The Glorious Deeds of Christ

One in Whom There is No Guile

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matt. 5:8

A sincere person’s life is transparent before God and people. Their inward thoughts, intentions, and motives are pure. Sincere people are people whose actions and attitudes are unmixed, thereby lacking any devious or manipulative qualities (John 1:47). Deceitfulness and hypocrisy are inconceivable as real options in their Christian lives. Sincere people refuse to wear masks and act differently in front of people by projecting an image or playing a part. Habitual lying is inconceivable to a sincere person: they will suffer hurt before they would lie to cover their tracks (Psa. 24:4). Jesus honors sincere people, he declares that they will have a beatific vision of God (Matt. 5:8).

When we hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” our answer, if we are awake is, “My God, how am I going to be pure in heart? If ever I am to be blameless down to the deepest recesses of my intentions, You must do something mighty in me.” That is exactly what Jesus Christ came to do. He did not come to tell us to be holy, but to make us holy,undeserving of censure in the sight of God.

Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1997), 22.

The Cross Cleanses Our Past, Present, and Future Sin

The blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

1 Jn 1:7 (NLT)

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

Jn 5:24 (NASB)

The Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory teaches that guilt remains for sin committed in this life. Something must be done for believers to rid them of sin’s stain before they enter in God’s perfected glory. A purging, cleansing fire is provided in purgatory to rid sinners of that impurity. These “punishments” are temporary and fulfill the needed payment for unrepentant sin. After an undesignated time in purgatory, the believer is released and allowed to enter heaven’s eternal bliss.

The Reformers of the church decried this doctrine as adding to Christ’s finished work on the Cross. Christ’s work on Calvary dealt with the guilt of all our past, present, and future sin (1 John 1:7). The doctrine of justification states that we are accepted by God through faith because of Christ’s sacrifice (Rom. 3:21-26). Nothing more needs to be done for our forgiveness, Christ paid the price for all, repeat all, our sin. We cannot do anything that can adequately pay for our sins, even endure a fiery purging. However, the sinless Christ who died in our place bore our punishment and suffered our just judgement, he paid it all by his perfect life and death (Heb. 10:19-22).

I agree with the Reformers: the doctrine of purgatory diminishes the Cross. The doctrine of purgatory displays an incomplete understanding of the Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

The only purgatory wherein we must trust to be saved is the death and blood of Christ, which if we apprehend with a true and steadfast faith, it purges and cleanses us from all our sins, even as well as if He were now hanging upon the Cross.

Bishop John Jewel, “Homily Concerning Prayer,” quoted in Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Theology of the English Reformers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 64.

I do believe and confess that Christ’s condemnation is my absolution, that his crucifying is my deliverance, his descending into hell is my ascending into heaven, his death is my life, his blood is my cleansing and purging, by whom only I am washed, purified and cleansed from all my sins, so that I neither receive nor believe any other purgatory, either in this world or in the other, whereby I am purged, but only the blood of Jesus Christ, by which all are purged and made clean forever.

Bishop John Hooper, quoted in Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Theology of the English Reformers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 65.

HT: Ray Ortlund

Christian Growth is a Person

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

2 Peter 1:3-4

The truth of “Christ in you” is the theological fact God has most used to bring freedom, peace, joy, rest, grace, strength, etc., in my walk with him. Without the knowledge and experience of Christ’s personal presence, I would have quit the ministry, given up on the church, and forsaken all hope for victory over sin. The Spirit of Christ makes Christ’s hope available when I feel downcast, he assists my feeble attempts at ministry, and he is my constant knowledge of God’s love. Faith is the channel by which his his presence is made known and the avenue by which his life is manifest. Christ in you and me is our righteousness (acceptance before God), sanctification (Christian growth), and redemption (blood-bought freedom from slavery) (1 Cor. 1:30).

To be in Christ–that is redemption; but for Christ to be in you–that is sanctification! To be in Christ–that makes you fit for heaven; but for Christ to be in you –that makes you fit for earth! To be in Christ –that changes yours destination; but for Christ to be in you–that changes your destiny! The one makes heaven your home–the other makes this world His workshop.

Major Ian Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ/The Mystery of Godliness (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 22.