Christians are exhorted in their prayers to come boldly before the Throne of grace . . . it's amazing the things that people think they have to go through to get to that throne. When God says, 'boldly" that's what He means. We rush to Him! Flesh is flesh! When sin is bugging you and you fall to it, or whatever it is, it could be gossip or anything. When you're done doing it, you know it's sin, because you feel rotten. And you repeat to yourself, "I'm not going to do it again, I'm not going to do it again!" You're going to put something on your refrigerator, so that every time you see it you say, "I'm not going to do it today, I'm not going to do it today!" And then there's a weak moment, and you do it today. And you are defeated again, and you feel so bad. I'm just trying to tell you, the Bible says it doesn't have to have dominion over you.
We are not talking about sinless perfection, but maturing in the Lord--some things you ought to be able to have the victory over. And the things that are driving you crazy are the things you need to go to the Lord about. Stop hiding them. Just take them to the Lord. So when I think about we have been redeemed from all iniquity--that's what it means. Past, being continually delivered in Romans here. And in relation to the future, He will deliver us from the very presence of sin that is coming.
"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Romans 8:22-23).
Now, if you were to take this verse and all of a sudden somebody says that the "to wit" here is italicised and doesn't have to be here--it's not in most manuscripts--and, therefore, we just put a period after "waiting for the adoption." Nobody will catch that. Surely they won't catch that. When you got born again and got saved were you adopted? It's not a brain-twister. If you know the Scripture, you were adopted. Right? You were adopted.
So the verse said, right here, the verse says "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption" . . . Well, if I'm saved and I'm adopted and I'm joint heirs with Christ--and it stops there--that means, maybe I'm not adopted, yet. I'm waiting for the adoption! What about that? Now that makes a different story now. If I'm waiting for the adoption, somebody can come along and say 'this is what you have to do while you're waiting, because you ain't got it yet. No! The last part of the verse clears everything up. It's talking about your BODY! You body is not saved yet . . . but it will be . . . future! And there's many more verses like this.
There is a reason in the last days that so much confusion is going on. If a person doesn't have a solid biblical address to go to to definitely define his relation with God--that devil can rock your boat! How do we know that? Because Jesus Himself said, "It's written, It's written, It's written" three times when He was tempted by the devil. So the devil will destroy "It's written, It's written, It's written" any way he can. He can't get rid of it but he sure will eliminate a whole lot of things in our understanding.
It's important to understand with our salvation that we are saved--but the body is not saved.
OUR . . . BODIES . . . ARE . . . NOT . . . SAVED!!!
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