I'm always keeping my ears peeled for new heroes of the faith - essentially those who are teaching as near a 100% grace message as possible. During his "Established in the Gift of Righteousness" series Rob Rufus mentioned an "
Andrew Wommack" who I hadn't heard of before. But I happened to be on one of my weekly Christian bookshop searches and found one of his books; "The War is Over!". I was massively impressed!
Since then I've brought
another book that I am reading at the moment on prayer. Prayer is an area I am really trying to gain a new perspective on. I've done it legalistically most of my life and seen very few answers to prayer. Now is the day to see how it's done through grace! So I am also reading a book on prayer by Bill Johnson's wife Beni called "
The Happy Intercessor". Back to Andrew Wommack - he has a very useful and helpful website. The one feature I really like on it is his Bible commentary.
Andrew has worked carefully through verses in the New Testament offering commentary on them from a grace perspective. It is my hope that after time the "
Rob Rufus Grace and Glory Bible" will reflect something of this! An example of Andrew's commentary is from
Romans 5:13; "
For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law". He comments;
"Paul said that until the time that the law was given, sin was not imputed unto men. As explained in note 6 at Romans 4:3, p. 762, the most used Greek word for impute is "logizomai" which is an accounting term meaning that God was not entering men's sins in the account book ... Most people have interpreted God's dealings with man after the sin of Adam to be immediate rejection and banishment from His presence. In other words, an immediate imputing of man's sins. However, Paul is stating just the opposite. God was not holding men's sins against them until the time that the law of Moses was given. With this in mind, it should change the way we think about God's dealings with man between the fall and the giving of the law. Adam and Eve were not driven from the Garden of Eden because God could not stand them in His presence anymore. God's dealings with Adam and Eve and their children in Genesis 4 prove His presence was still with them. The reason He drove them from Eden is clearly stated in Genesis 3:22- 23. It was to keep them from eating of the tree of life and living forever. Instead of this being a punitive act, it was actually an act of mercy. It would have been terrible for man to live forever in a sinful body, subject to all the emotions and diseases that sin brings. God had a better plan through Jesus.
So, for the first 2,000 years after man's fall (approximate time between fall and the giving of the law) God was not holding man's sins against them. That is why Abram was not killed for marrying his half sister and Jacob for marrying his wife's sister (see note 3 at Rom. 4:15, p. 765).
Therefore, we can see that God's immediate reaction to man's sin was mercy and not judgment. It was over 2,000 years before God began to impute man's sins unto them and according to Galatians 3:19 ,23-24, that was only a temporary way of dealing with sin until Jesus could come. Through Jesus, God is once again reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing men's sins unto them (2 Cor. 5:19)".
And that's just an example of one verse from one chapter from one book!
It's so exciting to have another awesome resource to help explain and unpack the true glories of the Word of God. There are no verses we need to be "afraid" of anymore - no exegetical fallacies! It's all good and it's all God!
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