The Everlasting Gospel (Part III)

       We understand from Rom 1:16-17 that by definition the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed through His infinite power for the salvation of humanity.  The gospel reveals the work of God alone, for us and in us.  God's imputed righteousness is God's work on our behalf.  The fruit of this God imputed righteoueness is God's imparted righteousness-God's work in our soul to fit us for eternity.  The Bible teaches that we are not saved by our own right doing.  Yet, the Bible does teach that we are saved by right doing, however, it is the right doing of God in God alone.

     The righteousness of God is in all cases two-fold.  The second aspect of God's righteousness is simply the results or fruit of the first or foundational aspect of God's righteousness.  The first aspect is God's imputed righteousness, which was performed by God in the flesh-Christ, for us.  This is the foundation of salvation.  It is perfect righteousness and it is our absolute title to heaven.  It is a gift from God which we receive by faith.  The proof that one has genuinely received this gift of God's righteousness put next to their name in the record books of heaven is that they are changed.  The Bible terms it, they are born again.  Faith works!!!  The imputed righteousness of God always bears the fruit of the imparted righteousness of God.  What God has done in our behalf He actualized in us.  Whom God justifies He also sanctifies.  Whom God revives He also works a reformation in.  The two aspects are inseparable.  They are like the sun and the sun light.  It is impossible to genuinely have one without the other.  One who professes to be righteous by faith and thus saved, whose life reveals that they are not born again, because they are the habitual servant of sin, is according to the Bible a liar.  See 1 John 2:4.

     The whole gospel truth is that Christians live like Christians. The justified by faith also live sanctified by faith. Genuine faith works reformation, and all who receive imputed righteousness receive God the Holy Ghost imparted which accomplishes the new birth in the soul.  This gospel reality is found in James chapter 2, and Romans chapters 2, 3 and 4, and in 1 John, II John, and III John.

   The subject of the Kingdom of God is so everlasting dominant all throughout the Bible.  Many have said that it is the most important topic in God's Word.  Nevertheless Beloved, be it known today that if one never believes and receives by faith the fullness of the gospel, they cannot enter the kingdom of God.  John 3:1-21  Through faith in the gospel we are granted entrance into God's Kingdom.  It is the gospel that accounts us perfectly righteous, and then renews us from within in right doing.  The gospel entitles us to the kingdom of God, and the gospel fits us to be holy dwellers in the kingdom of God.  Through the gospel, which is the righteousness or right doing of God, we in the life we live, and on the heavenly records above, become the sons and daughters- the elect and chosen, the children and remnant, the disciples and witnesses, and the church and body of God.  So, beloved, the gospel is the prerequisite to the kingdom of God.