A Deeper Teaching by Kenton Cheek
Ever since Adam and Eve sinned against God by disobeying Him, there has been spiritual separation between God and mankind. With sin came disease and death and every bad thing that we know in the world. With our holy God there is light and life but with sin comes darkness and death. Romans 3:23 tells us that “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.” And in Romans 3:10 that, “No one is acceptable to God!” This means that there is nothing that we can do that is good enough to earn right standing with Him; we cannot do enough good works to earn our way to Heaven.
God loves human beings more than they will ever fully comprehend and so even as our first parents were banished from the Garden of Eden, He began to send messages to us in the form of prophecies that foretold the coming of a Redeemer who would pay the penalty of our sin and purchase us back from slavery to sin and deliver us into His Kingdom of Light. Through the first Adam came sin and the penalty for sin is death. Romans 5:12 says, “Sin entered the world because one man sinned. And death came because of sin. Everyone sinned, so death came to all people.”
Unfortunately, no one is immune to the effects of their sin. Romans 6:23 reveals, “When people sin, they earn what sin pays—death. But God gives his people a free gift—eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The only hope we have is in trusting Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. And what brilliant hope we have in Him! Jesus is God the Son, but He became the Son of Man as well by being born of the virgin Mary. He is our perfect example of what it means to follow God the Father.
John 1:1-5 shows us that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The Word of God is Jesus; He is the literal fulfillment of hundreds of Messianic prophecies given in the centuries leading up to His birth in Bethlehem at the meridian of time. Jesus is God.
Living a sinless life allowed Him to be the perfect, ultimate sacrifice for the sins of all of mankind. It also gave us a Great High Priest who can identify with us because He lived life on Earth as a man. The pressure of the sins of the world heaped upon Him was so great that He began to sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane just before He was crucified on the cross. He died there on Golgotha conquering sin, His body was laid in a garden tomb, and three days later conquered death by rising again. Only God could do this for us and His gracious sacrifice was all-sufficient for our salvation. There are no rituals or amount of good deeds that we can do as humans to add to what God has accomplished for us.
How are we to experience the new birth and walk in the newness of the life Jesus Christ provided? Romans 10:9-10 shows us the way, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” John the Baptist showed us the way to salvation in Mark 1:15, “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” We are justified by faith. Justified means right standing with God.
To be born again, we must turn away from our sin, believe in God, confess that Jesus is who He said He is and that He did what He said He would do, and accept Him as Lord and Savior. Even if we do not immediately have an emotional experience, we have the assurance of His promise that, “Everyone who calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved.”[1] The moment we trust in Him for salvation, we are born again. The Spirit of God cleanses us spiritually of all sin, baptizing us in the blood of Jesus and filling us with His Presence. This spiritual baptism is depicted in the symbolic act of water baptism. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”[2]
We go down into the water as a picture of dying to our old way of life, buried with Christ. The water washing us is symbolic of the blood of Jesus purifying us from all unrighteousness. We come up out of the water showing that we are raised to new life in Him and are now His disciples. Therefore, water baptism is not a requirement for salvation, it is a symbol of our salvation; an outward sign of an inward work that has already taken place. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”[3] Christians are baptized in water not to earn salvation, but as an act of obedience done because we love God and want to honor Him.
Every born again believer in Jesus is sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. God dwells within them by His Spirit. This makes each child of God one of His temples. I Corinthians 6:19-20 asks the question, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” Both our spiritual health and physical health are important to the Lord. His followers should seek to glorify Him with every fiber of our being.
We do not do good deeds in order to earn our position with God.[4] Rather, we love Him and because He lives within us, we are able to do His will in His strength and power that is at work within us. Acts 17:24 says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.” God revealed more about this concept through the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:12-13, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
As the Holy Spirit cleanses the temples which are our bodies by applying the blood of Jesus, He begins a gradual process of sanctification in which we decrease and He increases.[5] As we repent of things in our lives that do not honor God, He can remove evil desires and fill us with more of the Holy Spirit. As we learn, grow spiritually and our faith increases, we become more like Jesus; we are conformed into His image.[6] This marvelous work and a wonder culminates when we are called home to be with Him either by death or by Rapture.
The miracles of salvation and sanctification are accomplished by the Second Adam, Jesus Christ. He was both the Son of Man and the Son of God and He lives today, seated at the right hand of God the Father. “So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”[7]
[1] Romans 10:13
[2] Epheisans 4:5-6
[3] Ephesians 2:8-9
[4] Galatians 2:16
[5] John 3:30
[6] II Corinthians 3:18
[7] I Corinthians 15:45-50
Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God 
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