The Offer of a Second Inheritance

By Dale Taliaferro

This is the fifth book of a five volume series attempting to rediscover the amazing encouragement the Scriptures offer to all men everywhere. This five book series must be read in order and seen as five layers of foundation needed for understanding the message of the Bible and, thereby, all the events and circumstances of life. Systematic theology has unintentionally hidden from view the simple truths of the Bible by a presumptive systematization of its teachings, mixing topics together like so many ingredients thrown into a blender. When justification, salvation, eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, redemption, and the like are blended together with the presumption that they are basically describing the same thing, the message of the Bible is lost. This series of books attempts to set aside the myriad assumptions that systematic theology rests upon (as it mixes together a variety of concepts, losing sight of their individual messages and contributions) and demands a “chapter and verse” proof for everything that is presented as Christian truth. Different topics are not synonymous unless the Bible specifically says they are.
The first volume clarifies the topics of justification, salvation, and eternal life. And the second volume demonstrates that the conclusions set forth in the first volume are true and can be easily found in the life of Saul. Supposing that these terms refer to basically the same thing pushes the true message of the Bible beyond retrieval.
The third volume narrows the focus begun in the first two volumes and places it upon the concept of salvation alone. It defines salvation, relates it to most of the issues that may concern a person studying the topic, and shows that salvation has nothing to do with the idea of going to heaven.
This fourth volume in the series explains how some of the benefits of the cross of Jesus are independent of faith in Jesus. God sent Jesus to die for the whole world because He intended to apply the accomplishments of His death to all men. Some of the accomplishments are applied conditionally; other accomplishments are applied universally without any condition needing to be met. And both are precious blessings from a wonderfully gracious God who has provided all that man needs to walk in spiritual victory moment by moment.
This fifth volume clarifies the reasons for which Jesus came to earth. While over one hundred reasons are specifically stated in the Bible, these can be placed into four categories for simplicity’s sake. Jesus came to prove His own identity as the promised Messiah sent by God. Second He came to explain the nature of God and affirm God’s universal will to all men. Third He came to provide everything man would need to enter into fellowship with God during his life on earth and to walk with Him intimately. Fourthly He came to give life to all who believe in Him as Messiah. This life is His own life. It is for living on this earth and will not, as far as we know from Scripture, go beyond life on this earth. In other words, it is not about life after death, going to heaven, living with God in eternity, etc.
These reasons for Jesus’ appearing create a very different message than the one that is usually formulated in most evangelistic tracts. But this message is one that breaks down the barriers that traditional evangelistic approaches create. This will be a great aid for those who desire to share their faith among peoples who have been antagonistic or even hostile toward Christianity in the past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Taliaferro
• Release date: Jun 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9780976430575

Dale Taliaferro

Dale Taliaferro has been teaching the Bible in churches, on university campuses, in business conference rooms, and in homes - both in the U.S. and overseas - since 1970. In addition he served as senior pastor in a Bible Church in Dallas for seven years. He is the founder of Equipped for Life Ministries, an organization dedicated to teaching Christians how to live in light of the resources they have in Jesus. He studied at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon and at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He holds a doctorate of ministry as well as two master degrees in theology and ministry. He and his wife, Waunee, live in Dallas, Texas, and have two grown children who love the Lord.

Book preview

FIRMLY PLANTED PUBLICATIONS

An imprint of Equipped for Life Ministries, Dallas, Texas

The Offer of a Second Inheritance

and a new life to obtain it

B. Dale Taliaferro

The Offer of a Second Inheritance

Published by Firmly Planted Publications

An imprint of Equipped for Life Ministries

Copyright © 2017 by B. Dale Taliaferro

International Standard Book Number:

Distributed by Smashwords

Cover Art by Hannah Gleghorn Design, Frisco, Texas

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Printed copies sold at Logos Book Store, 6620 Snider Plaza, Dallas, Texas, 75205-3483

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

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

For information:

Equipped for Life Ministries

P.O. Box 12013

Dallas, Texas 75225

U.S.A.

www.e-l-m.org

First Edition / First Printing / 2017

Acknowledgements

I am so thankful for all the individuals who have made comments to me either in a personal edit of this manuscript or as we discussed the material together. Your insights and editorial comments have made this a better book. I especially want to thank Carol Trebes and Bret Burdette for their meticulous editorial comments on the manuscript. Even though I had read and re-read the manuscript at least six to eight times, my eyes and mind got so accustomed to what was being said that I could not see the grammatical or spelling mistakes that were still present. And, of course, where would I be without my good friend Maritza Ortiz who formatted the manuscript for publication? Your help was such a blessing because you did what I could not begin to undertake on my own. And you did it at a time when your own life was overflowing with new commitments. So, thank you all. I am truly blessed to have you beside me.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section One - Proofs that Jesus Was the Messiah

Chapter 1 - Declared by Many to be the Messiah, the Son of God

Chapter 2 - Fulfilled Prophecies Require It

Chapter 3 - Jesus’ Ministry Fulfills the Messianic Expectations

Chapter 4 - Jesus’ Death and Resurrection Prove His Messiahship

Section Two - Jesus Describes God and His Will

Chapter 5 - Jesus Came to Explain God’s Character

Chapter 6 - Jesus Came to Affirm God’s Universal Will

Section Three - Jesus Came to Redeem

Chapter 7 - Jesus Came to Free Mankind

Chapter 8 - Jesus, a Scapegoat? Or Not!

Section Four - Jesus Came to Give Life

Chapter 9 - His Life is Related to His Kingship

Chapter 10 - Eternal Life, a Taste of Kingdom Life!

Chapter 11 - His Life is Supernaturally Powerful

Chapter 12 - His Life is Transformative

Chapter 13 - His Life is Sufficient for all Trials

Section Five - A New World View Demands A New Witness

Chapter 14 - God’s Original Purpose for All Men

Chapter 15 - Sin Did Not Change God’s Purpose for Man

Chapter 16 - Man May Stray from God

Chapter 17 - God’s Message for an ever Shrinking World

Preface to the Revised Edition

This series of books was written during my spiritual journey. As a result, I now find the need to go back through each volume and make some necessary corrections and updates. I really didn’t understand how many preconceived ideas that I was working from and that were still hindering my comprehension of the real message of the Bible. I still needed to confront several issues and hold them under the microscope of God’s Word. For the sake of simplicity, I will summarize those issues here:

I developed a better understanding of the historical situations of some very important passages which changed my thinking relative to their meaning. As a result, the unpardonable sin has been revised. Basically, the unpardonable sin is a rejection of Jesus as the Messiah by the first century Jewish people, resulting in a delay of their earthly kingdom, promised to them by God in the OT, and to their missing entering into that kingdom in their mortal bodies.

I finally was able to move past my theological prejudices concerning Acts 16:31 and Eph. 2:8-9 by understanding salvation and faith Biblically. As a result, I have found that the Bible does not describe a person as being saved from hell because salvation never refers to a deliverance from hell once-for-all or in any other way. Consequently, these two classic passages on salvation have nothing to do with a rescue from hell with a promise of heaven. Those ideas have been read into these passages without any substantiation.

Since no one was ever described as a saved person by initially trusting in Jesus, I am led to reframe from doing that as well. I eventually realized that even the apostles were not described as saved persons after they had initially trusted in Jesus. Salvation is not a standing or status before God that guarantees a person a heavenly home and an escape from hell. Nor is it a permanent, unchangeable condition that is reached by initially (or continually) trusting in Jesus. We can be saved from temptations and sins, but we can’t be saved from hell and given heaven due to a simple trust in Jesus.

Finally, I realized that while there is no concept in the NT that can be likened to the traditional idea of a saved person in Christian teachings, there is a NT concept of a salvation that is taking place presently. As a result, it is biblical to describe people as being saved from temptations and sins but not as having been saved once for all from hell with a guarantee of heaven. Since the Bible doesn’t do that, neither should we. It is easy to see how this reinforces the new understanding of Acts 16:30-31 and Eph. 2:8-9.

With these discoveries, I was able to reach a consistent concept of salvation with nothing but the Bible as my guide. The biggest correction that I have needed in these volumes is to distinguish between a spiritual salvation that is defined as an ongoing deliverance from temptations and sins from the traditional, but mistaken, idea of a spiritual salvation that supposedly takes place at the moment of initial faith in Jesus and that supposedly obtains a deliverance from hell. While the former is clearly Biblical; the latter is a creation by men alone.

Introduction

This book is, in a way, a summary of much of what has been written in the first four volumes. But it is also an attempt to tie those accomplishments of Jesus to a list of four major reasons for His coming in His first Advent. It is understood that in one sense everything that Jesus did and said could be listed as a reason for His first appearing. The reason for saying that is everything that He said was given to Him by the Father to say, and everything that He did was part of the will of God for Him to accomplish. I have simplified the study by breaking down the intentionality of His coming into four categories or reasons.

The first reason for His coming was to convince everyone that He was indeed the promised Messiah. This reason alone, if it is given its proper consideration, should cause us to rethink much of what we believe. He came as the Jewish Messiah. Consequently, whatever He did must be related to His Messiahship. If He is detached from that office, His person and ministry cannot be properly understood. So, for example, He came to save only in the sense that the Jewish Messiah would save. To construct a salvation different from the one revealed in the OT is to misunderstand what He came to do and to attribute to Him goals that He never came to accomplish. And that is exactly what orthodox Christianity has done.

The second reason for His coming was to explain the character and will of God the Father. Over time many differing pictures of God have been formed by different people groups around the world. Jesus came to explain the Father so we could understand Him better and depend upon Him more fruitfully. When Jesus clarified through the writings of His disciples the Father’s universal will for all men, He confirmed a standard that was already in place and had been used for all men in the world. This universal will of God has been clearly revealed by God so that all men are without excuse. God is drawing all men to Himself by His continuing communication to each person, inviting him into His presence for personal blessings as they serve Him.

The third reason that Jesus came the first time was to redeem man. The two short chapters that cover this issue summarize many of the ideas developed in volume four of this series, Freedom through the Cross. Jesus died to free man from the consequences of his first sin, providing a way back into God’s presence and a forgiveness for all that he had done. The wonderfully astounding results of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross completely freed man to walk with God his whole life, from birth to death. Such a walk will be greatly rewarded now in this life and in the age to come, the millennial reign of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah-King. The idea of redemption follows the Bible’s first use of it for the exodus of the nation of Israel from its slavery in Egypt. Hence, redemption, like all the other soteriological terms, has to do with this life, and not with some possible consequence that might come upon a person after death.

The fourth reason that Jesus came is the key to everything. He came to give His life to us, not just for us. This life is the most profound gift that Jesus offered to those who believe in Him as the Jewish Messiah. It is under-appreciated today because it is hardly experienced by those who possess it, and rarely taught by those responsible for its communication. When it is experienced, that experience is nothing short of Jesus living His life through the one who is trusting in Him. The apostle Paul would describe it this way early in his ministry as he wrote to those who had trusted in Jesus through his ministry to them in Galatia: …it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20).

Jesus came to give the person who believes in Jesus the resources to get through this life in an extraordinary fashion, spiritually speaking. This life grants a power for living that is beyond the imagination of most personal counselors, Christian and secular. What Jesus is offering can’t be obtained through any other means that man may suggest. This life is nothing short of phenomenal.

How would you like to experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control in every single situation in your life? How would you like to forgive those who, so far, have been unforgiveable? How would you like to have the ability to endure, and not be hurt or traumatized by, a wrong done to you, regardless of how severe it might have been? How would you like to be able to rejoice and be glad when others ridicule and persecute you, saying all kinds of evil things about you falsely? How would you like to encounter the most dreadfully stressful situations without becoming anxious or fearful? How would you like to be able to love even your enemies? All this and so much more is available to the one who is willing to learn how to trust in Jesus to live His life through him.

But most of all, how would you like to experience right now, today, the life that will be lived in the age to come, in that future age of when Messiah is physically present, ruling over all the world? How would you like to feel the love of God in tangible ways? How would you like to have a sense His presence and know that the invisible God is standing before you and your difficulties? How would you like to know for sure that the one, true God is your God and that you are His child experientially? This is what Jesus came to give those who believe in Him. Is this your experience?

All that Jesus did and all that He taught provide each person with a way back into God’s presence in order to experience the Father’s great love for him during his earthly life. Experiencing that love makes us whole, gives us a new purpose in life, and brings meaning to every situation that we have to face.

This life of fellowship and obedience is actually a stewardship that has been entrusted to each person coming into the world. The same is true of the life that is given to the one who believes in Jesus. All stewards must