaching them that “Jesus is Lord” for, “no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost.” And “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” (I Corinthians 12:3: Matthew 11:27)  Reader do these things carry a message to you? Are you confident that Jesus is Christ? If you truly believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God, from the heart, then you are of the household of faith, a child of God in Jesus Christ.    

AJ Ison

See the Writers blog at www.hebrews915.blogspot.com Hear the true gospel of the free and sovereign grace of God in Jesus Christ preached at www.13thstbaptist.org  webcasting live at listed service times.

Whosoever rests on this Sure Foundation Stone has ceased from his works, for righteousness and simply expects all things from Rock of salvation. This is the New and Second creation is created in Christ Jesus unto the glory of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Ephesians 1:6: 2:7)

It Shall Be Accepted For Him

It Shall Be Accepted For Him

Leviticus 1:4

And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

The “offerings of the LORD” as commanded in the book of Leviticus, were pregnant  with symbolism and filled with types and shadows of Christ who was promised, but at that time had not yet come. The symbols and types or shadows were given to the church in its infancy, to instill in them the ideas of the principals of government under which God would deal with fallen man. So that when the fullness of time should come that the Christ of God should actually appear; the people of God might understand the vicarious (substitutionary) institutions of the everlasting covenant of grace (Galatians 4:1-7). These institutions, solidly implanted in the minds of the people by repetitious offerings, fixed the thoughts of the hearts and minds of men on our acceptance in a substitute; and that substitute is our Lord Jesus Christ. The administration of the covenant under the Old Testament was legal, the under lying principal was, do and live, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do he shall live in them, I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 18:5). The administration of the everlasting covenant under the New Testament is gracious: the underlying principal is, live and believe: by the grace of God in Christ Jesus sinners are given eternal life, wherein it is given them to know God, in the Person of Jesus Christ. “Verily, Verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” (John 6:47). True faith, that is, believing the doctrine of Christ as given in the New Testament (II John 1:9-11), is the evidence of eternal life (Hebrews 11:1), which is the free gift of God through Christ Jesus: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (II Corinthians 4:6). “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:4). “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” (I John 5:20). “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17).

One of the elementary or very basic principles of the government of God, as taught in the Old Testament and practiced in the New: is that of vicarious or substitutionary death. One dying in the room and stead of another, as in the case of the sin offering: wherein the death of the victim is substituted for the person who offers according to the law. In the government of God over His church, guilt is transferable, the guilt of sin may be transferred from the guilty party who committed the offense, to a perfectly innocent party who will endure the curse of the broken law which was the curse of death. Transference of guilt from the guilty to the innocent, and counting the innocent victim, guilty and punishable, for offences of the guilty party is allowed and practiced in both the Old and New Testaments (Romans 5:19). Likewise it is a fact in the government of God that righteousness must be imputed to those for whom Christ Jesus died. This righteousness is received by faith, which is the gift of God, it is the death of Christ that renders the sinner righteous in the sight of God. Faith is the instrument whereby the justified sinner is made to understand his righteousness in the sight of God: by the imputation of the righteousness established by Jesus Christ in His death, to the account of the justified sinner.

Under the Old Testament, the victim, whether a bullock, sheep, or goat, was brought to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD. It had to be a male without blemish, to shadow the sinless perfections of Jesus Christ. If the person who was making the offering was poor, he was permitted to bring turtledoves or young pigeons as his offering (Leviticus 12:8), as Joseph and Mary did after the birth of Christ (Luke 2:24). If the offering was a bullock the process was: first, to present the bullock at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD, the door was the opening in the curtain at the eastern end of the court. Once there the worshipper would press his hand on the head of the bullock, in the burnt offering the leaning forcibly on the head of the offering was to intimate that the offerer desired that Jehovah would accept the offering as himself, the desire of the offerer was to consecrate his whole person to the LORD. In the sin offering the leaning heavily on the head of the offering was to indicate the desire that his sin might be transferred to (imputed to) the innocent animal who would be put to death for the sin of the offerer.

The antitype in each of these two ceremonies is the Christ of God, who according to the type set forth in the burnt offering fully gave Himself up to the will of God. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:7-8). And our Lord Jesus said to His disciples: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” (John 4:34). Our Lord Jesus gave His whole Person to the service of God, when He offered Himself a sacrifice for a sweet savor to God to propitiate the wrath of God in the room of His people (Ephesians 5:2). The children of God have the desire for perfect consecration to God, but because of indwelling sin they find themselves saying with the Apostle Paul: “what I would, that I do not” (Romans 7:15). And with the Prophet Isaiah: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6). But the good news is that, in the reckoning of God, we are not in ourselves, but we are and have forever been in Christ Jesus “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 23:6). Christ Jesus is the fulfilling “end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Romans 10:4) and therefore to the law of the sin offering  (Leviticus 4:1-12) for: “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” (I Peter 2:24) Jesus Christ by Himself purged our sins (Hebrews 1:3). He finished the transgression, made an end of sins, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness, (Daniel 9:24) Christ Jesus put sin away by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26).

It shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. In Old Testament times the type, was accepted to stay sin for a season. But now that the darkness of the shadows is past and the true light now shineth from the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ (Malachi 4:2; I John2:8), believers know they are accepted in the beloved, in whom they have dwelt to all generations. (Psalm 90:1-2). 

AJ Ison

See the writers blog at www.hebrews915.blogspot.com hear the true gospel of the

free and sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus preached at www.13thstbaptist.org webcasting live at listed service times.