DEWITT TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES

“Born-Again

Unto Righteousness”

By C.W. Wood                                                       November 2013

   PERSONAL NOTE: A very thoughtful and emotional thanks to all of our prayer partners and faithful supporters.  The only way I can possibly reach you all is by this personal note to you in the monthly sermons.  The Lord knows your names and He has your address.  He will reward you here and now because you support His End-Time Message.

                                                                                                                In Christian Love,

                                                                                                                    Br. C.W. Wood

INTRODUCTION TO “BORN-AGAIN UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS”: The revelations out of our End-Time Message are still coming!  This revelation I will speak of, some have it and some do not, but it is very important.  It is concerning our faith for the Rapture.  And faith for the Rapture is one thing we will all need, if we go up in it!  This message involves something God has already done for us, but it takes a revelation for us to see it, like everything else!  It’s like having money in the bank that you don’t know is there.  But, when you find out it’s there, you can write a check on it.  I’ll tell you where I am going with the sermon so when we get through, you can write a check (if you haven’t already).  The revelation is: “All Born-again people have been declared righteous as God is.  This came with the New Birth!”

   Romans 5:17-19, “For if by faith one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness  shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

   Verse 18, Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto Justification of life.

   Verse 19, For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”

   Our text here is speaking of “The Gift of Righteousness.”  It says, “They which receive it shall reign (or rule) in life by, or through, Jesus Christ.  And in verse 18 our text says, “Judgment came on us all because of one man’s sin (Adam).”  Now, if that was all that our text says, then God would not be fair, because He judged us all guilty because of what Adam did, and we had nothing to do with causing Adam to sin.  But, our text does not stop there.  It goes on to tell us that in order to maintain His total Righteousness, He had to make a way for all Believers to become righteous and that He would use one man to bring that to pass also.  (Jesus Christ)

   So, here is what God’s plan was, and it’s:  We had two representatives, first Adam and second Adam.  Adam represented the human race, and by his sin, we were all born with his fallen nature and were lost.  But then we had another representative.  His name was Jesus Christ!  He was the second Adam.  And verse 19 says that by His life and perfect obedience, we would all be considered righteous when we believe the Plan!

   Now, the purpose of my sermon is to show just what this “Gift of Righteousness” is.  We want to know who has it and how they got it, because our text also says that all who have this Gift are justified for life.  That is to say they are made totally free from sin for Eternity.  Do we remember what our Prophet said the word “justified” means?  He said it means that God sees us as if we had never sinned.  Br. Pearry Green heard that Br. Branham had done some wrong things and he went to Br. Branham and said, “Br. Branham, I forgive you for doing those things!”  Br. Branham replied, “You can’t forgive me because I did not do the things that you heard I did!  If I had done them you could forgive me, but I didn’t do them in the first place so I have no need for forgiveness.”  Then the Prophet explained, that when God justifies us through the man Jesus Christ, it is in God’s mind just as if we had never been guilty of sin!

   Heb 8:12, “….For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sins no more.”

   So our text says “By the obedience of one man (Jesus) shall many be made righteous.”  Br. Branham got this teaching that we are bringing out from the Apostle Paul.  When Paul had received the revelation concerning Righteousness, he said, “For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.”  Rom. 7:15) And, in Rom. 7:17, he said, “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”  Paul was saying that God was no longer charging sin to him, because he hated it!  (So do we, if we are Born-Again)  Paul was teaching that after his New Birth, and after the revelation that the Gift of Righteousness is what the New Birth is, that he was as innocent as if he had never sinned in the first place!

   Now, we are back to the question, “What is this Gift of Righteousness and how do you get it?”  Here is the great revelation.  The Gift of Righteousness is the same as the New Birth!  (They came together!)  The New Birth is to be born into the Kingdom of God.  And in the Kingdom of God there is no unrighteousness.

   1 Cor. 6:9, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God?”  Can we hear what this verse is saying?  It is saying, “There is no unrighteousness in the Kingdom of God.”

   Now, let’s follow the thought here of the Holy Ghost.  The Bible says, “The Kingdom of God dwells in you.”  That is to say, if we are in Christ Jesus, then Christ dwells in us by His Spirit!  And when His Spirit (the Holy Ghost) is in us, then we are in God’s Kingdom, because His Kingdom is in us!  So what is His Kingdom?  It’s His Spirit which is the Holy Ghost, which has come into us bringing the Gift of Righteousness with Him.  It is a free Gift, which is our New Soul, which is the New Birth, which is the Holy Ghost!  And the old sinning soul died when God’s New Soul came into us and slayed it.  And the New Soul, which is God’s Spirit, hates sin, and cannot sin, because it is the Seed of God!  1John 3:9, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed (God’s Seed, God’s Soul) remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”  Can you hear what this verse is saying to us?  Notice!  He cannot sin because he is born of God!  In God’s mind, the New Birth makes it impossible for us to sin (Because the new soul hates sin)!  And so, the Scripture and the Prophet teach that when we are Born-Again, our struggle to become righteous should be over, because the New Birth means The Free Gift has been given.  We have been given God’s Soul, and His Soul cannot sin because it’s God’s own Spirit!

   At one time, a few years ago, I was accused of being a two-soul preacher.  A friend of mine said, “I have two soles, one on each foot!”  Well in that sense I have two soles also, but I have a New Soul that is not on my feet, but is somewhere in my chest!  Br. Branham taught that the old soul that we were born with at our physical birth was not from God and that it dies when God replaces it with His Soul!  Some people have made a joke out of the Two Soul teaching, and I know some of the teaching is wrong.  But, I want to say this loud and clear, so all can hear it, “I am a Two-Soul Preacher!  I can prove with the Scripture and with the Prophet’s Message that the human beings were all born with the wrong soul!  And we need it to die so we can receive the one from God.  The Bible says in Ezekiel 18:20, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” And so, every soul, born from the linage of Adam, has sinned.  And God said, because the soul of us all has sinned, those souls must die!  We want to show by the Message that the soul we were born with at our physical birth, was not from God, but came from Lucifer, to the Serpent to Eve, then to us!

   QUOTE: “SOULS THAT ARE IN PRISON NOW”, PAGE 7, “Now this, ‘Souls now in Prison’…’Souls that are now in Prison.’  Now the soul of man is not the body of man, it’s the soul; and the soul is something that’s the nature of the spirit, and then when the nature of a man…when He said, ‘We are dead,’ the Scripture plainly tells us that we are dead, and our lives are hid in God through Christ; sealed there by the Holy Spirit.

   Now, it wasn’t that your body died.  It wasn’t your spirit died.  It was the nature of your spirit died, see.  The nature, which is the soul.  The nature of your soul is God, if you’re Born-Again.  If it’s not, it’s of the world.

   Anything that begins has to end.  So therefore, the only way that you can have Eternal Life is to have a life that never did begin.  And then your life did begin when you were born.

   When God breathed the breath of life into your nostrils, and you became a living soul, then you begin then.  But, when you…That nature that was in you (that nature of old soul that was in you), by nature you was of the world, alienated from God.  You were actually an animal.  That’s exactly right.  Anyone knows that we’re mammal.”  (End of Quote)

  The nature of your soul is God if you are Born-Again, or it’s of the world!

   QUOTE: JESUS CHRIST THE SAME, “He was our redeemer to redeem us.  Yes Sir.  Even this old body, when it dies, like our soul dies, and our spirit is Born-Again, we’re new creatures.  (We’ve) got Eternal Life forever, forever, we never die with Eternal Life.  You can’t.  It’s Eternal, “ZOE”; God’s own life can’t die (The New Soul can’t die.”)  (End of quote)

   QUOTE; YOU MUST BE BORN- AGAIN, PAGES14-15, “We are all born in sin and shaped in iniquity, there’ not a sound parcel of us.  Our minds are bad, our soul is corruptible, our constant thinking is evil, every imaginary thought of a man’s mind is evil, a sinner, and also that our body is weak, our spirit is no good, and we’re just full of corruption.”  (End of Quote)

   I want to nail it down that the Prophet taught that the old soul we were born with has to die in order for us to have Eternal Life.  He said, “When the Holy Spirit comes in you and you are Born-Again, it changes your spirit, or converts your spirit to a different soul! Let’s read this in the Message.

    QUOTE:  C.O.D. BK... PAGE 679,   “The soul is the nature of your spirit.  When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, it changes, or converts your spirit to a different soul….I’ll call it that (I’ll call it Spirit), but it’s your soul that’s been changed.  The old soul died, and the new soul, which is the New Nature, was born into you (the New Birth).” (End of quote)

   So, we see that the New Birth is getting a new soul, and the Prophet said, “The new soul is the Holy Spirit of God, and the scriptures say that when the Holy Spirit comes into us, we are in the Kingdom of God, there is no unrighteousness!

   Now, we can see that when we are Born-Again, we have received the free Gift of Righteousness, which is the Holy Ghost, which is the New Birth?  And, that this fulfills the Scripture in 11 Cor. 5:21, “For He (God) hath made Him (Jesus) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

   The New Birth makes us the righteousness of God, it is the free Gift of Rom 5:17, “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of Grace, and of the Gift of Righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”  (We are in the Kingdom then)

   The abundance of Grace spoken of here is the miracle of the New Birth, which is the Gift of Righteousness!

   Now we can see that when we are Born-Again, we are made righteous in God’s mind.  The New Birth and the Gift of Righteousness comes together as a unit.  They are the same thing.  This is how we become, “Perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48)   

   Rom 6:23, “The Gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

   So again, what is the Free Gift?  It is the Gift of Righteousness that comes and is called the New Birth!  Notice in John 3:5, “Jesus answered, verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.”

   To be Born of the Spirit is to receive the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost Baptism is the New Birth, the New Birth slays the old soul and puts God’s soul in its place, and the Gift of Righteousness is exactly what God’s Soul is!  It’s totally Righteous!

  It is necessary to preach and teach this because even though in God’s Mind it’s true, we must believe it before we can claim it.  And it is possible to have it and not realize what we have, until the revelation of it comes.  It’s like money in the bank that we do not know is there!  But, once I know it is there, I will write a check on it if I need it.  And there is no question about us needing the Gift of Righteousness!  Without it we are lost!  We must be Born-Again.  We must have a new soul.

   Study the message “SOULS IN PRISON NOW”.  How is it that a soul can be in prison now?  It is in prison, held by the Devil, if the person still has the old soul!  To get a new soul From God, which is the Holy Ghost, is to be let out of Satan’s Prison!  Remember what the Prophet said in SOULS IN PRISON, PAGE 7, QUOTE:  “The nature of your soul is God if you are Born-Again, if it’s not it’s of the world.”  (And the prophet said it’s in prison)

   An unconverted soul is still in Satan’s Prison, and it takes the New Birth to set it free, and the New Birth is the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.  And without it we cannot enter the Kingdom of God!  Amen!