Ministers of Righteousness

God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. The guilt-worthy have kept sin on the table of God’s justice their entire lifetimes and sat under ministers of righteousness who have led the way. Satan’s ministers of righteousness use the word reform, but reformation would be a work of the believer for God. They would appeal to people to reform, yet some people think it’s their responsibility to remove their sins. These people commit, they recommit, they recommit their re-commitment. Judgment based on a righteousness a person can produce for themselves can only lead to one verdict-GUILTY! God is going so see them as having no need of the saving work of his son. When we put our human hearts under the microscope of God’s truthful judgment, we are going to find out that we need much more than human righteousness to have a perfectly just standing before God. Put another way, do people think for one moment that God is going to give them a non-wrath-worthy pass; that Jesus need not have died for their sins; that their sins are of such a non-serous nature that they have no need of a Savior in the first place? 


Paul wants us to know at one point in time something was true, but now something else is true. They will continually want us to do this and stop doing that in order to keep God happy with us, when the reality is: God couldn’t be any happier with us than he is; Jesus having taken our sin debt upon himself and we having trusted what happened where our sins are concerned. Righteousness cannot be found in the individual through performance and righteousness cannot be found in the law and Paul proved that righteousness cannot found in religion. Grace on the other hand, bestows freely that which we could never earn and could never deserve. Therefore the assumption is, God is not reconciled when people sin. In their mind they are separating themselves from God by their sin and Paul is saying, God has already reconciled the human race where their sins are concerned. The vast majority of the people of this earth don’t understand what reconciliation is all about, they think that new sin needs a new measure of reconciliation. Is that not the golden thread woven through every denomination out there, it’s called religion. The truth is the human race couldn’t obtain an ounce of forgiveness if they tried, because God has already forgiven all the human race.

"The truth is the human race couldn’t obtain an ounce of forgiveness if they tried, because God has already forgiven all the human race."

Universal Salvation?

The sin issue has been resolved through the sacrifice of Jesus. You see, it’s not the issue that God’s justice needs to be satisfied, it has been satisfied. The issue is: Will a person believe it. People’s great need now is to be placed into the sin bearer and that does not take place until a person believes that Jesus became the sin bearer. That’s what believing the words “he died for my sins” is all about. A person can say those words all they like, but unless they believe Jesus accomplished something where their sins are concerned when he died for those sins, Paul’s good news message is hidden to them. Satan’s ministers of righteousness are busy at work within the righteous structure called religion in order to keep the meaning of Paul’s good news message hidden; to keep people’s eyes blinded to the truth of what was really accomplished.

Paul wants us to know that keeping people from understanding this message is Satan’s major goal during this dispensation. Most reject “The Reality of Reconciliation” because they just don’t understand it. There are those who mistakenly suppose that reconciliation is the same thing as being declared righteous. These people have jumped to the conclusion that Jesus taking the sin issue off the table of God’s justice through his becoming sin for the human race is that which makes a person as righteous as God. They’ve mistaken reconciliation for justification. To have your sin slate judicially emptied because Jesus died for those sins does not mean that you now possess the righteousness recorded on the slate of the one who died for those sins. How can you get God to reconcile you to himself where your sins are concerned? The fact is, you can’t. There’s nothing you can do. You don’t have to try to get him to do it. You don’t have to promise him something in order for him to do it. You don’t even have to ask him to do it because he’s already done it according to 2 Corinthians 5:18. The instant you take God at his word that Jesus resolved God’s justice where all your sins are concerned, God joins you to the person who died for your sins and thereby you become an instantaneous member of the household of God. Belief is necessary for being declared righteous and that belief is how you are heaven-worthy.

Could you explain in your own words the message you are trying to convey?

Artfuldodger said:

Could you explain in your own words the message you are trying to convey?

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Keep your fingerprints off the free gift of God. Did you pay the price?

newnature said:

Keep your fingerprints off the free gift of God. Did you pay the price?

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I like it. It's catchy, to the point, with just a touch of tude.
Son, you may have a future here.

But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners does that make Christ a minister of sin? Absolutely not!