Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 285C
Do Christians Have to Lead Godly Lives?
CALLER: I was with a group last night, and we were discussing being Christians, and there was a difference of opinion. So I'd like to know what your opinion is. One person said that he felt that by being a Christian it gave him an obligation to live a godly type of life. And the other person said that he felt that salvation was a gift, that he didn't feel an obligation to God. So I would like to have your opinion on that.
HC: Now the question raised is a very practical question. When we become a born again believer, do we have an obligation to live for Christ, or is it true that inasmuch as salvation is a gift to us, we didn't ask for it, it was just given to us, therefore we are under no obligation to serve Christ?
Well, let's first of all, in answering this, analyze what salvation really is, because only if we understand salvation can we begin to answer this kind of a question. When we talk about salvation, we're not just talking about accepting a way of life, or of aligning ourselves with a cause. All kinds of people throughout history have aligned themselves with this cause or that cause And then the question of obligation or lack of obligation resulted from this kind of a relationship.
But when we talk about salvation, we must remember that it's a very dynamic experience. It's not a matter of aligning oneself. It's a matter of becoming a brand new person.
Now you see, before we're saved, both in body and soul we lust after sin. We're dead to Christ, we're dead to God, we're in bondage to sin, and we're in bondage to Satan. We've slaves of Satan. That's the dismal place we are in before we are saved.
Now Christ, when He saves us, by virtue of the fact that He became sin on our behalf (He did this for everyone who is being saved), He took all of the guilt that we should have paid for, and He was found guilty before God, when He went to the cross for our sins. He was condemned and He bore our punishment. It wasn't just that He was physically crucified. That wasn't the punishment. That was just the outward aspect of it.
But as He hung on the cross and as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and as He stood before Pilate, He was paying the equivalent of an eternity in hell for you and me who have become saved. It was a fantastic punishment that He endured. And only because He was God as well as man could God so intensify this punishment that it was paid during the space of three days and three nights.
Now as a gift of God's grace, He saves me. I didn't deserve it at all, I didn't want that salvation by nature. By nature I was in rebellion against God. This is true of every human being. But He drew me. I came to God as every other born again believer comes to God, because the Father drew me. I was elected by God from before the foundations of the earth, and in His own timetable – some people when they're just babies, others when they're older – He makes us born again.
Now when we become saved, a wonderful thing has occurred in our life. Before we were saved, both in body and in our soul, which is the inner essence of man, the spirit essence of man, just as real a part of man as his body, even as his body is just as real a part of man as his soul, we lust after sin and we're enslaved to sin. And we are in rebellion against God.
But to be saved means that in our soul we have experienced the resurrection. Ephesians 2:1: "You who were dead He has made alive." Verse 5: "By grace you have been saved, and you have been raised with Him," that is, with Christ. Christ experienced the resurrection from the grave, and we've been raised with Him. This did not occur in our body. It occurred in our soul.
We therefore have a brand new personality, in our soul. Now that part which is our soul, therefore, never will sin again, never wants to sin again. We read in I John 3:9, "That which is born of God cannot sin." It's in our soul that we actually have an eternal existence.
Now we'll never die, in our soul. Now our bodies will die. Our bodies are going to go into the grave and return to the dust, because they have not experienced the resurrection as yet. But in our soul we have experienced the resurrection. We are a brand new personality. This, you can see, is entirely different from being aligned with a cause, or being on the bandwagon for Christ, or accepting Christ in some intellectual or emotional way.
This means we have become a new creature. That's exactly the language the Bible uses. We are a new creature. That's why the Bible says we're born again. In our soul it's as if we have died, and we're a brand new personality. On the Last Day, of course, we'll also receive the resurrection of our bodies. And then our new personality will be complete in every sense of the word.
Now, by virtue of the fact that we have soul now that loves God with all of our heart, we're going to find an ongoing, earnest desire to live for Christ. Not out of obligation, because we're not obliged to do anything; we're not paying for anything. But this will be the natural intent of our heart. This will be the new desire of our soul. We want to live for Him, because we have been made perfect in our soul. We have become aligned completely to God's purpose and plan. Sin is anathema to us. Sin is an offense to us.
Now only because we still have a body that has not been saved as yet, do we still tinker with sin, are we still troubled with sin. And if we take our eyes off Christ, then we let our body gain control, and we begin to fall into sin again. But we can't do it very long, because in our soul we're troubled. And we can't wait to get right with God. We can't wait to get this matter straightened out. As a born again believer, we don't want to sin. Sin is troublesome. Sin is a real pain. And any of us who have been born again know that after we have sinned, particularly an offensive sin, oh, the remorse and the "icky" feeling we have in our life, that we did this again.
We earnestly desire that we don't want to sin. Now the evidence, therefore, of a born again believer is that he wants to do God's will, not of obligation, not because we're trying to prove we're worthy, not because we're trying to gain any merit. The moment we do it for that reason, then we're back under the Law, and we're denying the salvation that God talks about in the Bible.
The moment we try to merit anything by our life, if you desperately are trying to make points with Christ, forget it. We're living then under the Law. We're under the curse of the Law. We're denying what salvation is all about. We obey God's commandments because this is the natural intent of our new soul.
Now we read in I John 5:2: "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." Now in our new soul we desperately love God, because He loved us first. And He gave us this natural affinity to want to be right with God. And so we will keep His commandments.
We read in I John 2:4: "He who says, I know Him, " Or let's read verse 3: "And by this we may be sure that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.'' Now if we're keeping His commandments to prove that we're worthy, then we're going beyond what this verse is saying. Then we're back under the Law, according to other verses in the Bible.
But if we keep His commandments because this is the result of our love for God, and the natural desire of our new soul, then it is evidence that we know Him, that we belong to Him. It goes on, "He who says I know Him, but disobeys His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." And so there is no obligation to live for Christ. There is the natural desire to live for Him.
And as we search the Bible, we find that God says, "Crucify the flesh and its desires." The Bible says, "Exercise control over your body," and so on. And because God has commanded this, therefore we want to do it. God has said it, and His wish is our command, because Christ has given us this new soul.
More than that, God Himself lives within our hearts. The Holy Spirit indwells us. And therefore we are going to be motivated just because of the presence of God in our life.
Well, I hope this helps just a little bit.