Commentary

Commentary on Scripture

Living by Grace Not Law

Leave a Comment / Christian Living, Commentary, Doctrine / /

The Apostle Paul has written that in this Church Age believers are to live by grace not law. How are we to understand what he meant by that? Interpretations vary wildly.

Paul wrote to Timothy that “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Commentaries on Romans chapters 6-8 bear strong evidence that Paul was exactly right.

Some of the truths we have turned from:

  • sin is in man’s flesh,
  • man inherited the bondage of corruption from Adam,
  • the Church Age believer has been made free from sin,
  • the Church Age believer is not to live by commandments,
  • the Church Age believer was given righteousness as a gift,
  • the Church Age believer has the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.

Some fables we have turned to:

  • Paul used the word flesh to mean sinful nature, which is a tendency to do evil,
  • Man gets a new nature at salvation, which is a tendency to do good,
  • all men in every dispensation are saved by grace through faith apart from works,
  • salvation depends only upon Christ’s death on the cross,
  • before the cross, people looked forward to the cross to be saved,
  • salvation is only positional or judicial so that man himself is unchanged at salvation,
  • a man is not saved if he does not do good works.

One cannot build true doctrine apart from truth. So when Scriptures have been translated to undermine the truth and support fables, sound doctrine is hopelessly lost. Thus we can hardly expect commentaries on Romans 6-8 to make sense in explaining how Paul tells believers to live after salvation. Understanding the passage is quite straightforward when one just takes at face value what the Bible (KJV) says.

These slides Living By Grace Not Law present a brief commentary on Romans 6:1 to 8:17. They accept the Scriptural view that salvation in this dispensation is experiential as well as positional and judicial, as established in the slides Body, Soul and Spirit, From this view these slides explain how those living with such salvation are to live by grace and not by law. In this updated version of Living By Grace Not Law I have included a better discussion of what it means to be baptized into Christ’s burial, a more careful contrast between the spiritual mind and the carnal mind. and other minor changes.

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Those Saved by Faith Without Works

Commentary, Doctrine, Salvation / /

How did dispensationalists miss the very important truth that salvation is different in different dispensations? Except for James who said it is not always true, the only dispensation that even mentions salvation by faith apart from works is Paul in his epistles. There is no such statement in the Old Testament. Jesus when specifically asked how to be saved, said to live by the commandments of the law. Paul declared he was given a special gospel for the Church Age; and he explained how that salvation is different from salvation in prior dispensations.

I suspect the false doctrine that everyone in all dispensations is saved by faith apart from works is based primarily upon a misunderstanding of Paul’s argument concerning Abraham in Romans chapter 4. Paul is not saying Abraham was saved like we are saved. Rather he is saying we must express faith like Abraham showed faith. God promised Abraham’s physical seed would be as numerous as the stars in the night sky; and Abraham believed Him. And just as God recognized Abraham’s faith as righteousness (not salvation righteousness), so God recognizes similar faith in us for His promise of the righteousness of Jesus Christ in salvation.
James in his epistle makes the point that Abraham was not saved by the faith that he expressed without works. We need to interpret Paul’s argument in Romans 4 consistent with all Scriptures. And that is my purpose in these slides Faith Without Works which present a brief commentary on Romans 3:19 to 4:25. This interpretation is counted as heresy by those who believe God saves everyone in every dispensation by faith without works.

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Sanctification Is Not What You Think It Is

Christian Living, Commentary, Doctrine / /

The Scriptural (KJV) doctrine of salvation in this Church Age is that the believer’s soul is made righteous at salvation and left to live righteously in a body still containing sin. Although it is soundly Scriptural, it is a minority view. The majority view, accepted as “orthodox” by almost all theologians, commentators, expositors, and teachers, is that salvation is mostly (or totally) positional so that the saved soul still has a sin nature.

I have set forth the Scriptural (KJV) doctrine of salvation in the slides Body, Soul, and Spirit. This view is supported in a brief commentary on Romans 6:1 to 8:18 in slides Living by Grace Not by Law, which discuss how the Christian is to fulfil the righteousness of the law by not living by laws. A brief commentary on Romans 5:12 to 5:21 in slides From Condemnation to Justification adds some background.

Opponents of the Scriptural view present various reasons, some of which are addressed in the Body, Soul, and Spirit slides. But one of the most insistent arguments against a cleansed soul is that it cannot line up with the orthodox doctrine of sanctification. I deal with that in these slides, Redemption and Sanctification. Redemption and sanctification are blessings listed in 1 Corinthians 1:30 for those in Christ Jesus.  Wisdom and righteousness, also listed there, I have commented on other slides, but I say a few words here about them as well.

It would be too large task for this set of slides to consider all verses that apply to sanctification for Church Age believers. So not only have I evaluated arguments for an orthodox view of sanctification, in these slides I have also looked at each of the verses a proponent of the orthodox view has listed in support of his view. And as we would expect, those verses fully support the Scriptural view of salvation.

The Apostle Paul has made it clear that the Christian will only be successful at continuing sanctification if his doctrine is correct concerning it. The slides Redemption and Sanctification discuss the correct doctrine for how a believer in this Church Age should practice sanctification in his life.

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