A lynchpin is something that holds together something else. For instance, a lynchpin is used to keep a wheel from flying off or something similar like that. There are two lynchpins that literally hold legalistic religion together. Remove these two pins and the wheels come off of man’s version of the Gospel and the true Gospel will be seen and accepted by the people with great joy.
The FIRST is understanding that neither Jesus nor the apostles ever taught that a believer must confess or name their sins daily, or even hourly, to get their sins continually cleansed so that fellowship with God can be continually restored. Fellowship with God is never broken for the believer, even when the believer sins, for we are cleansed and in union with Jesus by His blood, His one act of giving Himself in death for our sins, once for all time and eternity. Sin is not imputed to the believer because he is not under law but under grace.
The SECOND is that the believer is a new creation with a new heart and is perfectly and actually righteous and there is absolutely no sin in the new heart of the believer. That needs to be repeated: There is no sin in the new heart of the born again Christian. God made it so in order to join Himself to the believer in that new heart. The believer is not just “positionally righteous.” The believer is “actually righteous” by a creative act of God and through spiritual circumcision the new inner man of the believer has been separated from the flesh, the outer man, where the power of sin abides in the members of our body. God Himself is joined to the believer’s new heart through Jesus by the Holy Spirit. He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. As Jesus is so are we now in this world. (I John 4:17)
When these two truths are seen then the house of cards which legalistic religion built will come crashing down and Jesus will be glorified in His people. As Jesus said, “Not one stone shall be left upon another.” It shall all come crashing down to be replaced by a living expression of the life of Jesus in His people.
The true gospel destroys legalistic teaching but the true gospel is resisted and opposed by those who have a vested interest in promoting a legalism which serves their purposes and agenda.
A wise man once said that truth goes through three stages with people generally. First they mock it and ridicule it and even laugh at it. Secondly they oppose it and resist it and sometimes angrily persecute the messenger. Thirdly they see it, believe it and declare it to be self-evident and begin to promote the truth themselves. The apostle Paul went through these three stages himself but he lost all that he had invested in his religious world as a result. In response to his loss the apostle said he counted as “dung” all that he lost in that religious system, the friends, the prestige, the money, the position, the authority, the name recognition, all of it, in comparison to knowing Jesus.
James Barron