The Invisible Church Blog

Often times it is heard from those outside of Christ, that those saved by Him are self-righteous. This is one of those cases where their own words are cast into a mirror and reflect upon themselves; for it is only those who are in Christ that are not self-righteous, they are actually Christ-righteous! Having the righteousness of Christ imputed to them by faith they no longer consider any deed as a righteousness of self, but rather attribute all to Him who has washed them in His own blood. These indeed and these alone are so far from being self-righteous, they can only be Christ-righteous!

Self-righteousness belongs to those who are preparing to present God or man some righteousness of their own. Some look to the positive moral codes and conducts of the world, others may look to biblical standards. These hope that their abiding by certain standards all will go well with them. What they are looking for is a righteousness of self that will make them acceptable before God or man, in other words a self-righteousness. What they refuse to admit is that “all their righteousnesses are as filthy rags”, this, those who are fixed upon their self-righteousness cannot and will not hear.

When one is Christ-righteous they understand that “in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” and have looked elsewhere for the righteousness required to stand before a perfect and holy God. How they appear to man matters little to them, their great concern is being brought into right fellowship with a holy God. They understand they have no righteousness of their own that will meet the perfect standards required by a perfect God, so they have gone to Christ by faith for this righteousness and have found that He in turn imputes His own righteousness to them as promised. With the imputation of the righteousness of Christ in the believer comes new desires and actions that heretofore were not even possible. Desires for the glory of God at the expense of our own, desires for communion with God through His Son, and ultimately a love of God for His very person as He Himself has revealed, rather than some god made up by our own imaginations. These desires originate from God Himself and are transferred to us from the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. Each of them has a role and none can be left out of the equation, otherwise there is a break in the conduit leaving us short of any fellowship with God.

In short, we take God as He is, He takes us as we are, and supplies all that is needed to make us capable of communion with Him. That is the glory of Christ-righteousness!

I was speaking to a neighbour the other day, and he mentioned that there is so much information around that he doesn’t know what to believe any more. I told him it was all part of a much larger plan to bring men into ‘the darkest of ages’. He was a little confounded at that statement, as you might well be but allow me to explain.

Centuries ago when the religious establishment forbade the common folk an ability to read, it was a spiritually dark time, so dark in fact that it was named “The Dark Ages”. For the knowledge of God as revealed in His word was held captive by devious men, unwilling to loosen their grip on their professed power over the eternities of souls. Then along came the invention of the printing press, which made books available to the common folk, and was the beginning of the end of that madness. The original design of it was not to make just any book available, but to make the Good Book, the very word of God available to the common folk. It was a wonderful invention, the learning to read and to write spread forth quickly, and the word of God became accessible to everyone. With the word of God then loose and available for the public, the bride of Christ grew, as many were saved. These saved people in turn wrote much for the edification of the future church, and the plan of Satan to withhold the light of the word of God from the people was abated for a time.

Moving on to plan B, Satan said to himself, “Since I can’t withhold the word of life from the people I must provide a distraction”. From then on, book after book was written, with story after story, and truth after truth; a little here, a little there, along with a mixing everywhere until it reached the point we are at today. There is so much to read or watch or hear, and so much truth mixed with error and contradiction amongst it all that few even know what to believe any more.

With all this truth mixed with error, and error upon error having been written and put forth into the minds of men, if someone were to come up to you and say “this is the way, walk ye in it” you should rightly answer “and why should I believe you?” Why should you answer this way? Because ‘the darkest of ages’ are upon us, with here a charlatan, there a charlatan, everywhere a charlatan. Not that this surprises the children of God, because the word of God has let us know that “knowledge would be increased” (Dan 12:4) at this time, but this is not so much the knowledge of God as it is the knowledge of anything but God. There will be many false teachers teaching many false things giving many false hopes 2 Tim 4:3-4, 2 Pet 2:1-3, Matt 24:4-5), so much so that to the tuned ear their only common rallying cry will be to go “any way but to Christ Himself”. The world may have you look for salvation in church, in ordinances, in self, in false religion; they may have you deny the need for salvation, and even deny the very existence of God. As those who oppose your soul, these multitudes are teaching from the imagination of evil hearts, to have you look anywhere but Christ Himself.

In ‘the dark ages’ men couldn’t read and had nothing to believe, today men can read anything and know not what to believe. The results are the same. Darkness! In our time it is called ‘the darkest of ages’.

For those who are not content with darkness but must have light, to Christ one must go, for Christ Himself is “that Light which lighteth every man” and “in Him is no darkness”.

“…This is the way, walk ye in it…”

Rom 5:11 …we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

The atonement of Christ is a foundational doctrine of the Bible running from cover to cover, and is to be rightly received and proclaimed by those who take the name of Christian. There are at least four questions that need to be rightly regarded concerning the doctrine, they are as follows:

1) What it is?

2) Why it was necessary?

3) What exactly was accomplished by it?

4) What it means to you?

The answers to these questions are foundational and are to be fully and rightly proclaimed that the souls of men might be saved.

1) The atonement of Christ is the satisfaction of the justice of God, by God, on our behalf, allowing God to then extend mercy to us. It is God Himself doing that which He requires to bring us into communion with Him. No longer being opposed to Him we are made His children and brought into fellowship with Him through the atoning work of Christ, otherwise known as being ‘at one’ with Him. This is why it is sometimes referred to as the At-One-Ment.

2) It was necessary because as one would expect from God, He is ABSOLUTELY holy, and absolute holiness is not found in fallen man. So God in mercy provides the way to impute His ABSOLUTE holiness to those who will receive it. He tells us in Lev 17:11 “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul”. By His own rule, the blood of Christ, our Passover lamb, is required to make atonement for the soul. The transaction is applied to us by faith in this atoning work, without which, we are nought but enemies of God and have no possibility of fellowship with Him.

3) The accomplishment was that the wrath of God on the believer’s sin was ENTIRELY satisfied, and thereby we are brought into communion with the Most High God. Having been washed in the blood of the Lamb and purified for entrance into the holy of holies, our sin no longer provides an impenetrable barrier to fellowship with God. For the believer, sin can separate them from that most intimate of communion with God for a short time, but in mercy that separation is limited both in intensity and duration, its lack simply gives the offender a thirst for more of right fellowship with God.

4) We rejoice not because we are not going to hell, but rather because we have been brought into communion with the Most High God. The motive is not where we are not going, but rather who we are now in fellowship with. Being now in fellowship with God through the atoning work of His own Son, we have a new desire to both give and bring glory to His name at the expense of our own.

Based on God’s own rules of ‘..Thou shalt give life for life..’ etc., IF Christ was a mere man like us, He could not have atoned even for Himself; IF Christ was only a sinless man He could only atone for one other man who required it; but because Christ Himself is the Almighty God as He has stated, He alone has the infinite value required both in quantity and type, to redeem multitudes from generations past, present and future. His condition for exercising restitution on your behalf is that you trust Him.

Having learned the patience of unanswered prayer and taken their rightful place at the foot of the cross, the Christian is then prepared for the fullness of answered prayer in communion with God. Make no mistake about it, God both hears and answers prayer of those whose heart is right towards Him (James 5:16), of those who delight in Him (Psa 37:4). For these people, prayer is not placing an order to God for a wish-list of worldly wants , but rather a place of fellowship with the most high God. These are people who “Pray without ceasing” (1 The 5:17).

Many a child has asked his father for many a thing, but the child with the right heart towards his father asks the father for more of himself. The child has needs and trusts that his loving father will provide for them, what concerns him most is that the father will share more of himself, and this is what a child who loves his father asks for. This a loving father will most readily share! 

The child doesn’t ask someone else’s father to provide more of himself for him simply because that father is not his father and is under no obligation to provide anything for the child. Likewise a child of the devil can hound God with his worldly wish-list until he is blue in the face, but because God is not his Father, He is under no obligation to meet any demand. The problem this person encounters is that he isn’t seeking God Himself; what he is looking for is a servant, expecting God, who is not his Father, to bow to his demands as though He were his Father. These who want nothing of fellowship with the person of God should expect nothing of His benefit.

The provision of the very person of God is reserved for those who are His children, and those alone. These people truly meet God and can say with Isaiah ‘…mine eyes have seen the King…” (Isa 6:5), and this meeting causes drastic change to the heart. It is an alignment of the heart with the will of God which causes us to desire things that God is pleased to provide. The desires of a new heart change prayer from temporal wants to eternal needs. It seeks out how to bring glory to God. It seeks out the most intimate of fellowship with Him. This is the prayer that is answered! And having had the desire for fellowship with the most high God, God as your Father meets other needs as He sees fit.

A person is made a child of God through faith in Lord Jesus Christ. It is trusting Him alone that provides the washing required to bring one into right fellowship with God. For without this washing of the blood of the Lamb applied to us by faith, we belong to a different father and are nought but children of wrath. Yet if a man trust Christ and have his delight in God as his Father, this man shall know the fullness of answered prayer!

Ps 37:4 Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.