The central theme of the Old Testament is redemption by grace. But incredibly, the Pharisees entirely missed it. In their rigid emphasis on religious works, they deemphasized the truth of God’s grace and forgiveness to sinners—a theme that runs through the Old Testament. They stressed obedience to law, not conversion to the Lord, as the way to gain eternal life.
They were so determined to earn a righteousness of their own (Rom. 10:3) that they neglected the marvelous truth of Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous will live by his faith.” They looked to Abraham as their father but overlooked the key lesson of his life: “He believed in the ; and [the ] reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). They scoured the psalms for laws they could add to their list, but they ignored the most sublime truth of all—that God forgives sins, covers transgressions, and refuses to impute iniquity to sinners who turn to Him (Ps. 32:1–2).
They anticipated the coming of their Messiah but closed their eyes to the fact that He would come to die as a sacrifice for sin (Isa. 53:4–9). They were confident that they were guides to the blind, lights to those in darkness, correctors of the foolish, and teachers of the immature (cf. Rom. 2:19–20), but they missed the most basic lesson of God’s law: that they themselves were sinners in need of redemption. People have always stumbled at the simplicity of salvation. That is why there are so many cults. Each one has a unique slant on the doctrine of salvation—and each one corrupts the simplicity of the gospel revealed in God’s Word (cf. 2 Cor. 11:3) by espousing salvation by human works.
Each one of the major cults claims to have a key that unlocks the secret of salvation, yet they are all alike in propagating self-righteous achievement as the way to God. From start to finish, God’s Word disproves them all, and in a wonderfully consistent way. Its message, woven through sixty-six books, written over a span of fifteen hundred years by more than forty different authors, is marvelously unified and congruous. The message is simply that God graciously saves repentant sinners who come to Him in faith. There is no secret there, no mystery, no obscurity, and no complexity. If Nicodemus had truly understood God’s Word, he would have known that much.
My name is Cesar and I’m A Voice in The Desert
www.avoiceinthedesert.net
www.mywalkwithmycreator.com
#avoiceinthedesert
They were so determined to earn a righteousness of their own (Rom. 10:3) that they neglected the marvelous truth of Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous will live by his faith.” They looked to Abraham as their father but overlooked the key lesson of his life: “He believed in the ; and [the ] reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). They scoured the psalms for laws they could add to their list, but they ignored the most sublime truth of all—that God forgives sins, covers transgressions, and refuses to impute iniquity to sinners who turn to Him (Ps. 32:1–2).
They anticipated the coming of their Messiah but closed their eyes to the fact that He would come to die as a sacrifice for sin (Isa. 53:4–9). They were confident that they were guides to the blind, lights to those in darkness, correctors of the foolish, and teachers of the immature (cf. Rom. 2:19–20), but they missed the most basic lesson of God’s law: that they themselves were sinners in need of redemption. People have always stumbled at the simplicity of salvation. That is why there are so many cults. Each one has a unique slant on the doctrine of salvation—and each one corrupts the simplicity of the gospel revealed in God’s Word (cf. 2 Cor. 11:3) by espousing salvation by human works.
Each one of the major cults claims to have a key that unlocks the secret of salvation, yet they are all alike in propagating self-righteous achievement as the way to God. From start to finish, God’s Word disproves them all, and in a wonderfully consistent way. Its message, woven through sixty-six books, written over a span of fifteen hundred years by more than forty different authors, is marvelously unified and congruous. The message is simply that God graciously saves repentant sinners who come to Him in faith. There is no secret there, no mystery, no obscurity, and no complexity. If Nicodemus had truly understood God’s Word, he would have known that much.
My name is Cesar and I’m A Voice in The Desert
www.avoiceinthedesert.net
www.mywalkwithmycreator.com
#avoiceinthedesert
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