Salvation By Grace (Through Faith)

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I want to read from the book of Romans in the sixth chapter. As you know, all Scripture is given by inspiration and is profitable for reproof, correction, and doctrine, to instruct those that believe in God that they may be strong in the Lord. The Bible says always keep these before your eyes, keep them at your ears, and keep them in your heart, and in that we are never planning to die, then that means that these are very precious words to us. They are words of Spirit and they are words of life, and because we eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, then we have life in us and we live eternally and we never die.

A person that believes in Christ Jesus never dies. If you can eat of His flesh and if you can drink of His blood, then you will never die. I know that we, as people, reason within our mind, our little old carnal mind of reasoning, and we feel that that is a wonderful saying. The Lord has given us a word of consolation. He says that if we eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, then we’ll never die, so we take on a word of consolation, and we praise God because of His wonderful word of consolation, though we don’t really believe it because we feel like, "Well, I do believe it," someone said, "but to believe you’re never going to die, we know that He didn’t really mean that, because everybody dies. We know they put them in a hole. They bury them." But strangely enough, everybody doesn’t die, because Enoch didn’t die. The Bible says he was translated that he should not see death, and of course, Elijah, he didn’t die. So, believe it or not, there is something that happens.

And I’ve said this so many times, there was Abraham, and there was Methuselah, and there were others. A lot of men lived to be two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred, nine hundred years old, and Methuselah, he out lived them all, but still there were some that lived pretty close to his age. Isn’t that right? So, people knew what it was to live nine hundred years. As I said so many times, the Lord renewed Abraham’s and Sarah’s youth, Moses’ strength and youth, and they, staying in the presence of God, positively proved one thing to me, and that is that death has nothing to do with God, and God has nothing to do with death.

I think that is one of the greatest discoveries that I ever made in my life, outside of being born again, and I think it’s one of the greatest discoveries that you could ever make in your life, is to find out that God has nothing to do with death, and that death has nothing to do with God. And the quicker you find that out, the better off you are going to be, because everybody associates God with death and death with God. And, like I say, they so associate it with Him that it’s almost as if they feel like that God and death are friends, but death did not come by God. God never brought it into existence. God never created it. God never had anything to do with it. That was an instigation of man. Out of all the great, mighty, wonderful things that God ever did, He never brought death. The Bible says that death came by man. So then, there was no such thing as death in God’s world, in God’s creation, in God’s acts. That is one thing that He did not bring forth. That is one thing that He did not have anything to do with, and it doesn’t have anything to do with God. Out of all the many, many things in life that you find that God had to do with, He didn’t have anything to do with death.

Another thing that God didn’t have anything to do with is sin. God never created sin, and there was no sin to God, and God never brought sin into the world. So God had nothing to do with sin and sin hath nothing to do with God, and one of the reasons is that sin is responsible for death. So on and on and on. There are things that God has nothing to do with, whereas the Bible says nothing shall be impossible unto God, it is true that nothing shall be impossible unto God. But then on the other hand, the Bible speaks of things that are impossible unto God. And so then, we have to rightly divide the Scriptures. That is why I say so often that you need a minister, because as I said to someone today, the Bible says we are not in the flesh, for God has chosen us out of the flesh, and then, on the other hand, it says even though we walk in the flesh, we don’t war after the flesh. So then, we get all confused, because all through the Scriptures, it’s like this. These things are like that. Not understanding, we get into problems.

The Bible says it is impossible for God to lie. It is impossible. How can truth lie? God is the Spirit of truth. Could the Spirit of truth ever be anything but the Spirit of truth? The Bible says that God tempts no man, and yet the Bible says God tempted Abraham. So then, you’ve got to understand what God is saying. So many, many things that we have to understand, and that’s what the minister is for.

So then, we find that the mysteries of God are great. Paul said, "Great is the mystery of God, and I am a steward of the mysteries, and it is required of a steward that he should be faithful, and there was made known unto me the mystery. So great was the mystery," he said, "when I write, I write in this way that you might understand my knowledge in the mystery of God." And I remind you again, as they asked Jesus about certain things, He said, "It is not given unto them to know the mysteries," because they asked, "Why do You speak to these people in parables, seeing that they don’t understand what You are talking about?" And He said, "Because it is not given unto them to know the mysteries of the kingdom." But then He said to you and I, "It is given unto you to know the mysteries, for God has hid these from the eyes of the wise and the prudent and made it revelation, or revealed it, unto babes such as would learn." So, He told us that we should pray that God would grant unto us the Spirit of revelation.

I say these things to you because I’d like to really enlarge on some of these things, but I just have to pick one or two things here and there. I say to you, in that I’m not planning to die and you’re not planning to die, then that means that we’ve found something, we’re discovered something. What is this, the Bible says, that our father Abraham has discovered as pertaining to the faith, and pertaining to the righteousness of God? What is this that he hath discovered, even our father Abraham, the father of the faithful, who is the father of many nations? You know, a lot of times we say faithful Abraham, the father of the Jew, but we don’t ever think of Abraham as being our father. But it said to make him the father of many nations, not just the Jewish nations. And Jesus even reproved the Jews on one occasion, saying, "Think not that you have Abraham to your father, or God to your father." So then, it is as to who ever believes, then are we the children of faithful Abraham, and then is he our father, because unto them that believe, then this thing is made life, and life comes by the grace of God through faith. The grace of God indicates that just merely by mercy He gave all this to us. That’s what grace means. Merely by mercy He gave it all to us without any works being involved, without anything on our part being involved. So then, by grace, through faith are ye saved, and that not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast, but it is the gift of God. This is why the Jews were confounded, because they worked all of their lives, as to work the works of God. And they said again to Jesus, "What must we do to work the works of God?" The way You are talking, we can’t understand what You are saying. And He said, "This is the works of God, even Him, even Me," Jesus said, "that you should believe on Me whom the Father has sent," and said, "these works were finished before the foundation of the world." That is, before you ever came into the world, God wrought this in His mind, and I’ve come to make it manifest.

Let’s read first from the fourth chapter of the book of Romans. "What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works."

Now, let’s just stop there just momentarily. I say so often that we’re saved by grace through faith, not of works lest any man should boast, but it is the gift of God. And even when I preach all of this and say all of this, still, you wrestle it around in your mind because of what Satan does to you, and you bring it right back to works again, and you stagger and stumble again at works. Pentecostals do that. Catholics do that. Baptists do that. They have their different types of works and ritualistics, but they do that. But I want to remind you that when I say that it is by grace and not by works, I mean exactly that. That it is by grace and not by works. Not even by a little bit of works, not even a tiny bit of works. Not even your works as coming to repentance. Not even your works as seeking God. Somebody said, "Well, you’ve got to do some of these, Brother Pike, that’s your works unto God." No, that’s not right at all. I remind you that the Bible says, "You have not sought Me." If you had sought God, that would have been some works to it, but He said, "You didn’t seek Me. I sought you. I come to seek and to save that which was lost." So, we say, "But, Lord, I at least pray to You. I have to have these works." And the Bible says you don’t even know what you should pray for. How can you pray to God when you don’t even know what to pray for? He said, "But the Spirit that searcheth the heart maketh intercessions with groans and moans that cannot be uttered." Christ prays for you. He’s your high priest. He maketh intercession for you and God answers according to His desire, for He is the only heir to the glory of God, and your hope of that glory is Him within you.

So we see then there are still no works. Fasting? You cannot fast unto God, or do anything as to works unto God, for all of your works are as filthy rags. The only righteousness that you can receive is the righteousness of the Son of God, and then, in that righteousness, you can do works. As Paul said, speaking unto you according to the infirmities of your flesh, you can do works that you might bring your body to a better knowledge, a better understanding of what He hath given you, as to eternal life, and what He hath appropriated for you. All of your efforts are for one thing, and that is to find out what this is all about and to find out what He has already done for you and to find out what He has already given you and try to conform to His way of life, as to His Word, and all of this that you might come to an understanding of the greatness of the knowledge of God, as to Him having given us all things that pertain unto life in Christ Jesus.

So when I say without works, it is without works. If the Jews were confounded over this, how much more are the Gentiles to be confounded over it if they go in that direction? Now someone would say, "Well, Brother Pike, if there are no works, then God saved me." All right, we go back to what I said a little bit ago, the Bible says God tempted Abraham and it also said God doesn’t tempt anyone, and here it says no works. See? All by faith. Not even in the sense of seeking after God can we obtain unto any righteousness, and yet we are commanded to seek after God, if haply we may find Him. But then you have to understand. So then, we are commanded to draw nigh unto God that He might draw nigh unto us, but still it’s of no works, if you could understand. See, if you would just understand. If we just had time to teach you. So many hundreds and thousands of things that we think that we understand, we think that we know, and yet we don’t understand. We don’t know unless it’s revealed to us.

But anyway, we see it here that it is not of works. It is not of works. It was given to us in Christ before the world ever was. It was a predestinated thing. It was a justified thing. It was a sanctified thing, and we receive it strictly by believing in the mercy that was given to us in Christ. So when He says it’s without works, it means that God slew the Lamb before the foundation of the world, wrote our names down in the Lamb’s book of life before the foundation of the world, gave us this eternal life, and when Paul, or the ministers, preached after Calvary, as many as were ordained unto eternal life before hand, then these believed. And it is the same way today. When I preach to whoever is before of old, as before the foundation of the world, ordained unto eternal life, they will believe. The others will not believe. See, why is it that many people come to church, many thousands of people go in and out the church, but they keep on cursing, they keep on smoking, they keep on drinking, they keep on doing the things of the world? But they hear the gospel just like you hear it, and they get under conviction and they come to the altar just like you come to the altar, and they do the things that you do, seemingly, through religion, but they still don’t have eternal life. Why is that? Notice what it says, "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works."

How many of you understand what I’m saying? This is Old Testament here where it’s referring back to it. He gives righteousness without works. Blessed is that man that can come to righteousness, whereas he hath done no works, for it’s not of works lest any man should boast, but it is the gift of God, for the gift of God is eternal life. So blessed is the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without any works. And it says, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, that is, by foreknowledge, and whose sins are covered. That is, by the blood of Jesus as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord will not impute sin. Before Jesus ever died at Calvary, the Lord, through that blood, forgave our sins, elected us unto grace, made us what we are, seeing that all of His works are known unto Him from the foundation of the world, and there, He had already manifested this Calvary thing in His mind, before we were ever born into the world.

So then, "Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also?" that is, upon the Jews or upon the Gentiles also, "for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also: And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised."

Or that is to say, as to the circumcision law, as to the eighth day of a child being born, which signified the removing of the veil, as to Christ coming, when Christ, the head of the church, should be revealed, as to the giver of life; and the veil of death, as to the intellectual concept that Eve had received, as to this veil of that mind of Lucifer, being removed in that it had fallen over her mind and it had to be removed, because to be carnally minded is death. That intellectual veil was death. And there had to be a natural thing of it, so it showed that by faith, or grace through faith, salvation had already come to Abraham, and eternal life, because it was by predestination before he was ever born into the world.

And so then, when time came for God to accept his faith and Abraham to manifest his faith as a natural human being, then the sign of circumcision was given as a seal. So we receive the Holy Ghost as a seal in that the Holy Ghost is the wonderful light of God that comes to us and penetrates the dark veil of our intellectual reasoning, which is death; that is to say, the thoughts of death, the thoughts of unbelief, the thoughts of fear; this light of God, which is the thoughts of righteousness, the thoughts of holiness, the thoughts of faith, and the thoughts of confidence, and the feelings of security, this mind of light comes and from glory to glory, inwardly, it translates our inner spirit, which is a mind, into the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of Christ, which is a mind, and it translates it just like I would take this Bible and translate one word at a time, it translates one thought at a time, as this glory of that revealed light comes to my mind, and eventually I have the mind of Christ, as to whatever measure I have allowed myself to have it, I have the mind of God. And we can go on to the full measure of the full stature, or the full reward as to whatever we allow ourselves to go to. All right. We don’t have time to really explain these things but just enough to maybe put some thoughts into your mind.

"For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." That is, when you say the righteousness of faith, you are talking about the righteousness of God that was manifested in Jesus Christ, even the mercy of God that was given to us through the crucifixion of Jesus, which means the death of the Lord Jesus; that He, God, came in a human body, was willing to give His life’s blood and go through the suffering that He went through that you and I might completely be free from our wrongs and our transgressions without doing anything other than believing in what He done for us. That is the righteousness of God, for Jesus said, "I am the righteousness of God. He that believeth on Me." That is, He became me and took away my sins that I might become His righteousness. He became me in sin unto death and was put out of the presence of the Father; and I, faith unto life, to live eternally in the presence of the Father.

"For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith," there’s where our justification comes from, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:" that is, by what He done for us, "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."

See? He tells us again that while we were enemies of God, while we were in unbelief, God saved us, while yet we were in unbelief, while we were yet in our sins; by foreknowledge He saved us. He said, "How much more should we have confidence now that we’ve been reconciled by the blood being given so that we can see it and know and believe? And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." That is, we were saved through predestination. "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."

That is, there was no knowledge of wrong, therefore it was not imputed in that there was no knowledge of wrong, but yet death was upon all men, because Adam, from whom all life came, had sinned. So, all of his seed was unto death. Now, he tells us that if all the seed of Adam was under death, or the penalty of death, in that in Adam all die, in that Eve is the mother of all living, so then, he said, If by the sins of one man all men die, then can’t we accept the fact that by the righteousness of one man all men are made alive? Can you accept that? Can you believe that? Or do you think that you’ve got to do something to make all men alive, or you’ve got to do something to come to that life, or that I’ve got to do something to come to that life? I didn’t do anything to come to that sin and death. Did you do anything to come to that sin and death? Everyone that did something to come to that sin and death, raise your hand. I didn’t do anything. I was born into this world and under the penalty of death when I came here. I didn’t have anything to do with it whatsoever. I came here under the penalty of death and had to die and go to hell, because my forefather, Adam, sinned. Isn’t that something? When God put me in the garden, as through Adam and Eve, as to the seed, it wasn’t supposed to be unto death, it was supposed to be unto life, but because of the fall, even though my first father, as to Adam, was not in the transgression, yet my mother was, as to Eve, who was the mother of all living. So then, in the natural, my mother and father is Eve and Adam. See? Adam was in the transgression because he followed my mother, as to Eve, as to my natural man. Do you understand what I’m saying?

I did not do anything whatsoever to become a sinner unto death. Not a thing. I was born into it, even though where there is no knowledge of sin it is not imputed. If I had died as a child, not having any maturity or knowledge of it, I would have been in the presence of God, because my spirit, as a child, never departs from the presence of His grace until my body and mind matures to the extent that I begin to understand what is right and what is wrong, and then everything that I do after that I am guilty of it. But I already had the inbred nature of my father that would trip my life and take my life into bondage and cause me to do wrong. So Jesus said one time, taking the little children on His knees, He said, "Forbid them not. Suffer the little children to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He said, "For I say unto you that their angel, which means their spirit, doth always behold the face of My Father." Or that is to say, their little spirit is not yet accountable. It’s still in heaven. It’s still in the presence of God, as to justification, as to life, should the little angel depart from the body. And unless you become as a little child, you’ve not inherited the kingdom of God, or entered into the kingdom of God. There is no way for you to enter into the kingdom of God, He said, unless your spirit becomes innocent like this little child. And we could never be like that. There is no way we could ever be like that when we come to the age of accountability except that we die as a human being and then be born again as a little child, and then in the sight of God we were a little child once again, and then when we are born again, our spirit is like that little child. Jesus has taken away our sin and we are innocent.

In our first father, we are unto death. We didn’t do anything, so why should I believe that I should do anything as to be under my Father, the Lord Jesus, as to the heavenly Father, to be under Him to be under righteousness? If it’s just the fact that because I’m born of Adam I’m dead, in that in Adam all die, then the fact that I’m born of God, because He is life and in Him all live, then being born of God, I am alive forever more. I have nothing to do with it whatsoever. How many understand what I’m saying? Let’s give the Lord a hand if you understand what I’m saying. Do you believe what I’m saying? If in Adam all men die, then it is understood that in Christ all men are made alive. If sin came upon the world, and death by sin because of Adam’s transgression, then it is understood that life and righteousness came upon us by the deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ, as to the perfect man, the second man Adam. Am I making myself clear? All right, let’s go on a little farther.

So then, we are justified by faith, by just believing in the second man Adam, because in believing in Him, that’s how we’re born again. Just by believing in Him. So we’re dead now by the body of Jesus. We believe that we’re dead. He became our sin, having been delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification. We are now dead to the world and dead to the first body of sin. That is the one that you have as your natural body. There is a natural body, there is a spiritual body, and now we are born again. He, having been delivered for our offenses, took away this body of death in that in the body there is no good thing, and now I’m delivered from that body, Paul said, As a woman that’s bound to her husband so long as she liveth, now we’re free from that one. That one is dead, and now I am alive unto God. I’m not married to the first mind. We say first man, as to the body, as to that life, but as to the mind, because Satan was that mind. I’m divorced from that. He took me unawares. I have nothing to do with him. He never defiled me. I never had anything to do with him. When I came to the knowledge of righteousness I accepted God, and until I came to that knowledge it was not accounted for in my life.

So then, I am not defiled. This is why I preach to you that once you come to the knowledge of righteousness, and then if you willfully sin, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, for God is not going to be married to a harlot. God is not going to be married to somebody that knew to do good and then went out and committed wrong, because to do that you are a harlot. That means that your spirit was in the deed that you did, and that you can no longer be a virgin to God. You could never be a virgin to God. But see, when we come to the knowledge of sin, and we know that it is wrong, and we thoroughly understand this thing, and we know that sin is wrong and that righteousness is life, then we leave that alone and all of our past is not counted against us, because the blood took it away because it was in our ignorance, our unwillingness. We knew nothing about it. We were like a little child, because maturity to God is not as a little child coming into manhood, as to a natural child, as to a natural manhood, which is only typical, or a type, but it is the spiritual child coming into the spiritual manhood, which means coming into the knowledge of good and evil, because where there is no knowledge of sin, sin is not imputed. And then, when we come to the knowledge of sin, then after that God imputes sin unto us if we don’t live for God. Let’s go a little farther, because I’ve got some more things that I want to get to. This is very important to your salvation.

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Now we’re reconciled, he said. Now we have 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:" How could we all have sinned when we didn’t sin? But yet death is passed upon us because our fathers sinned. So all have sinned. "(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law." See? It was in the world even from Adam’s transgression, but it never was imputed until the law came. I was alive without the law. When the law came, sin revived and I died. That which was ordained unto life, or that is, sent the righteousness of the law to deliver us, Satan taking advantage and turning it into a carnal thing, in that we’re carnal, sold unto sin. Then that meant it only reminded us of our shortcomings and killed what confidence we did have, and that meant death, for the righteous shall live by faith. "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." That is, the figure of the second man Adam. "But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)"

He tells us by one transgression all men come unto sin and death, but though we transgress many times, as to an offense against God in that in Christ we cannot transgress, for transgression of the law is sin, we cannot transgress the law, because we’re dead to the law by the body of the Lord Jesus, but we do have many offenses. That is, we offend Christ many times. We offend the Lord many times, even when the Lord said, "Get thee behind me Satan. Thou art an offense unto Me." Many times, in allowing Satan to take advantage of us through our weakness before we mature, without even realizing it, it becomes an offense unto God, because Satan is an offense unto God.

So then, "Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Now, how many of you understand what I’m saying? He makes it real clear now. For as by one man’s disobedience. He said you are in the world, and you are under the penalty of death, and you are a sinner unto death, and you had nothing to do with it. Is that clear? How many of you understand what Paul is saying as a revelator? Then he said why not accept the fact by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous? Just by the obedience of one. That is, I get my righteousness because He was obedient. I am God’s work in Christ Jesus. I am His workmanship unto good works in Christ, predestinated in the Lord. That is to say, because He wanted me to be righteous, He made Christ to be righteous. And then, because I was sin, He wanted to take me out from under sin, so He made Christ to be sin. Now then, my sins are gone and I am righteous because of God. So, I am the righteousness of God in Christ.

"Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound." That is, that it might come to put us all under condemnation that we might see our need for a Savior. That’s what it was for. "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" that is, God was more merciful even when sin tried to smother us to death by taking occasion by the law, "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." How many of you understand that now? Sin reigned unto death. By the sins of Adam all of us die. Now, through the grace of God, through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, eternal life is reigning, or grace is reigning unto eternal life through Jesus Christ.

He says in Romans, in the third chapter: "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." So we understand that. "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;" So the law and the prophets witnesses this righteousness as Moses on one side and the prophets on the other side; Moses being the law. They are the witnesses to these things and they represent the two pillars that Samson pulled down while he stood in the midst of the pillars, when he destroyed his enemy, as to three thousand, and then as Jesus came and fulfilled that as to the type, three thousand was added unto the church, like as to a resurrection of righteousness to die and to be born again.

So then, he goes on to say here, all of us have sinned: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" then he says, "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:" All right. Now, he goes on to tell us that "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness", God’s righteousness, Jesus’ righteousness, "for the remission of sins", that is, that takes away sins, "that are past, through the forbearance of God;" that is through His forbearance with us, bearing and bearing again to our wrongs, "To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law."

All right. Now, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." That is, we get the righteousness of the law. Now, getting to what I wanted to say to you. Chapter 6. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Now, he said, "Shall we continue in sin?" Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Now, he’s speaking to us after the infirmity of men. He knows that we are not going to continue in sin. He knows that we can’t even sin, but he is telling us, shall we just continue to be lax, and just to be nonchalant and do like we want to, just here and there and everywhere? Is that what we should do, knowing that our sins are taken away? Would we be so ignorant as to do that? Wouldn’t we have enough understanding to know that if we took that attitude that that would be positive proof that we never were one of the elect in the foreknowledge of God, because we never would have had that kind of attitude? If we’d been in the foreknowledge of God, we’d have been so grateful that God had received us that we would have done everything within our power to try to please Him. Isn’t that right?

If today, I found myself as a pauper, and I did not have any money, and I did not have any life, and I did not have any education or understanding, I was just cast aside and I was just a vagabond, and I was despised, and all of a sudden I discovered that a king, a great king, was my father, and he sent forth his servants to tell me so, and I’d say, "But I’m a vagabond." They’d say, "Oh no! You’re the son of a great king," and they called his name. I’d say, "Oh no! I could never be that. I’m a vagabond, don’t you see? I’m dressed in rags. I’m hungry. I’m just shiftless. I’m just wandering from place to place." And they affirmed, constantly affirmed, "Oh no! You have never been a vagabond." I say, "But how can you say that? I was hungry yesterday and the day before. How can you tell me these things? For years I’ve drifted in rags." And they would say, "Oh no! You have been deceived. You’ve been mislead. You’ve just been astray. Your father is a king. You have been a millionaire. You have been a son of a king. You are a prince. You have been rich all of this time. All of this time you have been rich. You have never been poor. You have never been a vagabond. You have had a deception of mind and you need to be reprogrammed so that you can understand. And then you need to be rehabilitated that you might come back to the kingdom." And I would say, "How can this be?" And then they would start talking to me, as to an indoctrination.

The first thing I would have to do, we say, is be born again. I would have to die to that life of vagrancy. I would have to forget that I was ever a vagabond. I’d have to get it in my mind that I was a new creature. Old things had passed away, I am now a new creature, that I never had been a vagabond, that I am born again. Do you see what I mean? I’m a new child. I’m a child of the king. All this time I’ve been a child of the king. Now I’m born again. See? I’m not in vagrancy. So they indoctrinate me and finally they convert me in my thinking. The Bible says if you convert a man, know that you’ve saved his soul from hell. So, I’m then converted. I say, "My lands, I’m a son of the king! I’m not going around in these rags." And I’d say, "Now, look. You’ve got to help me. I don’t know where this king lives. I don’t know where my home is. I don’t know where the kingdom is and you talk like it’s away off." And he would say, "Oh no! It’s nigh, it’s even in your heart. If you believe it, your father is so great he can expedite the cause and on a plane you could be there that quick. He’s got private planes. He could take you there so quick. All you’ve got to do is just believe it." Then, I’d start believing. He’d say, "Believe your way back to it. Just believe what I’m telling you."

So then, he’d start indoctrinating me, and he’d start transforming my mind, and then I’d start conforming. I’d have to do whatever he told me. See? He’d say, "Now, follow me." I’d follow him. He’d say, "Let’s go this way." So I’d go this way. He’d say, "Now I’m going to tell you something. You must do exactly what I say." How many of you understand what I’m saying? All that he told me wouldn’t have anything to do with me being a son of a king. I was a son of a king even if he never told me anything. If I’d never made one twist or one turn, if I’d never believed a word he said, I was a son of a king. I was born a son of a king. Do you understand? I was a prince. But the thing is, unless I could believe, unless I could follow him, unless I could do the things he told me, I could never find my way back home. I could never conform to this. I could never enjoy these riches. Do you understand what I’m saying? I would forfeit my right. Though you and I have been created by God Almighty, and created as to Adam’s goodness, and all the things in the garden, and all of those things belong to us, yet we forfeit our right to it by becoming a beast, as to vagrancy, to listen to the mind of deception that came to us through the weakness of that deception at the garden. Do you understand what I’m saying?

So then, let’s get up from where we’re at. Like the lepers sitting outside of the gate, there was starvation on the inside. Everybody was in poverty. The prophet had prophesied that this would happen and there it was. And there were the alien armies just over the hill waiting to make war and slay anybody they came in contact with. But the lepers sitting there knew there was death back there and they knew there was death in front of them, and they knew there was death if they sat there because they were eaten up of leprosy, and one just casually said to the other, "There’s death back in the city and we know there is death ahead, but we’re dying anyway." See? We’re dying anyway. And if we go back in the city there is death, and we’re dying anyway if we sit here. He said, "The armies over there at least have food. Let’s get up and go in that direction." So they got up from where they were at. As I told you so many times, it inspired the heart of God so great. That was the act of faith, and when they got up and started in that direction, the Bible says when they put their feet down, every time they put their foot down God would make it sound like thunder, and when they’d put their foot down it would sound like herds of horses, and when the enemy over here heard it, God had made them hear as though a tremendous army was coming. They got so afraid they just fled and left everything, all of the goods. The prophet had prophesied and said to an unbeliever that this day there shall be bread aplenty. There shall be a great refurbishing in the city, and this unbeliever had said, "If God opens the windows of heaven it could be," mocking him. The prophet said, "Ye shall see it, but ye shall not be partakers thereof." And sure enough, as it came to pass, the king picked this certain man, put him at the gate to order the people. So when the great rush came, as to these men coming back saying that there was food aplenty, the people rushed, being starved half to death, they ran over this man that was the mocker and trampled him to death. He saw the revival but he didn’t eat thereof to fulfill the words of the prophet, and great revival came, and great refurbishing in the city came.

To rise up to go by faith and to do what God tells us, to hear the Scriptures, to hear the Word of the Lord and hear what the preacher has to say. Now, let’s look on now a little farther. What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? No. We are conforming. We’re following. We’re listening. We’ve discovered something. We’re not going to continue to go in error. We’re not going to continue to do those things. It’s absurd that we should continue to do the frivolous things of the world. Do we desire again to be in bondage unto the beggarly elements of life? Somebody says, "Ah ha! That’s the secret, see? What you do, Brother Pike, you preachers, you preach and then you trick us. You say we don’t do anything, then you tell us we have to do everything." No, that’s not what it is. It’s your ignorance of not listening and not believing, because we’re trying to explain to you. And I say this not just to you Bethlehemites, but this goes all over the different parts of the world in books and radio and whatever.

I’m simply saying this to you. If the money was in the bank and your father had put it in the bank, and somebody had come out here to tell you that you had a million dollars in the bank and all you had to do was just get up from your lazy place of do nothing and go up there and draw it out, would that be considered works to get your money? Of course not. Somebody said, "Well, I believe it would be, because if I didn’t go up there I wouldn’t have any money." No, that’s not right at all. You had the money even if you didn’t go up there. What it is, your laziness would have kept you from enjoying the things of that wealth that you owned. Let’s give the Lord a hand. That’s what it amounts to. That’s why the Bible tells us to be up and about our Father’s business. All of these things that we’re doing, we’re trying our very best to please God, for hereby we convince our heart, and in doing that, we have confidence toward God. If we don’t do these things, it’s a positive thing that we don’t convince our heart. Somebody would say, "Well, what do you mean by that?" Brother Taylor comes and tells me I’ve got a million dollars in the bank: "Brother Pike, it’s yours." Of course, I could use a little extra, you know. So, he says, "It’s yours." I say, "Well, I believe that." Tomorrow he comes by and he says, "Brother Pike, don’t you have anything to eat today?" I say, "No. Betty and I, we’re on starvation." He’d say, "Brother Pike, I thought you were a believer. I told you that you had a million dollars in the bank." "Oh," I say, "well, I do. With all my heart I believe you. I’ve got the greatest kind of confidence in you." The next day he comes back and I’m half starved to death.

Do you understand what I’m saying? Wouldn’t I be a liar? Could I believe? Would I have any confidence? But the mere fact that I said, "Hey, wait a minute. Do you know what you’re talking about?" And he says, "Of course. Come, I’ll go with you." And I get up and I start following him to go up there. That would be the confidence of my heart. I would be doing the things that would confidently prove that I believed what he said. And that faith, as to Noah’s believing, is what prompted him to build an ark for the saving of his whole house. It was the faith of those people that did those things, as Abraham, believing God, he sojourned in a strange country, not knowing where he was going, but he dwelt in tents because he believed what God said, that God would make him rich and God would make him the father of many nations. And it was what he did that was the manifestation of his faith. That’s why the writer said, Show me your faith without your works. You can’t prove that you believe in anything unless you do it. If you are a hunter, you will hunt. That’s what you believe in. If you believe in fishing, you will fish. If you believe in having a business, you’ll go after a business. If you believe in making your family a living, you’ll try to be honest and pay your debts and do whatever you believe in. If you just believe in lethargy and unconcern, leaching, or whatever, then you’ll let your family just go do anyway. As long as you can get a bite and as long as you can get by, you wouldn’t care about your wife or your children or your debts or nothing else, because that’s the kind of a person you are. That’s the kind of a believer you are.

And people that make no effort to serve God and no effort to conform to the way of the Lord, no efforts to do right, to be partakers of these great wonderful riches of God, are altogether unbelievers and they are abiding in death. Without faith it’s impossible to please God. He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

This is why God was upset with the Jews. He wasn’t upset with the Jews because they did all of those things that Moses commanded them. He was well pleased with that, though they stumbled and though they staggered and though none of them kept the law. Paul said, "Moses has given you the law and none of you keep it." See? God wasn’t upset with them in all of their efforts to try to be clean and to do what He wanted them to do. He was well pleased with it, but He was upset to the extent that they were just bobbling around and making a mess out of everything and half trying, which He knew that they would do. He only chose them for a typical thing and there was no righteousness in that. It was only to point to the day of the coming of salvation. But they got self-righteous over it, and they began to gloat over it, and they begin to feel, "Well, we keep these ritualistics and everybody else is a bunch of dogs and we’re so holy, and we’re so godly, and we’re so pure," to the extent that they ruled God out. When God, Himself, came in human form, they could have said, "Well, God, are You going to tell us what to do, when we’re the ones that do all of the good things?" But the Bible says that they did not recognize God. Though God came, they did not recognize God. Though God was in their midst and God walked in the midst of them, by their ritualistics they did not recognize God, so it pleased God to say, "You’re blind. You don’t even recognize Me."

This is what I’m trying to say. Let’s read on: "God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? " That is, the body of sin is gone. You can’t be a sinner. He that is born of God can’t sin. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" Now, I want you to listen close, folks, for this Scripture, this passage — all of this is great and mighty — but this sixth chapter will bring out something to you that is so profound and so great and so mighty that it should live with you for the rest of your entire life if you can understand it. But if you don’t understand it, it won’t mean a thing, not a thing. So listen to it. This man was a great revelator. He was a deep, deep, understanding man. All right. First of all, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" That’s deep, to understand it. I’ve tried to explain it to you. And he said, "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

I’ve tried to explain it to you that what he is really saying to you is that you are free from sin. Not that if you go through some ritualistics you won’t be sinning. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" How many of you were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ? All right, then what was that to you? What did he do when the preacher baptized you into the death of Jesus Christ? Folks, he remitted your sins, because he is the one that does the remitting of sins, because remission of sin is in the name of Jesus Christ, and the mere fact that you believed on the name of Jesus Christ, which believing was proven to the preacher by the fact that you acted on what he said, faith in the Word by doing what he said, of being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, that remitted your sins, because through the forbearance of God the remission of sin is over by the works of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter, "Whom God has set forth," speaking of Jesus Christ, "to be a propitiation through faith." He is our propitiation. He was the one that was manifested to take away our sins. We believe in that. "Through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past," not remission of sins that are in your life, or that are going to pass, but to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin. Not that I’m going to baptize you so that I can remit your sins by saying, "Hey, you are full of sin and when I do this it’s going to take away your sins," but because you are one of the elect, and you are baptized in the name of Jesus, you are acting on the fact that your sins are past. They are gone. They never were. They were forgiven in God before you were ever born, and you were predestinated unto righteousness. You are God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus, that Christ being righteous before you were ever born made you righteous, and He died at Calvary to make me righteous before I was ever born. And even before He came, He died in the foreknowledge of God to make me righteous. By foreknowledge, through God’s forbearance, my sins are past. So, I am baptizing you for the remission of sin. I am baptizing you because your sins were remitted in Christ before the world ever was, and they are gone, or remitted at Calvary, if you want to look at that, before you were ever born into the world. And I’m baptizing you for the remission. I’m baptizing you because you are a believer in what I’m preaching and you’ve come to show me this, so I say you are one of them because you believe.

So, I baptize you into His death. Now you have been baptized into His death. You are forever gone and buried, and the body of sin is gone, not because it is now being gone. It was gone before you were ever born into the world, but this is the proof of it, as to your acknowledgment. The world can see it and now the body of death is gone and your spirit has gone back to God who gave it at death. Now, your sins are gone, because sins are in the body as transgression of the law, and if there is no human body in the earth, then it can’t transgress the law, and where there is no transgression there is no sin. And by the way, folks, I could say that there is no death, because if there’s no transgression, there’s no sin, if there’s no sin, there’s no death, and it’s for sure there is no transgression, for there is no law, for Jesus fulfilled every jot and tittle at Calvary. It could not pass away until every jot and tittle be fulfilled, and then it’s gone and you are free from death. You are free from sin forever more. We don’t have any sins. God took away our sins. Somebody said, "You are just saying you don’t have any sins. The Bible says such and such and such." I’ve said this a number of times. The same man that said that is the one that said we didn’t have any sins. You just misinterpreted. You misunderstand. He that is born of God cannot sin. Doesn’t that agree with the Scripture, line upon line? "God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" If you are dead to sin, how can you sin? If you are dead to sin, how can you live in sin any longer? How can you, if you are dead to sin? If you are dead, how can you men live with your wife any longer if you are dead to your wife? If your wife is dead and buried in the ground, how can she live with you any longer?

So you’ve been baptized into His death. Why were you baptized into His death? That you might be numbered with Calvary, numbered with the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world, because when Jesus died that was you dying, delivered for your offenses. That was you dying. When you were baptized, you said to the preacher, "Hey, wait a minute. I accept that as me being dead to the world and dead to sin." So he says, "All right. I’ll bury you in the water." That’s the end of it. That’s the proof to everybody that you’ve always been that person. Your sins have always been gone. Now, this is your proof. You are now coming up, delivered for our offenses, raised for our justification. You are now a new man. You are now no longer, as to the first man Adam, as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, as his seed, but you are now the seed of God. It remaineth in you and you are now bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, even the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, members in particular. Though it’s not visual, as to people seeing it, it doesn’t make any difference. That’s the way it is in God. The Word that created the world, it created you, and God has already done it. It’s already taken care of. It’s just a time element involved until He can finish all this other, and then you’ll be changed to see what you’ve always been. As He said to them that were in the heart of the earth, under the altars, "Here is a white robe, just a little time." They said, "How long?" He said, "Just a little time when your brethren that are yet alive, they have to be killed as you are, and then I’ll bring you forth and all of you will rejoice together."

Folks, it’s just a little time until the change of the body, to wit the change, to wit the redemption, not that you have to come to that as to God doing that. It’s always been, but to come to the knowledge, to the understanding. And we’ve said so much about that. Let’s go on. "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:" Buried with Him. That is, a Calvary experience, "that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Now, listen. Everything that happened to Him was you. "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death," do you believe that you were? He that be baptized is baptized for the dead, Paul said. "We shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:"

Is it hard then believing that you have been baptized for the dead, that when they brought you up out of the grave, that you are then raised with eternal life and raised for life? Is it hard for you to accept that? Is that hard? Why do you go around under condemnation? Why do you feel heavy laden? Why don’t you feel that you are forever holy and godly and pure and righteous in Christ Jesus? Rather than going around with condemnation of thinking, "Well, I almost made it, but I slipped, but tomorrow God, give me another year, God give me ten more years, Lord, if You’ll hold on something will happen after while; I’m going to get better." And then when you do get better, you think, "Bless God, I’m better than he is, than she is." And there, your filthy rags start showing. You didn’t have anything to start with, and had even less when you got to feeling like that. You were better off to start with when you felt like you were down, at least. Paul said, "When I am weak, then am I strong," for I see His strength, for I’m weak. Then let the weak say I’m strong. That is, accept His strength, as to righteousness and godliness and health and happiness and whatever it might be as to faith.

Can you understand what I’m saying? The righteous will understand. The wicked shall not understand, but the righteous shall understand. Pray that God will grant you an understanding heart. All right, listen. "Knowing this, that our old man," that is, the man, Adam, "is crucified with him," as Jesus came to kill the first man Adam, He was the first man Adam, as to His body unto death, being sin. And then the second man Adam, as to the change or the quickening spirit, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." Now, doesn’t that make you think a whole lot of your body, your old dirty body, your old body of death, your old ugly carcass, your old rotten, deteriorating, stinking body? Don’t you think a lot of it, to keep powdering the nose and the eye brows and doing all the things of jogging and building your muscles and being slim and trim and your diets and all these kind of things?

You know what you are? You are a junkie. That’s what they call a junkie. Your type is where people just take anything. Out in the dope world they are called junkies. You are a junkie. You are a spiritual junkie, but when you take that old heap to the junk yard and you stop piling up the junk, and you turn around, like the Lord showed me about a third of this campground was junk, and you turn around and you accept the death of that body and you get down to humiliation and you put that thing behind you and realize that thing was a creature of the devil and of Lucifer and of the beast, and you quit doing the things that’s convenient for the flesh, and you mortify the deeds of the body, and you become the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, as to being born again and raised for justification and realize that this is a new body of holiness and godliness, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, and making no provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lust and the desire thereof, to be a holy person, a godly person, a pure person by the righteousness of God by faith in His righteousness, and every time you stumble, not condemning yourself, and for sure not doing anything of a willful mind, as to know your wrongs and doing those things after you come to the knowledge of it; for God’s sake don’t be a fool and do that. Do everything you can to be perfect, and when you stumble, the Lord will take it away.

So the body of sin is destroyed that, "Henceforth," that is from now on, "we should not serve sin." That is, he said God destroyed that body. Someone would say, "Well, that means that God is telling us that we should no longer serve sin." That’s not what he’s telling us at all. He is telling us that the body of death has been destroyed. There is no way you could serve sin anymore. It’s dead, it’s buried, it’s gone. There is no body of sin to an elect. You couldn’t serve sin. You can’t sin. You couldn’t serve the body. You’ve got a nature that’s altogether different. But for a child’s sake, being a babe in Christ, for the elect’s sake, as to conforming to the ways of God, then he is telling us that we shouldn’t follow after the body, as to the weakness, but study, grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. Every time we come to a new understanding, or a new measure, or a new portion, then make our bodies to be like His, in the sense of our conduct, that we might glorify God as to show Him our love toward Him in that He has freed us altogether from sin.

Listen now. But what he is really telling us is that the body of sin is gone. "For he that is dead is freed from sin." If we’ve got any dead folks in here, let me see your hands. I’ve tried to tell you some of you were dead, didn’t I? "For he that is dead is freed." Freed from sin. But it isn’t too bad if you’re dead if you’re freed from sin, now is it? All right. That’s all right. That’s the kind of dead folks we need. "He that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:" that is, we are alive with Him, "Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him." That means it doesn’t over us, either. We are His body. "For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God." So, we are dead to sin once and for all. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Remember? Justified by faith, sanctified once and for all, and as the Bible says, He hath perfected, or made perfect, forever them that are sanctified, having sanctified us once and for all by the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body," that is, don’t let it control you, "that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof," that is, your errors and stumblings and staggerings, "neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin." See, when we say sin, all unrighteousness is sin, but like I say of a tree. All of the limbs are of the tree. The trunk is of the tree, but really the tree is of one thing and that’s the seed. And so righteousness is of one thing, the seed of Christ. Sin is of one thing, and that is unbelief, as to Adam’s act in the garden, Eve’s act in the garden. So he said, "Let not sin have control of you." So when he uses the terms "let not sin have control over you," these things that are no longer sin to you, because you are dead to sin, as to unrighteousness, in that if God had not killed the body to sin you would be just as guilty as ever; so he has to use the term sin, because unrighteousness is sin, and if you do those things willfully then are you a sinner. You’ve not been born again. But if you do not those things willfully, and you stumble and stagger into those things, they are not accounted for as sin, because you are dead to sin, and those things are just stumblings and errors and trespasses. So he uses the terms sin to make you understand.

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourself unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Go do something for God. If a woman is legally divorced from her husband because of fornication, or the violation of the Scriptures, then should that man come to her and say, "Look, you follow me and you honor me and you obey me, I’m your husband"? Should she then follow him? Or should she say, "No. I’m dead to you. You’re no longer my husband. You’re not my head. I’m not going to yield to you and let you reign over me. I’m not going to do that. I’m dead to you because you transgressed, and you violated the laws, or the Scripture, and that took me away from you and I’m no longer the bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh." And if she’s married to another man, according to Scripture, then she is not the first man’s wife, lawfully and righteously. Isn’t she the second man’s wife, and he her husband?

So, it says, "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin:" don’t yield to him, don’t go after him. You are free from him. "For sin shall not have dominion over you." He tells us now that we are dead to it. "For ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." That is, the law hath no more dominion over you because you are dead to the law. How then can you sin when you are under grace? You are not under sin. You can’t sin. Transgression of the law is sin and there is no law. So, where there is no law there is no transgression. Where there is no transgression there is no sin. Where there is no sin there is no death. "What then? Shall we sin," that is, continue on with that foolishness, Paul said, "because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." Shall we continue on with that kind of foolishness? No. He said you won’t do that. You’ll have the right kind of mind. And he said, I just speak after the infirmities of your flesh to let you know that you shouldn’t allow those foolish things in your life. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" That is, he said if you willingly allow these things to be in you, don’t you know then and there you could not have been born again, you could not have had the nature of Jesus Christ? You couldn’t possibly be dead to sin, because the first thing you would have done, you would have been grateful in your heart, and the nature of Jesus would have inspired you that you would have stayed away from that. And even if you had done any of those things through error, or misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, it wouldn’t have been counted against you. It wouldn’t have been sin, and as soon as you learned about it you would have put it away and said, "My God! My God! I have nothing to do with that," and it wouldn’t have been charged against you. You would not have sinned against God.

"But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin," that is, the form of doctrine as to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, His righteousness, "Being then made free from sin, ye become the servants of righteousness." The Bible says God has translated us, having taken us out of the kingdom of darkness, that is, intellectual darkness, as to Eve’s wrong mind of Satan, and translated us into the marvelous kingdom of light. That is to say, His understanding, His righteousness, and His mind. "Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness," now listen real close, "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh." He said, I’m just putting it this way because of the weakness of your flesh, to try to explain to you that you shouldn’t continue your foolishness, as to error. "For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." The Bible says we should serve Him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives. "For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

These things are heavenly treasures in earthen vessels, the great wonderful words of life. To know, to believe, to understand. The righteous will understand. The wicked shall not understand, but the righteous shall understand, and to understand is to believe and to see through eyes of understanding. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened to comprehend the heights, the depths, the widths, the length of these wonderful things because you are the children of God that will comprehend. Being children of righteousness, as children of God, you are heirs and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are the most fortunate people that ever lived on the face of the earth, because we have come to the light of the understanding to the Revelation of Jesus Christ. When you say the Revelation of Jesus Christ, that means the revealing of the Christ, the unveiled Christ. Christ is a quickening Spirit. The last man Adam was made a quickening Spirit. You, as to your first man Adam, a living soul, as a human body. But when you become a child of God, you are now the spiritual inner man, as to your heavenly Father, even the second man Adam, the quickening Spirit, and the body is now dead because of sin, and the spirit is now in heaven, as to having been translated into the Spirit of Christ Jesus, and your spirit and Christ’s Spirit are now one Spirit. And so then, it is in heaven and darkness can never get to your light, for you are a child of light, and you’ve had your spirit delivered from the body of intellectual darkness into the super new body of Christ, as to the inner man, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, the second man, the quickening Spirit, into the kingdom of light. That means you understand.

So to understand light is the receiving of Christ. To understand light is the receiving of Christ. To understand light is the revealing of Christ, Himself. That is, Christ revealed. Light is Christ revealed, which is the revealing of Christ, or the Revelation of Christ; the breaking forth, the bringing forth, the showing forth; Christ the unveiled. For He hath rent the veil in two, Christ on the inside of a human body that was made sin. Christ rent that human veil in two. He mastered that human body, took away all of the error and rent that body in two, coming out of that body just like opening a mold, just like cracking an egg when the little chick pecks his way through, and He came out of that body and ascended up to heaven, and He went into heaven. He has always been in heaven, even in the presence of God on the inside, but He rent the veil in two for your sake and for my sake. He ascended up, left the body in the earth, as to dust it was, to dust it went back; not as to His body but to show your body. And then came and picked it up again to show that now God was not displeased with you anymore. Delivered for your offenses to take away your sins, raised again for your justification; in that He is now raised, it is the positive proof that there is no wrath from God, because when He was raised that meant all sin was now gone. Being raised for your justification meant that you were now justified in the sight of God, in that the body had come forth that was made sin, even you, that now you had come forth. The Lord was never displeased with you again and never would be displeased with you again, that you were now alive forever more because of what Christ did in the resurrection, raised for your justification, the angel saying, Peace on earth, goodwill toward man. That is, from God forever more now, by the death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

So then, you are free from sin. Let’s yield our members unto righteousness, be about our Father’s business, for now are ye the sons of God. It does not yet appear, as to visual things, or as to visibility, but it will be. So then, He hath rent the veil in two. Jesus has rent the veil in two. The rending of the veil means the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the coming forth of the Christ. He can now be seen through the eyes of understanding, having declared the Father, in that the Father is the Spirit of revelation dwelling in the bosom of Jesus, He hath made Him a declaration, as to a Word, as to revelation, and now He hath been revealed. Christ has come! Christ has come! Christ has come! And He shall suddenly appear within His temple, whose temples ye are, to be glorified in you, that all the world may come and kneel before you, that God is in His temple, let all the world keep silent that they may glorify Christ in you. As Paul said, They glorified Christ in me, for it’s not me living but Christ. Glorifying Him who is Christ.

So, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. That means the end of the world. When the veil is rent, that means the body is no more. When the body is no more, the world is no more. You are no more in the world, you are no more in the flesh. So Paul said, "Ye are the people upon whom the ends of the world have come." Jesus rent the veil in two, and we are they that dwell in heaven. Do you love the Lord? All right. When that seventieth week of Daniel comes in, then the world will come back into view for them that are of the world and they that remain in the world, but you are chosen out of the world, hid with Christ in God whom the heavens have received. You are children of glory, children of heaven, to appear in glory even as He appeared in glory, having this glory within you, in Christ, as to your inner man, because the body profiteth nothing. It is dead, and it will be changed at the coming of the body that will appear in Thessalonians appearing. How beautiful, how beautiful, how wonderfully beautiful. The church is thus being sealed in.

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.

Holiness Unto The Lord