HOW TO BECOME A SAINT

Photo taken by B Smith from the patio

 

 

359 -1 - HOW TO BECOME A SAINT

JUNE 19, 1977

Henry F. Kulp

 

Colossians 1: 20 - 23 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

We have been studying the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, His person, His position and His work, and now in this passage, we are looking at the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

1/  Let us look at the doctrine of reconciliation that is mention in this passage. Let us look at different points so that we might understand it.

a/  God is not reconciled to man, but man is reconciled to God.

b/  Reconciliation is the removal of a barrier between God and man. We must    recognize that between God on one hand and man on the other hand, is a barrier, and this barrier is composed of sin, and Jesus Christ has been made sin, and by doing so He has removed the barrier. The sin question has been settled.

c/  The cross is the basis for reconciliation. The barrier was removed by Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. 

d/  In reconciliation all unbelievers are regarded as the enemy of God, and we must see the enmity is all on man’s part.

e/  The believer, in the age of grace, the church the body of Christ has a ministry of reconciliation given to him. He is to make known this ministry, this message. 

f/  In the ministry we find peace is at the very heart of it. God is not at enmity with man, but man is at enmity with God, And God has provided peace for man. 

g/  We see that reconciliation has two very important doctrines.

 (1) Unlimited salvation

 (2) Redemption. Under unlimited salvation we read in I Timothy 2: 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. And then under redemption we read in Galatians 3: 13 the penalty of sin is removed. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

     h/  Now let us look at the word, itself. In the Greek OP-KOT-AH-LOSS-O actually                         means to transfer from one state to another, to a completely different state.

2/  Now let us look at Colossians 1: 21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.

Notice the first two words, and you. Now Paul gives an illustration of reconciliation. The folks at Colossae are a living illustration of what he is talking about. 

#1  They were aliens 

#2 They were hostile in mind 

#3 They were doing worthless and evil deeds 

So let us look at that phrase—that were sometimes alienated. In the Greeks, that means at one time. This speaks of their former position. All Gentiles were alienated at one time. That is before Israel was set aside and Paul was raised up with this message. The Greek word, alienated, means to be a non-participant, and the very same word is used in Ephesians 2: 11, 12 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

They were aliens from the common-wealth of Israel—non-participants. They had no way to approach God. They had no relationship with Him. But now all of that has changed.  

3/  Then the word, enemies, is really the word, hostile. It is one of the strongest words you can get in the Greek—to be an enemy—hostile in mind. In your thinking, it literally means to be bitter at heart—refusing every overture of the love of God.

4/  When he says, hostile in your mind—in your thinking, we see that the mind of man is  against God, and there is proof of it everywhere around you. Men are constantly blaming God for their condition. If there is a God and He is so powerful, why doesn’t He do this and why doesn’t He do that? Why doesn’t He stop war? Why doesn’t He stop all these horrible diseases that are running rampant through mankind? Blaming God. Whenever they find something they think God has done that is not right, they rejoice in blaming the Lord for it.  

5/  Job 1: 22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

You will notice in this Scripture, the devil did not speak about Job to God until God spoke about Job to the devil. I don’t think the devil dared to do it, but when God said, to Satan, whence cometh thou, and he answered, from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it, God said, have you seen Job? God pointed Job out. With some people God can do that, and He did it to Job. He was literally saying, I can do anything with that one, and he’ll just praise my name. You know, there are folks like that. Job lost everything, yet in this verse he says, he did not charge God foolishly. 

Don’t you see, Job was a saved man of God, he was different from the world. He didn’t charge God as the world does. Something happens and they don’t like it—that is the world—they will say, why did God do that? One who is walking close to the Lord doesn’t do that. He knows that all things work together for Good.  

6/  BY WICKED WORKS   

Do you want to see man’s enmity toward God? It finds expression in deliberate evil deeds, worthless deeds, and religion. Man is so hardened in his hostility, his mind is so poisoned against God, that he does evil deeds with relish. He is happy to do them. 

7/  Then notice the three-fold divine reaction.

    

(a) Yet now hath He reconciled. 

    

(b) In the body of His flesh.

    

(c) Through death.

Just think of the first one. You hath He reconciled. It is the work of God, not of man. Then it is not the work of God and man. It is completely the work of God. He has performed it. Reconciliation is not a process to be pursued. It is not seeking your way back to an elusive God. It is not a reward for something you have done. And we want you to see THE WORK IS DONE. The gulf is bridged. The barrier is down.

8/  How does it come about? In the body of His flesh, by death you and I are left out of this completely. This is how we are reconciled. It is necessary for us to see that Christ had to become a man to die for sin. It is not that our Lord died instead of us, and of course, that is true, but He died as us. This is the doctrine of identification. 

9/  Then we have the three-fold consequences of reconciliation. He presents us holy, blameless and irreproachable before God. At this point we have to recognize that God does not hold anything against the believer. We would not be at peace if He did. I wonder if you realize that God doesn’t have anything against you? The only one who accuses you is Satan, and he brings it up and brings it back to you, and he constantly brings it back to your mind. But God doesn’t do that. The flesh does that, the world does that, but not the Lord Jesus Christ.

10/  I want you to see a marvelous verse Jude 24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

Notice what God is able to do. There are some who wonder whether when they see the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be filled with remorse. Absolutely not, for here we read, He is able to present you before the Father with exceeding Joy – faultless, all our failures, our ups and downs will be done away with at that time.

11/  Ephesians 5: 26, 27 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Here we read that He will sanctify the church and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the Word. Do you think there will be one spot left? Absolutely not. Do you   think there will be anything we can be blamed for? No, not when He has washed us and sanctified us. 

 12/  Now look at the three-fold consequences. First of all, you are holy. You can never get into Heaven unless you are as holy as God himself, and there is only one way you can have that holiness, and that is for God to give it to you as a gift.

13/  Then notice, you are unblameable. This very day we are reading about a bishop who will be the first American male saint. God makes individuals saints, and you are made a saint by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

14/  John 17: 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

Here we read, sanctify them through Thy Truth. We must understand something—the word, holy, and the word saint. There is a real difference between them. Holy comes to us from the German, and saint comes to us from the Latin. So the word, saint, has the suffex, ify added to the word, and it means to make it that. So to sanctify means to make saintly, to make holy. So a saint is one who is holy, and anyone who is holy is a saint, and we are made holy, or saintly by the Word of God through faith in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

15/  Now we are unblameable and unreprovable, and that is a marvelous truth. You say that is impossible. No, not at all

16/ Romans 8: 33, 34 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Here God says it is God that justifieth, therefore who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect. Who should there be to condemn you? God is the Judge of all, God is the Supreme Court, and if the Supreme Court has passed on your case, I guess it is settled.    

17/  Revelations 12: 10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

Here we read that Satan is the accuser, and I think he is now and will be up to the time he is cast into the bottomless pit. But I wonder if the devil doesn’t know that our sins are all put away? But he is bringing these things up and he is accusing us to the Father, and then the Lord says, I know all about that. I died for that. I wouldn’t want the hopeless job the devil has.

18/  Job 1: 11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.

Did you ever notice the accusation the devil made to God about Job? He said Job would blaspheme God, and he didn’t and the devil was proved to be a liar. And so when the devil accuses us he has a hopeless job because it is clear that there is no charge to be brought against us.

19/  Colossians 1: 22  In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

This is a beautiful phrase and to better understand it, let us look at Leviticus 13: 45, 46

And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

Leviticus 14: 11 And the priest that maketh him clean shall present the man that is to be made clean, and those things, before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation:

To present was used in the temple worship—when certain people who at one time were diseased with leprosy, were separated from the nation, and if they were later found clean, they were formally taken to the priesthood and presented for examination to see if they were clean, and they could be restored to the community. They were taken to tabernacle and presented to the Lord. 

Just so, we will be presented to the court of Heaven. We will be presented to God because we are clean and free of defects through the Cross of Calvary.

AMEN

Ref: 06/19/1977 / 320 - HOW TO BECOME A SAINT / 08/23/2020