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"Grace in the Law" published by Pauline Holmes in 2001. Grace is no New Testament thing; the source of it is the Old Testament. Download the entire revised book in a PDF file by clicking on the title:
Grace in the Law>>
Did you know that all religions address the same desperate need, but only one offers a viable remedy? All religions aay 1. God is pure, holy and undefiled; 2. humans are impure, unholy, and defiled; 3. impurity separates humans from the deity; and 4. this separation has a terrible consequence, an eternal one. In other words, the price or penalty for imperfection (another word for sin), is far worse that physical death, it is spiritual death ending in the lake of fire. Humans are born impure, lost, unattached to God, doomed, dead.
The bad news and the good news:
The bad news is written on our hearts, hard-wired into the human psyche. We humans are mostly unconscious of it because we bury our heads in the sand and hide using an elaborate mesh of defense mechanisms, but this is no solution. Subconscious knowledge of our dread destiny has a powerful undertow. It drives us into the trap of compulsive perfectionism, and into religions that offer the false hope of self-cleansing. Those efforts are futile but enable us to cope with a life filled with guilt, fear, anger and hopelessness. That is, until our eyes are opened to the truth that sets us free.
: The good news (or Gospel) is that the God of the Bible has given us a way to connect with Him and avoid eternal darkness despite our impurity. That is the meaning of grace, salvation from the lake of fire as a gift, unearned, undeserved, requiring no effort on our part. God did it just because He loves us. The quote from Leviticus 17:11 above tells it like it is. In the law God gave to Moses, He establishes that the death of a substitute, one that He, Himself, defines and provides, is what He requires to acquit the sinner. In the fullness of time, He sent Jesus to be this substitute, the ultimate substitute, His own son, the one He chose, the one He appointed. God has given us the blood of Jesus as payment for all our sins. There is nothing we have to do other than claim that blood payment. He has given us the sinless blood of Jesus to pay for all our sin. There's nothing we have to do other than claim that blood payment. How can anyone pass this up?
We're saved by imputed (or borrowed, ordained) perfection. Covered by the blood of the son of God, unrighteous humans qualify as holy, pure and undefiled in the eyes of God. This gift proves that God loves us despite our human depravity. His mercy reaches to the uttermost.
Can legalism be good?
Legalism has gotten a bad rap, but in every court of law there is the counsel for the prosecution and the counsel for the defense. Our ministry acts as counsel for the defense, not for the prosecution. Jesus tells us to feed the sheep, not flog them. There is one Law, just one, that defends humans from the deadly consequence of their inability to attain moral perfection: God's Law, i.e., the one found in the Bible, the one He gave to Moses. The Law is the only source of mercy. The only source, period. In His Law God gives humans the blood payment that bails us out of eternal separation from Him. Christ's blood alone is the legal tender that frees us. Take it and escape the lake of fire. Refuse it, sneer at it, spurn it and you are in big trouble. Says Pauline Holmes Arcel: I should know about the sneering. I did it long enough, thinking I was very clever. But God reached me before it was too late. I have peace of mind knowing I have escaped the lake of fire and can look forward to eternal life in heaven.
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