"God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Genesis 1:26a)
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:27).
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48).
The LORD spake unto Moses, saying, "Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy." (Leviticus 19:1-2).
"I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy." (Leviticus 11:44).
The law of God (given through Moses) can be divided into moral law, ceremonial law (which governs religious rituals and practices), and civil law, and it is a shadow of the perfection and holiness of God (Hebrews 10:1-2)
- but the law of God can never make anyone perfect (Hebrews 10:1-2). The law teaches us that we are sinners who fall short of God's perfection. As Paul says, "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (Romans 7:7).
God made a covenant with Israel in the days of Moses, and it was based as much upon Israel's promise to obey the entire law of God, as it was upon God's promise to bless them if they obeyed, but also that they would be cursed if they disobeyed:
Moses took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, "All that the LORD has said will we do, and be obedient."
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you concerning all these words." (Exodus 24:7-8).
God allowed enough time for Israel to repeatedly break their promise by breaking the law (not obeying it), before He said by the prophet Jeremiah:
"Behold, the days come", says the LORD, "that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, says the LORD:
But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
So when Jesus was about to shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins, He said,
"For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:28).
So Paul wrote,
"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians 3:24-25).
This sums up the reason for the entire Bible (as Jesus said to the religious leaders who were rejecting what He had been telling them):
"You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me, but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life." (John 5:39-40).
One of Jesus' disciples, Philip, found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
Nathanael replied, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip replied, "Come and see." (John 1:45-46).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The law and the prophets - the entire Bible - is about Jesus, the Savior of the world who has been appointed the judge of the world by God the Father.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul taught: "ALL humans have sinned and ALL humans fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23-24);
AND
"Just as it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one." (Romans 3:10);
AND
"The wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23).
So there is a guilty verdict on all of humanity - but there is good news:
"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23).
Jesus said, "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes on Him should have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day." -- John 6:40.
So the apostle Paul taught:
"If Christ's Spirit is in you,
(1) Your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit (of Christ) is your (eternal) life [zoe] because of (Christ's) righteousness.
(2) Moreover, if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also quicken [zōopoiéō] your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you." (Romans 8:10-11).
Imagine you're the Titanic, which has struck an Iceberg, causing a gaping hole. The hole represents your own sinful thoughts and desires, the lies you've told, and the amount of times you have broken one of the ten commandments, and any other sin you may have committed.
You've tried to stop up the hole with goodness, decency, or obedience to the ten commandments and to God's holy law, but all this is mixed with your sin. The patch is not holding, because God is 100% just, and a judge who is 100% just, has to punish all sin.
Jesus said, "No one has ascended up to Heaven except He who came down from Heaven, the Son of man who is in Heaven. But even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life";
AND
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:13-16).
So when Paul wrote, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?", he immediately answered his own question:
"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. " (Romans 7:24-25a).
Paul could say this because just as Paul also wrote,
"For He has made Him (Christ Jesus) who knew no sin, to be sin for us,
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
2 Corinthians 5:21.
The prophet Isaiah wrote:
"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, each one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
Isaiah 53:6.
Jesus said,
"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.";
AND
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by Me." (John 10:11; 14:6);
AND
"I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (John 8:12);
AND
As the author to the Hebrews and all the authors of the New Testament also testify,
"God, who at many times and in many ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,
has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the ages, who being the shining splendor of His glory, and the express image of His essence, and upholding all things by the word of His power, having made purification of our sins, He sat down on the right of the Majesty on high." -- Hebrews 1:1-3
WE ARE SAVED BY CHRIST THROUGH OUR FAITH IN HIM
LIVING BY FAITH IN CHRIST
Romans 3:23-25
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat, accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed."
Titus 3:7
"That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs (turned into and become heirs) according to the hope of eternal life."
Faith simply means believing. We are justified by His grace and by His blood, through faith (believing):
"For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world: our faith." -- 1 John 5:4.
"Our faith in Christ overcomes the world" is not saying that our faith itself is what saves us or justifies us. We cannot be saved or justified by our faith. What is our faith in? In our faith? In ourselves?
"He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." -- John 3:18-19.
========================================
God sent His Son for our salvation,
not a boat like the Ark that was built by Noah.
========================================
John 3:17-18
"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God."
The only way to God the Father is through Jesus Christ:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6).
The only way to come through Jesus Christ is through faith in Jesus Christ.
"For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" -- John 5:4-5.
Righteousness can only come through faith in Jesus Christ
Hebrews 11:7
"By faith Noah, having been warned by God of things not yet seen, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."
Christ paid the price. The blood of Christ and the empty tomb proves it. Nothing we can do, nothing other than the blood of Christ and the empty tomb will ever prove that we belong to Him and that we are saved, if we believe. There is nothing more that we can add to it, because Christ died for us while we were sinners (Romans 5:8), and that is what saved us - Christ's death, and Christ's resurrection.
WHAT HUMAN EFFORT IS ABLE TO DO
Peter wrote,
"Make every effort to ADD to your faith:
Excellence, to excellence, knowledge; to knowledge, self-control; to self-control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, brotherly affection; to brotherly affection, unselfish love."
Why add this?
"Because if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately." -- 2 Peter 1:5-8
We can add the above to our faith, but we cannot add our salvation or our justification through human effort, because it was all accomplished by Christ, but now, knowing that we are saved by Christ and justified by Christ through our faith (and not by human effort), for our own sake we should nevertheless make an effort to be diligent to add to our faith in Christ the list of things Peter mentioned above,
and we are doing so in order that we will kept from becoming ineffective and unproductive in our pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately.
"17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matthew 5:17).
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13).
--- ---
