|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||
Commentary on "The Sabbath and Worship"
Day 4: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - Freedom From Slavery
Freedom from Slavery to the Law and the Sabbath...Freedom to the Uttermost.
Since I am speaking to those who understand law, brothers, a are you unaware that the law has authority over someone as long as he lives? For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. b But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband. So then, if she gives herself to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she gives herself to another man, she is not an adulteress.
Therefore, my brothers, you also were put to death in relation to the law d through the crucified body of the * Messiah, e so that you may belong to another — to Him who was raised from the dead — that we may bear fruit for God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions operated through the law in every part of us and bore fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law. Romans 7:1-6
The Freedom of a New Creation is far, far greater than the freedom of the Israelite people being delivered from slavery. It's also frightening for those who hold onto the Law as an idol, those who hold up their works as a part of the entrance fee into Salvation, because all of that is NOTHING to God.
God in Christ said as much when He met with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was one of the key teachers of the Israelite people, and He was all for following the Laws and Decrees...all 613 of them, as proof of His earning the right to Salvation.
There was a man from the Pharisees a named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God e as a teacher, for no one could perform these signs You do unless God were with him.”
Jesus replied, “I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“But how can anyone be born when he is old? ” Nicodemus asked Him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born? ”
Jesus answered, “I assure you: Unless someone is born j of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can these things be? ” asked Nicodemus.
“Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things? ” Jesus replied. “I assure you: We speak what We know and We testify to what We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven? No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life.
“For God loved y the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name ae of the One and Only Son of God.
“This, then, is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who practices wicked things hates ai the light and avoids it,so that his deeds aj may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.” John 3:1-21
Nicodemus is a slave to the Law and He thinks the Law is the key to Salvation but Jesus after Nicodemus butters Him up with praise states that all that Law stuff is WORTHLESS. The Only way to even SEE the Kingdom of Heaven was to be Born Again.
This is a Birth of the Spirit. You have to be born of water, physical birth and the Spirit, spiritual rebirth to see the Kingdom of God. And the only way to do that is through coming to the cross after being awakened from your spiritual death, and repenting of your sins and accepting God's gift of eternal life.
There is no probationary period or time between being dead in sins and Born Again, just like the sound follows the clicking of the fingers, so does Eternal Life and Salvation follow Calling on the Name of the Lord and Repentance.
Your sins are remembered no more, through the Bible God describes this in various ways.
- Casting our sins as far as the East is from the West.
- Putting them under the deepest point of the ocean.
- Putting them behind Him.
Any Born Again believer is just as much a disgusting horrid sinner as he or she was before salvation, now however we are ALWAYS seen by God through the cleansing Blood of the Lamb. Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, and we are adopted into the family of God, with all the rights of full Son hood. The most amazing thing from my perspective is that we are free of the Law of the Letter and live unto the Law of the Spirit, and with the Holy Spirit living in me I am able to cease and trust that I am covered...I enjoy the deep more intimate love walk I have with my Savior knowing that God doesn't unsela those He has saved.
We are also not destined to the Wrath of God, because God in Christ took God's wrath for US upon Himself. This is just as great as the promise that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. Both of these promises of God become lies if we are not saved from the wrath that comes upon the earth dwellers in the Book of Revelation.
Because you have kept My command to endure, I will also keep you from the hour of testing that is going to come over the whole world to test those who live on the earth. Revelation 3:10
Those who live on the earth is literally translated earth dwellers, earth dwellers refers to those who have chosen the things of this earth as paramount and would rather live in earthly splendor than heavenly glory. I sincerely hope that isn't describing you, I hope you are one who will be kept from (out of) the hour testing, for that is our Blessed Hope these words of King Jesus promising to remove us from the Earth before He begins to open the 7 Sealed Scroll of Revelation.
You see if Jesus who is God doesn't fulfill this promise which was foreshadowed by events in the Old Testament, then He is a liar and God cannot lie.
Lot and His family were removed out of Sodom and Gomorrah before the Judgment fell.
Enoch was raptured to Heaven before the Flood.
Enoch is the accurate picture of out ultimate Salvation our Salvation into eternity, he was kept from the wrath of the Global Flood by God.
The Wrath of God for us was exhausted on the cross, Christ took it upon Himself. Like Enoch we will be caught up, and kept from, God's wrath that will affect the whole earth and those that have chosen earthly things over heavenly things.
Our Blessed Hope is near, the day that Christ spoke about Himself in John 14 is very close:
“Your heart must not be troubled. a Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. You know the way to where I am going.”
“Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where You’re going. How can we know the way? ”
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
He will come back and receive us unto Himself. And then we will find ourselves celebrating the Lord our God before the Throne of Heaven.
After this I looked, and there in heaven was an open door. The first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” Immediately I was in the Spirit, and a throne was set there in heaven. One was seated on the throne, and the One seated looked like jasper3 and carnelian4 stone. A rainbow that looked like an emerald surrounded the throne. 4 Around that throne were 24 thrones, and on the thrones sat 24 elders dressed in white clothes, with gold crowns on their heads. 5 Flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder came from the throne. Seven fiery torches were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. c 6 Something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal, was also before the throne. Four living creatures d covered with eyes in front and in back were in the middle5 and around the throne. 7 The first living creature was like a lion; the second living creature was like a calf; the third living creature had a face like a man; and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. 8 Each of the four living creatures had six wings; e they were covered with eyes around and inside. Day and night they never stop,6 saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, the Almighty, who was, who is, and who is coming.
Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the One seated on the throne, the One who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before the One seated on the throne, worship the One who lives forever and ever, cast their crowns before the throne, and say:
Our Lord and God, You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because You have created all things, and because of Your will they exist and were created.
Saved to the Uttermost. Hallelujah to our lord and Savior Jesus Christ let us worship HIM with gladness!
Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised July 5, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.
Official Adventist Resources
Standard Edition Study Guide Week 3
Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 3
Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Wk 3
Search the Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings
Please Support This Project
