Living in the Invisibles (Part 3) – Living in the Spirit vs the Law: The Corporate Life of Faith

Well, let me offer you a word. Let me give you a new word in your vocabulary. Backseeing. Backseeing. We can turn around and see. They can foresee. Maybe we can meet somewhere. The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify…whoa…heathen? Wow. Now that is really amazing. That’s new stuff to me. I didn’t know that as a good Jew, I didn’t think you heathen could be done that way. And foreseeing in the future that those who are living in St. Cloud, who would ‘faith’ Jesus Christ, the Lord preached the Gospel beforehand. So we got a new word here: ‘backhand’, or ‘afterhand’, or ‘behindhand’. God preached to Abraham and said, “Abraham, the heathen in St. Clouds shall be blessed in you, and they will be your sons, and they shall be as the sands of the Atlantic Ocean that flap upon the shores of Florida.

And the heathen shall be blessed by you. And God preached the Gospel to Abraham while He looked at you. No wonder Abraham welcomed you. Praise the Lord. Isn’t this beautiful? Brothers, learn to live in the beforehand and the backhand and the foreseeing and the backseeing. You’re the foreseen. You’re what is foreseen. He was what you have to turn around and turn backward to see. And God, having foreseen St. Cloud, said to Abraham…I bet there’s more in this verse than I know about. I bet if I come back to this next year, there’ll be twice as much in it. So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the ‘faith-er’. You actually are one with him, for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by things written in the book of the law to perform them.

Now, that no one is justified by the law before God is evident. For the righteous man shall live by faith. Now, will somebody who has a marginal reference please read the marginal reference? Nobody has a New American with a marginal?

Audience: I think this does. But he who is righteous by faith shall live.

Yes, dear. And people keep giving Martin Luther credit for finding out/getting justification by faith from this verse. That’s not what it said. He gets no credit for anything. Sister, read it again.

Audience: But he who is righteous by faith shall live.

Not just shall live by faith, but…say it again.

Audience: But he who is righteous by faith lives.

Only he who is righteous by ‘faithing’ lives. Those who are righteous by any other means are dead. So you can be righteous by many means, but only one of them lets you live. You can be righteous by your own standard, and that’s what the verse before says, but you will die. But if you’re righteous by faith, you get to live. And Martin Luther didn’t know that. He died not knowing that. He said, “The just shall live by faith.” No. Those who are righteous by faith shall live. And that’s exactly the way that Paul wrote it. And it’s very powerful.

The verse before that, I don’t want to go over it lightly. Number 10, I think, establishes a principle. And I can’t prove this. I only can prove it within the context of the Jewish religion. But I don’t know how it spreads out further. Romans 1:2-3 really seem to indicate this very strongly. Romans 1:2-3. Let me see if I can explain to you what I’m talking about. The Jews said, “We will be righteous before God by obeying the law. We shall be just by the law.” To which Paul just added, “You won’t live. We shall be just. We will be right with God by the law.” If you read Romans 1,2, and 3, you get the very distinct impression that the Lord said to the Gentiles, “Establish whatever standard you wish, and I will judge you by your own standard, and you shall be righteous by your own standard, but you won’t be acceptable to Me. And the Jews are righteous by the standard of Moses, but you’re not going to be acceptable by Me. Only those who have “faithed” Jesus Christ, their righteousness will bring forth life.” Have you followed that?

Romans 10 talks about that. I think that when you meet some brother who’s really legalistic, all you have to say to yourself is, “Amen, brother.” You just go ahead and live by your standards and find out what happens when you stand before God. God’s going to look at you and say, “Boy, you failed every one of those things. You sure better be glad you had faith in Jesus Christ, because the rest of you is just zero, f, zero, f minus, and zero. That brother cannot live up to his own standards. If you establish his standard, you will fail. It is better to release your standard and put your hope in Jesus Christ. There’s a chance you will live. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that freedom? That’s freedom from all things. Okay, brothers and sisters, I don’t know whether this is the past, present, or future. I don’t know whether it’s corporate or individual. I don’t know what this is. All I know is I thank God for it. I guess more than anything else, it’s just liberating, isn’t it?

Then what shall be the standard in St. Cloud? Your standard shall be to see that which isn’t obvious. Because what is obvious is that you’re all failing any standard. But we have seen what Abraham saw. We have seen that faith justifies, faith in Christ. Therefore, we shall claim to be justified by faith, and we shall gamble that we shall therefore live and perhaps even live abundantly, have a life that is abundant. Excuse me. I’d better be careful. Have a life that is abundant. That’s God’s life. Who are the ones in St. Cloud? Oh, they’re the ones who think you can be right with God by just faith in Him. And they even think that they’re going to get away with it and live, with no other standard than that. Wow. Oh, praise the Lord. Isn’t that wonderful? I just thought, I want to stop and take a bath in that. They think they’re going to get away with it.