Whatever circumcision that certain people were trying to push on the Philippian church, Paul did the original one. And when it comes to tribal affiliation, Paul says he is unsurpassed.

So we have his heritage and the way he lived. But he was making the point that his heritage is nothing, and the way he lived was nothing, because

• all have sinned (Romans 3:23)
• and we can only be justified with God through faith in Jesus (Romans 3:23-24, 5:1)
• because it pleases God to bring life and immortality to light through Jesus (2 Timothy 1:10).
• and through Him the truth is proclaimed.

Since Jesus is the truth, any spirituality and connection with God apart from him is false (John 14:6). That is the truth.

Paul said he is from the people of Israel, and that was very important to him. But he would later say it means nothing in the grand scheme of things (Philippians 3:7), where God is calling everyone to faith in Christ as the way to salvation.

His heritage was not enough, nor was His lifestyle. Jesus was very clear that there is only life through Him.

Jesus introduced the concept of faith during his life, in which people act on the reality of the unseen, on the word of God, and on the light of the word of God in Christ.

And that action is to “come to Jesus.” Not to come to Him with a list of what qualifies you, but to be qualified by Jesus Himself, who died for us.

Come to him. That is all there is to do. But that message is harder than you think, because we have been programmed, and life itself is set up to be about people qualifying for things.

But not in Christ. The only “qualification,” if we want to call it that, is the faith to come to the one you cannot see. But that faith is a gift from God, which means God qualifies you.

While the Old Testament is filled with sacrifice after sacrifice. In Christ, what we learn is that with one sacrifice, Christ has perfected forever through those who believe (Hebrews 10:14). There is nothing else to do for salvation. Only believe. This is a hard message to preach because people will accuse you of saying that people can keep sinning and be okay. To continue to sin as your default, the bible says, means you are not saved.

In Christ:

• We are not just brought to the presence of God, but the presence of God is brought into us permanently (John 14:16-17, 23).
• We are not searching for God, since we are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-5), but God has come to search for us in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
• We are called to eat of the banquet that has been prepared (Isaiah 25:6, Matthew 22:2-4), rather than go try to get things on our own (Isaiah 55:1-3).
• We are called to rest from the labor and the heavyweight of the requirements of the gods, or the law (Matthew 11:28-30), or what we can mentally come up with, or even demonically-inspired dreams.

Paul called himself a Hebrew of Hebrews because he was the purest Hebrew. He checks all the boxes, meets all the qualifications, so to speak.

So who better to tell you that no, those things do not count in the ultimate schemes of things, and no, those things can fuel to pride before God who is calling us to humbly accept the sacrifice of his son.

In this verse, Paul begins listing his human qualifications. But such things count for nothing before God, is what he was saying. It could count as something before men, but not before God.

But people have depended on such things to make them qualify for God’s favor, and it’s difficult to wean them from them. Those things have an emotional, self-congratulatory quality. Do you see?

And sometimes people want to hedge their bets. They say I will believe in Jesus, and I will also put some of my trust in this other thing for salvation, just to be on the safer side.

But it would not work. It is either we trust in Christ and Him alone, or we go on our own, trusting our credentials and treating Christ as another credential.

Paul is saying that if it is about qualifications, you cannot be more qualified than I am. And Paul, writing by the Spirit, is saying it does not work.

But the inward programming of trusting in ourselves is very strong. Hence, the need to continually hear the gospel and to be among a company of people where the clear gospel is preached and not something else, where we are being called not to trust in ourselves but in Christ.

And that is why we have the bible. The Old Testament shows that God appeared to Moses, but the people still could not make the standard.

And we have in the New Testament the watershed moment of

• The coming of the Son of God,
• who died and rose again from the dead (we died in Him, shedding sin, and rose up in Him wearing His righteousness [Romans 6:3-5])
• so that we can be brought into His presence, covered by the righteousness of His Son as a gift
• where the only law now is belief in Jesus.

While the old does not guarantee anything, the new has a double guarantee.

• Christ is the one who died for our sins.
• And He is the one who is alive now interceding for us before the Father, who always hears Him (Hebrews 7:25).

He is both the sacrifice and the one who brought the sacrifice to the father (Hebrews 9:12); He is the only intermediary between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).

Paul did not make himself into an intermediary, but rather pointed attention to Jesus, and that is what we should do.

We should not have:

• a religion where Christ is repeatedly offered, and we have a mediation of priests
• or a system of religion/rituals that says it is the ark of God

The ark of God is one person - Christ. Remember that in Revelation 2-3, Jesus rebuked the churches for their imperfections. Therefore, churches cannot be the Ark. The Ark is Jesus. All glory to Him.

All my titles (ebooks) on Amazon are free from Tuesday to Saturday.

• The Lord’s Prayer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FZF42V6L​
• Zeal for God’s House: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FP2QB5G5​
• Rejecting Money-For-Blessings Schemes in the Church: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FHF9TVFB​
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From Addiction to Freedom by Favour Oyinloye

Daily Episodes of 5-minute Truth Broadcast on Youtube

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This book lays out the case for the Sufficiency of Scripture, arguing that it is enough to define the life and practice of Christians and the church. It pushes back against both subtle and blatant violations of this tenet, including Tradition, Imagination, Divination, Emotion, Revelations, and Visions (TIDER).
Join the author as he explains:
Passages that prohibit adding to or removing from God’s word.
Scripture has a special quality that sets it apart from anything else that has ever been written or will ever be written.
The need for humility so that we can separate our biases from the truth.
There are consequences for either adding to or removing from God’s word.
How Jesus and Paul argued for the Sufficiency of Scripture.
How the devil is the enemy of the Sufficiency of Scripture, and humans willingly cooperate with him for different reasons.
How, “The Scriptures, as a fixed set of documents, is a shared body of agreed reference that defines the contours of truth,” and not the preacher’s charisma or eloquence.
Holding to the Sufficiency of Scripture one day doesn’t mean the preacher will always do so, hence the call for carefulness.
Why it’s wrong to pit one passage of Scripture against another.
That “humans have been building up reasonings apart from and against the light of God’s truth for centuries.”
Take the journey to deepen your understanding and appreciation for the Sufficiency of Scripture.

The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved