CCC 2010 Day 2 Session 3

A wonderful reminder was given today by Bob Christopher, at the opening of the lecture. Too many times we are given the indication by well meaning teachers and preachers, that everything we have in Christ is a separate entity unto itself. We get little amounts of reconciliation, a tad bit of forgiveness, justification, and other such things as we need them. This is not true, however.
Everything we need has been given us by God Himself, and is contained in the New Covenant. The entire New Covenant gives us righteousness, forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, and an identity in Jesus Christ. Not just parts of it, but the whole enchilada! Also, we're given this, not based on what we've done, but based on what Jesus did. This was just in the opening statement!

We were reminded that Hebrews talks a lot of how a will only goes into effect when the maker of the will dies. For some reason, it seemed imperative that to the writer of Hebrews that the readers of his letters know that there IS a New Covenant. The maker of the New Covenant died; and so the New Covenant was ushered in. The illustration was given that the Jews had on the old set of clothes (The Law) and Gentiles were simply just butt naked. The New Covenant was given to BOTH Jews and Gentiles. The Jews needed to take off the old, in order to put on the new, and the Gentiles simply needed to get dressed. Ironically, both groups seem to want to put the tattered old clothes back on over the New set of clothes. The Gentiles never had the old clothes, they were naked. Therefore, the New Clothes (New Covenant) should have been sufficient.  One of the main ideas of this conference is to replace that erroneous teaching with the Gospel of Christ.

There was an illustration also, of the eternal security that FINALLY made sense to me! If a person is drowning in a lake, it's ludicrous to think that 'educating' him will help his plight. Simply tossing a book for him to read "how to swim" just isn't going to cut it. Neither will a demonstration. "Look, just swing your arms in a circle like this," from the boat isn't going to help the drowning victim either. In order to save this person from drowning, the logical thing to do would be to help him in the boat. Up til now, this makes sense. To give a dead person life, they need rescuing. Teaching them to parrot a Christian doesn't save them; reading all about the theology doesn't help... they need SAVING. However, later on, we're asked what happens if the victim shows his hind end and behaves in an ungrateful manner?  We get mad and toss the person back into the lake. Up until a little while ago, I never understood that illustration. Is getting into the boat salvation, or not? If not, then none of us are saved. But, the meaning was... Jesus WILL deliver us safely to the shores of heaven. He in no wise will toss us back into the lake, the way some denominations teach. We have been sealed with the promised holy spirit. We have all the assurance of Jesus that He indeed will keep us, regardless of how we behave.  That is an encouragement I never tire of hearing.