Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 75. GAL 5:22-23 "the fruit or the production of the Spirit is kindness, graciousness, generosity, and sensitivity to others.".
Friday, July 22, 2005
The fifth part of the fruit of the Spirit - nominative singular feminine noun chrestotes - crhstovth" = kindness, graciousness, generosity, and sensitivity to others.
“Chrestotes” = being gracious and operating in grace orientation.
Grace-orientation is the believer’s recognition of all that God has freely given to us and is the basis of gratitude to God Who has given His Unique Son for us and now freely gives us all things, ROM 8:32.
Grace-orientation is the believer’s awareness from metabolized doctrine that “a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven,” JOH 3:27.
EPH 2:12 Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
JAM 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.
COL 1:12 Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
a. Sins were not imputed to the believer.
b. The righteousness of God and of Christ were imputed to the believer.
This case condemns all precedence for arrogance, legalism, and activism, and it points to the importance of being gracious and operating in grace orientation.
The scribes and the Pharisees were officers of the Jewish Supreme court called the Sanhedrin.
The witnesses in this case were the judges of the Supreme Court of Israel.
When the scribes and Pharisees brought this woman to the Lord in order to put her case before Him, they made her stand in the middle of the court.
This woman is indicative of all the believers in the world who are victims of being judged and condemned by the self-righteous arrogant do-gooders.
REV 12:10 for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night.
Rabbi = “teacher.”
Because only the woman was brought before TLJC, we can assume that this appears to be a case of conspiracy against the woman.
The scribes and the Pharisees are “using” this woman to try to corner the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have a sinner who knows she is sinful and knows she has failed and is guilty.
There is the other group of individuals who consider themselves to be righteous and beyond reproach.
Our Lord with His infinite wisdom was about to awaken the guilt in them as He blotted out the guilt of the woman.
1PE 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
PRO 10:12 Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions.
PRO 17:9 He who covers a transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends.
When our Lord wrote on the ground, it was simply an act of divorcing or isolating Himself from these legalists and religious activists.
Our Lord spoke to present the higher issue related to the spiritual life and the objective: to avoid activism, civil disobedience, and crusading.
It was the Jewish law that the chief witnesses against the accused had to be the first ones to throw the stones to stone the accused to death.
Religious activism is manifested always by the use of the arrogance skills (self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption).
Religious activism uses the arrogance skills to justify self, deceive self, and become preoccupied with self.
This is why the Lord calls these judges of the Sanhedrin hypocrites, MAT 23:13,14,15,23,25, 27,29.
There never was any grace orientation in the function of religious activists during the dispensation of the hypostatic union, nor will there be any grace orientation by religious activists during the dispensation of grace (the Church-age).
The mandate of the Word of God during the Church-age is to use the spiritual skills to execute the PPOG and not to enter into Christian activism, 2PE 3:18.
Religious activists used the law as an instrument to attempt to destroy our Lord’s ministry, to discredit, to malign, to judge, to create a public lie about the impeccable person of the humanity of Christ.
1CO 12:3 - no one can call Jesus “Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.
On the other hand, the arrogant officers of the court only called Him “teacher.”
1. For the positive believer, God’s grace policy is a greater deterrent than the condemnation of legalism.
2. People respond to grace, but react to legalism.
3. The grace policy of our Lord provides a far greater self-motivation to resist temptation than the fear and guilt function of the emotional complex of sins.
The Lord loves to take an individual who has been plagued by guilt all his life and make that individual one of the greatest disciples of all time.
It is a lot easier to forgive others and love others when you recognize the guilt you have been delivered from yourself.
JOH 8:9 [K.J.] And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one.
Her guilt, her failures and weaknesses are about to be turned into one of the most fantastic and amazing blessings in her life.
God blesses us not because we deserve it but because He desires to.
Once you begin to judge others and blame others for your present condition you will end up with even more guilt than you started with.