(tm) A Concluding Comment
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Of the various errors present in current Christian teaching, the common denominator probably is the misunderstanding of the role of imputed righteousness. This misunderstanding has created an unscriptural "state of grace." The concept of the "state of grace" is that God has given a covenant (not found in the New Testament) by which a Gentile can make a profession of belief in Jesus Christ and on this basis, apart from any significant moral change, be admitted to Heaven upon his or her death.
It is not possible a more deadly interpretation of the Apostle Paul’s explanation of the transition from Moses to Christ could be advanced. The product of this error is people who believe in a doctrine but are not practicing righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. Thus we have an exact opposite of God’s purpose in providing a new covenant.
The very foundation of Christian thought is unscriptural. The blood of Jesus Christ, instead of being a means whereby sinful man may begin the process of transformation into a new righteous creation, is presented as an alternative to moral change. We are being conformed to the image of Christ legally, not in actuality.
Current Christian teaching is much more Gnostic than it is scriptural.
The Kingdom of God is a real kingdom in which God’s will is performed on the earth as it is in Heaven. It is at hand. Jesus is coming soon. Therefore God’s people must begin to make the change from imputed to actual righteousness, for our assignment is to appear with Christ and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.
The Christian church in Jerusalem was composed of orthodox Jews, all keeping the Law of Moses diligently. They still observed the Sabbath, circumcision, the kosher laws, and all other aspects of the Law. The Law! The Law! The Law!
Here comes Paul, the Jew of the Jews, facing this mentality. What would you have done? How would you have felt?
Anyone who pioneers doctrine had better resign himself to a small circle of Christian friends.
Paul was tough and argumentative. When He was in Jerusalem he went to the Temple and practiced the rituals of the Law. But when he was addressing groups of believers that included Gentiles, such as the churches in Rome and Galatia, he propounded what God had revealed to him concerning the new covenant.
So, as we read in Romans and Galatians, Paul emphasized that we no longer are under the Law but under grace. Paul did not stress that when we accept God's grace in Christ we go to Heaven apart from moral transformation, Paul was saying that we do not have to keep the Law any longer because we now obtain righteousness by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.
The issue is not admittance to Heaven, it is that of obtaining righteousness, that is, a state of being and behavior pleasing to God.
But as always we err in our heart. We have misunderstood Paul and have perverted his doctrine to mean God no longer is greatly interested in how we behave ourselves.
You know, Satan is a lover of religion and willingly joins with us in our religious practices, our hymns, our worship, even our gifts and ministries. None of this concerns Satan. In fact, Satan would be delighted if the entire Church was caught up to Heaven, singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" as they passed through the clouds.
Only one issue concerns Satan: our change from unrighteous behavior to righteous behavior. All Hell groans in dismay when one person ceases to fornicate, or lie, or steal, laying hold on the grace of God in Christ for the wisdom and strength to overcome sinful behavior.
Satan has managed to persuade the elect of every age to discover in their religion a way of avoiding the necessity for radical change of behavior.
Satan convinced the Jews to concentrate their thinking on whether it was lawful to chew a breath mint on the Sabbath day.
Satan introduced the philosophy of Gnosticism to the early Christians, the philosophy that teaches our behavior in the body is not as important as the religious knowledge we embrace. (Today’s Christian teaching is more Gnostic than it is Christian.)
Satan convinced the Catholic Church to do penance instead of repent. This is a subtle but totally effective method of substituting religious practices in place of actual moral transformation.
Satan has persuaded the Christians of today that while we ought to do good, it is not absolutely necessary that we do so because we have been "saved by grace."
All of these departures from the text of the New Testament have as their purpose avoiding the need for a change in our behavior.
Of great significance, if we would understand the participation of Satan, is the stress on "You shall not surely die."
In current Christian teaching there almost always is agreement that we ought to try to do what the Bible says. (There are some grace extremists who insist we ought not to try to do what the Bible says because then we are adding works to grace.)
As I said, most Christians agree that we ought to do what the Bible says concerning godly behavior. But they insist that even if we do not, we still will go to Heaven by grace. Even if you fornicate, lie, steal, hate your brother or sister, are unwilling to forgive those who have offended you, worship money instead of God, refuse to stay in God’s prison, refuse to carry your cross behind the Master, "You shall not surely die!"
Thus we have developed a grace mystique, a sovereign declaration of God to Gentiles that if we profess belief in Jesus Christ we will go to Heaven whether or not we turn away from our carnal nature and walk in the Spirit of God.
One has to give credit to Satan for His cunning. He has managed to convince the bloodwashed that it is not critical how we behave; all that is important is our religious posture toward Jesus Christ.
We even have developed an unscriptural "state of grace," meaning we are exempt from the judgment of God on our behavior.
At the Bible study last night I stressed the scriptural definition of salvation: Salvation is conformity to the moral image of Jesus Christ and entrance into untroubled rest in the center of God’s Person and will.
Romans 8:29 tells us we have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.
I John 1:7 informs us that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin as long as we walk in the light of God, that is, in God’s Presence and will.
How must Paul feel when he looks down and witnesses the teachers and preachers of our day taking his arguments against the Law of Moses to mean we no longer have to live righteously in order to please God.
I told our students that there are many devout, intelligent Christian scholars who profess belief in the full, verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. These dedicated men and women proclaim that every verse in the Bible is inspired by the Spirit of God.
Then they state we are righteous in God’s sight and on our way to Heaven when we proclaim Jesus as Lord and maintain that God has raised Him from the dead, even though we do not become a new righteous creation in Christ.
But several times in the four Gospels as well as in the Epistles we are warned that if we do not change our behavior we will be punished severely and may not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Then I asked the students, "How do you think Christian scholars respond to this obvious inconsistency?
Some said the theologians respond by claiming the verses of warning are directed toward the unsaved, even though the epistle may be addressed to the saints.
Others stated that the scholars maintain the warnings are directed toward the Jews.
One of the newer twists is that the verses in the Bible that have to do with salvation are inspired but the remainder of the Scriptures are not.
There are those who teach that the Book of Hebrews, a book of warning, is for the Jews only, not Gentiles.
One of the more familiar evasions of the commandments of Christ and His Apostles is that such commandments were given only to reveal how helpless we are and must flee to Christ for forgiveness and salvation. In other words, God does not really expect his commandments to be obeyed.
Yet Jesus said, "If you love me, keep My commandments."
Do you know of any other devices to avoid the necessity for moral transformation?
As I said, most Christians say we ought to keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles as well as we can. But if we do not, there is no problem because we go to Heaven by grace; we are saved by grace.
"You shall not surely die" even though you do not do what God has said.
If I am hearing correctly, there are some ministers who are beginning to preach righteousness. If such preaching and teaching take hold in the United States we will have a revival and many will turn to God. I certainly trust this is taking place, because the familiar grace-rapture-Heaven emphasis leads only to the destruction of the believers.
Mike Clardy, the pastor of our sister church in Huntsville, Alabama, told me about a little girl who was baptized in water. The child professed that she was going to follow the Lord.
When the girl told this to a relative, the relative "asked if it didn’t mean that she had asked Jesus into her heart and that now she was saved."
I sensed the death in this understanding of water baptism and it made me upset.
After I calmed down, I thought about what was wrong with the response of the relative.
In the first place, according the Scripture the Apostles never told people to ask Jesus into their heart. The Apostles preached repentance and forgiveness through Christ.
The idea of asking Jesus into our heart comes from the third chapter of the Book of Revelation. The Lord is addressing the lukewarm Laodicean "believers" who were conducting their own religion apart from the Lord.
But just what is wrong with the conventional "let Jesus into your heart and be saved"? The child was correct. The Christian salvation is not a case of letting Jesus into our heart so we are saved. The Christian salvation is a program of forsaking our former way of life and following the Lord.
What is the difference between the two concepts? The difference is awesome!
Being "saved" by letting Jesus into our heart, while it may be a way of coming to the Lord, is used as a ticket to Heaven. It has little in common with "small is the gate and narrow the way that lead to eternal life."
We have made a religion out of what is supposed to be a daily fellowship with the Lord.
The true Christian life begins, not ends, when we put our faith in Christ, repent of our former way of life, are baptized, and then take up our cross of self-denial and follow the Master.
Are we saved when we "ask Jesus into our heart"?
At that moment, yes. But then we must work out our salvation each day. If we do not we quickly become as a dog returning to its vomit; a pig returning to its wallowing in the mud.
We are saved at some point. Then we continue through the program of salvation. We finally are "saved" when we endure to the end.
What we have today is a religion, not the Christian salvation.
The whole idea is to abide in Christ every second of every day. We do this by continually looking to Christ for every decision we make throughout the day and night. We pray without ceasing. We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We cultivate the Presence of the Holy Spirit, of eternal Divine Life.
Anything less than this is nothing more than church membership and the Christian "religion."
The Lord wants us to be tough. What does it mean to be tough? It means to not break when we are pressured, twisted, and stretched. We can keep from breaking by looking to Jesus and praying without ceasing.
But if we view our salvation as some point in the past when we "asked Jesus into our heart" we may "break" and turn away from the Lord.
I do not know what the future holds but I do know who holds the future. How about you?
The little girl is going to follow Jesus. Her relative probably will continue to live her life in the world until her strength fails and she is in a nursing home. When she dies she will find that she wasted the talents and abilities given to her by the Lord. For her, to die will be out of the frying pan and into the fire.
But the little girl, if she keeps on following Jesus, will keep on walking by His side as she leaves this world and enters the next page of her existence.
I woke up this morning (or was it last night?) with a keen sense of standing before the Presence of God. My son, Marc, said that sometimes it is more polite to just stand before the Throne of God than to barrage God with petitions.
"The Lord God before whom I stand." How wonderful to stand before God, as did Elijah and Elisha!
Today the Lord spoke to me several times. He said, "I am going to play hardball." As I have reflected on this, I believe the Lord means He is going to chasten His people severely. As many as Christ loves He rebukes and chastens..
I know how the expression is used in the world. It means, "I am going to stop treating you gently. I am going to use every means I have of getting what I want, of accomplishing my goals."
I suppose the future will reveal what Jesus is saying by emphasizing that He is going to play hardball. It came through strongly and repeatedly.
The message I preach is one of utmost sincerity and integrity. The children and young people have no problem with it; neither do new Christians.
The people who present an endless problem are those with several years experience in Christian churches. They bring with them two spirits: one is the spirit of gossip and criticism; the other is the spirit of hypocrisy. They are accustomed to sitting in church and listening to the Gospel challenges. Then they go out and live as they please. They know the minister is not presenting his body a living sacrifice to God and they, the congregation, have no intention of doing so either.
I think it is true that in every Christian church there may be found one or two true Christians, true disciples of the Lord. The remainder are religious people who are not carrying their cross. They do not deny themselves and lay down their life for the Gospel.
This worldly spirit is maddening. It weakens the hands of the men of war. Such congregations may have numerous programs, but they accomplish little of eternal value in the Kingdom of God.
Last night I did a great deal of loud preaching because I could feel this hypocritical spirit pressing on me. I told the congregation that the older people could be a Joshua or Caleb if they wanted to. Otherwise we are going to have to wait until they die before we get rid of this spirit that has one foot in the Gospel and the other in the world.
I told the people that if they are waiting until they are sixty-five years old so they can buy a vacation trailer and tour the United States they already are backslidden. This is not what it means to be a Christian. The history of those believers who have been drowned, broken on the rack, burned at the stake, tells us what it means to be a Christian.
There are billions of people in the world who do not have the material comforts we have, nor the spiritual understandings and blessings of worship. And we rich Americans are to plan how we can retire and do nothing in our old age? I’ll tell you what. We will end up in a nursing home waiting to die. We have chosen to be useless and God will grant our desire.
I reminded the listeners that Christian theology is filled with unscriptural traditions. I pointed out that our current "I am saved by grace" does not fit what the Lord said about the gate being small and the way narrow that lead to eternal life; that we are not saved until we endure to the end. What an unscriptural mess we are in today!
"Dear Lord, remove this "business as usual" and spirit of criticism and gossip far from me. Let me never again for eternity be stressed by the traditional church lethargy and insincerity—never, never again! And Lord, please do not permit the traditional church spirits to come near our children and young people!"
We have talked a lot about Revelation 2:7—the right to eat of the tree of life. It seems to me this is speaking about gaining immortality in the body, for this is what was lost in the Garden of Eden.
The doctrine of the resurrection to eternal life, the restoration of what was forfeited in Eden, has been hidden from the Christian churches since the days of the Apostles. First the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was obscured by the emphasis on spiritual resurrection and living in Heaven forever. Then the doctrine was clouded by the emphasis on the catching up of the believer in an unscriptural "rapture" into Heaven.
Now the Spirit is restoring to us the understanding that the filling of the physical body with eternal life is the central hope of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
The resurrection of the body to eternal life has nothing whatever to do with Heaven. We are forced into the spirit world by the death of our body because of the sin of Adam. Removal from the earth through physical death is a an enemy, a defeat. Once we regain immortality in the body we are free to live on the earth, in Heaven, or wherever else we desire to remain.
God did not create the marvelous physical body so that it could be destroyed by sickness and death. He created it to be the permanent home of Himself, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the saint. And so it shall be at the coming of the Lord, if we have overcome through Christ the death that has warred against us.
No one ever will be given the authority to eat of immortality until he or she overcomes. To overcome does not mean to "accept Christ." Accepting Christ is the authority and power to begin to overcome. To overcome is to emerge in victory over the forces of sin and death that war against us.
To sin is to die. To put sin to death is to move toward immortality.
No sinful person, believer in Christ or not, will ever enter past the cherubim and the flaming sword and eat from the tree of life. The tree still is guarded, waiting for those who, through Jesus Christ, press past all opposition and enter rest in the center of God’s perfect will.
It may be true that we are going to bring more of what we have become into the spirit world than is commonly believed. The idea that once we "accept Christ" our troubles are over, and by grace we will enter Paradise when we die, does not appear to be scriptural. For this reason we ought to be concerned about what we are becoming, with God’s help, in the present hour. This may be a truer understanding of the Divine redemption than the idea that all God requires is a statement of belief in Christ.
Let us make immortality in the body our goal, as it was Paul’s, for this is the eternal life that God gives us through His beloved Son.
I find it marvelous that God has given me such a passion to do His will. And then He rewards me for doing His will. Incredible!
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