Habitation of the Just

By Michael Bunker
editor@lazarusunbound
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“And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.” Revelation 9:3

December 26, 2001 — Job, in contending with his accusers, engages in one of the first recorded dissertations on justification by faith. “I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?” If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.” Job 9:2-3

In this chapter of scripture, “Job’s Friends”, those relentless accusers of our smitten and afflicted hero Job, have tempted him by saying “If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.” Does that sound familiar to you? Isn’t that the mantra of the corporate, institutional church today? They will tell you that if you will be righteous and holy before God, He must bless you. It is a legal requirement. God has bound himself by his own law. If you will do something good, God will be forced to reward you. It is a system of deeds and rewards right?

How far have we fallen from the doctrines of our Fathers? How strange is our modern gospel when compared with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the apostles, the reformers and the great Puritan preachers and teachers who brought Christianity to this continent.

The American gospel is a perverted anti-gospel that produces still-born, weak and spiritually retarded Christians who turn their Christianity inward in the skewed belief that by certain behaviors they can place liens on God’s sovereign grace and mercy.

They conceive of God as a celestial errand-boy who must respond like Pavlov’s Dog when we ring a bell or pull his chain.

This anti-gospel is just a part of the larger inversion of Truth that covers all areas of life in our culture. Maybe it is because Americans are bad at math.

A divine math lesson

God is infinite. Infinity is a quality of God. It defines those things that He is. He is infinitely good and infinitely just. He is also infinitely wise and intelligent.

Simple math solves our mortal problem for us. Let us think of two men. One has an IQ of 140, the other has an IQ of 60. According to the world, and the realities of human intelligence - the man with the 140 IQ is smarter than the man with the 60 IQ. But which man is more intelligent in relation to God, who alone is infinitely intelligent?

Here it the math question: What is INFINITY minus 140? Do you know? Infinity minus 140 is still INFINITY. If you have an infinite number of miles to travel in your journey, and you have traveled only 140 miles, you still have an infinite number of miles left to travel.

Here is the second equation: What is INFINITY minus 60? Why it is still INFINITY. So here is the point. INFINITY equals INFINITY. There is an infinite difference between the intelligence of God and the intelligence of all men. All men are equal in intelligence from God’s point of view. From the standpoint of infinity, 140 equals 60. The journey before us is infinitely long.

You can’t get there from here.

How does this relate to goodness? Is God not infinitely good? Surely He is. His infinite goodness is infinitely “more good” (or gooder) than the goodness of man. That is why the scripture declares that there are NONE good, no not one. Only God is good, therefore, the only good man that ever lived was Jesus Christ. It is impossible for men to act good, be good, look good or partake in goodness - when seen from the point of view of God’s goodness. In their natural state, all men are equally evil when compared to God.

God is also infinitely just, which is the point that Job hopes to make with his “friends” in chapter nine of Job. Since God is infinitely just, it matters not how “righteous” or good Job is - he is left wanting mercy and needing grace. He says, “If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: If I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.”

Simply said, you cannot get there from here. Matthew Henry, son of one of the Puritan fathers, said this: “if God should contend with him (Job) in judgment, he could not justify one out of a thousand, of all the thoughts, words, and actions of his life; therefore he deserved worse than all his present sufferings.”

This is not a law and grace issue, this is a life and death issue. It is the central, principle issue of the gospel. It is also the dividing line between what IS and what IS NOT Christianity. It is the sword that separated the Christian Reformers from the apostate Papists. Canon 9 of the Roman Catholic Council of Trent declares that, “If anyone says that a sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anethema.” This is a statement in direct opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as found throughout the Holy Bible, and it has never been rescinded or renounced by the Catholic Church. In fact, Evangelicals and Charismatics have joined themselves in a “unity” movement called Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), even though true Christian theology allows no unity with these two disparate positions. The Catholics and the modern corporate “Protestant Christians” have embraced the heretical doctrine of cooperative justification, but here is what Paul has to say on the subject in Romans the fifth chapter: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. He goes on to say that this justification was a legal declaration brought about by the law of substitution instituted with Adam. Since “by one man sin entered into the world” (Notice that this sin was not cooperative at all - Adam did it alone), “and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Since Adam was our legal representative, every man who was IN Adam would legitimately be born IN sin). Paul goes on to say that, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”

You see how this legal act locks out any type of participatory or cooperative justification?

You may stop me here and say, “Well, Michael, I have always believed in Justification by Faith alone.” GREAT! But you might want to check again. If you were DECLARED righteous by the substitutionary act of Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, have you accepted some other form of human activity as necessary for continued “right standing” before God?

Do you have to attend church, tithe, act right, “stop sinning”, read your bible, pray continuously, knock on doors, go to the altar, speak in tongues, go to confession, call Jesus by some Hebrew name, stop eating certain meats, keep the Sabbath, ask for forgiveness for every sin (even the ones you don’t remember), cross yourself, rub a cross, etc., etc., etc.?

Are any of these things required so that you might keep your “right standing” before God? If you don’t do these things, will God reverse his substitution and expel you from Him and disown you?

If I have gotten a little close to home, then you might consider that you have probably added something to Justification. You have minimized the work of Jesus Christ and made His work of no effect. You have claimed that the work of Jesus Christ was insufficient, and that God needs you to complete His work.

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” 1Thess. 5:23-24

Remember what Paul said in Romans? “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”

Paul says that, being justified by HIS faith, now we are at peace with God. But once we were enemies!

If we (his elect) were reconciled to God by Jesus Christ while we were YET ENEMIES, how is it that our infinite righteousness (imputed by the Father) can be revoked when he has already declared us justified, and we are at peace? Paul tells us in Galatians that if “right standing” could be achieved by the Law (or any other human action) then Christ died for nothing. Well, if continued right standing requires human “cooperation”, then Christ did indeed die in vain.

God is not a debtor. He doesn’t owe you a thing. If you are maintained in your own righteousness by your own endeavors then you are to be pitied. There is still an infinite gulf between your best day, and perfection. God has decreed permanent right standing for those of us who were IN HIM as he performed the duties of the high priest in heaven, going ONCE into the Holy of Holies, not without blood, to make propitiation for our sins (past, present and future). Just as when Adam sinned and his act of rebellion (through substitution) as our human high priest caused sin to pass upon all men, so our perfect High Priest ascended into the Holy of Holies in Heaven with all of His elect IN HIM, so that His righteousness would be imputed through His faith.

If righteousness is imputed. If justification is by faith alone. If God is the sole arbiter of who will and who will not be made perfect. Then the Prosperity and Manifestation gospel is a lie and a sham. It is all part of the last days apostasy. The reason that these people who perpetuate this garbage are so easily enchanted by the Papists is because they are all part of the same ecumenical heresy.

Our hero Job had this to say to his accusers, those foul men who demanded that he justify himself: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Job 19:25-26

A Just man will dwell in the habitation of those who have been declared just, he would not darken the door of those houses of manipulation that have become the habitation of every foul and wicked bird.

The ground has opened up, and out of the smoke we see hordes of evil locusts that fill the air. They are the preachers and pastors, those frocked friars of the new priesthood class holding the keys to heaven in one hand, and God’s chain in the other.

They have a king over them.

His name is Apollyon.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,