To make all men see….. Ephesians 3:9
HomeWritten StudiesBible StudyPage 2

Bible Study (Page 2)

Why Would A Perfect Man Die

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans we read the following statement.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

Obviously, this is one of the most well known passages of scripture in all of God’s Word. It shows us two great contrasts about our sin and our salvation. The first contrast is between a wage and a gift. Our sin earns us a wage but God gives us a gift. The second contrast is between death and eternal life. The wage that our sin earns us is death but the free gift that God gives us is eternal life.

The Praise of his Glory

The first chapter of Ephesians is perhaps one of the most thrilling chapters in all of Paul’s epistles. Paul details our spiritual blessings in Christ. He reveals the source of all of those blessings when he reveals the nature of God as the “Father of glory” (Ephesians 1:17). All that we have in Jesus Christ is a result of God’s marvelous gift of salvation. That salvation is a result of the Father’s plan, the Son’s payment, and the Spirit’s perseverance. Every aspect of our salvation brings glory to the God who gives it.

Four Faithful Sayings

We are all familiar with what a “saying” is. A saying is simply something that is said, usually over, and over again over the course of time. Sayings like, “A stitch in time saves nine, a penny saved is a penny earned, absence makes the heart grow fonder”, and countless others have become a part of our vocabulary and culture. I have often been amused when someone will quote one of these adages and then ask me where it is found in Scripture. While these types of sayings often give us insightful bits of wisdom, they are certainly not on a par with the inspired Word of God. There are however, sayings that are the Word of God. These sayings are distinguished from all other sayings in that they are said to be “faithful”. While man’s sayings become sayings because they are found over the course to time to be generally true, a “faithful saying” is guaranteed by God Almighty to be true every time. The four faithful sayings of Scripture are found in the epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus.

Only the Bad Die Twice

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

What is Death?

If we are to understand the penalty for sin, then it is necessary for us to understand what death is. Many have the opinion that death is the cessation of existence or activity. They believe that when someone or something is dead it is no longer functioning, or perhaps has even ceased to exist. The Scriptures do not support this definition of death. In fact, the Scriptural use of the term would seem to argue against this understanding. A few examples from Scripture will help us understand the true meaning of death.

Living The Life of Christ

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

There is perhaps no other single verse in all the Bible that states so clearly the truth of Christ’s life living in believers in the Age of Grace. While most of professing Christendom seeks to make their lives more “Christ-like” this verse presents a totally different path. God’s desire is not to make your life more Christ-like. Rather, he has crucified your life and given you the life of Christ. Living the life of Christ does not make your life more Christ-like but allows the life of Christ that God has placed within you to live out through your body of flesh. There is all the difference in the world between trying to make your life like Christ’s life and living the life of Christ. Our goal is not to make our life like His; it is to live His life in our flesh.

The Beast You Thought You Knew

A Challenge to the Traditional View of the Beast of Revelation
The traditional view of the Beast of Revelation, as I understand it, is that the Beast is the personification of the antichrist.  The seven heads, as I understand, are synonymous with seven of the horns after three of the ten have been plucked up or subdued.
Here is the common grace interpretation of the beast of Revelation as has been taught to me by many grace preachers:
Revelation 13:11-12, “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.  And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.”

The Brighter Light

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. Matthew 2:1,2

Each year at the Christmas season we hear renewed speculation about the identity of the star of Bethlehem. In fact, on a December trip to India (a largely Hindu nation), I was surprised to see an article in a local newspaper discussing all of the commonly held natural explanations for the appearance of the star that announced the birth of Christ.

Man has many explanations for the appearance of this star. Some say that it was a star gone nova and exploding in the heavens. Some say that the bright light was caused by a unique conjunction of planets. Still others opt for an explanation that involves a meteor or comet of some sort. As we shall soon see, none of these explanations are satisfactory and all of them fall far short of the true Scriptural description of the events that occurred in the heavens at the time of the birth of Christ.

Let’s Get things Started Right

In II Timothy 2:15 Paul the Apostle admonishes to “study” and “rightly divide” the word of truth. To carry out these admonitions we must identify certain starting points in scripture. These starting points and corresponding ending points allow us to make proper divisions in scripture.

Anyone who has ever opened a Bible knows of the division between the Old and New Testaments. While this division is the accepted norm for all believers and certainly appropriate for accommodation and uniformity, all true students of the Word must look beyond this simple designation to find God’s points of division to get things started right.

What’s In A Name?

 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I  Corinthians 1:1-3

In the passage of Scripture quoted above Paul tells us that believers in the Age of Grace are “sanctified . . . called to be saints”.  The names and titles by which God identifies an individual or group give us great insight into the role that that person or group plays in God’s plan and purpose.

Revealing the Revelation – Part 1

There is perhaps no book in the Bible that engenders more debate and speculation than the book of Revelation. To understand the proper context of Revelation requires us to identify the seven churches in chapters two and three and the time frame in which those churches are addressed.