A Debt I Cannot Pay: A Study of God’s Plan to Save His People

By Robert S. Chambers

You are special because God created you that way!

A Debt I Cannot Pay is an inspiring and insightful spiritual guidebook and biblical commentary that focuses on the deep and abiding relationship God has with us, His children, and how He gave so much in His son in order for us to be with Him forever without sin and for eternity.

By highlighting the way for truth to transform our lives and restore our special relationship with the Creator, this book offers a message of genuine hope in a troubled world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512788266

Robert S. Chambers

Robert S. Chambers, PhD, is the founder of the website at www.TheTruthTransforms.com that provides multi-media resources for evangelism and Christian edification. His previous book, A Debt I Cannot Pay, is a study of God’s plan of salvation. He and his wife reside in New Mexico with their two daughters and four grandchildren and enjoy fishing and kayaking in Arkansas.

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Copyright © 2017 Robert S. Chambers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8825-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8827-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8826-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017907452

WestBow Press rev. date: 5/24/2017

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Humankind and Our Unique Relationship to the Creator

Chapter 2 The Source of All Spiritual Truth

Chapter 3 A Brief Overview of the Bible

Chapter 4 The Problem of Sin

Chapter 5 God’s Solution to the Problem of Sin

Chapter 6 The Path to Salvation Revealed by Jesus

Chapter 7 The Plan of Salvation Presented to Humankind

Chapter 8 How the Bible Defines a Saving Belief

Chapter 9 Water Baptism: Its Purpose and Meaning

Chapter 10 Living as a Disciple of Jesus

To Janet, my high school sweetheart, best friend, and beloved wife. Being the one who brought me to Christ, you patiently have stood by my side, helping me grow in the faith over all these years and making this book possible.

Preface

The task of writing a book is not something I take lightly. There are many questions that must be answered first, not the least of which is who needs another book? Certainly, the Bible is sufficient, and any worthwhile spiritual insight must be based on biblical teaching. Otherwise, it is useless at best or, even worse, harmful. So, what is my motivation for writing a book? The title really says it all: A Debt I Cannot Pay. Finally, I have grasped the enormity of the debt that Jesus paid to secure the path to eternal life for humankind. With that heightened awareness, it is no longer possible for me to neglect my responsibility to share this good news with those who have not embraced God’s gracious gift. Moreover, I believe there are five good reasons why I am well suited to write about what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.

First, I have a passion for teaching the truth of the gospel. After many years of wearing the name of Christ, I finally get it. Souls are at risk. Heaven and hell are real, and what we believe does matter. To the extent I am able to help people understand the true nature of God, His relationship with humankind, what He has done for us, and why things are the way they are, I am adding value. This is particularly important because there are so many false teachings in the world today. My hope is this treatment of the subject will motivate readers to test their beliefs against the consistent message of the Bible.

Second, my religious background has taken me from the doctrines and worship practiced in denominational Christianity to the teaching and patterns revealed by God through the inspired writings of the New Testament. Recognizing the inconsistencies between the two and submitting to God’s way over my way was not an easy transition. Having been there and done that equips me to help lead people to a better way based on God’s truth and revelation.

Third, I address the subject from the perspective of an analytic personality with the mind-set of an engineer and scientific researcher. I say that not to brag about my credentials but to account for the book’s structured approach to the study of biblical truth. God’s plan for humankind has been examined starting from the beginning, taking nothing for granted, developing the spiritual concepts from scratch, and trying to describe what God has done and explain why and how He did it. Often, these things are glossed over as a matter of blind faith without taking advantage of the insight revealed from all the scriptures. I believe the more we know, the better off we are—and the stronger our faith becomes.

The fourth reason I wrote this book was to communicate to my family and friends what I believe and why I believe it. Over the years, I have made significant changes in my religious beliefs and my life. I used to think religious details didn’t matter as long as you loved God and believed in Jesus. I have learned that this is not true. God expects us to honor Him and treat Him as holy by submitting to His will. When we deviate from His teachings and patterns, we are usurping the authority of God and assuming we have the right to do so. That has never been true, and the Bible is filled with many examples of those who have opted to do so and suffered the consequences. To remain strong, we must own our faith, knowing what we believe and why we believe it.

Finally, I want to share my ideas about how to teach the gospel of Christ. The general flow through the ten chapters of the book systematically develops the essential ingredients needed to present God’s plan of salvation. Care has been taken to provide sufficient background to appeal to those who are generally unfamiliar with the tenets of Christianity. In addition, there are specific chapters dealing in more detail with the subtleties arising from the roles of belief and baptism. These topics often become stumbling blocks in the pursuit of biblical truth. To make it easier for readers to follow the logical development of topics in each chapter of the book, scriptures are referenced and frequently quoted. This is a deliberate attempt to minimize the distraction created by having to stop repeatedly and look up each verse as it is cited within the text.

Our pursuit of truth must never end. We will continue to grow as long as we feed on God’s Word. It is what distinguishes true disciples. My hope and prayer is this book will accomplish three things for the reader: (1) bring about a greater understanding of God’s plan to save His people, (2) justify the importance of using all scripture to arrive at spiritual truth, and (3) convict hearts to submit to God’s will even if it means giving up past beliefs based on the traditions and doctrines of men. May God soften our hearts and grant us the will to submit our lives to Him.

Acknowledgments

There are two men who have had a profound influence on my spiritual life. The first is W. N. (Bill) Jackson who preached and taught where we worshipped at the Southwest Church of Christ in Austin, Texas. A man of great intellect, Bill was a powerful preacher, teacher, writer, and debater who had a remarkable love for the Lord. He taught me the importance of studying the Bible.

The second man who impacted my life so deeply is George Carman. I met George when he came to preach at the Netherwood Park Church of Christ in Albuquerque, New Mexico. George ignited my passion for evangelism. I especially thank him for reviewing this manuscript. I am truly blessed to have known these faithful men of the Lord.

Finally, I would like to thank Ron Bland for the many teaching opportunities he has created by inviting others to hear the message of Jesus.

CHAPTER 1

Humankind and Our Unique Relationship to the Creator

To fully understand our relationship with God, we must return to the beginning. The very first verse in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis 1:1, states, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That single verse establishes three important biblical principles:

1. Our physical universe has not always existed.

2. The heavens and earth and everything in them came into being by an act of creation.

3. The cause behind this creative act (the effect) is an entity called God.

These principles are supported by New Testament scriptures as well.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (John 1:1–3)

From the context of Genesis 1 and John 1, it is abundantly clear that these verses are describing the absolute beginning of all physical things. This includes space, matter, and all associated forms of energy. Moreover, the terminology in the beginning establishes the start of a timeline that heretofore simply did not exist.

It should not be surprising that these are difficult concepts to grasp. After all, creation was a unique event attributed to the workings of God through an intervention that is no longer observable. Often overlooked is the fact that time itself is a created entity and has meaning only in the physical realm. To better comprehend this point, consider the natural description of moving objects. By definition, the speed of a body is simply the distance covered during some time span. For example, a car driven at thirty miles per hour travels a distance of thirty miles in one hour. In equation form, this generally can be written as the following:

Image1.jpg

The necessity of the physical entities of space, matter, and energy to support the existence of time can be seen by manipulating the previous equation to express time as a function of distance and speed:

Image2.jpg

In this representation, time is defined by moving an object at constant speed over some prescribed distance. Since distance requires space to register a change in position, and since speed involves energy moving matter, by definition, we know that time is based on the existence of all three entities—space, matter, and energy. These are the fundamental quantities involved in the creation of the physical realm as described in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1–3.

Additional support for the principles of creation is found in Hebrews 11:3: By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. This verse reveals that the physical universe and everything in it were not made out of visible things that were already present. In other words, our universe and its components have not always existed. Rather, all things came into existence out of nothingness (ex nihilo creation), and this all happened in response to the will and Word of God (fiat creation). These facts reveal some additional information about the cause responsible for the creation. First of all, God is not and cannot be some incredible physical being. This is because Hebrews 11:3 says, What is seen was not made out of things which are visible. The visible universe was not made from or by existing visible things, and a physical creator would be limited to doing just that. If what is seen was not made out of visible things, then all had to arise from another realm—a realm controlled by God.

So,