Welcome to the Truth Time podcast.
Now for a shot of truth with no chaser, here's Trey Searcy with today's podcast.
Glad to be back, coming to you from the new WTTR studio.
Okay, today we begin a new series.
We're going to study out some terms, some words.
During the series we'll look into the words forgiveness, righteousness, justification, reconciliation.
Today we begin with atonement, its function, and how it impacts salvation.
We're going to demonstrate how each of these terms play their own separate and unique role in salvation.
We're getting reports of some out here that are confusing the body of Christ by playing the conflating game, conflating words, words that were meant to be isolated and confined within their context.
Take the word justification, for example.
It'll be one of the words in the study.
Coming up, a listener sent us some quotes from a limited forgiver concerning the word
justification.
One quote here says, "The reality is that to be forgiven is to be justified.
To be justified is to be forgiven."
Wrong.
To be forgiven is to be justified is a big fat nope, and to be justified to be forgiven is a nope as well.
He's wrong twice.
Here's another brilliant quote from this fella.
"You cannot be forgiven without being justified because to be justified means to be
forgiven."
Wrong again.
Listen, forgiveness and justification are relative terms but not synonymous.
No way.
They have different and distinct meanings.
Justification, much like the word we'll look into in a little bit here, atonement, they've been hijacked by the limited forgivers.
Well, we strongly encourage you to, with an open Bible, go behind these men and myself and test what you hear against Scripture.
That's how you do it.
And as far as we're concerned, Truth Time Radio, if you can find error during this series, call us.
Which word are we wrong on?
Atonement, forgiveness, righteousness, justification, reconciliation?
Which one?
We'll even pay for the call: 1-888-988-9562.
Make the call instead of making false, unsubstantiated claims.
But, instead, what most keyboard warriors, that's what our buddy John calls them, what they do is hide behind the keyboard where they feel safe to go on and post lies on social media.
If we're wrong and you can prove it with scripture, just break open the KJB, pick up the phone, make the free call, and let's see whatcha' got.
But, until you can do that, study these words out for yourself and stop being one of the sheeple who only knows how to parrot what your favorite personality says.
Hey, if you've fallen for the forgiveness and justification are synonymous lie, you need to stand back up, get on your feet and re-think this.
They are not.
Atonement, forgiveness, righteousness, justification, reconciliation, these are basic principles.
Basic tenants of salvation.
And the only way to be confused is to follow after one of these men claiming to have some sort of pre-eminence in the hierarchy of the, quote, "Greater grace space."
As if it's some sort of organization.
Well, well, it actually is.
That's what it's become.
That's the problem.
It's starting to look and smell just like another denomination.
Forgiveness and justification are by no means synonymous.
For forgiveness, God required a blood sacrifice for sins.
But forgiveness alone never justified anyone.
Whomever teaches this is simply out of touch with biblical reality.
There's not one person today that is justified from their non-imputed sins unless they have believed on Christ unto salvation.
Because no sin is or ever has been justified in God's eyes.
God forgave the world but the world is not justified.
They're forgiven.
The words are not synonymous.
The justified are only those in Christ.
Only those who are in the perfect one.
The one who has never sinned.
Limited forgivers can sure make a mess.
But during this series we're going to clean it up.
And we'll do so without the assistance of any man-centered school of thought, books,
or dictionaries.
We do not need a grace school to tell us how to think.
We can open the book, believe what we read, and allow God's words to define themselves from the parameter of the context whereby they were written.
Truth Time is not here to just present the differences between right and wrong, but here to present the differences between right and almost right.
Okay, today's word is atonement.
Its function and how it impacts salvation.
In time past, atonement was the word used for the accepted offering, the payment, for sins during Israel's law program.
When a sin was committed, that sin created a separation between man and God.
Instead of a relationship, there was enmity.
When a relationship is broken, reconciliation must be made in order for that relationship to be restored.
God gave Israel very specific instructions for the way to make the atonement, which would immediately result in forgiveness.
Now that's an important point.
An immediate result in forgiveness, which brought about the restoration of the relationship between him and them.
Reconciliation was and is simply the restoration of a relationship.
It isn't some sort of new concept, and it isn't something that only took place by the cross.
Throughout history, when sin severed the relationship between God and man, reconciliation was necessary.
Atonement has always been a part of the reconciliation process.
And as a matter of fact, it's the most important work to be done.
While the apostle Paul gives no instruction on how to get our sins forgiven during the dispensation of grace, there were clear instructions given by God on how to earn his forgiveness in time past.
The means by which forgiveness of sins was obtained, according to the law that was given to Moses for Israel, was through sacrificial atonement.
We can read about the atonement sacrifices in Exodus 29.
God required sacrifices of the guilty party, and they were very specific.
If the sacrifices offered were not exactly what God prescribed, they weren't accepted, and God wasn't satisfied.
That means no forgiveness, therefore no reconciliation.
Consider this instruction here from the law of Moses.
Come with me to Numbers chapter 15 verse 28.
Here we see, "And the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the Lord, to make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him."
You see that?
Notice, it's noteworthy that the forgiveness immediately, immediately followed and was a direct result of the atonement.
Atonement is necessary for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is necessary for reconciliation.
Without atonement, forgiveness isn't possible.
Without forgiveness, reconciliation isn't possible.
Without reconciliation, salvation isn't possible.
And without salvation, everlasting life for Israel was out of the question.
In very simple terms, atonement is a satisfactory payment for sin, resulting in forgiveness.
Relative term, but not the same.
Not synonymous.
There's some verses over there in Exodus.
It talks about Aaron, and these verses indicate that the offering made for atonement is a combination of animal sacrifice and, now listen, and of money, which interestingly enough was called a ransom for each soul that was numbered with the children of Israel.
The money was earmarked for service to the tabernacle of the congregation, and the atonement made on the incense altar once a year came from the blood of animal sacrifice.
Go examine the evidence for yourself.
Exodus chapter 30 and begin at verse 10.
Read down through about to verse 16. See what you come out with.
Although sacrifices were offered daily in the tabernacle and later in the temple, the day of atonement was the annual national holy day in which the sins of the entire nation were atoned for.
You'll find that truth in Leviticus chapter 16.
Oh, it's so good when we allow God's Word to tell us all these truths, not man's.
God says these words are not synonymous as far as atonement by means of the sacrificial system of Israel.
God the Spirit says this, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." Hebrews 10:4.
Israel's sacrificial system for atonement for sins was only a temporary appeasement for God.
It only covered sin and could never take it away completely, much like remission.
It only satisfied God until the next time it had to be done.
Israel reached the point of no longer caring about how ungodly they had become, and God became fed up with them, with all their atonement offerings.
They eventually brought a stench unto his nostrils, and he just grew weary of how they had abused the sacrificial system, and they did so in their self-righteousness. You get a chance, check out Isaiah chapter 1, verse 11.
The prophet writes, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of the goats."
He was fed up.
Now let's switch gears.
Let's move into the but now.
The but now period for us, Christ was the once and for all sacrificial atonement for the entire world.
Our sins were atoned for on the cross, and the proof of God's satisfaction with that sin payment is in Christ's resurrection.
When our sins were paid for, perfect atonement was made.
Sins were forgiven, and God reconciled himself to the world.
Romans 5:11, and not only so, but we also joy in God through the Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement.
When we read the context, I encourage you to do that, when you read the context surrounding verse 11 here, we see the relationship that atonement has to
reconciliation concerning Christ and his finished crosswork.
These terms are not synonymous, they're relative.
Paul is telling us that Christ's payment for our sins on the cross, the atonement, was satisfactory to God, thereby enabling him to reconcile himself to the world.
When Paul says, we have now received the atonement, it is the equivalent to the receiving in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 1 and 3, and equivalent to the receiving in Acts 26:18.
You know, that so-called gotcha verse.
Well, Paul was declaring something that had already been done.
The finished crosswork of Christ is the atonement that Paul spoke of, and our receiving of it is our simply believing, believing the gospel.
We do not get forgiveness by receiving, by believing the good news.
The good news is the forgiveness is already in place, already achieved.
By our receiving, our believing it, we reconcile ourselves to God, which is precisely what 2 Corinthians 5:20 beseeches the hearer to do.
Be ye reconciled.
And not only did Christ's blood completely fulfill God's requirement as the perfect blood sacrifice, he also paid the ransom for our souls that was required as part of the atonement.
We all know the verse 1 Timothy 2:6, Who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.
Because the blood of bulls and goats, that was the prescription to make reconciliation in Exodus 29, because it could never fully remove sin, God chose to sacrifice himself in the flesh.
The perfect sacrifice finally, once and for all, removed the barrier, the enmity between himself and humankind.
As a result, the elements of the law, the law that was once the only means of reconciliation with God, was rendered as weak and beggarly.
That law that was made so that stiff-necked Israel could obtain righteousness, thereby becoming the conduit by which the rest of the world could obtain salvation, it could no longer bring about righteousness for anyone.
For no sacrifice could ever compare to God in the flesh hanging on the cross and dying there for our sins.
Peace from God toward the world was made by Christ's atonement.
In turn, we, we as individuals, become at peace with God when we believe the gospel. That's how reconciliation works.
The enmity must be removed first in order for reconciliation to be possible.
Without forgiveness, the enmity remains.
Because of the completely satisfying atonement that was made on the cross, God is no longer at enmity with the world today.
The only enmity that remaineth is that which is in the mind.
It's not real.
Colossians 1:21, "And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled."
The yet now equals but now.
The world needs to know that God isn't angry with them and why he isn't angry.
That's the good news.
The good news that needs to be believed in order to be reconciled to God.
This is the gospel that Paul committed to the ambassadors for Christ and has nothing to do with how to get forgiveness.
It is completely absurd to claim that forgiveness is not part of reconciliation. About as absurd as this one fellow who calls himself a grace teacher and claims that, quote, "You cannot be forgiven without being justified because to be justified means to be forgiven."
Absurdness at its finest.
The process by which reconciliation with God is achieved has not changed.
It was through sacrificial atonement that reconciliation was achieved in time past economy.
It was through sacrificial atonement that reconciliation was achieved in time present economy.
The difference is, in time present, God himself made the sacrificial atonement for us.
And that atonement was the end of all atonements, even for the ages to come.
In the book of Hebrews, God the Holy Spirit says that because of Christ's atonement on the cross, there will be no more sacrifice for sin.
No longer can any more sacrifice for atonement be made.
It will not be accepted.
This is why, in the ages to come, those of the kingdom who fall away from God will not be able to be renewed to repentance. Hebrews 6:4.
Next time we'll look at the topic of forgiveness.
In order to get a correct understanding of it, how it works, and the result of it,
we must isolate it from the other terms that limited forgivers conflate it with, such as salvation, righteousness, justification, reconciliation, etc.
Those are not to be conflated.
These terms have individual purposes and do not nor ever have meant the same thing. God is a God of order and would have all things done decently and in order.
His order is perfect and not to be tampered with.
The confusion that runs rampant is not of God, but a basic misunderstanding of his order.
Today we focused on the first part of the order in God's prescription for salvation, how to get sins forgiven by making atonement to God.
Examining the verses, we demonstrated that this was God's accepted method to achieve his forgiveness for sin in time past, and we have shown how that final perfect atonement was made by Christ for the whole world in the but now, time present, thus resulting in God forgiving the world and no longer imputing any further sins to anyone.
But know this, the good news that God has reconciled himself to the world by the atoning sacrifice of his son, that he has forgiven us for Christ's sake, does not automatically bring salvation.
Simply being forgiven has never saved anyone, not even in time past.
The first requirement for salvation was forgiveness, and forgiveness can only be obtained through atonement, exactly as it was prescribed by God.
Stay tuned, we'll go into great detail about the forgiveness that is automatically brought about through the atonement.
That'll be coming up next podcast.
This is just the beginning of a series of installments that we hope will help bring some clarity and help you better understand what the word of God is telling us regarding the components of salvation unto eternal life.
Many of these things have been conflated by mainstream Christianity and even some gracers.
They've thrown it into a blender and pureed beyond the point of distinction.
We're going to isolate these terms and explain the concepts of each, and we'll do so according to scripture.
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