The End Of The Transgression
Let’s read from Romans chapter five beginning at the first verse.
Romans 5:1-14: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience" And patience, experience" and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed" because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin" and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.”
There’s a great lesson in what we just read. It tells us that sin hath always been in the world. Sin reigned over man all the way from the time of Adam on down to our day. The Bible says, where there is no knowledge of sin, sin is not imputed. The Bible tells us that because Adam had sinned, all of mankind is under sin. They were under sin until the time appointed at Calvary, and they are still under sin if they do not believe. They that are fallen from grace are under the law, and they that are under the law are transgressors. The Bible says that by the law shall no flesh be justified.
Jesus, Himself kept the law perfectly, every jot and tittle, but He could not be justified by the law. The Bible says that in God’s sight, no flesh shall be justified by the law, and inasmuch as the children were made partakers of flesh and blood, Jesus, Himself also partook of flesh. He came into this world and partook of flesh" therefore, the Bible says that great is the mystery of godliness. The great God of heaven, who is a Spirit, was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, caught up into heaven.
So we see that for Him to be our example, He had be justified in the Spirit by faith. We find that it was the faith of Jesus Christ that was handed down to us. He could not be justified by the law, but He did take the law out of the way. When every jot and tittle was fulfilled of the law, then it was taken out of the way.
The law was added because of transgression, and it was added 430 years after the promise was made to Abraham who was justified by faith. David said, “Blessed is the man unto whom God will not impute iniquity,” for God justifies man without works" that is, He gives salvation without any works. If it was of works, then we could boast. But it is the gift of God.
So then, blessed is the man, as God spoke to Abraham. His iniquities are taken away. His sins are gone. David and Abraham spoke of these things. Blessed is the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works. By the blood, He’s covered our sins. He’s taken away our iniquities. He said, “I am the Lord God that healeth thee, that forgiveth all of thine iniquities. I heal all of your diseases.” So we see that the law, which came 430 years after Abraham, could not annul this. There is no way that this could be set at naught. But sin reigned over man. It had not been revealed to man. The law was added because of transgression, the transgression of Adam, to let us know that we were under the penalty of sin. It was to reveal to us the contrariness of our nature to God.
Paul brings this out: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The law which was ordained unto life and righteousness, I found to be unto death. Though it is spiritual, yet I’m carnal, sold unto sin. For that which I do, I allow not. I find that there is a law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. And the good that I would do, I do not. O wretched man that I am. I see another law in my body warring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the law of sin and death.” So he said the law that could have delivered us had no way to deliver us because of the weakness of the flesh. All it did was bring to my remembrance my shortcomings, my unlikeness to God’s image and the way He had made me in the original image of Adam, when Adam was called the Son of God, without sin.
I find myself, through that fall, taken away from that originality, taken away from that image, taken away from the righteousness which was in God that Adam had, being illuminated with that image in which he was made. I find that it was lost. And because of that transgression, God had to send the law to reveal to us our impurities and our unlikeness toward God, until the day that the seed could come to whom the promise was made. In Isaac, or in Christ, shall thy seed be called, the father of many nations.
We see that in this transgression, the law had to come to bring about sin. Paul said, “Sin, taking occasion by the law, slew me.” Getting its strength from the law, this became sin, because it is the transgression of the law that is sin. I find myself a transgressor by something that’s within my body. He said that it’s warring against the law of my mind through the fall of Adam and Eve. This evil, Satan, has gotten into the human body and the impurities are showing forth. But man could not see this until the mirror of God’s law came, that he might look at himself and see the undone condition as to the likeness of God.
We find that even the veil over Moses’ face showed the great light, which was God, was hid behind Moses, and they were trying to look at God through Moses. When it was asked, “Should you see God?”, they said, “You talk to God and then we’ll talk to you, Moses.” They were afraid because of the lightning, the thunder, and the fire on the mountain. They were afraid that God would strike them dead in that they knew that no man could see God and live.
Seeing the hinder part of God, they could not see the face of God, because at that time the atonement for sin was not there, and they would have died. But when the veil of death was taken away, as to the intellectual condemnation of sin, when the law was folded up and taken away, there was no law and therefore no transgression. Now we see face to face, and we’re changed into the wonderful glory of God, as we behold the glory of God in the unveiled face of our Lord Jesus Christ" which glory, as within us, is changing us from glory to glory into this wonderful image of God. The Bible says that at the appearing of the Lord Jesus, in Thessalonians, at that wonderful coming of the trump of God, that every man that hath this hope within himself, purifies himself even as God is pure, and he’ll be changed. That is Christ, the hope of glory. Christ is the seed of God that remaineth in you, and you cannot sin because you are born of God. Even that seed should remain in you, and you cannot transgress faith, which is the faith of Christ, which was wrought in Christ Jesus before you or I was ever born into the world.
We see that we cannot transgress that faith, because that faith was already worked out in the body of Jesus when He walked this earth. That faith was given unto us. Contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints, the Bible tells us, and that faith by which we are sanctified. God hath sanctified us once and for all by the offering up of the Pesach lamb, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He hath perfected or made perfect forever them that are sanctified. That which the blood of goats could not do, God sending the blood of His own Son, Jesus, in the image of sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Today, His blood sanctifies us. The law is gone away. The transgression is gone away, and by the righteousness of one man, Christ Jesus, grace is upon all, if we can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So then, let us call upon the name of the Lord. If you call upon Him, whosoever calleth upon Him shall be saved.
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord