“If, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor” (Gal. 2:17,18)
Shall he who believes in Jesus allow that which Christ condemned in the flesh to rule over him in the flesh?
It is true that although a man may have all this in Jesus, he cannot profit by it without himself being a believer in Jesus. If this man wants to have Christ for his Savior, if he wants provision made for all of his sins and salvation from them, does Christ have to do anything now in order to provide for this man’s sins? No; that is all done. He made all that provision for every man when He was in the flesh, and every man who believes in Him receives this without there being any need of any part of it being done over again. Christ “offered one sacrifice for sins forever (Heb. 10:12). Thus every believer in Him is complete. “In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). And God gives His eternal Spirit, and eternal life,- eternity in which to live-in order that the eternal Spirit may reveal to us and make known to us the eternal depths of the salvation that we have in Him.
The god of this world blinds no man until he has shut his eyes of faith. Then Satan will see that they are kept shut as long as possible. “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Cor. 4:3,4). Why did the god of this world blind their minds? Because they “believe not.” The Lord will not compel anyone to be righteous. Everyone sins upon his own choice. And everyone can be made righteous at his choice. No man will die the second death who has not chosen sin rather than righteousness. In Christ there is furnished in completeness all that man needs or ever can have in righteousness; and all there is for any man to do is to choose Christ.
Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p.234
