Hold fast Jesus’ baptism and His blood as your atonement. Jesus has already taken all of the sins of the world and has also born all of the judgment. The gospel of God’s righteousness is the truth that Jesus was baptized and shed blood to atone all our sins. Now, we can receive the remission of sins just by accepting God’s righteousness in our hearts. If you receive it, you will be able to enter “the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”

There are people who already know of God’s righteousness and those who do not and are still outside of Jesus Christ. The sun is going to set. Believe in Jesus’ baptism and enter Him. The faith of believing in the baptism will become your oil prepared for the wedding feast. I hope you know the secret so that you can prepare the oil for the lamp to meet our second coming Lord Jesus just by believing in Jesus’ baptism and His blood on the Cross.

Jesus received baptism so that He would blot out everyone’s sins. Jesus is the Son of God and God Himself. He is our Creator. He came to the earth with His Father’s will in order to adopt us as God’s children. Who do all the prophecies in the Old Testament talk about? They prophesy about Jesus. They were prophecies about how He would come to earth and take over our sins and eliminate them. As the prophecies in the Old Testament said, Jesus came to earth about 2000 years ago and took over all of our sins by being baptized. He had borne all of mankind’s sins, starting from Adam and Eve, down to the last person.

Do you really accept the truth of the spiritual circumcision in your heart?

We should only accept this fact and receive it in our hearts TODAY. “Circumcision is that of the heart.” We can receive circumcision in our minds and hearts by faith in the truth. We all have received deliverance by believing in God’s righteousness. Even if God’s judgment on earth comes, we will not be afraid. Those who believe in God’s righteousness do not receive God’s judgment. God’s judgment falls upon those who have not accepted God’s righteousness in their hearts.

Why do Christians today believe in Jesus, yet go astray? Why do they live in agony? It is because they believe only in Jesus’ blood for their salvation. Now you should admit that you have inflicted God with your stubbornness and return to the truth that Jesus took all of our sins by being baptized at the Jordan. Then, the spiritual circumcision will take place in your heart.

If you believe both in Jesus’ baptism and His blood, the spiritual circumcision will take place in your heart and you will not receive God’s judgment, but become one of His children. God will become your God and you will become one of His people. If there are those among you who believe in Jesus but are dependent only on Jesus’ blood, I would like to ask you a question. Is our spiritual circumcision and God’s righteousness only by the blood of the Cross? Our salvation is completed not by the blood only, but by Jesus’ baptism, His blood and the Spirit.

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GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS ATTAINED BY BEING UNITED WITH CHRIST

Let us study Romans 6:3-8. “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”

Verse 5 states, “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.” The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, that is, whoever has sin will perish and go to hell. Did not all of you have sin before believing in the truth of Jesus Christ completely? ─Yes.─ Even if you have the slightest amount of sin, you will go to hell and receive the judgment of “the lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Revelation 21:8 ). If we were to pay the wages of our own sins, which is death, we would never be able to be saved from sin at all. So, God sent Jesus Christ to this earth and transferred/ passed all the sins to Him and judged Him instead of us.

Many people still believe in Jesus in the “religious” way. They go to church and shed tears while confessing their sins, asking for forgiveness. Stop doing that right now and believe in God’s righteousness, and you will gain the peace from God in your heart. Jesus was baptized and died on the Cross in order to save us, and I hope you believe in this gospel.

God taught us through Moses about the remission of sins. Moses accepted God’s command that he go to Egypt to deliver the Israelites, His people. So, he went to Egypt with his wife and child on a donkey. That night, God’s messenger appeared and tried to kill Moses. Then, his wife Zipporah, hastily took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” (Exodus 4:25)

The truth in this passage is like this. Even Moses’ son would not have been considered as one of God’s people if he had not yet received circumcision; therefore, God was going to kill him. God said that the Israelites would not be considered His people if they had not been circumcised. The circumcision in the Old Testament was a sign of being one of God’s people. God had to make Moses realize this. So, Moses’ wife quickly cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it saying, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” God tried to kill Moses because of his son’s uncircumcision.

The Apostle Paul was a Jew. He was circumcised when he was eight days old and brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. He was proficient in the Old Testament. So, Paul understood well as to why Jesus Christ had been baptized at the Jordan River and why He had to die on the Cross. Therefore he could preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit in much assurance. That is why he said, “Circumcision is that of the heart” (Romans 2:29).

Of course, the Apostle Paul talked more frequently about Jesus’ death on the Cross. Why? Because even if Jesus performed our spiritual circumcision of taking our sins; if He had not been sacrificed on the Cross, in other words, if He had not received judgment, we could not have been saved.

That is why Paul spoke about the Cross more frequently. You have to keep in mind that the Cross is the conclusion and completion of our spiritual circumcision. However, most Christians today do not have the slightest idea of the causality between Jesus’ baptism and His death on the Cross, and thus are doomed to hell. If the power of faith in the spiritual circumcision had been passed on well through generations, today’s Christianity would not have been this way.

Some people are very grateful when they first meet Jesus, but they become disappointed at their immutable infirmities and become worse sinners as time passes by. Ten years may pass after first believing in Jesus, but they may have become worse sinners. Can they be sinners even after believing in Jesus? They sing the hymn just in words. “♪Weeping will not save me! ♫ Though my face were bathed in tears, ♫ That could not allay my fears, ♫ Could not wash the sin of years! ♫ Weeping will not save me! … ♪Faith in Christ will save me! ♫ Let me trust thy weeping Son, ♪Trust the work that He has done; ♪To His arms, Lord help me run: ♪Faith in Christ will save me. ♫”

They sing, “Weeping will not save me. Faith in Christ will save me.” But, that’s in word only. They pray shedding tears every time they sin. “God, please forgive me. If you forgive me this time, I will be good from now on.” When a Christian sins, he/she confesses, cries and asks for forgiveness, and then feels better. But a person who repeats this for years becomes more sinful in his/her heart than when he/she first believed in Jesus ten years before. That person regretfully asks the question, “Why did I believe in Jesus so early? I should have believed in Him when I turned 80, or just before my last breath. I believed too early.” It is because he/she was supposed to live according to God’s will, but didn’t.

To every person’s sin, there must be a judgment. That is why Jesus was baptized and judged on the Cross, shedding His precious blood so that He could save us from our sins. He arose again from the dead in three days. God the Father raised Jesus to life again. A person who believes in the spiritual circumcision can and has to live the life of spreading the gospel. Spiritual circumcision is the evidence that we have to become God’s children and it is God’s righteousness.

Jesus’ baptism is the evidence that our sins have been passed onto Him, and His precious blood on the Cross is the evidence that He has paid all the wages of our sins by receiving the vicarious judgment.

Do you believe in Jesus, yet remain sinful in your heart? That is the faith of a heretic. Titus 3:10 states, “Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.” Those who have heretical faiths are self-condemning sinners. They insist that they are being sinners even when they are threatened with death. They are too stubborn to change their misunderstanding. God tells these sinners, “You are a heretic. You are a sinner; you are not My child and you will enter the eternal fires of hell.”

Those who believe in Jesus, yet have not accepted God’s righteousness, or the spiritual circumcision of Jesus’ baptismand blood, are heretical Christians and the great sinners who cannot but confess their sinfulness before God. Sinners who do not believe in Jesus’ righteousness cannot enter His Kingdom

My dear Christians, accept in your hearts that our salvation was not made possible only by Jesus’ blood, but by the water, the blood, and the Holy Spirit. God has cut off the sins of the world and completely eliminated the condemnation from us. Not only did He cut off my sins, but also the sins of the world, starting from Adam’s to the sins of the last person on earth. He took them all with His BAPTISM and BLOOD . Receiving the spiritual circumcision will save whoever believes in God’s righteousness, which was fulfilled by Jesus who came by water and blood.

All the sins of the world have been cut off by Jesus’ baptismfrom John. Now those who believe in the spiritual circumcision cannot have sin in their hearts. Jesus rose again among the dead and raised our souls that had been lost with sin with His righteousness. God is looking for us with the gospel of Jesus’ baptism, His blood, and the Spirit, and we now can be saved by the spiritual circumcision. The spiritual circumcision was God’s plan in Jesus even before Creation, for those who believe. Now, you who believe in God’s righteousness have also received the spiritual circumcision.

Whether someone is a true Christian or not is distinguished according to whether the Spirit of God dwells within him/her. How can someone be a Christian, whether he/she believes in Jesus or not, if he/she does not have the Holy Spirit within his/her heart?

Paul tells us that whether we believe in Jesus is not the most important question, but whether we believe in Him having discovered the righteousness of God or not. The true faith required by the saints is the faith that is ready for the Spirit to dwell in them. The presence of the Holy Spirit in you will determine whether you are a Christian or not.

CHAPTER TITLE: THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH

< Romans 1:17 > “ For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it (the gospel of truth), the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”

What do the just live by? By faith. The just live by faith. In fact, the word ‘faith’ is very common, but it is the very core of the Bible. The just live only by the faith in God. I hope we will become enlightened from this section because we have the flesh and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. We tend to interpret many of the Scriptures with our own thoughts, not knowing the real meanings hidden in the Bible, though we may literally understand the Bible. We simultaneously have the flesh and the Spirit. Therefore, the Bible says that we, the just, shall live by faith because we have the remission of sins.

But the problem is that the flesh cannot do good


The problem is that we have the flesh also. So, in many cases, we judge according to the flesh. Sometimes, we judge and discern something with fixed thoughts of the flesh, and thus we do not believe fully in His word when it comes to faith. However, the Bible simply says that the just shall live only by faith. Then what does this mean? You may think, ‘Where are the just who don’t live by faith? Why do you put an emphasis on this verse? Isn’t it just one of the verses in the Scriptures?’

Today, I want to tell you about this verse. We must live by faith. We don’t realize our ignorance until when we try to explain something, though we think we know well about it in our thoughts. What is the opponent that a sinner fights against? The person who is not born again fights with his/her own thoughts and his/her flesh. Who does the born again person fight with? The flesh and spirit within the person fight each other. You may wonder why I am repeating what we already know, but I would like to explain this repeatedly because it is worth saying.

Even in a born again saint, his/her flesh and spirit continually fight with each other because he/she also has the flesh. There is an instinctive part in the flesh and it prefers to live lavishly, trying to handle all the problems, rather than to live by faith. There is also an instinctive part in the flesh of a righteous person that wants to live lavishly, trying to reach perfection without making any mistake, which is far from living according to the faith God tells them to live by.

So, the flesh of the righteous also wants to reach perfection even in the spiritual works, trying to deal with every spiritual problem perfectly and hoping to reach fleshly perfection at the same time. But can one lead a life of faith by the flesh? Just as Paul said, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Romans 7:19), the flesh never does good. We have an instinct in the flesh that wishes to live stately in front of God, even though the flesh cannot help but to act evil.

We cannot lead the life of faith with the flesh

So strictly speaking, trying to live a devout life with the flesh is far from having the correct faith. We have contradictory thoughts and instincts toward God from a biblical point of view. To be perfect in the flesh and to lead a life of faith without any problems with the flesh is impossible. The human flesh is like dust. The Bible says, “We remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). It is even like a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away because it is incomplete.

Do both the flesh of a born again person and a person who is not born again have the ability not to sin? Can a born again person avoid sinning entirely ? We don’t need to live by faith if the flesh can survive without sinning at all. Then would we be able to live by the strength and will of the flesh? We surely know that it is not possible. The problem is whether we know and recognize that, despite whether or not we have been born again, the flesh is so weak that it continues to sin.

How much do we know about our fleshes? How much do we know about ourselves? You may think you know yourself as well as 100%, but your self-identity is far from your true character because you don’t really believe that you are sinful.

About what percentage do you think you know about yourself? Even 50% would be too much. People usually understand themselves as little as 10 or 20% at most. In reality, they know about 10 or 20% of themselves, though they think they know themselves 100%. When they think they have done tremendously evil things, they become embarrassed and quit following the Lord. Then, they question whether or not they can keep their faiths to the end, and come to the conclusion that it is impossible.

Filthy water and trash come out in swarms from the conduit of carnal mind. It seems to be impossible for them to lead devout lives by faith. “Oh! I think it is no longer possible to follow the Lord. I thought my flesh would get better after my sins were blotted out once and for all, but my flesh is still weak and I fall short of perfection, even though it’s been a long time since I was born again. The flesh is useless and ugly.”

We don’t know about ourselves at all and we especially don’t want to admit the faults of our flesh either. So the result is that we cannot lead faithful lives when we see that many carnal thoughts come out of the flesh. We can never lead lives of faith by flesh. What is the flesh of a human being? Will the flesh of a human being become incrementally sanctified and live a perfect life in front of God if it is well-trained by its own trials? It is absolutely impossible, and the flesh cannot help sinning until its last breath.

“If you sin unintentionally, and do not observe all these commandments which the Lord has spoken to Moses.” There are many expressions like “sin unintentionally” in the Bible. The flesh sins unintentionally and does what should not be done.

I asked you if it was possible for the flesh to become perfect, but it cannot become perfect, even after we have remission of sin. The flesh seems to be perfectly righteous at first, right after we have redemption. But in fact, it does not aid us in disclosing ourselves, but instead hides us. The flesh slops trash and sins all the time. The flesh always commits sins that God hates. Doesn’t the flesh sin a countless number of times? Does the flesh always live, as God wants? The flesh always does what God doesn’t want. The flesh always sins uncontrollably.

The law of God consists of the Ten Commandments and it has 613 kinds of detailed articles. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.” The first four commandments are the commandments that are to be kept among the relations with God. The rest of the commandments, from the fifth commandment to the tenth, are commandments that should be kept among human beings.

But does the flesh please to obey the law? There are white lines on the road for pedestrians to safely cross the road. But the flesh never wants to keep traffic laws. People cross the road within the lines for fear that other people are watching them. In fact, they don’t want to obey the law. They cross the road while denying traffic signs when nobody is around. The flesh automatically sins. If they are well educated, they should keep to the traffic signs, whether other people watch them or not. However, they would merely be acknowledged through the flesh. We hate to cross the road according to traffic signs and try not to obey them as much as possible.

Then, what’s the purpose of God giving us the law? The law gives us the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20). By the law, we come to know that we are sinners who always disobey the Ten Commandments. We always sin. The law always requires us to do good and not do evil AT ALL. Nevertheless, our flesh always sins because it is too weak to keep the law.

The Bible says that the just shall live by faith. However, how do the just, who have this flesh, live by faith? They also can’t live by the law in their flesh so how do they live? The just live by the faith in God. The spirit wants to follow the will of God, but the flesh always commits sins, disobeying all the articles of the Ten Commandments. The flesh sins in turns, committing this sin today and that sin tomorrow. There are sins that the flesh prefers to commit; more than other sins. The flesh of a human being sins all his/her life. Is this right or not?

Let us observe the fifth commandment. “Honor your father and your mother.” It’s utterly reasonable, and people try to keep it even though they cannot keep it all the time. So let us skip discussing it. The next one is “You shall not murder.” All of us kill others in our minds, while only a few people actually killaccording to the flesh. However, let’s skip this as well because killing is such a grave sin.

The next ones are “You shall not commit adultery” and “You shall not steal.” These sins are easily committed in our daily lives. Some people have an innate talent of stealing and committing adultery. They have made it a habit to commit the sins. Don’t they covet, too? (The Bible says to covet is also a sin.) They are also good at taking other’s possessions away from their initial places (stealing). The flesh does these kinds of evil deeds whenever it wants to do. Let us assume that we commit just one or two kinds of sins among ten kinds of sins. Does that make us righteous before God? ─No, it does not. ─ We are not just and righteous by the flesh before God because even the slightest bit of sin is a sin. The flesh repeatedly sins, sinning this today and that tomorrow, until we die. The flesh cannot help but to sin before God until we die.

So, have you ever been clean and sanctified in front of God even for a day? Let’s look at the flesh, separating it from the spirit. Did you never sin before God, being perfect by the flesh? One sins even when one sleeps. He enjoys looking at vulgar images even while dreaming, thinking of beautiful women through the imagination. We all commit sin.

The flesh does what God tells us not to do and doesn’t do what He tells us to do. The flesh is always the same even after our sins are blotted out. How can we become perfect? What is the way to sanctification if our flesh cannot be complete? However, isn’t it possible through Jesus Christ? We are the ones who have committed those sins. Have we sinned before Jesus? ─Yes, we have sinned. ─ Do we sin now or not? ─Yes, we do. ─ Do we continue sinning? ─Yes, we do. ─ We will sin until our dying day as long as we have flesh. We are the sinful beings who cannot but sin until our last breath. Then how can we be delivered from all our sins? First, if you are not born again yet, you must admit that you are sinners in front of the Lord to blot out your sins. After having been delivered, we need not confess that we are sinners, but we have to admit that we have sinned. We should admit our sins after reflecting on ourselves through the law when have sinned, even if we sometimes do good things with the flesh under the pretext of being good. We must admit a sin to be a sin.

We are sanctified by faith

Then how do we handle the problem of sin after admitting it? Are we sanctified by believing that Jesus took away all our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist and was judged on the Cross to redeem us? ─Yes.─ We are sanctified by believing that all the sins committed by the flesh were passed onto Jesus when He was baptized. Then what does the passage, “The just shall live by faith” mean? To have faith is to believe in the Spirit, not the flesh. Only believing in God, His word, His law, and His redemption can sanctify us, and we can be perfect after we become righteous by having faith in Him. Is this true or not? It’s true. The flesh is still weak and far from perfection, even if we become righteous by receiving the remission of sins.

The Bible says, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10). But the flesh is always weak and imperfect, just as that of the Apostle Paul’s. Therefore, we can neither become righteous nor reach righteousness gradually with the flesh. The flesh cannot live a righteous life.