At least that is what one Church of God preacher is telling me on another forum. To be fair, he is in a very small minority within the CoG, but they ought to run him out of town for preaching this junk. He said...
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The question isn't: "Have you sinned?"
We've all sinned.
The question is: "Do you believe?"
Rather than presenting believers with their sin, which is gone in Christ, let's present them with something to believe in - the beautiful message of the cross! This is the "word of reconciliation" we carry!
that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (II Corinthians 5:19 NKJV)
The message of the cross is that God, in Christ, provided reconciliation and the non-imputation of sin through Christ's obedience on the cross. All who put their faith in Christ's redemptive work are reconciled to God and no longer have sin imputed to them. What is imputed to us is the righteousness of God!
just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.” (Romans 4:6-8 NKJV)
Believers, we are the "blessed" people David foresaw. We are the ones whose sins are forgiven. We are the ones "to whom The Lord shall not impute sin"! We are the righteous!
Our sins are gone!
Why will He never impute sin to us? Because He imputed our sin to Jesus on the cross!
Why will He remember our sin no more? Because all of our sins were judged and condemned in the body of His Son!
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (II Corinthians 5:21 NKJV)
...And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6 NKJV)
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To which I replied....
You may as well throw out half of the book of Romans. The only way a sinner can see his need to believe is to see the weight of his guilt in the mirror of the moral Law. The church has been following YOUR advice for decades, and we see the fruit of that error.
Brad, you are making a huge mistake in assuming that everyone knows they are a sinner and condemned. Most people I witness to assume God is going to let them off the hook because "they aren't as bad as someone else", or because their sins "weren't very big", or that as they got older they "cleaned up their act". The gospel makes absolutely no sense to them until YOU strip them of their self righteousness by the Law.
Romans 3:19 says...
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Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
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Brad, without showing people their personal guilt by the Law, you are only creating a false convert who will have no thankfulness or appreciation for Calvary.
Brad you are either missing the point, or dodging it. WE are not condemning them. GOD and his Law have already condemned them!! The gospel will not make sense to them unless they realize this. Jesus had to die for them because of this condemnation. You are like a doctor refusing to tell someone they have cancer, while expecting them to rejoice when you tell them they can receive the cure.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: "The trouble with people, who are not seeking for a Savior, and for salvation, is that they do not understand the nature of sin. It is the peculiar function of the Law to bring such an understanding to a man’s mind and conscience. That is why great evangelical preachers 300 years ago in the time of the Puritans, and 200 years ago in the time of Whitefield and others, always engaged in what they called a preliminary 'Law work.'”
John Newton (wrote "Amazing Grace"): “Ignorance of the nature and design of the Law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes.”
Charles Spurgeon: “I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law.” Then he warns, “Lower the Law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ . . . They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy Law. Therefore the Law serves a most necessary purpose, and it must not be removed from its place.”
Jonathan Edwards: “The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His Moral Law.”
George Whitefield said to his hearers, “First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the Law of God.”
John Wesley: "...it is the ordinary method of the Spirit of God to convict sinners by the Law. It is this which, being set home on the conscience, generally breaketh the rocks in pieces. It is more especially this part of the Word of God which is quick and powerful, full of life and energy and sharper than any two-edged sword."
Martin Luther: "The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to declare God's Law and show the nature of sin."
John Wesley: "It remains only to show...the uses of the Law. And the first use of it, without question, is to convince the world of sin. By this is the sinner discovered to himself. All his fig-leaves are torn away, and he sees that he is 'wretched and poor and miserable, blind and naked.' The Law flashes conviction on every side. He feels himself a mere sinner. He has nothing to pay. His 'mouth is stopped' and he stands 'guilty before God.' To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins."
Charles Spurgeon: "The Law cuts into the core of the evil, it reveals the seat of the malady, and informs us that the leprosy lies deep within."
C. S. Lewis: “When we merely say that we are bad, the ‘wrath’ of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our bad-ness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary from God’s goodness…”
Martin Luther: "...we would not see nor realize it (what a distressing and horrible fall in which we lie), if it were not for the Law, and we would have to remain forever lost, if we were not again helped out of it through Christ. Therefore the Law and the Gospel are given to the end that we may learn to know both how guilty we are and to what we should again return."
J. I. Packer: "Unless we see our shortcomings in the light of the Law and holiness of God, we do not see them as sin at all."
Charles Finney: “Ever more the Law must prepare the way for the Gospel. To overlook this in instructing souls, is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill the Church with false converts... time will make this plain.”
John Bunyan: “The man who does not know the nature of the Law, cannot know the nature of sin.”
D. L. Moody: “Ask Paul why [the Law] was given. Here is his answer, ‘That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God’ (
Romans 3:19).
The Law stops every man’s mouth. I can always tell a man who is near the kingdom of God; his mouth is stopped. This, then, is why God gives us the Law—to show us ourselves in our true colors.”
A. W. Pink: “Just as the world was not ready for the New Testament before it received the Old, just as the Jews were not prepared for the ministry of Christ until John the Baptist had gone before Him with his claimant call to repentance, so the unsaved are in no condition today for the Gospel till the Law be applied to their hearts, for ‘by the Law is the knowledge of sin.’ It is a waste of time to sow seed on ground which has never been ploughed or spaded! To present the vicarious sacrifice of Christ to those whose dominant passion is to take fill of sin, is to give that which is holy to the dogs.”
Augustine: “The Law is not in fault, but our evil and wicked nature; even as a heap of lime is still and quiet until water be poured thereon, but then it begins to smoke and burn, not from the fault of the water, but from the nature and kind of the lime which will not endure it.”
Matthew Henry: “Herein is the Law of God above all other laws, that it is a spiritual law. Other laws may forbid compassing and imagining, which are treason in the heart, but cannot take cognizance thereof, unless there be some overt act; but the Law of God takes notice of the iniquity regarded in the heart, though it go no further.”
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