Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program. Now,
today's message is one in a series of messages that are meant to
accompany a new book that we're offering free of charge. The
book is entitled, What is a Christian? It's entitled, What is a Christian?
A Biblical Study of the One True Faith. Now, today's message is
the fifth message in that series. And what we're doing is going
through the chapters of the book, and I'm preaching these messages
accompany the chapters of the book. And the chapter today deals
with this question, who were the first Christians? Who were
the very first Christians? And I want you to think about
that. But what this book, What is a Christian, and these messages
that'll be available on DVD and CD, they're meant to be an exercise
for people who claim to be Christians to examine themselves whether
they be in the faith as per the commandment of God in 2 Corinthians
chapter 13 and verse five. Examine yourselves whether you
be in the faith, the Christian faith. I claim to be a Christian,
and you may claim to be a Christian. Well, are you really a Christian?
Am I really a Christian? And what I want us to do is to
make certain that we test that claim by the truths that are
set forth in the Bible. You see, if I claim to be a Christian,
it really doesn't matter what other people think as far as
validating that. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm
not saying it's not important what other people think of me.
I'm very aware of that. But if I'm going to validate
my claim of being a Christian and have the assurance of salvation. I need to know from the Bible
what a Christian is and what a Christian is not. Man's opinion
really has no bearing here. My own opinion has no bearing.
Outward appearance really has no bearing. Now it is important
how we appear outwardly, that we do not deny our faith with
our behavior. But what I'm saying here, and
this is important because we need to have the right mindset.
I want to take the claim that I have of being a Christian,
and I want to test it by the word of God and see if it stands
true. And that's what I want you to
do. So understand that. Now the book, What is a Christian,
goes into much, much more depth than the messages that I'm preaching.
The messages just sort of give you an overview, but they're
messages that are intended to put you through the test of self-examination
too. But I urge you, like I said,
we offer the book free of charge, we offer these messages on DVD
and CD free of charge. So what is a Christian? Now,
this is the fifth message, as I said, and the title of this
chapter is, Who Were the First Christians? Now, some of the
most common errors and false views of Christianity come from
people who say things like this. They'll say, if you study all
the major religions of the world, that Christianity is one of the
youngest, if not the youngest, because it's only about 2,000
years old. What they mean by that is that
Christianity did not really begin until Jesus Christ, who is the
person, the center, the foundation, and the truth of Christianity
did not come into the world until a little over 2,000 years ago
and do his work and teach his teaching on earth in that time. And so they'll say, well, Christianity
is one of the youngest, or if not the youngest of all religions. Well, that's not true. And I'm
gonna show you that from the Bible. The second error or fallacy
that people have is, and I've heard this said by many who claim
to be Christian preachers. And they'll say that Christianity
is an offshoot of Old Testament Judaism. And that is not true. and i'm going to show you that
from the bible and the first point that i want you to understand
about christianity if we're going to test our claim by the bible
and if we're going to understand what a christian is and what
a christian is not is this and listen to this very carefully
true christianity has its origins in what the bible calls the everlasting
covenant of grace made before the world was created. Did you
understand that? Christianity, the truth of Christianity
now, was established in eternity before the world was created.
And I wanna prove that to you from the Bible. If you've got
your Bibles and you wanna follow along, look at the book of Ephesians
chapter one. Ephesians chapter one. And verse
three, and listen to what God the Holy Spirit inspired the
Apostle Paul to write here. He says, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Now that shows
that all the blessings of salvation are in Christ, conditioned on
him, they come from him. Verse four, listen to this. According
as He, God, hath chosen us in Him. Chosen who? Talking about
His chosen people. Chosen us in Him, in Christ,
look at this, before the foundation of the world. Now when the Bible
says before the foundation of the world, that means before
God laid the foundation in creation. Before creation. He says that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. That's
the whole purpose of it. God chose a people in Christ
before the foundation of the world, and His goal was that
they should be holy and without blame before Him in love. So it was God's love that sent
Christ to do for His people what they could not do for themselves.
Look at verse 5. Listen to this, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. Now there's predestination. I
tell people all the time, I had a fellow call me one time and
he said, I don't believe that predestination. And I asked him,
I said, well, where did that word come from? Because the first
time I ever confronted the word predestinated was right here
in Ephesians chapter one and in other places in the Bible.
predestinated, that's what the Bible says. That God's people
predestinated us, were predestinated unto the adoption of children,
that's the adoption of grace by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. Look at verse six, to the praise
of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved. Accepted in Christ. So there
it tells us right there that God chose a people in Christ
before the foundation of the world. So Christ, who is God
the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who has no beginning
and no end, has always been, as appointed in the purpose and
mind of God, the Savior of His people. And then look at what
the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write over in
the book of Second Timothy, chapter one. And this is verse nine,
and the Apostle Paul, he's writing to Timothy, and he speaks of
the gospel of God, verse nine, who hath saved us and called
us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose and grace, now listen to this, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. And in verse
10, he says, but is now made manifest by the appearing of
our savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
In other words, in the mind and purpose of God, before the world
began, He chose a people in Christ and purposed in His sovereign
will to save them based upon what Christ would do in coming
to earth in time. And that's made known to them,
not only by the appearing of Christ on earth in the fullness
of the time God sent forth His Son, but also in the preaching
of the gospel. So the gospel is the preaching
of the terms and the promises and the fulfillment of an everlasting
covenant of grace. All of this in the everlasting
covenant of grace made before time, before the world began. Paul wrote in the book of Titus
chapter one and verse two of the hope of eternal life, which
God that cannot lie promised before the world began. Peter
wrote about it. He spoke of how we're redeemed.
The true Christians, the people of God, are redeemed with the
precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot who was verily foreordained before the foundation of the
world, but was manifest in these last times. You see, salvation,
that is communicated, that is accomplished in the way of Christianity,
Christian truth, Christian doctrine, is older than this world. Do you understand that? That's
an amazing truth, isn't it? It's really mind-boggling. But
it shows you why True Christians are convinced that Christianity
is the one true faith. It's older than creation itself.
It's older than the fall, the fall of man into sin. You know,
we talk about how the Bible teaches that God created the world and
he set man in the world. And he, all of that God created
was good, but man fell. He fell into sin and death. He
disobeyed God and we all fell in Adam. We're ruined by the
fall. But before that fall took place, God had already established
the one way of salvation through the blood of his son who would
come in time and who would accomplish salvation for his people. So
that's the first thing that we need to understand about Christianity. Who were the first Christians
now? Well, let's go on. Over in the book of Genesis,
chapter three, in talking about the fall of man, here's the next
thing you need to understand. Not only is Christianity the
product of the everlasting covenant of grace made before the world
began, the first promise of the Messiah, who is the Christ of
Christianity is found in the book of Genesis chapter three
and verse 15 in the promised seed of woman. Now, if you have
your Bibles, look at Genesis 3, 15. Now you know what happened,
Adam fell and he and Eve, they were ashamed, they were aware
of their nakedness, they were ashamed of their nakedness and
understand that now that nakedness in the Bible is a symbol of being
found guilty and without righteousness, naked and open to the wrath of
God. And then God spoke three curses. He spoke a curse upon the serpent,
on Satan, a curse upon the woman and a curse upon the man. And
in Genesis 3, 15, when he was pronouncing his curse upon Satan,
here's what he says in verse 15. He says, and I will put enmity,
That is friction, hatred, between thee, that is Satan, and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now who's that talking
about? Well, most commentators will
agree. That woman's seed there is talking about the Messiah,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God and man in one person. And you understand there that
woman has no seed, man has the seed, but you see Messiah would
not be born of man. He's born of woman. You see the
scripture says in Galatians chapter four that in the fullness of
the time, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law. Christ, the God-man,
the Messiah, was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by
the Holy Spirit. A virgin shall conceive and bear
a son. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. And even though
he would suffer and bleed and die, and that's indicated in
Genesis 3.15 of how the serpent will bruise his heel, Now he's
gonna crush his heel. Now what that is, that symbolic
language talking about, yes, he will suffer, he will bleed,
he will die, but that won't be the end of him because he will
be raised again the third day. Because in his suffering unto
death, there's the accomplishment, the establishment of righteousness. But in that transaction, in that
great work, he would bruise, crush Satan's head. That's the death blow. So what
this is speaking of is the promise of the coming Messiah. That's
back in Genesis 3.15. Now this is why I mentioned earlier
that some people say, well, Christianity is an offshoot of Old Testament
Judaism. Oh no. Christianity is older
than Judaism. We've already established before
the foundation of the world. And here's the first promise
of grace in Genesis 3, 315, before there was any Judaism. And if
you look over in Genesis 3, in verse 20, after he pronounces
the curse upon Satan, the curse upon the woman, the curse upon
the man, he says in Genesis 3, in verse 20, he says, and Adam
called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Now up until that point, Eve's name was not Eve. Her name was
just simply Woman. That was her name. But now she's
called Eve, which was the mother of all living. Now here's the
point. If you think about this, when
Adam fell, what did Adam bring into the world and bring upon
all mankind? Sin and death. The wages of sin
is death. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. God is a just God. He told Adam,
He said, In the day that you eat thereof, dying thou shalt
die. So Adam brought death. There
was no life. So how is there going to be life
from the dead? Well, the promise of the Messiah
in Genesis 3.15, the woman's seed is going to crush Satan's
head. And he's going to come from woman. Again, conceived
in the womb of the Virgin. So now Eve is called the mother
of all living. She could have never been called
the mother of all living apart from the promise of Christ, the
Messiah. Because without Him, she's the
mother of all dead. We're all born dead in trespasses
and sins, the scripture says. Ruined by the fall. We come forth
from the womb speaking lies. That doesn't mean that a little
baby tells a lie, but what it does mean is he's spiritually
dead. He does not have spiritual life that would glorify God. Somebody asked me, he said, well,
now, wait a minute. He hasn't reached the age of
accountability. How can you say that? Well, let me ask you this.
Have you ever known anybody in the history of mankind who hasn't
sinned when they came to what people call an age of accountability?
We're all sinners. Why is that? Somebody says, well,
it's just because we all choose to sin. Well, we do choose to
sin, but that's because we're spiritually dead in trespasses
and sin. That's the nature of man, you
see. But how can there be life from
the dead then? Through Christ. And then in Genesis
3.21, listen to this. It says that unto Adam also and
to his wife did the Lord make coats of skin and clothed them. Coats of skins and clothed them. Now what do you have to do to
make a coat of skin? You have to kill an animal. You
have to shed blood. And then you skin him and the
coat comes off. Now what that is, that was a
symbol of what sin demands. Sin reigns unto death. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no forgiveness of sin. So all of this speaks, number
one, of the death of Jesus Christ as the surety and substitute
of his people to satisfy the justice of God's law, which could
only be satisfied through death. Now, the blood of an animal could
not bring salvation to sinners. But the blood of the Lamb of
God, you see, that was a type, that was a picture of the death
of Christ, the Lamb of God, shedding His blood, satisfying God's justice
unto death. And that was back in Genesis
3. The second thing that that symbolizes
is the righteousness accomplished by the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that righteousness which God imputed, charged, accounted
to His people for their justification. That's the coat of skin. This
is the very righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel. and
it's imputed, it's charged, accounted, reckoned to their account so
that they might be justified before God. And from what follows
in Genesis four of Cain and Abel, we can know that what's recorded
in Genesis 321 was the establishment and initiation of the sacrificial
system of worship through the blood of animals. Symbolizing,
these were symbolic elements testifying of the one and only
way that God saves sinners. by grace through Jesus Christ
our Lord. You see, Christianity, if you
want to call it a religion, I prefer not to. But it's the oldest religion. It's the only true religion.
It's older than the world. It was revealed at the beginning. And we can read in the New Testament
passages like Hebrews chapter 11, the Hall of Faith, they call
it, talking about the Old Testament saints and how they looked where
for their salvation, for their righteousness, for their forgiveness. Not to their works, but to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11, 13 says, It says, these all died in the
faith, the Christian faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and
embraced them and confessed that they were what the Bible says
they were. You see, this is the whole thing.
Talk about Noah. The Bible says in Genesis 6-8
that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. You see, salvation
has always been by grace. It's never been any other way.
The law of Moses was not given as a way of salvation by works.
It was given to show them their sin. and the impossibility of
salvation by their works, and to show them that if they were
going to be saved, if they were going to be justified, if they
were going to be forgiven, if they were going to be righteous,
it had to be by grace, unearned, unmerited, undeserved, and conditioned
on the promised Messiah, the woman seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, for example, in Hebrews
11 and verse seven, we read that by faith Noah being warned of
God of things not seen as yet moved with fear, he prepared
an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the
world. And listen to this, he became heir of the righteousness
which is by faith. That's how Noah was justified.
It wasn't by his work, it's the righteousness which is by faith.
Now, what is the righteousness which is by faith? It's the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the merits, the goodness, the value
of his obedience unto death as the surety and substitute of
his people. When we talk about Abraham, what
did the Lord himself say in John 8 and verse 56 concerning Abraham? He told the Pharisees, he says,
your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it
and was glad. Abraham was a Christian. Noah
was a Christian. Abel was a Christian. I believe
Adam and Eve knew the gospel and believed it because they
taught it to their boys, Cain and Abel. Abel believed it, Cain
didn't. Abel had the gift of faith, Cain
didn't. But these were the first Christians,
folks. It didn't start in 2,000 years
ago. Now, the New Testament began
about 2,000 years ago when Christ came and lived and died, was
buried and rose the third day. He accomplished his great work
in time 2,000 years ago, but the truth of it was established
before the world began. Christ told the Pharisees in
John chapter five and verse 39, he says, search the scriptures
for in them you think you have eternal life. He said, they are
they which testify of me and you will not come to me that
you might have life. He said, I receive not honor
from men, but I know you that you have not the love of God
in you. He said in verse 43 of John 5, I am come in my father's
name and you receive me not. If another shall come in his
own name, him you will receive. But look at verse 44, he says,
how can you believe which receive honor one of another and seek
not the honor that cometh from God only? So do not think, he
said, that I will accuse you to the Father. There's one that
accuseth you, listen to it, even Moses, in whom you trust. Verse 46, had you believed Moses,
you would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if you believe
not his writings, how shall you believe my words? You see, Moses
was a Christian. All of these Old Testament believers,
all of these Old Testament saints, they were Christians. The Old
Testament, like the New Testament, is a book of Jesus Christ and
the way of salvation by God's grace in Him. That's what Christ
taught His disciples before He ascended into glory. Over in
the book of Luke, chapter 24, verse 27, He sat down with His
disciples And it says, And beginning at
Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself. And over in Luke 24,
verse 44, he sat down with them. He said unto them, These are
the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law
of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning
me, and it says then, he opened their understanding that they
might understand the scriptures. And he said unto them, thus it
is written, and thus it behoove Christ to suffer, to rise from
the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin
should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem. That's the issue of Christianity
and it's older than anything. It's older than the world. Christ
was set up as the surety and the substitute of his people
from the beginning. Who were the first Christians?
Go back to Genesis and read the Word. I hope you'll join us next
week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, Write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
by phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.