Ruth 4:8-12. Final chapter – Our home with Christ in the word “abide” – the divine nature practices righteousness.

Wednesday June 6, 2018

 

Title: Ruth 4:8-12. Final chapter - Our home with Christ in the word “abide” - the divine nature practices righteousness.

 

 

Our next instance of abide:

 

1JO 3:6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.

 

1JO 3:7 Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;

 

1JO 3:8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

 

1JO 3:9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

 

The false teachers have lifestyles of sin because they have zero power over it. All believers have been given power over sin.

 

The false teachers with their sophistry, 1JO 2:26 These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you, condoned sin and even made it look virtuous.

 

As John pointed out in the first chapter, this falsehood claimed not to sin since they concluded that their knowledge elevated them above the sins they committed, and so in a warped way, they sinned but were “spiritually” sinless.

 

We are protected from their deception if we just remember the simple maxims of the Christian way. Verse 7 says that Jesus is righteous, we who believe in Him are righteous, and because we are in Him, we are to practice righteousness. It’s quite simple.

 

Righteousness is consonant with Christ while sin is consonant with the devil. Simple.

 

The very appearance of the Son of God was to destroy the works of the devil, sin.

 

The work of the devil will be completely removed in the final judgment, but currently it is destroyed wherever Christ is. The works of the devil in all believers therefore have been destroyed. Satan will have no power over us unless it is granted in the form of testing, and even then, it is not power over our thinking or decisions.

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

 

ROM 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

 

ROM 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

ROM 6:5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,

 

ROM 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin;

 

ROM 6:7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

 

Paul soon after gives this truth another exposure.

 

ROM 6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!

 

The same admonishment is given, “Do you not know…” Prior, “do you not know that you are baptized into His death and resurrection,” this time, “do you not know that you belong to Him as His slave?”

 

ROM 6:16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

 

ROM 6:17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

 

Paul isn’t saying that some of us committed ourselves to doctrine while some didn’t. The verb “committed” (paradidomi) means “to give over.” This is more like our word committed when used of being placed in something.

 

The form or type of teaching is Paul’s blueprint as opposed to the false teachings of the Judaizers or Gnostics.

 

Through the gospel they were committed into or given over to the form of teaching or doctrine that came from Paul.

 

ROM 6:18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

 

This occurred at salvation. The divine seed is put in all who believe by the Holy Spirit. Paul rejoices that all believers have this transformation.

 

All believers are delivered over to a form or pattern of teaching. That doesn’t guarantee that they will learn it any more than an eighteen-year-old delivered over to a university by his parents in the fall will learn anything come summertime.

 

We are all responsible for the teachings of the Bible. And the grace in this is that we have all been given a nature that loves just that teaching. It is the gospel and all the doctrines that flow from the gospel.

 

“Believers have been handed over by God to the mighty facts, not only that their guilt was put away on the cross, but that they, as connected with Adam, died with Christ; that their history in Adam is thus entirely ended before God; and that they now share the risen life of Christ, and are before God as risen ones.” [William Newell, Romans, Verse by Verse]

 

All believers are handed over to these truths, whether they comprehend them or not. It is the first duty of every teacher of God’s saints to open to them the glorious facts already true about them.

 

ROM 6:19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

 

ROM 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

 

ROM 6:21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.

 

ROM 6:22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit [karpos: fruit], resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

 

Regeneration and that induction into the blessed doctrines of Christ lead us along the fields of God’s kingdom, producing daily, delightful fruit - sanctification.

 

The word translated “outcome” is telos, which means “end, limit, or result.” Eternal life is given to all believers. This is clear in the scripture. Paul states just that here as well. Every blessed day of fruit bearing is one day closer to that wonderful end, which will be the full realization of eternal life.

 

We all possess eternal life, but we also long to be clothed with our resurrection bodies and to be face to face with the Lord.

 

1JO 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

 

1JO 3:3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

 

ROM 6:22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

 

ROM 6:22 “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit unto holiness (sanctification), and the end, eternal life.”

 

ROM 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

We are under grace - the gifts from God in Christ and not the Law. We are given the freedom to be righteous associated with complete forgiveness.

 

ROM 5:21 as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Eternal life is Christ Himself and so eternal life is meant to be lived and walked.  

 

1JO 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life — 

 

1JO 1:2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us

 

Eternal life abides in the believer. He cannot hate his fellow believer.

 

1JO 3:13 Do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates you.

 

1JO 3:14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.

 

1JO 3:15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.