The following is from my forthcoming book (which may not be forthcoming if Jesus comes first, so I feel led to share this) and may help with the question of where the line is drawn between trusting Jesus’ finished work or not, and is an expansion of my previous submissions on this subject. 

 

Chapter 12

 

Lord, I Have A Question...

 

One of the first times that I had this kind of learning experience with God, it was over a basic issue of my salvation and His atonement on the cross for my sins. Now, the New Age movement tries to take that word, “atonement” and turn it into “at-one-ment”. They suggest that it means that when we discover our godhood, and become enlightened, we will become at one with the higher self and touch our divinity, blah, blah... Folks, I can think of no better example of a doctrine of demons than that kind right there. (A lot of  new agers are going to be disappointed to find out they’ve been had.)

I understood the basic teaching of the atonement being that God made full payment for all the sins of the whole world, including mine, when Jesus Christ went to the cross. He took all sin on Himself and paid the price, which was death, for those sins. That’s what atonement means. To atone for something is to pay the penalty for it. The penalty for sin is death. Jesus died after taking our sins on Himself. I’d heard about this and accepted it my whole life. Yet I had a nagging problem with it that I finally was ready to admit before God. Now that I knew that He was available to ask questions of, I wanted to bring this up to Him.

I began by acknowledging His presence with me and trusted His willingness to teach me about this.  

Hebrews 11:6.  But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

 

James 1: 5.  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

 

So my question was being stated to Him from a position of already being in His presence and knowing that He wanted to teach me about this. My question was this:

“Lord, I believe that Jesus died for my sins because that is the gospel message and I accept it by faith, however I’ve always had this problem with it... How could Jesus have died for MY sins when I was not even alive then to have committed them yet? So how do I know that even my sins were placed on Jesus because sometimes I feel afraid, in case any were missed and weren’t paid for too...” I know that may sound silly to you but that was my question and it was a real nagging problem for me and I could not imagine what the right answer would be on my own or using my intellect. In other words, it was easy for me to see how everyone’s sins were put on Jesus who had lived up to that point. But here we are all these years later still sinning... How can my sins today still have been paid for way back then... That, I just didn’t know.

I presented my question just like a little child might ask his daddy something. And to my complete delight, He began to respond just as a little child might get from his loving daddy too. My favorite part about the whole thing was not even the answer to the question itself, but rather the sense I got of HIS delight that I had asked the question in the first place. I was so in love with this. It was like being in a new relationship with a girlfriend only I was the girl and He the guy. That may seem strange coming from a straight guy, but I was enjoying this role. (I will get into this male/female aspect of our relationship with God much more fully, in my chapter on Love.)

 

Jesus: Pinch-Hitter

 

Well, then He began to answer my question this way: He said,

“The reason you are having trouble with this is that you have an incorrect understanding of what is meant by the phrase, ‘Jesus died for you...’ It doesn’t just mean that He died for your sins, as in because of your sins, but look at it this way: think of it as in the way that a pinch-hitter hits for someone in a baseball game... He said, you have a lineup of whose turn it is at bat, but just as the batter might be going toward the plate to hit, he is called back by the coach and another goes up from off the bench and hits in the first batter’s place. Now, mankind is like a batter that keeps striking out, and that’s all he can ever do. No matter who among us tries to go up to the plate and get a hit, we all strike out every time. Some might come closer than others and foul tip it sometimes or even hit the ball back to the defense but they get thrown out at first base anyway and the result is the same. No success. The pitcher is like the devil that no man can hit off of. So, God the Father is like the coach who sees our situation and comes up with a brilliant solution. He calls Jesus in from off the bench and puts Him into this game. He’s the one who invented the game and He’s a master at it. Satan would rather not have to pitch to Him at all but has no choice. Satan winds up and lets go with all he has behind a fastball right over the plate and Jesus swings and sends it right out of the park. Then Jesus rounds the bases and crosses home plate in victory. But then, a strange thing happens. Instead of Jesus coming back to the coach and dugout to cheers and victory, God treats Jesus as if He was the one who struck out all those other times, and He is punished for all the failures of you and me. That’s what His going to the cross and experiencing God’s wrath was for after He had done no sin. He was paying for ours. After He pays the penalty for our failures, which penalty is death; He is resurrected from the grave and restored to heaven where He will be highly exalted for His obedience and victory. But what’s more, He has purchased, or “atoned,” as it were, for all of our shortcomings.

Now here we come to me and you specifically. Every one of us still has the opportunity to go up to bat and face Satan, the pitcher, and the perfect law of God that we all fall short of. Yet we all still just strike out or get thrown out or fly out every time. Now, let’s say I hear that it’s yet again my turn at bat. For example that day at the seminar, when I was once more resolved to do my very best this time, because I really want to please the coach, God... But this time as I’m about to go the plate, God, the coach says to me,

“Barry, if you will allow me, I would like to send a pinch hitter up to bat in your place and what He does, I will write in the score card as if it were you, Barry, but you must trust Me that I will not lie to you about this...” At this point all I have to do is put down my bat, by faith, and go sit on the bench again and watch and see that Jesus really did hit it out of the park in my place and I get the credit as if I had done it myself because He took Jesus as if He had committed my sins. So, even though it happened 2,000 years ago, Jesus’ home run that day is available to me today, (while it is called today, the Bible says) if I accept it, and I receive the credit for it by faith.

The next time you are feeling like you need to be good enough before God, stop trying, (Sabbath rest) and let God offer you that performance that Jesus already performed on your behalf that day. Ask God to let Jesus’ home run be written in the score book next to your name and you don’t need to bat at all. Once this earthly life ends, this offer is no longer available and we must then be paid the price for our own performance, however good or bad. (The wages of sin is death…) Or, if we accept it at some point but then we fail to remain trusting in Jesus’ substitute performance for us and we return to trying to get a hit again for ourselves, then we just removed ourselves from receiving His score and God will instead write down whatever we do for ourselves again.

That is what God Himself told me that day about what it means that Jesus died for me. Now I want you to know right now, that this flies contrary to what many preachers and teachers are saying today. I have heard many mainstream ministers, so called, of the gospel on Christian radio and in publications contradict this. I was even taught contrary to this while I was supposed to be getting “discipled” by that man named Bud that I told you about in an earlier chapter. He used to say that “God knows that we cannot be perfect, but He wants us to try to be...” In other words, that’s like God saying to us that He knows that we will just strike out but He likes it that we keep trying to get a hit anyway... That my brothers and sisters is a lie! God knows that we cannot be perfect and that is why He substituted Jesus to go in our place and what He wants from us is to accept that finished work and rest (the real meaning of Sabbath) from our trying to accomplish that which Jesus already finished. It takes faith to put down the bat and rest from our works of trying to be good enough. You will look bad to all the other Christians that are hacking away at the wind trying to impress God with their swing. They will call you names for your sudden freedom in Jesus. They won’t understand you. They asked Jesus: 

 

John 6:28.  Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

 29.  Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

 

I have heard on Christian radio, a pastor say that God did not remove from us a responsibility to keep the commandments etc. He said that Jesus just gives us added power to accomplish with His help what we were unable to do alone, but now that we have His help, it’s up to us to keep the commandments. WRONG! We are just as powerless to get a hit off the Devil now as we ever were. Jesus does not stand over us like a dad with his kid, to help us swing the bat. No, He went to bat for us. He was alone when He went to that cross. We cannot help Him save us; we merely accept what He did, by faith. We cannot ascend up to heaven, as Romans 10 says, and get Jesus and help Him come down here and become a man, so that He can fulfill His ministry, and then die. Likewise, we cannot descend down into the grave and help Jesus rise from the grave either. That’s why it says that the word is already nigh you, even in your mouth, that is the word of faith, that if you will believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you will be saved. Not if you perform works for yourself. Part of our accepting that finished work by faith involves us no longer trying to get that hit ourselves anymore. Relax! Rest! Have a lemonade and be cool, okay?

This was one of the most important things that God ever taught me. This is called repentance from dead works. Quit trying to please God by hacking away at every accusation the devil throws at you. Just accept the good news that God has justified you by your faith that He promised, and you accepted. Indeed, for me to go to the plate myself, after having received this free, finished work of God’s grace, and me trying to get the hit again myself, is the same as saying that I don’t really believe that He already did it for me; or else I don’t really believe that He will keep His promise about this. As soon as I do that; go back up to bat and strike out, then God has no choice then but to erase Jesus’ score from next to my name and write my strike-out back in again. We cannot please God with our attempts at righteousness, and trying to keep the law.

This is all what makes up the subject of the book of Hebrews. I don’t care what you’ve heard preachers teach about “once saved always saved” it is not what God says. Jesus said you can be in Him and if you do not abide in Him you will be cast out. Hebrews says we are His house IF we hold the beginning of our confidence (in Him) steadfast unto the end. The example given is that of the Children Of Israel having left Egypt by God’s miracles, then lost their faith in God and grumbled and complained and feared and would not enter into the Promised Land when God offered it to them. It says that they failed to enter into His rest. We too, are told to enter into His rest, which is what the Sabbath is really all about. We cease from our own works of righteousness, trying to please God by works. To return to works is to frustrate the grace of God and place us back under the bondage of the law.

 

                Galatians 3: 1.  O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

 2.  This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

 

Galatians 3:10.  For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

 

There’s freedom in Jesus. Paul used the example of circumcision to explain that keeping any part of the law after being in Jesus and having faith in His finished performance to stand in for you, is to, by default, remove yourself from His substitute performance for you, and you are left to perform for yourself again. Jesus’ accomplishment then profits you nothing at all. Satan is big on getting Christians to fall for this one.  

 

Galatians 5: 1.  Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. (The yoke of bondage that Paul is speaking of here is bondage to the law, of which circumcision is an example, he is not speaking of bondage to some sinful habit, the way I heard it taught when I was young.)

                2.  Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

3.  For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

                4.  Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

                5.  For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

6.  For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

7. Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?

 

----------------------- The following is something I wrote specifically for:

Bill Petrovic (15 Dec 2007)
"My final on OSAS"

I appreciate the feedback from my post, but nobody answered the questions.

I believe most if not all posters to your site fall into category 3 and 4, but you gotta know 1 and 2 are lurking.

I just don't believe you can become unsaved. It's another thing to worry about. "It's finished."

If you sin, it is always on purpose and the same instant the Holy Spirit lets you know. (Heb.12.8)

I am expected to sin. I am a sinner, but I am going to try my darndest not to.

I have accepted Jesus as my personal Savior and he expects me to slip and fall, but he picks me up dusts me off and off we go and again I fall..etc...etc...just as I did my children when they fell and my earthly father me. It's a race....remember!

Even Dale Earnhardt crashes.

---

Hello Bill,

I am sorry for not answering your question about the four categories of people. I will give it a go here. You mention Hebrews 12: 8 and here is that scripture with those leading up to it:

Hebrews 12:

⁵ And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
⁶ For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
⁷ If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
⁸ But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

The book of Hebrews is written to address this very issue which you are struggling with. The chastening that is spoken of is not a chastening for sins committed as you are thinking of. It is not a chastening because you stumbled into some old bad habit or cussed at a motorist for cutting you off in traffic. This chastening is the kind that you receive for doing the very thing that you are currently doing.

 

I have both bad news and good news for you, Bill. The bad news is that you are in the category of those who are not saved but think that they are. If you remain in your current state, you will be among the five foolish virgins when the rapture takes place and you will not be able to enter in. There are five foolish and five wise virgins because five is the number for grace. The five wise are those who have understood and responded to God’s grace while the five foolish are those, like you and many, many more, which have not understood and therefore never properly responded to God’s grace. You have failed of the grace of God and have turned back to the deeds of the law which cannot save you.

I am expected to sin. I am a sinner, but I am going to try my darndest not to.

I once had a teacher (many years ago when I was new at this) who was “discipling” me who thought as you do. He used to tell us that God knows that we cannot be perfect but he wants us to try to be, etc. This sounds like where you are at currently, still trying to be perfect though knowing that you cannot be. The good news is that you can become perfect now by receiving the covering that Jesus offers by faith and stop trying to finish what is already finished. The instant that you go back to trying to be good, you just left off of faith in what Jesus provides for you. You are saying that Jesus cannot make you perfect and you must make yourself perfect. It cannot be both ways. If you could make yourself good through your own efforts, then Christ died in vain.

 

Paul was dealing with this very issue with the Galatians. He says many powerful things to them among them, Galatians 3:

 

¹ O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
² This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
³ Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

 

Sir, God does not want you to TRY to be perfect. The scripture says BE ye perfect. It is just as if Jesus said to a blind man, “Receive your sight!” Or a crippled man, “Rise up and walk.” God gives you perfect righteousness but you must take it in faith and stop trying to be good and just rest in the promise. Just as when Jesus said to a sinful woman or man, “Go, and sin no more…” He was not saying, “I’ll forgive you this time, but you had better not do it again, lest a worse thing happen to you…” What he was saying was, “Go, and be completely free from sin and it’s consequences from now on, because I am come to destroy the works of the devil and take back what he stole. I am claiming you for my kingdom if you will let me. It is as easy for Jesus to say to a lame man, “Rise up and walk” as it is to say to a sinner, “Go, and sin no more”.

 

I sat through a cassette sermon by John Macarthur at a Bible study by that same man who was discipling me and the message was “Put on the whole armor of God” and this installment was focused on the “breastplate of righteousness”. And the whole sermon was about how if your breastplate has any “chinks” in it then you are easy prey for Satan. So you better clean up your act and not allow any “chinks” in your breastplate of righteousness. This teaching is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a false gospel, even though the man may be highly respected among today’s Christians. Thank God I eventually learned that I am not expected to face Satan with the breastplate of Barry Amundsen’s righteousness. I would be in a heap of hurt if I was. What the Bible says is that we are to put on the whole armor OF GOD, not of myself. My own righteousness wouldn’t stop a plastic rubber tipped arrow. The breastplate of righteousness that God offers to you is chink-proof! You cannot manufacture it; you just take it and put it on, for free! That is why this is called GOOD NEWS! Stop trying to be good enough. You aren’t and never will be. He makes you perfect. But you cancel it out the moment you go back to trying to do it yourself. Do you see this? The reason that I can have boldness before God is that I know that when God looks at me he does not see my performance record; he sees Jesus’ performance record. The only thing God is concerned that I get right is that I understand this and stay firmly planted on it and don’t allow any man to come along and talk me out of my confidence in Jesus. You, sir have been talked out of your confidence in Jesus and been made to think that you must help Jesus save you. This makes you a debtor to all of the law. You have also crucified to yourself the Son of God afresh as both Galatians and Hebrews testifies.

 

…before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

 

The reason those five foolish virgins will be afraid at the rapture and will not go out to meet the bridegroom when he appears, is because the sudden awareness of their short fallen state will become abundantly clear to them and they will see themselves as grasshoppers in the face of giants instead of how Joshua and Caleb saw and said, “We are well able to go out and receive the promised land”.

 

1 John 3:

 

⁵ And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
⁶ Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.
⁷ Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
⁸ He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
⁹ Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

 

The part of you that is born of God is sinless and you are kept as sinless as long as you remain in him by the same faith that first got you in him.

 

I hope that you can abide and endure this bit of chastening, and allow it to help you.

 

Hebrews 12:

 

¹¹ Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
¹² Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
¹³ And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

 

Barry Amundsen