Not By Works
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Actually loveme, what you say about Abraham is not quite right.
Abraham was given the promise of children of all nations, so many that they would be as the Stars in heaven. Abraham got two. One of promise, one of self. There is the story of which son is blessed and receives the inheritance.
For us, being born again, we are the Sons of promise.
So, when was the promise to Abraham fulfilled? Not in his lifetime, yet his faith remained.
Thats the faith of Abraham. To believe no matter what we see. So what work did Abraham do? He listened to the wrong voice, his wife, and brought an Ishmael. Now, God, knowing the end from beginning, wasn't surprised. He had a blessing for Ishmael and descendants too, but much trouble to the earth as come from them.
So when did this promise come to pass?
Rom 4:13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the Law, but through the righteousness produced by faith.
Gen 15:5 Then the LORD took him outside. "Look up at the sky and count the stars—if you can!" he said. "Your descendants will be that numerous."
Gen 15:6 Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
Abram was only believing for a servant to be his heir, but the Lord graciously interrupts and gives him the promise...the heir will be a son.
Gen 15:6 Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
Rom 4:4 Now to someone who works, wages are not considered a gift but an obligation.
Rom 4:5 However, to someone who does not work, but simply believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Son of promise. A miraculous birth. Born from above, a miraculous birth.
So righteousness is only imputed because of our faith, and what is our faith?
The sacrifice that Abram performed the evening he was promised descendants
portrays the Cross of Jesus. Fulfilled the covenant, to bring forth sons.
This is found in Genesis 15. Covenant is beryith in Hebrew and allegorically shows what happened to Abram and the sacrifices.
God passed through the sacrifice of Jesus, and received His work as finished for mankind.
So no work ascribes righteousness to us other than the work of Jesus.
We hold to this, and do not swerve right or left from this.
Works are for rewards only.
Now sealing. I know you haven't said anything about this, but this too is found in the covenant of Abraham and bringing Sons of promise.
What is the seal? We have looked at the Greek, looked at it topically, but failed to see (maybe just me?) what the scripture says the seal is.
Rom 4:11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:
Rom 4:12 And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.
Circumcised of flesh. Babies on the 8th day of life. We as spiritual babes in Christ are circumcised on the day of our new beginnings too. The circumcision by Father Himself. And is conversion. We know we have passed from death to life, though possibly could not express it that way.
So tell me please PHart, and anyone else who wants to declare that we can be unsealed, when it's the work of God Himself creating us dead to sin, and alive to God, how can we be unsealed?
our part is to believe it, and not walk away from this image, like said in scripture as looking at a mirror, then forgetting what we saw.
James is speaking of walking upright. After all, he was a Jew and was schooled in the moral law. But, we have the nature of God to live by now.
We do by instinct what is right. Romans 2
As babes, young men, then fathers. 1John
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