Paul tells us it is our Father, and Him alone, that makes it possible for us to enjoy the “life abundant” that Jesus said He came to give us.
Colossians 1:12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath [past tense, not when we say or do something] made us meet [2427. ἱκανόω hikanoo, hik-an-o´-o; from 2425; to enable, i.e. qualify: — make able (meet]. to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
We see this truth brilliantly illustrated by Jesus in the parable of the prodigal son. His elder brother had kept the law and done everything “right,” but that was not what qualified him for all that his father had. He could do nothing to “earn” it. It was just given freely to him by his father.
Luke 15:31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
Notice that the prodigal son, who had done nothing “right,” was just as “qualified” as his older brother to receive his inheritance. Note, too, that the father did not send anyone to the prodigal to convince him of the error of his ways and of his need to repent. No, he just patiently waited for his son (and he was still the father’s son even while he was spending his inheritance on “riotous living”), the father waited for his son to “come to himself” (for he is one with his father who is “himself,” even though he is not yet aware of this).
When the prodigal realizes that he has no life apart from his father, he does indeed “repent” (3340. μετανοέω metanoeo, met-an-o-eh´-o; from 3326 and 3539; to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider (morally, feel compunction): — repent.) which, notice, means “to think differently” or “reconsider.” He certainly thinks differently about his decision to make it on his own. He even rehearses the words he is going to say to his father upon his return, words which reflect his different thinking:
Luke 15:18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
Now that is a “sinner’s prayer” if I ever heard one, the prayer that we are taught to be what qualifies us to receive God’s forgiveness and insure our spending eternity in His Presence.
And how did the father respond to that prayer?
Luke 15:20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: 23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again (326. ἀναζάω anazao, an-ad-zah´-o; to recover life (literally or figuratively): — (be a-)live again, revive.); he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
The son was forgiven and welcomed by the father even before he had the opportunity to utter the prayer. And when he did, it was just ignored by the father as he gave to the son ALL that he had—represented by the robe, ring and shoes. When the elder son complains, the father responds:
Luke 15:31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
There is no reward for good behavior or punishment for bad because it is not a matter of keeping or breaking the law.
Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
It is a matter of God’s “great love” for us and the free gift of righteousness which, when recognized, makes us “alive again,” indicating that we were alive before. Indeed, we became “sinners,” “dead in sin,” the moment we believed we were separated from our Father and had to do something to earn His acceptance.
Romans 7:9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
But that law, which is in itself “holy,” served its purpose
Galatians 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
This “schoolmaster” shows us repeatedly that it is never satisfied, that the more we do, the more we see we haven’t done. And we find ourselves, like Paul, doing what we don’t want to do and not doing that which we want to do—until we cry out as Paul did, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” We get the same answer that Paul did—”I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24-25). God Himself descended into this realm in the form of Jesus, fulfilled all the requirements of the law on our behalf and FINISHED the work of destroying the “old man,” thereby enabling (qualifying) us to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
This “schoolmaster” teaches us that there is absolutely NOTHING that we can do that will enable us to live in the Presence of God for all eternity. The truth is we are already in His Presence, have always been and will always be (and can’t get away even if we try (Psalms 139:7-8)) because He is our Father; we are His offspring, His “heirs”:
1Corinthians 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
Ephesians 4:6 One God and Father of ALL, who is above all, and through all, and in you ALL.
Acts 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; . . . For we are also his offspring.
To be “dead” is to be unaware of this.
But, you say, the Scripture says that we are “justified by faith.” Yes, it does, but where does that faith come from?
Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
We can’t even take credit for having faith. The human ego (old man, natural man) doesn’t like this. It wants to think that there is SOMETHING (ANYTHING!) it can do to “get right” with God. There are different laws to be fulfilled according to different groups. For the orthodox, fundamental Christian, it is “repenting of your sins and accepting Jesus as your personal Savior.” But the prodigal son just had to realize that he was already “right” with the father that he had come from and to whom he must return, the One in whom he had his “being.” He desired nothing except to be in his presence. Everything else was just the “added” things:
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
The elder son was still under the “schoolmaster,” but the father didn’t send anyone to “evangelize” him either. He knew that, like the prodigal, he would eventually “come to himself,” stop working to earn his father’s love and approval, and begin to enjoy his father’s abundance. That “homing device,” the Spirit of Truth, is in every man drawing him with God’s “great love” to the place where he realizes that of himself he can do nothing but that all things are possible with God. He realizes that the righteousness that “qualifies” him to enter into the kingdom of heaven is one that “exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees” (Matthew 5:20), and that all his attempts to become “right” or “righteous” are as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). He has to “die daily” (1Corinthians 15:31) to the the old man and allow himself to be raised into “newness of life” (Romans 6:4) where he humbly accepts the free gift of righteousness without the law.
Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
Romans 5:17 For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)
2Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Now I’m sure that there is not one orthodox Christian who will not tell you that it is by grace, and not works, that we are qualified to spend eternity in the presence of God. And yet they see themselves as qualified because they have repented of their sins and accepted Jesus as their personal Savior while seeing billions of others who haven’t done this as being unqualified. And the only way those billions can get qualified is for the Christians to “evangelize” them by making them aware of their need for seeing themselves as sinners who need to repent and also accept Jesus as their personal Savior. If they don’t, they will spend eternity separated from God’s love (from which Scripture tells us we cannot be separated—(Romans 8:38-39)) and burning in a lake of fire called “hell.”
So our so-called “salvation” is not dependent upon God alone but rather on our knowing and doing the right thing. And that knowing and doing is dependent on someone bringing to us the “gospel” or “good news” that if we don’t do as instructed (and the instructions are all different, according to which group’s doctrines you subscribe to) we will spend eternity in a burning hell. Ultimately, it is all dependent not upon God but rather upon us, of whom God Himself said:
Psalms 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Even the man Jesus knew that in His humanity He wasn’t good either and that he could do nothing; it was the Father within who did it all:
Mark 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
John 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing:
John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
If God is omnipotent and He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2Peter 3:9), how can there be a power opposed to God (called Satan, but is only the carnal mindedness of man who thinks he is separated from God and must “do” something to be accepted by God)—how can a power opposed to omnipotence be more powerful than omnipotence and claim the greater part of God’s offspring?
Does not Scripture teach that the Christ, the Word of God, is “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9),
that
Hebrews 8:11 . . . they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
that
Romans 11:32 . . . God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
that
Philippians 2:10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number [not just the few, comparatively speaking, who have heard and responded to the orthodox version of the gospel], of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; 10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. 11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
And what are we to do with this Scripture?
1John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
I had a dear friend once crying because she thought her Jewish mother-in-law, the most loving person she had ever known, was going to hell because she hadn’t accepted Jesus as her personal Savior. And we all know many who have met those “requirements” but are very unloving, frighteningly so. We read in our history books about the witch hunters, the Ku Klux Klan members and countless other “born-again” Christians” acting in the most horrific and non-loving manner. We’ve all read about pastors of fundamental churches and presidents of fundamental religious colleges being brought down by their sexual addictions. In the final analysis, it is indeed true that, “born-again” or not,
Romans 3:10 There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
That’s why God gives us HIS righteousness, as a free gift, apart from any thing we do or any prayer we pray:
2Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
1John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Yes, God has taken full responsibility for our salvation on every level. Yes, there is a fire that all of us experience. It is the fire of God’s love (our God is a consuming fire—(Hebrews 12:29)), the fire that consumes all that we have attempted to accomplish in and of ourselves, the same fire that saves us.
1Corinthians 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
It feels like we are in a burning “hell” when all our best efforts to serve God (to do something or be something to get God’s love, acceptance and approval) are revealed to be nothing but “chaff” that must be destroyed; but in the end we realize that it was but a “yoke of bondage” that we had to be freed from, and we can begin to enjoy, as did the prodigal son “the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free” (Galatians 5:1).
We don’t have to pray or do anything else to get God to come into us and make His abode there. He has always been in us all and has only good thoughts toward us, no matter how “filthy” we are. He is the father in the prodigal son parable.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
There is nowhere that we can flee from His loving Presence, except in our own minds. But most of us haven’t yet heard that “gospel” which is really “good news.” If ever we do hear and believe that “gospel,” we will gladly become aware of and surrender to that Life of God in us because that love casts out the fear (nay, terror) of the god (which is not the “true” God) we have attempted to believe in but could not trust because deep inside we knew that we could never do or be what we thought was needed to “qualify” us for eternity in His Presence.
The church has sought to carry out the “great commission” by preaching a gospel which instills fear in the hearts of those it seeks to “save” and, in so doing, have put countless numbers of sensitive souls into a “hell” of torment here and now. I myself have personally experienced this. Jesus said as much:
Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Jesus consorted with “publicans and sinners” and told them repeatedly that their sins were forgiven without their even asking. He told us to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34) and that love will “never fail” (1Corinthians 13:8); it casts out the fear that brings torment
1John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
I do not presume to understand HOW God is going to enlighten EVERY man that comes into the world (bring to him the awareness of his true identity as the child of God, the awareness that was lost when he believed himself to be separated from his Father) (John 1:9), but the parable of the lost sheep gives me confidence that He will (Luke 15:4-7). God is not limited to time and space as we are in our humanity. No matter how far we, as the lost sheep or the prodigal son, wander, the “love that never fails,” from whence we came, is always drawing us back to Itself. Regardless of the parable we choose to illustrate this, the truth is that God’s power “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) is always greater than our ignorance of “his great love wherewith he loved us,” the “great love” that has “qualified” us “to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”
(Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.)
(Colossians 1:12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath [past tense, not when we say or do something] made us meet [2427. ἱκανόω hikanoo, hik-an-o´-o; from 2425; to enable, i.e. qualify: — make able (meet]. to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:)