Daily Devotional For Sunday, June 30, 2024
It’s Sunday! The Lord’s Day as we say. I pray you feel like David when he wrote these wonderful words in Psalm 122:1, "I was glad when they said to me, `Let us go to the house of the Lord’” (NLT). This is the day we collectively come together to worship, praise and learn from God’s Word together. Today, I want to pick up another question from the same chapter of Romans where we were yesterday. It is found in Romans 8:33a, “Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?” (ESV).
We Christians get accused of many things at times. The word “accuse” in the Greek New Testament is [ἐγκαλέω, egkaleo] and it is word used in the judicial system. It’s an official summons to appear in court to face an accusation. I have never been summoned but I know of people who have. Many times the one who brings the summon to you is discrete and sometimes they are not.
Charles Swindoll writes this about receiving a summons once:
“I remember standing in the front row of the church I was pastoring years ago, singing along with the congregation shortly before I was to preach. A grim-looking man in a suit entered the back of the sanctuary and slowly walked toward the front. I thought he would slip into one of the rows, take a hymnal, and join the singing, but he kept walking. He came all the way to the front, faced me, and slapped an envelope against my chest. It was a summons!
I read it over and quickly determined it was another nut with a frivolous case, but it still unnerved me. Something about being called before a judge puts a knot in my stomach, even if I know I’m legally faultless. I have this nagging worry that a particularly slick lawyer might be able to fool the court.
Now, suppose the only judge with any jurisdiction happened to be my father. The nut’s frivolous charge would stand no chance of even getting a hearing. Any charge brought against us would not stand up in court. Because our debt for sin has been paid in full, we are unimpeachable. We are and forever will be considered just before the Judge of heaven” (Source: Charles R. Swindoll, The Swindoll Living Insights New Testament Commentary, “Romans,” p. 194).
In Romans 8:33b, Paul answers his own question with this: “No one—for God Himself has given us right standing with Himself” (NLT). The ESV says, “It is God who justifies.” When we go to Revelation 12:10 we read this: “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, `Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God’” (ESV).
Did you read that? The devil is a “tattletaler.” He and his demons love to go before God and throw into God’s face every time one of God’s elect, when one of God’s children, sins. I don’t know anyone who loves tattletales, not even tattletales themselves. Just before Jesus died on the cross, the Bible says He shouted one word: “tetelestai” — “It is finished!” What is finished? This word Jesus used, was used in 3 ways in Jesus’ day.
- First, tetestai was used in a business or financial way to indicate that a literal debt had been paid in full.
- Second, tetestai was used in a judicial sense in courts when a person’s sentence had been served in full.
- And third, tetelestai was used in a military way that a battle had been won. So check this out. When Jesus was hanging on the cross and He shouted out tetelestai — “It is finished” — He was saying, “Your debt of sin is fully paid. The judgment for your sin has been fully served and the spiritual battle against death, hell and the devil has been completely won.” In Christ the work of salvation, victory, reconciliation and new life is fully yours. Southside, it is finished. You don’t need a priest. All you need is Jesus.
Jesus was hanging on the cross and He shouted out tetelestai — “It is finished” — He was saying, “Your debt of sin is fully paid. The judgment for your sin has been fully served and the spiritual battle against death, hell and the devil has been completely won.” In Christ the work of salvation, victory, reconciliation and new life is fully yours. Southside, it is finished. You don’t need a priest. All you need is Jesus.
So every time the devil and his demons attempt to accuse us before the Father, the Father says, “Tetelestai!” Why? Because it is finished. Now, some people get thrown by the word “elect.” It is a rock-solid biblical word. The Greek New Testament word is [ἐκλεκτός, eklektos] and it means “chosen by God, to obtain salvation through Christ.” God knew ahead of time who would accept His offer of salvation. It doesn’t mean that He chooses one person to be saved but doesn’t allow another! He wants all to be saved! This is what caused Count Zinzendorf to write these words in his hymn — “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness” — “Bold shall I stand in Thy great day, For who aught to my charge shall lay? Fully absolved through these I am, From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.”
There are two words that are confusing and misunderstood today in the church. Those two words are “elect/election and predestination.” In Romans 8:29, the Apostle Paul writes this: “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers” (ESV). We believe that God is omniscient – God knows everything past, present and future. There is nothing that God does not know. There is nothing that God learns or that catches Him off guard.
This includes who will respond to the Gospel and the Holy Spirit’s leading them to come to Christ. This means that from the very beginning when sin entered the world, God had already determined or predestined that Jesus Christ would come and pay the penalty for our sins. We see this in Genesis 3:14-15:
"The Lord God said to the serpent, `Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. (15) I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel'” (ESV).
Verse 15 is God’s promise that one day the Messiah, Jesus would come and He would bruise or crush the head of the serpent and this serpent would bruise His heel – a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion. The Bible is clear that humanity is totally depraved. There is nothing in us which helps us save ourselves. Salvation is all an act of God. The problem I see with this is that it misunderstands “foreknew” or “foreknowledge.”
The Greek New Testament word is [προγινώσκω, proginosko]. This word means “to know before.” There are Christians (i.e. we call them “5-Point Calvinists) who think that God predetermined who He would save and who He would not save. To me, “to know before” does not equal “to predetermine before.” Just like a parent knows how their child may react or respond in a certain situation does not mean that parent predetermined their child’s choice.
To me this ignores the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 10:13, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (ESV). When you show them this passage they read it to say, “For everyone of the elect who calls on the name of the Lord would be saved.” The problem I have with this that the Greek New Testament word for “elect” [ἐκλεκτός, eklektos] is not in this original Greek text. I believe they ignore 2 Peter 3:9 also: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (ESV).
Again, these “5-Point Calvinists” like to insert the word “elect” after the word “all” to read “all of the elect.” The Greek New Testament text does not say that. If God has already predetermined who is going to be saved and who is not, then what is the purpose of evangelism and missions? It shouldn’t matter since it has already been decided by God in advance, right? In this case, then Billy Graham wasted his time, energy and efforts in all those crusades he held.
I believe in God’s sovereignty. I believe in the total depravity of man.I believe that salvation is all a work of God. I believe God in His grace willingly gives us the freedom to decide whether or not we will accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. It is not my freedom to choose that saves me, but that Jesus Christ still saves me.
It is not that the accusations made against believers by the devil and the unbelieving world are always false. The fact that we are not yet sinless is obvious. But even when a charge against us is true, it is never sufficient grounds for our damnation, because all our sins—past, present, and future—have been covered by the blood of Christ and we are now clothed in His righteousness. To such accusations, God says — “Tetelestai!”
Jesus gave us this promise in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand” (ESV). Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:
“For Christ to take away our salvation would be for Him to work against Himself and to nullify His own promise. Christ offers no temporary spiritual life but only that which is eternal. He could not grant eternal life and then take it away, because that would demonstrate that the life He had granted was not eternal” (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Romans,” p. 507).
That is why God is for us and not against us and this is why when Jesus shouted, “Tetelestai” from the cross, and we God’s elect, give our lives to Jesus Christ, it is ours forever. So, first because Christ died for us, we are His forever. Second, because Christ was raised for us, we have proof that death cannot accuse us. Third, because Christ intercedes for us, we know we have a Defense Attorney that proves our prosecutor, the devil and sin, how wrong he is and why he does not have a case or accusation against us (see Hebrews 7:25). And fourth because Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, we know Christ sits at the seat of honor and exaltation (see Philippians 2:8-9).
Questions To Consider
- Do you know that the devil and his demons love to accuse us before the Father?
- Were you ever a tattle teller growing up? If so, why?
- What does it mean to you that Jesus shouted from the cross, “Tetelestai”?
- What does it mean to you that the security of our salvation is based on who Jesus Christ and what He did rather than who we are and what we do?
Scripture To Meditate On: Luke 18:7, “And will not God give justice to His elect, who cry to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them?” (ESV).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, thank You for making sure that no one, not even myself, can bring charges against me because of what You shouted from the cross — Tetetestai!” Help me not to take advantage of Your grace and use it as an excuse to sin. Rather, let me see Your grace as a means to be holy, righteous and godly for You. I want to live my life for You in such a way that I bring glory to You so that no one has to lie at my funeral. I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside!—Pastor Kelly