Sabbath 11/10/32/120

Dear Friends,

The false teaching that Christ’s sacrifice and death on the stake releases man from obedience to God’s Laws makes a mockery out of repentance, baptism, and Christ’s sacrifice.  It totally distorts the understanding of what constitutes the New Covenant relationship with God and the purpose of His grace.

This antinomian (lawless) concept begs some basic and fundamental questions: 1) what constitutes sin according to God’s Word?  2) What then constitutes repentance – what do we repent of if God’s Laws have been “done away” by Christ’s sacrifice?  3) What is righteousness?  4) What is the purpose of Baptism?  5) What is the purpose of the New Covenant if man has been released from upholding the Laws of God? 6) What is the purpose of God’s grace if His Laws are no longer to be honoured in our life as a Christian? 
These are but a few basic questions.  This is the beginning of any basic course of study into Christianity.  Understanding the answers to these fundamental questions from the truth of Scripture will lead one to see that the “grace doing away with God’s Law” argument is a satanic deception by a false Christianity that promotes angst towards God’s Laws and disobedience to Him.  It is rebellion in the manner of the rebellious fallen Hosts.  This is how serious it is to understand these basics and see how this lawless concept leads to death.  Once an individual understands the truth regarding the simple questions, then it should be realized that those who hold this antinomian view have not entered into the New Covenant relationship with God, and cannot enter it until a change of heart takes place.  Antinomianism also makes a mockery out of the grace of God. 

Matthew 4:17
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (KJV)
Mark 6:12
12 And they (Christ’s disciples) went out, and preached that men should repent.  (KJV)

Mark 2:17 
17 When Jesus heard it, he said unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.

Luke 13:3
3 No, I tell you. Rather, unless you turn to God from your sins, you will all die as they did! (CJB)

Acts 2:38
38 And Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (RSV)

Acts 3:19-20
19 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, (RSV)

1 John 3:4
4 Every one who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (RSV)

1 John 3:8-9
8  The person who keeps on sinning is from the Adversary, because from the very beginning the Adversary has kept on sinning. It was for this very reason that the Son of God appeared, to destroy these doings of the Adversary.
9  No one who has God as his Father keeps on sinning, because the seed planted by God remains in him. That is, he cannot continue sinning, because he has God as his Father. (CJB)

What does Christ say about lawlessness?

Matthew 7:21-23
21 "Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. 22 On judgment day many will say to me, 'Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.' 23 But I will reply, 'I never knew you (antinomians). Get away from me, you who break God's laws.' NLT

Repentance requires an individual to stop sinning; to turn around and live a life defined by God’s righteousness, which is not our righteousness as we attempt to define it, apart from God’s Laws.  Any attempt by man to define godly righteousness apart from God’s Word, from His Laws, is self-righteousness and He hates self-righteousness.  Antinomianism is rebellion against God and His Laws, and rebellion is as witchcraft (1Sam.15:23).

 Baptism is symbolic of death of “the old man-the carnal self” in a watery grave, and a resurrection to a new spiritual life in Christ as he/she comes up from the water of baptism.  It is a spiritual cleansing.  Once a person understands the need for repentance and repents from living a carnal life in rebellion against God (Rom. 8:7), then the Holy Spirit leads the individual to baptism.  After Baptism and the laying on of hands, the Holy Spirit is given to the repentant individual to guide him/her in obedience unto righteousness that is defined by faith in God and obedience to His Laws, which are an expression of the character of His love for His creation.  The individual, now a Christian, enters into the New Covenant relationship with God Who states in Hebrews 10:16-17:

 Hebrews 10:16-17: 
16) ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, giving My laws on their hearts, and upon their minds I will write them,’
17)  and ‘their sins and their lawlessness I will remember no more;’ - YLT

In the New Covenant relationship with God, far from “doing away” with Law, now God’s Laws are brought into a spiritual realm as they are written into our very being, into our heart and mind, and into our thought process by the Holy Spirit that will convict us in our conscience when we transgress God’s Laws.

Romans 6:3-4
3) Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4) We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. RSV

The newness of life is putting to death our sinful lawless nature that is hostile to God and His Laws.

Romans 8:7-10
7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, and it never will.
8 That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all. (sic) (New Living Translation)

Grace can be defined as “unmerited pardon” by God for sins committed.  Once an individual repents and is baptised and acknowledges his sins before God, then God grants His grace (unmerited pardon) and forgiveness by and through the blood of His son, Jesus Christ.  He promises that “their sins and their lawlessness I will remember no more” (Heb.10:17).  This is an on-going process of repentance throughout one’s Christian life.  If God’s Laws have been “done away”, then there is no need for His Grace, or unmerited pardon.  It is not a matter of law or grace as modern Christianity would have people believe, but a matter of law and grace.  Law and God’s grace go hand-in-hand for the Christian in the New Covenant relationship with Him (see the paper The Relationship between Salvation by Grace and the Law (No. 82)  

Because of human frailty, a child of God can and will slip up and sin as he/she journeys in life.  The all-loving omniscient God knows this and compensates for human weaknesses through grace, or unmerited pardon, as long as the Christian confesses his sins before God, seeks forgiveness, and repents by stopping committing the sin.

The antinomian teaching makes a mockery of grace as Paul points out in Romans, chapter 6.

Romans Chapter 6 (RSV) –Emphasis and comment is in dark red.

1) ¶ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin (lawlessness) that grace (God’s unmerited pardon) may abound?
2)  By no means! How can we who died (through repentance and baptism) to sin (lawlessness) still live in it?
3)  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death (symbolized by the watery grave of baptism and death of the carnal self)?
4)  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (by following Christ’s example who committed no sin or lawlessness – 1Pet. 2:21-22).

      (In Romans 8:11-14 Paul states: 11) The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. 12) Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful (lawless) nature urges you to do. 13) For if you live by its dictates (of carnal lawlessness), you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful (lawless) nature, you will live. 14)  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God (NLT).

God’s Spirit is given to those who obey Him: Acts 5:32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him”–RSV. (That is; obedience in faith to the Laws of His Kingdom). 

Paul also states in Romans 2:13 “For not those who hear the law are just before God; but those who obey the law, shall be justified” (through faith in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ and God-given grace). 

See also Rom. 3:25-31 where a New Covenant Christian is not justified by doing works of the Law, but by obedience to the Law through faith, and as such, Paul concludes in verse 31 of Romans 3, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” -RSV.

6)  We know that our old self (carnal and hostile towards God and His Laws) was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin (lawlessness).
7)  For he who has died (carnally) is freed from sin (lawlessness).
8  But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him (Rom. 8:11-14 cited above).
9  For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
10  The death he died he died to sin (lawlessness), once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
11  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin (lawlessness) and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12  Let not sin (lawlessness) therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their (carnal) passions.
13  Do not yield your members to sin (lawlessness) as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness (abiding by God’s Laws which defines righteousness).
14  For sin (lawlessness) will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law (that is, the death penalty of the law – see vs.23) but under (God’s unmerited pardon or) grace.
15  What then? Are we to sin (continue in lawlessness) because we are not under law (death penalty-vs.23) but under (God’s unmerited pardon) grace? By no means!
16  Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin (lawlessness), which leads to death, or of obedience (in faith to God’s Laws), which leads to righteousness?
17  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin (lawlessness) have become obedient (to God’s Laws) from the heart (In the New Covenant: God writes His Laws on the heart; Heb.10:16) to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18  and, having been set free from sin (lawlessness), have become slaves of righteousness (God’s Laws).
19  I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness (God’s Laws) for sanctification.
20  When you were slaves of sin (lawlessness), you were free in regard to righteousness.
21  But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things (lawlessness) is death.
22  But now that you have been set free from sin (lawlessness) and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.
23  For the wages of sin (lawlessness) is death, but the free gift (unmerited pardon through Christ’s sacrifice) of God  is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Who states in Matt. 5:18-19 “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved. 19  So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”-NLT)

The world is full of pseudo-Christians in these last days that claim that the law of God was nailed to the stauros or stake with Christ when it is understood by the elect of God that it was our bill of indebtedness, or our chierographon, that was nailed to the stauros in Colosssians 2:14. He disarmed the principalities and powers making a public example of them, triumphing over them in him. Therefore we let no one pass judgment on us in questions of food and drink or with regard to a Festival or a New Moon or a Sabbath (cf. Col. 2:15-16). We keep them in faith and obedience as will the whole world keep them all in the Millennium.

If you come across those that say they are Christians and say that when they die they go to heaven do not believe that they are Christians. They are not Christians (cf. Justin Martyr Dial. LXXX). They are Gnostic imposters (see the paper The Millennium and the Rapture (No. 95)). In the same way these Antinomian Gnostics seek to do away with the laws of God and the resurrection of the dead and the Millennial rule of Christ from Jerusalem. It is by these lawless and blasphemous teachings that we are able to discern those who have the favour of God and the blessings of the Holy Spirit in repentance and baptism.

In the same way the Muslims who claim to follow the teachings of the prophet called Muhammad but do not follow the faith but lie, hold that the Laws of God were lost to justify their antinomianism and their false doctrines. A Hindu answering a Muslim trying to convert him in Malaysia was heard to reply when told that the faithful would inherit 70 virgins in heaven on death: “I perceive that one could not follow such god as he is simply running a brothel in heaven.” No such doctrine exists in the faith or the Quran and those who teach so are liars and will face the judgment of the prophets and the elect in the second resurrection. The Hadith and the Councils and the Talmud will be stamped out very soon with the Advent of the Messiah.

Very soon all of these people will be silenced and we will hear their lies no more. By the millennial reign of the Messiah these people will cease to exist. They will repent or die. Anyone who teaches that the Sabbaths, New Moons and Feasts of God do not have to be kept will die by starvation or of the plagues of Egypt in pestilence (Isa. 66:23; Zech. 14:16-19). God will not decide that punishment. The Nexus of the Law will be restored and people will either obey or die.

Those people who do not keep the Sabbath or the New Moon or the Feasts of God will get no rain in due season and their crops will fail. If their nations do not send their representatives to Jerusalem at Tabernacles they will get no rain in due season and suffer the plagues of Egypt. There will be no argument or discussion. The choice will simply be to obey God’s Laws or die. Irrigation will not save them nor will stores of food from years past. There will be a simple and direct penalty for disobedience to God’s Laws.

False religions and false teachers will cease to exist. Everyone will know God and the results of obedience to His laws.

Tom Schardt and Wade Cox

CCG Coordinators