Lordship Salvation: What is Salvation? Part III

    To be very honest, I feel that this Romans 10 passage settles the matter of what salvation is and whether or not Jesus Christ is Lord of the Christian, but since the debate continues to rage, I will tackle some more Scriptural evidence to demonstrate that Jesus is Lord, and salvation is submission to His Lordship.
    Turn in your own Bible to Luke 1:26-35. Read it...for real... Ok, so Gabriel, God's chosen messenger angel, tells Mary exactly who Jesus IS and will be: the "Son of the Highest", and He will be given the throne, not a throne and He will reign. I don't think that needs very much explaining. The obviousness of Jesus being King and therefore undeniably Lord is all over this passage.
    Next, take a look at the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4:1-13. Jesus responds to each temptation with O.T. Scripture. The latter two reveal to us that Jesus clearly claimed His own Lordship. There was no confusion in Satan's mind either, and in this whole temptation, Satan knows from Scripture that Jesus' path to the cross is one that will lead to ultimate authority, to being Lord over all things. (Eph. 1:18-23) Satan understands the cross will be his own defeat and Christ's ultimate exaltation. So Satan's tactic is to get Jesus to seek that authority and Lordship in an illegitimate way. To those two temptations the Lord Jesus responded with:
 1."It is written, you shall serve the LORD your God, and serve Him only."
 2. "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" He is clearly speaking about Himself and calling Himself, "the Lord your God".


8/3/11
I'm cutting into all the stuff I have on this study. Many things have been occupying my time and study lately, and I just want to sum up this issue of Lordship salvation versus 'easy believism'. It is really very simple. Any serious student of God's Word must come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ IS Lord. There is no disputing that. All things have been put in subjection under His feet (Eph 1) Hebrews, Colossians, Romans, all of the N.T. makes this abundantly clear. The issue in regards to our salvation is whether or not we recognize WHO Jesus Christ really is. If we see Him only as what we make Him out to be, the One who can meet our needs, or take away our bad feelings, or whatever, then we are not believing and trusting in the real Jesus. Admittedly, salvation itself is perhaps the greatest mystery in the universe; the why and how boggle the mind when you really apply yourself to understand it. Yet, the Gospel message is so incredibly straightforward. The conclusion I come to from submitting to the infallible Word of God is that Jesus Christ has redeemed me with His own blood, and therefore, I literally belong to Him, as a slave belongs to a Master, as a son is totally subject to the authority of his father, so I am totally subject to the authority of Christ. Will I occasionally stumble in some sin? Yes, but His Lordship remains real and true. Now, if you believe you can be saved and not be under the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, then I think you may not be seeing Jesus for who He really is.
If you have any questions, or if you want to see the rest of the Scriptures and the study I did on this, please feel free to comment or email me. Thanks for reading, and may the Lord bless you as you read His Word.

Quick thoughts

   Have you ever heard someone say this to you: "Jesus was just a good teacher," or "Jesus never claimed to be God," or "Don't all roads lead to heaven?" or "Isn't the message of Jesus to just be kind and do good things?" I'm sure there are many more statements like these that we hear everyday, and Christians are accused constantly of being "narrow-minded", or bigoted, or "intolerant". The cry of this generation is seen on car-bumpers everywhere: "COEXIST".
   Have you ever thought about what that word really means? Follow that thought out to its logical conclusion...yep. It really means 'DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING'. Because if you do, then you are being intolerant of someone else. All of the religions of the world make exclusive claims. Can they really ALL be right? How about the post-modern thinking of the day? It wants to obscure the whole issue of faith and say that "there really is no truth or error, no up or down, black or white, light or dark. It's all just different shades of grey, right? Just be cool man, don't take a stand for anything cause we're just bits of matter driven by fate and one day we'll fade into nothingness"...Yep, that's the mantra of this generation, and it leads to the destruction of the family, the weakening of the Church, and the breakdown of society itself.
   THINK about the claims of postmodernism. Can it really be that there are no absolutes, no objective truths? We can run around and claim that all day long, but when night falls, and evil comes knocking on our doors, WHO do we call out to? When injustice invades our lives, what do we cry out for? To what system of power, goodness and justice are we appealing to? What is law, and where does it come from?
   THINK about the person of Jesus Christ. He claimed to be God, to be sent from God, and that He had come to seek and save that which is lost, that He came to die in our place, and lead the people of God out from the disgusting and vile wretchedness of our enslavement to sin and fear of death into the kingdom of heaven, into the light of truth and purpose, the family of God.
    Christians, if we don't maintain the exclusive claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then our church meetings are in vain, our worship is pointless, and we should just call all the missionaries home. If we have no absolute, guiding truth from God to which people can look and be delivered, then why are we doing this Christian thing? If we aren't living lives of obedience to God's Word, and telling the truth about sin, how will people know they need a Savior? If we look, sound, and act just like the world (cosmos=the world system), then Christianity is no more real and true than any other belief system.
   Christians, know your Bible, speak the truth, and don't be afraid that holding the line will cost you anything truly valuable. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, and death is only graduation day!

Lordship Salvation: What is Salvation? Part II

           This is going to be another look at Romans 10:9,10. I did these two studies at different times and took the passage as it came. This second look has helped me to define even further what is being stated by Paul, and to understand what the real question is in regards to our salvation and the Lordship of Christ. I will state it here so we can fix the theme in our minds: The real question for a Christian is NOT, "Is Jesus Lord of my life?" Jesus is Lord of all, and if you have trusted in Christ, you cannot just take Him as your Saviour. He will come to you with everything that He is, and that means that He IS Lord of your life. He is on the throne. The real question is, "Am I obeying my Lord?" We don't get to 'make Him Lord'. It's simply not up to us. Let's look in Romans 10 and see why.
        If you haven't read the text, just pull out your Bible, and take a look at it. The depths here are incredible! Let's think about some titles here: "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord..." Lord is 'kurios' in  Koine (Common) Greek, the language of the N.T. It was used widely of any master, someone who owned slaves and exercised sovereign power over his possessions. It was also used of Rabbi's by their disciples. It was very consistently used by people Jesus encountered on earth when they addressed Him. This word 'kurios' is specifically intended to define the relationship, and it is that of a disciple to his teacher, and a slave to his master. Paul clearly sets forth here what Christ taught throughout His ministry, and remember that "Lord" is a title, so it gets the article (the Lord). When I pray or discuss Him with others, I almost always refer to Him as 'the Lord'. The Jews most sacred name and the Hebrew equivalent of 'kurios' is 'Yahweh', technically spelled 'Yhwh'. The Jew wouldn't even speak this name or write it out fully, believing God's name to be absolutely and unspeakably holy!
    These titles tell us something very important. When we think about Jesus the Christ, specifically included in our thinking must be an essential understanding of the nature of this 2nd Person of the Triune God. Jesus is Lord/Yahweh/Master. You cannot truly understand who Jesus is unless You see Him as the divine, all-powerful, perfect Master of your own life and all of creation. The N.T. is explicitly clear in laying out Jesus the Christ as having total authority and power over all things. We see this in:
Ephesians 1:18-23 "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in this one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all."
Phil. 2:9-11 "God highly exalted Him, and bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name..."
Col. 1;15-23 and 2:8-15 (read them)

    You do not know and serve the true Christ unless you believe in and submit to Him as Lord and Saviour. It really isn't an option, as a Christian, to decide when you want to 'make Him Lord of your life'. If He isn't Lord of your life, then you aren't a Christian. Doesn't Paul say this exactly? "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." Confession is to do what; to speak the truth, to homo(same) logeo(say), to same-say, to agree with God.
     So we can understand that Paul is building his whole point on the reality that God has spoken about His Son, and God has made it clear that His Son is Lord of all, and is to be honored as such. So for us to be saved, we must say the same; we must openly confess the truth.
"For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38)

     The point that God has spoken concerning His Son can be powerfully established from the rest of Scripture (remember that the best way to correctly interpret Scripture is by reading other Scripture) I already gave you a few. We can also look at Luke 3:21-22, at Jesus' baptism, where God the Father clearly establishes Jesus as being "My Son", making Him equal with God. We can also go to the visions of Daniel where again and again, Christ is pictured as the conquering King, the one who comes to render judgment. We can examine the incredible Christology of the great book of Hebrews, where we see the absolute Lordship and Kingly priesthood of our Savior. We can also look at the Gospel account of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ, when the veil of flesh was pulled back and Peter, James, and John saw the burning white light of his Holy divinity (still somewhat reduced) come flying out of His face and body. In that moment, there were no words, no false submission, no pretense, no acting as if Jesus weren't Lord of all.
    We can read and understand John 1 and see that Jesus the Christ, the living Word, has been fully God from all eternity, that He was the very Agent of creation, that He is the source of life itself. Who could this Jesus be, but the one true and sovereign God and our own Lord and Savior?

Oh boy, well take a break. I'm working on the next section. Jesus has a lot to say about who He is!

Lordship Salvation: What is salvation? Part I

Lordship Salvation

    I feel led to address a current topic in Christian circles. It is the apparent controversy over what is required for a person to be “saved”, to possess eternal life. The traditional theological position in fundamental evangelical circles has been that Christ is both Lord and Saviour to the genuine Christian. But in recent times, another view has gained popularity, and indeed, it now seems to dominate most of the evangelical Christianity that we see in the media, read in Christian bookstores, and hear on Christian radio. This view is difficult to truly define, but the main idea is that a person can accept the gift of salvation; they can ‘receive Jesus’ as Saviour and be forgiven of their sins without necessarily making Him Lord of their life, and in many cases without demonstrating any change of life at all. The general consensus in this view is that eventually Christians will reach a point where they are ready/able to submit to His Lordship. In effect, there are two levels of Christianity: the saved but uncommitted, and then the saved and fully committed Christians.
    It seems logical to me that the best way to resolve the matter is search God’s Word and define salvation itself. In so doing, we should come to a conclusion on this issue of Lordship Salvation versus what we will call “Easy Believism”. This is, I suppose, a good followup to the ‘Sin and Salvation’ series. I will spend some time in Romans 10, and then in the Gospel of John.
    For us to reach an understanding of this critical matter, it must be accepted that the Bible as we know it, all 66 books, is the complete self-revelation of God to man, and that the autographa (original text) is inerrant and inspired by God. The translations we have today are reliable and though occasionally contain minor grammatical/spelling errors, God has powerfully preserved His Word through the translation work all over the world. If you doubt this, please spend the time necessary and get the resources you need to understand why we can absolutely submit to the Word of God. I can point you in the right direction and answer questions you may have.

    There are so many texts of Scripture we could dig into. We will get our minds in gear by reading Romans 10:1-21. So get your Bible and read it, twice if you have time...
    Ok, quite a chunk, with enough truth to occupy our study for years. But a few things must be brought out to set us on the right track. Then we will look at the direct teaching of Christ in the Gospels.
    This passage must be taken in context. Verse 10 speaks of the confession of Jesus as Lord, or confessing the Lord Jesus, and believing in the heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. This verse is the one most often used by those in support of Lordship Salvation to show what is required for salvation. However, when you read Romans and come to chapters 9,10, and 11, it is very clear that Paul is specifically addressing the unbelief, rejection, and restoration of the Jews. The nation had officially rejected Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah. Paul witnessed that the Jews had a zeal for God, but it was not based in truth. (Rom. 10:2) Then verse 3 tells us that the Jews did not know or understand the righteousness of God, and so they believed that through the Law, they could establish their own righteousness, that their observance of the moral and ceremonial law granted them national favor in the eyes of God. But, it was Moses who wrote (vs. 5) that the one who lives by the Law is held to that perfect standard of absolute legal righteousness. In other words, it only takes one violation of the Law, no matter how small, to violate the entire Law and render the lawbreaker guilty and worthy of destruction. But, (vs.6) the righteousness which is by faith does not try to create its own standard and it does not substitute man’s attempt at righteous living for God’s actual righteousness, personified in Christ who is the Living Word.
    Instead, the true righteousness of Christ is very near to us. We don’t have to ascend to heaven to get it, or go down into the grave. Christ has descended, Christ has died, Christ has risen, and purchased for us a redemption with His innocent blood. “The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”-that is the word of faith which we are preaching...” (vs.8)
    It should be noted here that in the context of Paul’s dealings with his own people, the Jews, we can be sure that this word of faith would bring instant persecution if a Jew believed and openly confessed Jesus Christ as Lord. A Jew who converted and confessed it showed powerful evidence of genuine salvation by that confession. (vs.9)...that “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.”
    (vs.10) Paul explains the human response to the word of faith: “For with the heart man believes...” It is the deep, inner part of man which must believe, the essential part of his nature, the thing which must be remade; it must die, be buried, and a new nature be raised with Christ; this inner person must believe. The next question is: believe what? -answer: that God raised Him from the dead, and all which is inherent in that statement, which is: that Jesus Christ is the eternally begotten Son of God, that He was sent forth from the Father, He was born of woman, conceived of the Holy Spirit; that in Him "all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form," (Col. 2:9) that He obeyed the Father in living a sinless human life, that He "humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Phil 2:8); that He was buried, that He rose the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:4); that God exalted Him and "seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion..." (Eph. 1:20)
     Believing this is what results in 'righteousness', the gift of grace we receive from God upon the change of our nature, which is completely His work (Eph. 2:1-10). This new nature is the actual righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One (1 John 2:1), imputed or transferred to our account.
      Then (v.10), with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. What does he confess? (vs.9) He confesses Jesus as Lord. And this prompts the question: Is it really enough to simply believe all of the facts about Jesus? Why does Paul include confession? (Confession=saying the same thing; so confessing Jesus as Lord means to agree with God that His Son is Lord. This is an acknowledgment of an established truth.)
      What makes a Christian a Christian? He/she is a follower of Christ, a little Christ. They recognize the supremacy, the Lordship of Christ. There have always been believers, even people that follow along for a while, say the right words, experience emotional connections to Christ based on experiences. In fact, there are many believers, but those who continue to follow are few; those who give all in the recognition that everything we have should be counted as loss in "view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Phil. 3:8) Jesus' conversation with the rich young ruler immediately comes to mind. This young man was a believer. He had kept the Law, according to His own account. He even came to Jesus and asked the right question: "what must i do to be saved?" This was the perfect open door, right? Jesus saw his heart right away, though, and pinpoints the thing the man was not willing to give up, his wealth. The young man saw himself as having many things of value. He saw himself as righteous and blessed, and he wanted to add eternal life to his list of accomplishments. He had not yet come to the place of understanding that knowing Christ was the only thing of value, and when Jesus told him to sell all he had and give the money to the poor, he walked away in grief, not seeing his possessions as rubbish in comparison to the glorious treasure of knowing Christ as his Lord. Also, his grief wasn't a mourning over his sin. It was self-pity.
    The epistle of James brings out this crucial point regarding true, saving faith. Look at ch.2:14-26 "What use is it, my brethren, if man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him...even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself...You believe that there is one God. You do well. the demons also believe and shudder."
        Side note: Faith and belief are synonyms.
    So, apparently, the demons have a type of faith, but it is not saving faith. They know theology and accept it as truth. They fear judgment and do not want to be punished (remember Legion not wanting to be banished and asking to be sent into the pigs). They know exactly who Jesus is (the Gospels are full of accounts of Jesus approaching a demon-possessed person and the demon crying out that He was the Son of God) and believe every word He has said, but they will NEVER say to Him, "You are my Lord." They may even want to be saved from judgment, but they do not submit. There is sorrow, but not a godly sorrow leading to repentance. (2. Cor. 7:10)
    We, too, can have a sorrow, a knowledge of the truth, a faith in all the facts about God, but the thing that saves is to "confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord..." A belief which never shows itself in actions is not a saving faith; in other words, faith without works is not saving faith.
      So, here in Romans 10:10, we see the work which evidences saving faith; this is the confession of Jesus as Lord. THINK: would it not be logical to state that if you will not submit to the Lordship of Christ openly, then you are not His disciple? The very claim, "I am a Christian" implies that you follow Christ, that you have counted the cost, not just that you are saved from hell. We are not just saved from eternal punishment; we are saved TO something. Also, along with this point, we need to understand that man does not possess FREE will, as we assume he does. His will is never free in the sense of "I can choose to do whatever I want to do". Scripture is consistently clear that mankind is either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ. There is no time or sense in which we are 'free agents', capable of making our own destiny. We either serve the prince of the power of this world, or we serve the true King. Christian liberty is fulfilled when a person is set free from the enslavement of sin, to finally have the law of God written on their heart. When this happens, a Christian is finally free to obey God, to do that which he was made to do.


    Ok, let's back up a second. I gave you the beginning context of Jewish unbelief and self-styled righteousness, and we saw that verses 9 and 10 can directly apply to the Jews in that, open confession of Christ was strong evidence of genuine faith because of the fierce persecution that would accompany such a confession. And it is true that we are in a context of Paul dealing with the status of the Jewish nation.
    However, it should be observed that our larger context is the whole book of Romans. It is most likely the greatest treatise on salvation in the entire New Testament, and when Paul speaks of the Jews, he is placing them in their part of the larger story of redemption. He is talking about them, not only to them. And remember, the recipients of the letter were in Rome. It was a mixed congregation, but most likely would have had a predominately Gentile makeup.
    Also, the preface to Paul's statement in vs.9 is vs.8: "the Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart-that is, the word of faith which we are preaching." This is a quote from Deut. 30:14 and it stands in sharp contrast to the legal system the Jews had constructed around the Mosaic Law. Then we have a qualifying statement: "the word of faith which we are preaching..." This must include the Gentiles, since Paul is widely understood to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, and he made it absolutely clear in Eph. 3:1-10 that the Gentiles are fellow heirs of the Gospel, which is the word of faith!
    Essentially, we are faced with a passage which includes the Jews but is not specific to them. This is made even clearer in the following verses. Vs.11, "Whoever believes in Him..." Whoever is definitely not only referring to the Jews.  And then Vs.12 clinches it, "...there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him."
    So, we have a clear statement from the Apostle Paul, who received the Gospel message directly from God by revelation (Galatians 1:11-17), laying out the facts of saving faith.
1. A genuine heart belief in everything involved in Christ and His redemptive work.
2. Evidence of submission to Christ's authority, His Lordship
          Saving faith is faith and confession, or faith and works.
    Now, we haven't yet dealt with the authorship of our great salvation. In spending time with God's Word, the doctrine of election has made itself strikingly clear. (Romans 8:26-30, Romans 9:6-33, 1 Cor. 1:4-9, John 3:1-8, Ephesians 1-2, John 17:1,2) All prideful objections to it are silenced, and I am thankful, thankful that I was in God's mind to be redeemed before the foundation of the world, thankful that the Lord defines what is just by His nature and that my standard of fairness isn't applied to the world. I won't dwell on this, but it is crucial to understand who Jesus Christ is from the beginning to the end. He is the Author and Perfecter of faith, and your faith and mine are given to us. The Father has purposed to redeem a body of people to give to the Son. Jesus isn't some whimsical, hopeful Savior, wishing we would accept Him as He stands gently knocking on the door of our hearts.
     A submission to His Lordship is necessary for salvation because it shows that you have come to know, believe, and follow the real Jesus. To say that you are a self-seeking Christian, an uncommitted follower of Christ is a contradiction. The nature of salvation itself demands that Christ be glorified as Lord. It is not our place to try to define Christ. The Father has authoritatively defined His Son and if your heart is awakened to spiritual realities, then seek to know the Son, that in submission to Him, you would find freedom from sin, rest for your soul, and assurance that you have eternal life.

It's been a while

I know it's been a while since I've posted. I'm working on a huge topic and it's consuming me. It's going to be intense and the things I'm studying are very necessary to understand as a Christian. It will be up soon. God bless you all, and I pray that you are remaining in the truth and seeking to please the Lord.

This post is too long

       Sometimes, I think that if we were able to take every single experience we have and compact them all into 10-30 second, bite-sized pieces, we would do it and feel a sense of accomplishment. Who has the attention-span, or even the desire to spend an extended amount of time doing anything?
        Even our entertainment comes in flashes, and artists have to make everything compact and quick for fear of losing their audience. We can't even "not think" for a very long time before we become bored. This may not be the worst thing happening in our society, but it certainly cannot be a very good thing, can it?
       Is it really that we don't 'have the time'? Or is it our understanding of the value of our activities that is lacking? It goes beyond a simple improvement in time-management to the truth about what value the things we are engaged in actually possess. If you have time, or if you want to take the time...Are you forced to be too busy, or do you make yourself too busy? If I'm honest with myself, I confess that I make myself too busy. And how many of the things I do are in my schedule for selfish reasons? Do they build me up, or do they build others and God up?
    I don't want to make you feel bad if you struggle with ADD, or ADHD. I have spent blood, sweat, and tears (literally) in working with kids who cannot even look at me for more than a fraction of a second, or focus on a task for more than a minute or so. I have struggled with my own inadequacies in focus and discipline. Sometimes, we just have a full day, with work, kids, bills, emergencies, messes, the list goes on and on and on... I know life is demanding and difficult, but there are times in our lives when there is time: a few minutes, maybe even an hour or two, and I wonder if we took all of the time we do have to focus on one thing, instead of 10 little things.
    All of this is intricately connected to how we come to know and understand our God. Our heavenly Father is big; no, I mean, REALLY BIG. His Words, His ways, His thoughts, His power, His existence; these things defy our minds to grasp them. We never actually will fully understand Him, even with an infinity to try, but I think we miss out even on shallow things of God in this life because we simply do not choose to make time to learn, to think, to meditate. We take life in little bitty pieces, and our Christian book stores are drowning in devotionals, and we think we can connect with almighty God in a 2-minute verse with 2 paragraphs of 'explanation'? Don't get me wrong; I know that God is mindful of the fact that we are confined to time and He isn't. He made us; He knows our limitations.
    I'm not saying I've got this all figured out: just the opposite! I need to start to figure it out, and I think we could all at least start thinking about the value of our activities in light of eternity, and taking into consideration 'who' the activity is focused around.
    Well, I've gone and rambled, and this post is probably too long. But I hope it gets the brain pistons firing!

Reflections on the nature of Christianity...

   Just a few quick thoughts. I need to go to sleep. 2 longs days back to back isn't good for my health!   Well, I have just been challenged today, thinking about all the things that make up the nature and existence of the thing that is Christianity. It's interesting how our minds tend to develop and categorize our experiences by the things we perceive, and when someone says the word, "home", a particular image and/or taste or smell comes flooding into our minds.  Likewise, when someone says the word, "Christianity", something comes into the front of our mind, and our ability to think about the realities behind the entity is severely hampered by this picture/experience we have, these memories and cliches that crowd our view.
   So, what is Christianity. Who is the 'Man behind the curtain..."? Is it all show, lights and smoke and hidden microphones? Is our sacred text, the Bible, just another book? We who call ourselves, 'little Christs', what does that mean to us?
    I have been plagued all of my life by a search for what I call, 'the real'. It nags at the corners and backs and sides of my consciousness, always alerting me, "this isn't real, these thoughts you're having; you are missing the whole point...think deeper...dig more. THINK!" The shadow-lands in which we live, the dim veil we call the universe: it grates against my new nature like fingernails on a chalkboard. I want to really see, to really be alive, to actually understand...oh, just EVERYTHING!
    WHO IS CHRIST? Is He the 20 minutes I "should have spent reading the Bible?" Is He the "weekend camp I went to and had a great experience there?" Is He the "Romans road?" Who is He? What has He done, and where is He now? And what in the world is He talking about in the 4 Gospels? He is certifiable if He wasn't telling the absolute truth!
    I have to deal with Jesus the Christ, the firstborn from among the dead, the Voice who spoke you and I and the Milky Way galaxy. He has said quite a bit, and told us a little of it, more than we can handle, really.
    Do you live, knowing that you haven't yet begun to actually be truly alive? I feel that fact every moment, and the ache of not knowing Christ as I am fully known sometimes threatens to crush me. Yet that pain is a stepping stone. It doesn't lay me low; it pushes the crook of my knees just past the point where they can keep me standing and makes me bow; the pain rouses me from my slumber and says, "Awake, o sleeper, your redemption draweth near!" And I leap and look to the clouds and say, 'Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!'
     Do you look forward to His appearing? Or do you dread it? Does the thought of bowing your knee to Him gladden or harden your heart?
    Seek Him while He may yet be found! He came in a food trough. He touched lepers and ate with tax collectors; this is the One who healed on the Sabbath, whipped the temple corrupters, the One who came to divide; He is the One who told the seas to shut up with hardly a word. (He spoke the waters into existence; of course they would listen to Him. They have more sense than we do.)
    Do you know Christ and the One who sent Him? I hope you do, because Jesus said that this is eternal life, "That they may know You, and Jesus whom You have sent..." That's it; that you know Him. So doesn't it make sense to throw our whole beings into knowing Him? Don't you want to know the REAL Him. You can start right now. Cry out to Him, not with emotions, but with truth primarily. Speak truth to yourself from God's revealed Word. Listening to yourself usually leads to living in the flesh. But speaking God's truth to your heart (reading it, praying it, obeying it) brings it under the guidance of the Spirit.

Sin and salvation: what does the church really need? -PART VII

Alrighty, so I'm really going to finish this series now. It keeps growing, but I have to cut it off somewhere. I am currently studying and writing on the issue of Lordship Salvation, and that will come next. But to continue with the reflections from the last study:
       The good Lord knows that I still grieve Him, that my unredeemed flesh still stumbles me and pride still rebels against my new nature; He knows that in my very seeking of Him, the imperfections in my obedience are themselves evil; and He knows every unworthy and heinous thought that passes through my mind, and He righteously hates every one of them. Meanwhile, in holy love, a love that "burns like a father to the sun" (N.D. Wilson), He works to increase my knowledge of and submission to Himself, knowing that I will never be what He personally created me to be if He doesn't pour me from one crucible to the next. He is a true Craftsman, and my impurities are already pardoned, not by God looking the other way; no, but by the Jewel of endless heaven Himself entering His own creation and submitting to the crushing, humiliating punishment of His own Father, because the Father said to the Son, "Suffer and die for those nailing you to the cross and spitting in Your eye. Enter death and feel the fury of My anger. This is the 'foolish' way that the ones who accept the truth and call on You will be redeemed and will be able to enter their true rest and take their place as those who worship the Father in spirit and truth."
      So Jesus died; well, more like, He met death with authority, and gave up His Spirit. That moment was like no other in all of human history. When the King of kings entered death, the earth shook, graves were opened, the sky went black, the temple veil split in twain, the centurion confessed, and my sin's killing blow was completely absorbed by Christ. The punishment that awaited me at my flesh's end had been fully experienced by the One who has only always been good and true.
    One wonders what the Enemy must have thought in those 3 days. No doubt he tried very hard to keep Christ from ever being crucified, because he knew Biblical prophecy better than anyone. He was the cursed serpent, who heard God the Creator pronounce judgment upon him (recorded in Gen. 3:15), that the seed of Eve (Christ) would crush his head. But did he think that perhaps Christ was stay dead? Did he actually believe that the One who made all life and has the power in His breath and voice to do or undo existence itself could be held down by some grave wrappings, bloodless veins, and a big rock? When Christ stepped forth from the tomb, did all of the unseen world understand what had happened? I wonder if the fallen angel, Lucifer, felt a chill run down his 'spine' as he gulped and said 'oh crap'. His eternal defeat was now sealed, and the weapon of death which he wields (not when a person dies; that is up to God, but the sting of death, which is separation from God and eternal punishment) had effectively been torn from his hand.

     THIS is why I say with Paul that we are conquerors! Sin can definitely slow us down, but if we believe the Gospel, it will invigorate our passionate desire for holiness. We have not been given a spirit of timidity, leading to fear again, but a spirit of sonship, by which we cry 'Abba, Father!' And look at Phil. 1:27-30 "Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God. For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake..."
       Is Paul high-minded or a naive idealist, or is this fearless and triumphant life actually possible? Maybe the key is in the perspective Paul had towards suffering. He saw it as a blessing, something given/granted, not just to believe, but to suffer for His sake. And earlier in the same chapter, Paul's heart just comes pouring out; 1:21 "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain..."
       What holds you back? Or rather, what are you holding back? I feel as if Christ is literally consuming me, piece by piece, and it appears that this continual surrender of the self in increasing degrees is the inevitable progression of salvation. When I turn to myself, there is nothing there of actual worth. This is not low self-esteem. This is reality. None of us have any internal resource which can bring us to God in perfection. Only by confessing that He is Lord and understanding that He came down, He condescended, He reached out, and took His only begotten Son and did not spare Him, but subjected His perfect being to the most unjust and cruel torture and execution, and then out of His own plan and for His good pleasure and glory He "raised Him (Christ) from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above ALL rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come..." (Ephesians 1:20,21); only by knowing and confessing these truths and and obeying them can we live in freedom. Slavery to sin looks like freedom to the unbeliever (I can do what I want). The problem is that what we want when we are enemies of God only leads to bondage and destruction. God wants to give us holy desires and true understanding of our need. C.S. Lewis says "Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
       I don't know about you, but I want everything God has for me. I want it as soon as possible, and I don't want to miss out. I want God to be pleased with me; I want to feel and see and know Him, even as He fully knows my whole being. He is good and beautiful and not at all tame. Submit to His Lordship in every arena of life. Find Him in the Word and remember how short life is and the fact that He has promised all of the new heaven and earth will one day be your personal playground, and that one day you will be LIKE HIM, because we will see Him as He is. We will look our Saviour in the face with joy. 
     I hope and pray that this series has disrupted your normal thought patterns and challenged you to seek after the One who has conquered all as one of us, and is even now reigning as the supreme KING. The very best thing you can do is to kneel before Him. He will make something out of your life that will survive the day of judgment. You cannot do so.

Sin and salvation: What does the church really need? -Part VI-

      In this section, I am posting opinion and reflection. So we come back around to the original question of what God's will is for the church and what the church really needs: In a sense, asking the church to change its attitude toward sin is like asking a leopard to change its spots. The church's current attitude toward sin manifests to us that many professing Christians are not actually cleansed of their sins, because they are not confessors (same-sayers about their sin), so what is needed? What is God's will for the church? First of all, the Gospel must be preached in its entirety, and the whole counsel of God must be presented in the power of the Holy Spirit so as to confront the church with the need for assurance of salvation. I personally would rather have to deal with a congregation of people who are afraid they are not saved, then what we have today, which is congregations full of people who assume they are saved, even though their life displays no fruit in keeping with repentance.
     The reality is that easy preaching helps no one. Sugar-coating, holding back the full expression of man's condition and God's power, holiness, love, and complete sovereign control, trying not to be 'offensive'; these things only keep a person from being truly redeemed and freed from sin. It is apparent that there are many in the church who need to be saved! They need to need to understand the depth and impact of their own sin and submit to Christ, who conquers and redeems our hearts. They don't need a change of attitude; they need a change of nature!
     What is eternal life?
          What is salvation?
                What is discipleship?
  Is Christ the way to a better life, or just an escape from judgment? Is that all we see of  Him in the Bible? What was He saying when He said that He came to bring a sword, and that He came to divide, to set husband against wife and parents against children...? Why did people swarm after Him by the thousands for a time as He healed and fed and taught, but then the more He spoke, they all drifted away? Eventually, only the 12 remained, and even one of those was a traitor. Jesus no known model of ministry; he cared nothing for opinions or personal desires. He said on several occasions that He only did what the Father told Him to do.  Don't forget that because you have such open access to God's Word, you are responsible for what it teaches.
       "If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself." (Saint Augustine)     Why was He so hated and so loved? Why was he such a threat to the Jewish leaders, and enough of a disturbance that Rome even took notice of Him? And throughout the ages, He has remained the central figure of history. Just the fact that He is still so hated, reviled, judged, misrepresented, and so many have unsuccessfully devoted their lives to debunking His life and teaching; this alone should tel us something, if we are awake.
      These things tell me that Jesus the Christ is exactly who He claimed to be- the holy Son of God, and as a result, He is both my Saviour and my Lord.
      This half-hearted, passionless, hateless, and only somewhat negative attitude of the church towards sin is not the evidence of a redeemed people. The enemy is more than content to allow the church to go on gathering in mild devotion, feeling bad about all the bad things in the world, even having a twinge of personal guilt occasionally, but doing enough things in spiritual circles to make themselves feel better, and to feel that they are doing better in their 'personal struggles'. Our 'Christian' counselors sell us the Freudian lie that sin is really just emotional baggage and bookstores fill up with self-help books and '7 Ways to Live a Fulfilled Life!" Meanwhile, the divorce rate in churches skyrockets, our children desert the faith, leaders are exposed as perverse hypocrites, and our pews are packed with people who believe they are safe from hell but say nothing and feel nothing when it comes to their own sin.
         Is this the Gospel that Paul, Peter, and the early church preached and lived? Christ is not calling you and I to some dim sort of struggle with our emotional baggage, where defeat seems to reign and the devil hides in the shadows, secretly enjoying the worship of false Christians who continue to be obsessed with themselves, thereby glorifying the prince of the power of the air.
        Look at Ephesians 1:18-23 "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" THIS is the upward calling, the inheritance of the redeemed. It is all summed up IN Christ, and IN Him we "overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us..." (Rom. 8:37)
     By no means am I suggesting that it is impossible for a true Christian to ever struggle with sin. John, probably a bit reluctantly, wrote in 1 John, "...if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father..." See, and here we meet the heart of God in the amazing thing He has done through His Son and the cross! If we hold to some Arminian view of our salvation, that it is a slippery thing which can be lost and regained (which by the way is in direct contradiction to the warnings in Hebrews. Those passages say that someone who falls away can never be restored. So if that's talking about Christians, then it would be saying that Christians only have one shot at keeping their salvation. Therefore it is a correct interpretation to say that these passages speak of those who have been brought to the threshold of salvation, having been given the truth and the opportunity to repent and have turned away); and if we interpret 1 John 1:10 (If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness) to mean that un-confessed sin is unforgiven sin, then we miss out on this most incredible aspect of our salvation, the joy and freedom of knowing that every sin of ours is paid for and that this work is a finished work, with immediate and continuing results. As Augustine wrote, "The joy of the redeemed soul will flow over into the glorified body."

      Ok; let's take a breather. I'll try to finish these reflections in the next post.

Sin and salvation: What does the church really need? -PART VI-

        And, here we are. It's time to examine 1 John 1:5-10. This post is going to be a little bit longer. I need to give some context. If you've never studied John's writing, or if you've just heard general statements regarding John in church, it's important to understand a few basics about him. John is often spoken of as some soft, almost effeminate, doe-eyed, man, who just leans upon Jesus and soaks up every word. Well, John was definitely a man gripped by a belief in and love for, Christ. But he was by no means some soft-spoken, non-judgmental type. He was actually a very intense personality. In the Gospels, we see John as one of the Sons of Thunder (James and John being brothers). They were impulsive, loud, somewhat brash, and not exactly inclined to be gracious. We see them being impetuous enough to ask their mother to request of Jesus that He give them seats of honor in His kingdom, on His right and His left. We also see them telling (not asking) Jesus to give them permission to call down fire from heaven to consume some people who had rejected them. Only Simon Peter trumps John in having "foot in mouth disease".
         So, this John, by the time this epistle is written, is the last standing apostle. Every other apostle has been martyred, killed for their faith, and John has been exiled to island of Patmos as a man of about 95 years of age. He is not just sent off to a nice tropical island to live out his days. Patmos is a barren rock, with little in the way of greenery, or shade, or any pleasant environment. Not only that, he would have essentially been part of a 'chain-gang', probably breaking up rocks, and doing difficult work. It is in this place and under these conditions that John receives the "Apocalypse", the vision he recorded that we know as the book of Revelations. After that, John writes to the struggling church at the turn of the century, a church filled with sin and corruption, false teachers and their lies. It was a difficult time to say the least, and John was literally the last man standing, and he was alone. Here is where he is inspired to write three epistles, and then the Gospel of John. If you examine the literary character of his epistles and his gospel, you not only see consistency which proves his authorship; you also see a very authoritative style of teaching and narration. John is going to go out with a bang, not simpering into oblivion in hopelessness and loneliness. He is a child of the living God, and a citizen of heaven and he knows that Jesus promised to build HIS church. John writes in strong, definitive strokes, laying out a clear picture of who God is and who He is not, what a follower of Christ looks like, and what he does not look like. You don't see any gray areas in John's writing. Although it is not as sequential and as easily-outlined point by point as Paul's letters, we can still appreciate and gain deep understanding from the way he makes a point and then circles back to it later, developing it in a deeper way.
        Alrighty, I'm getting on a tangent. Oh boy, this could get long. Alright, let's get into the text for a bit.
     The purpose for the letter is given in 1:4 "And these things I write, so that our joy may be made complete." By the way, if you haven't read this letter of John and you want to get anything out of this post, go ahead and read it, at least the first two chapters, and then come back. :-)
       Ok, so verse 4 gives us John's reason for writing. If you read the letter, you have begun to see that John is drawing a line in the sand, declaring that his readers must be either in Christ, or out of Christ; in the light or in the dark; with Him or against Him. If we understand this to be the tone of the letter, then we can get the motive here. John wants his readers to know that they are Christians, actual followers of Christ. If they read or hear this and are encouraged to find that they have been forgiven, are in Christ, and possess eternal life, than their joy will increase and be made full. If they are convicted that they do not have a correct view of their sin and of Christ and therefore are not in Christ, then they can submit to the Word, repent of their sin, be saved, and find the Source of joy!
        And NOW our text!
1 John 1:5-10 "And this is the message we have heard from Him (Christ) and announce to you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." The whole subject of the nature of Christ wasn't something John had simply heard about. It was firsthand knowledge for him. He walked, talked, ate, suffered and lived with Christ, and heard His every word and saw His every action. So when he writes on the subject and gives absolute truths inspired by the Holy Spirit, you can count on them being true and essential to your own understanding.
        This section is telling us what God is and what He is not, and what believers are and what they are are not. We can just go right through the verses and make a list of these black/white comparisons, these identifications:
1. Verse 6 "If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." So we can definitely claim the true identity of those who walk in darkness, those who make it their daily practice to do the things which they think are hidden from the eyes of God, things they would rather not be brought to the light: they are LIARS who do not practice the truth. Their claim doesn't match up with their lifestyle.
2. Verse 7 "But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin..." Here is another clear identifying mark. The ones who are cleansed from all sin are 'light-walkers' and 'fellowshippers'. If we are those who have our daily walk out in the open, in the light, in the full view of God and His revealing Word, then we will have real fellowship with our Christian brothers and sisters and we will be cleansed from sin.
3. Verse 8 "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us." This is very clear. The identifier is that of being a non-confessor, one who claims to have no sin. This person is deceived and the truth (Christ) is not in him.
4. Verse 9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The cleansed are confessors. The word confession is 'homologeo' in Koine Greek (homo=same/logeo=to say), so those who have had their sins cleansed say the same thing about their sin that God does. Confession is not the golden ticket to forgiveness. His forgiveness of our sins is not and cannot be conditional upon our confession of those specific sins. If this were the case, then salvation and eternal life would be almost entirely a work of man, which flies in the face of all Scriptural teaching. In effect, our attitude towards sin reveals our true spiritual condition.

       Let's move to 1 John 2:1 "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." AMAZING! The cleansed, redeemed believer is not a sinner by nature, by trade, by practice, anymore! He does combat residual sin in his unredeemed flesh, but the saved one is now by nature a confessor (homologeo), a same-sayer, which is honoring to God. Remember, it's not the confession which brings forgiveness.
       Forgiveness is a gift of God and is wrought by the Spirit at conversion. Confession and repentance restore our relationship with the Lord, but since eternal life, implanted through the Spirit is by definition, eternal (unending, planned before the creation and accomplished by Christ and designed to be complete and last forever-Eph. 1:4), and forgiveness of sins is willed by God to make the sinner clean and spotless to present to Himself in glory, then we must conclude that though sin can hinder a genuine believer, it cannot render him/her guilty before God again. If God has removed your guilt then it is gone forever! Forgiveness of sins cannot be withdrawn. Christ died, not to make salvation just available, but for sins, so that those appointed to eternal life would irrevocably be justified legally, God's righteous anger having been satisfied. If all sin was paid for, then none would go to Hell.
    But if we do sin, and the 'if' in 2:1 is a class 1 conditional statement, assuming we will. If we sin, and we will, then we have a legal Advocate, who is Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is not paying for our sins over and over, or struggling desperately to keep us saved. No, we (those of us in Christ) are saved. Our guilt has been atoned for, and Jesus is there before the Father, literally advocating for us. The Enemy comes and accuses, the Lamb of God advocates for us and the Father knows that His Son took our sin upon Him, paying the debt it had incurred, and by that perfect sacrifice, the Father can look upon you and I who are Christians as though we had never sinned!
            Ok, we could go down this road forever, literally. But I'm gonna start coming to some conclusions, asking some questions, and making some statements in the next section. I pray this will bring God's Word into sharp and painful focus where it needs to be such. Thanks for reading.

1 John 3:1-3

Sin and salvation: What does the church really need? -PART V-

         Let's move over to another revealing passage, a necessary one in understanding the nature of sin, which is, at its core, total rebellion against the law of God. Paul's letter to the church at Rome: this great theological book begins by setting the world stage. Paul makes it very clear that God is not on trial; MAN IS. The indictment has been made and our deserved punishment is imminent. This readies us to hear the Good News! But first we look at Romans 1:18 "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." This is a sweeping, and honestly, troubling statement.God's 'orge' (wrath), His settled, good, and necessary fury is being revealed from heaven, which is the only court where true justice is being done and all sin is correctly confronted.
         A good side-note here is to think about the Disciple's Prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven...thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." What is God's will, and how can the church carry it out on earth as it is carried out in heaven? What is Jesus telling His disciples to pray for here? What is the Lord doing from/in heaven? He is revealing His anger against sin. He has given us His Word, which tells the truth about sin and the human condition. So how is the church most like heaven? When it is confronting sin! The goal of the church is hold out the truth, to hold the line, so that believers will be more and more conformed to the image of the Son (Romans 8:26-31). Being conformed to His image requires the elimination of evil desires and deceived thinking. This is the process of sanctification, becoming like Him in His death, burial, and resurrection.
(Romans 6:1-14)
          So, back to Romans 1:18. God's good anger is being revealed from heaven against all (asebia or ungodliness) and (adikia or ungodliness). If any would claim that they are not ungodly or unrighteous, Paul strikes down that lie in the following chapters (2:1,2 and 3:9-20)
         So ALL are ungodly and unrighteous. The first term describes 'a lack of reverence for, devotion to, and worship of the true God, a failure that inevitably leads to some form of false worship." (MacArthur/N.T.commentaries) Unrighteousness focuses on the result of of ungodly thought and behavior. "Sin first attacks God's majesty and then His law." (MacArthur " ") When men cease to be rightly related to God, their actions become unrighteous. Man's hostility with his fellow man begins with him being at enmity with God.
         That's enough to consider right now. I'll finish the verse in the next post!

Sin and salvation: What does the church really need? -Part IV-

Ok, back to this series. We need to continue the look at the Fall, and examine the three pathways that sin took into Eve's heart, and then in Part V we will jump back to Romans and develop the issue of evil, then Part VI will deal with identifying Christians by their attitudes towards sin, and finally, Part VII will include some reflections on the implications of these truths.

        In the narrative of the Fall, we hit Gen. 3:6, "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband with her, and he ate." There are three in-roads into Eve's heart. Once she made an incorrect judgment about God and believed the Enemy's lies, wickedness became a possibility, disobedience was now 'on the table'. In effect, the knowledge of good and evil was attained before she ate of the actual fruit.
   Gateway #1-"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food..." This is the base, beastly desire of the flesh, defined in 1st John as the "lust of the flesh". This is the lowest, basest part of man. We can see the contrast in these desires being righteously fulfilled versus an evil fulfillment in the difference between meeting an actual physical hunger and becoming gluttonous, desiring food for reasons other than simply nourishing the body and enjoying God's good provision.
    Gateway #2-"...and that it was a delight to the eyes..." This is the eye-gate, or the "lust of the eyes". It is a slightly higher appeal than the lust of the flesh. This is different than the base, animal desires of the flesh. It involves the ability to see beauty and art and honor the Artist. Sin moved in through the eye-gate and corrupted this ability. She saw that the fruit was beautiful and instead of glorifying its Creator, she desired its beauty for herself, for her own advancement and enjoyment.
    Gateway #3-"...and that it was desirable to make one wise..." Here is the corruption of the highest, most noble aspect of man, his 'imago dei', the part of him that was made in God's image, the self that was made to be surrendered to God and thereby to both worship the true God and enjoy perfect fellowship with Him. The temptation is to take that self and put it upon the throne, to supplant God. This is the "boastful pride of life".
         And when all three gates were breached, she took the fruit and ate it. It should be duly noted that in Eve's deception, (which Adam was responsible to prevent by the way, considering that the text says that she gave the fruit to her "husband with her") her motive may have been pure throughout. She may have even believed that by taking the fruit and eating it she would gain some kind of higher wisdom, thereby achieving a greater and more "equal" relationship with God. I think Satan knew that she and Adam would never buy into the outright accusation that God was evil or a false God. The infiltration really achieved success at the ear-gate, and in that attack the innocence previously enjoyed was shattered, and it is clear from Scripture that now no one is innocent. Only God can be aware of evil and remain unstained by it. THIS is why He gave Adam only one restriction/protection; not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Once that commandment was transgressed, immortality was necessarily removed as a possibility, and what a mercy that was! (see Gen. 3:22) In this sense, physical death is both a curse and a blessing; a curse because we were not created to die physically; a blessing because it puts a limit on how long we can be imprisoned in unredeemed flesh. It is comforting that the Lord has numbered my days. "All flesh is like grass...the grass withers and flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord endures forever!"

Genesis Outline

    I'm taking a break from the Sin and Salvation series to post a few sections detailing an outline of the book of Genesis. Genesis can be a challenging book when you're starting out, but if you have come to believe that God's Word is more precious than gold, yes than fine gold, then it will be worth it!

Here is a very general outline adapted from one my textbooks to set up the panorama:

The World of Nature (Genesis 1-2, concerning origins, the establishment of the family structure, and the creative purposes of God)
   I. The Creation                             1:1-2:25
         A. Creation of the world         1:1-2:3
         B. Creation of the human race 2:4-2:25

Human Relationships (Genesis 3-5, concerning Adam and Eve's communion with God, the severing of that relationship, and the effects upon all of mankind)
   II. The Fall                                   3:1-5:32
        A. Temptation                         3:1-5
        B. Sin                                     3:6-7
        C. Judgment                           3:8-24

  III. After the Fall                          4:1-5:32
       A. The first murder                  4:1-15
       B. The line of Cain                  4:16-24
      C. The line of Seth                   4:25-5:32

Sin and salvation: What does the church really need? -PART III-

      So, on this topic we have explored the famous and deeply theological book of Romans, really just skipping through some of the passages that deal with sin and salvation. We could spend countless hours trekking through Scripture and just begin to understand our own sin, and I want to get to 1st John, but before we do, let's jump back to the book of Genesis and talk through the Fall, Gen. 3:1-7 and get a better understanding of the conception of evil in this world and the paths that sin takes into the human heart. This is in the vein of "know your enemy," and "I would not have you be ignorant brethren..." and "I write these things to you so that you may not sin..."
     The Genesis account, being so foundational to all aspects of life and therefore relevant to our entire framework of thought, explains to us how sin entered the world. So, if you haven't read the text of the Fall, and even if you have, do it now...............................Ok, hopefully, you actually read it. So, we see the serpent enter. This is undoubtedly Satan, since the creatures were not yet subject to a fallen state. And from Eve's lack of surprise at being spoken to by one other than her husband,  we can safely assume that she was used to communing with spiritual beings; namely, God and the angels. Earlier in the account we are told that the Lord (Jesus, the Son) would walk and talk with Adam and Eve in the 'cool of the day'. However, she should have called upon Adam to listen and help her discern. He may have been nearby, and it is a deep failure on his part that he did not intervene. Anyways, the Enemy approaches Eve and poses a question, "Indeed (drawing her into a confidence-you can almost see the surreptitious glance, the lean, the twinkle in the eye, and she leans in, thinking, 'how interesting')...Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?'" What a LOADED QUESTION, like a double-barreled shotgun of death. The first four words subject the Word of God to human judgment for the first time in history, and the question itself is set up to plant doubt in Eve's mind as to the actual command of God AND His motives. He is really insinuating, "Hasn't God put a bunch of restrictions on you? That's not fair or loving...I'm sure you can find those thoughts wandering through your own consciousness in different moments of the day-'not fair', 'my rights...'
      Eve, at that precise moment, had already fallen in her heart, though the actual act of disobedience had yet to be committed, and the change in that moment was the loss of innocence. Obedience to and love for the Creator and His authoritative Word had previously been as natural as breathing. The human will was perfectly surrendered to God in all moments, and that dance of free choice, of volition and surrender, had been beautiful. Adam and Eve had been in complete control of their own hearts and minds, and consequently had dominion over the rest of creation.
     Now, as Eve listens to the serpent (1st mistake), she allows herself to question God's Word, that innocence is lost and her response shows how Satan's temptation as already at work. She says, "God has said, 'you shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'" Did you catch the editing of God's command in her response? It's there. Go back and read God's command in Gen. 2:16,17. If you practice this kind of Berean discernment, you will become less vulnerable to deception. Read and re-read to know what God has said! So, the edit/lie is "or touch it". God never said that. We can see Eve thinking and expressing, "yeah, you're right serpent, we can't EVEN TOUCH IT!" And here the Enemy knows he has her, and he presses the attack before she can recover her wits. He shows his true nature as the father of lies and tells the 2nd recorded lie, saying "You surely shall not die!" This is a direct contradiction of the truth. And then he goes on, "For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Satan is giving Eve the justification she already is seeking to go ahead and take the fruit and eat it.
      For a powerful example of this exact situation, read The Last Battle, by C.S.Lewis and the encounter between the White Witch and Digory over the eating of the fruit Aslan had commanded be brought to Him. The temptation is the same-God is really just holding out on you, and His commands are oppressive; if you take what He has said is to be used for a specific purpose, and use it for your own benefit, you will really be pleasing God, because you will show Him that you have a higher knowledge, a stronger mind, and in that strength, you will be LIKE HIM. 'Become free' is the cry of the self, but in attempting to break free of God's authority, the very Source of life and the power to enjoy it is cut off, and only death and utter destruction can be the end result.
     In Part IV, we will look at the three gateways sin took into Adam and Eve's heart.

Sin and salvation: What does the church really need? -PART II-

           So, we ended part one with the indictment from Rom. 3:1 that both Jews and Greeks are "all under sin..." This would have had a devastating effect upon Paul's Jewish readers. Their sense of national identity was powerfully tied into the fact that they had been called out from all the peoples of the world. The Gospel of John shows this over and over. God had chosen them to receive the Law, to remain set apart and He purposed through them to bring the Messiah into the world. God's choosing was just that; His choosing. It had nothing to do with their personal worthiness. Where they erred was in believing that God's sovereign choice of them meant they were, in fact, more holy than other nations, more acceptable to God based upon their adherence to the Mosaic covenant and their physical ancestry which led back to Abraham. The Gentiles were all considered to be sinners by the Jews. If we read on in Romans, we see that though the Jews rejected their true Messiah, mistakenly thinking that His kingdom was an earthly one, God is not finished with the Jewish people. He made a covenant with them, and unlike all of us, God never breaks His promises.
           Paul continues in Romans 3, having made a clear statement that all the world is guilty before God and are under sin, showing us the mastery that sin has over the un-redeemed. Paul quotes King David from Psalm 14, "There is none righteous, not even one, there is none who understand; there is none who seeks for God, all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one..." And Psalm 5, "Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving..." And the reason for this is given in vs. 18. "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Then Rom. 3:23 "...for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." I don't think that needs to be exposited. It is very clear, as is all of Scripture. All have sinned. Instead of feeling secure in their self-earned, self-focused righteousness, God's chosen people ought to have been the most aware of their fallen state, which was that of every other people and nation. Rom. 3:20b "...for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin." Paul is revealing that it is the established Law of God, given in statutes and precepts, which gives definition to the sin we commit. The human nature is to rebel and to seek its own pleasure, to worship the self rather than God. When a law is given, then we understand that the thing we do naturally is a 'sin', is literally 'missing the mark', set by God Himself. Here is the indication that sin has a grip on the human soul that only Christ can break. Romans 7:5 "For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death." And vs. 7b,8. "...for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, 'you shall not covet.' But sin, taking every opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind." So, sin, by its very nature, is rebellion against the Law of God. The assertion of God's Law actually incites the sin nature to rebel. THIS is why salvation is necessary. This is why Jesus is the ONLY way to God. This is why the Tower of Babel didn't get to God, and the system of religious achievements, and the monastic way of life, and all the kind acts in the world, and attending church everyday, and so on and so forth. WE MUST BE REDEEMED OUT OF SLAVERY TO SIN. Romans 6:17,18 "But thanks be to God that though you were SLAVES OF SIN, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been FREED from sin, you became SLAVES of righteousness." This freeing of the believer from sin actually occurs through the death of the nature which is 'sin-enslaved'. Romans 7:4 "Therefore, my brethren (speaking to believers/Christians), you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God." Oh my goodness, what beautiful clarity and economy of words! It's through the body of Christ that we die to the system that revealed our sin to us but was unable to justify us, to satisfy the just and perfect anger of God directed against all unrighteousness. Romans 8:2 "For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did; sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh..." My pastor from a few years back symbolized this dying, burial, and resurrection when he baptized Christians by having the congregation repeat "Died with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ!" as the one being baptized was immersed and then brought up. READ Romans 6:1-14  Well, here end Part II. Part III will delve into the account of the Fall in Genesis 3:1-7, so read it, and then check back in a couple days. Thanks!

Sin and Salvation: What does the church really need? -PART I-

This post is gonna be a bit long, but on these issues one cannot be too hasty. It takes a little time to give it a proper treatment. And this is really just scratching the surface of the issue. Here is Part I.
              So to ask the question, what is the great need of the church, is really to ask, what is God's will for His own possession? It is interesting but ultimately tragic that our Christian perspectives have shifted from God to man. All we hear from the church these days is about men's ideas, men's problems, the programs of men, the churches of men, the sermons of men; the focus has shifted to men. If you listen to the apostles teaching, and read men like Bunyan, Mueller, Bonhoeffer, Spurgeon, etc, the great and vibrant theme is CHRIST, the FATHER, the SPIRIT, and the Word of God. Ideas for ministry come from the Word and the Spirit, man's basic problem is sin, church programs are simple-if it's commanded in Scripture, then do it. The church is God's possession, planned from all eternity, and it exists only with Christ as the Head; sermons are simply the exposition of God's revealed truth, not the clever speech of men. And the main difference in perspective shift is our attitude towards sin.
            If you ask the average church-goer about their spiritual condition, they would probably say that they have received Jesus, or that they believe in Jesus. Not many will say that they have been 'redeemed', or that they 'belong to Christ'. What's the difference? Why am I making a big deal out of this? The difference is of eternal significance, and it is deadly serious. The first response is from a world-view in which there is not really a need for a Saviour, for a Redeemer. In this view, Jesus is often admired or respected, or seen as a great teacher or an enlightened person. He may even be thought of as deity and thanked for coming to earth. In fact, Jesus said many would come to Him in that Day and say, "Lord, Lord, we cast out demons in your name..." and He will say, "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity..." (Matt. 7:22,23) And a few verses earlier (13,14) He says that the way which leads to destruction is broad and its gate is wide and many enter this gate; but the way which leads to life is very narrow, its gate is small, and few are those who find it. Then in John's gospel, ch. 8:42, Jesus is speaking to Jews who 'believed Him, and they are claiming that they are sons of God because of their physical ancestry, and also that they are not enslaved to sin. Jesus is boldly stating that only the Son of God can make them free, but they don't see a need to be free. Of any nation, the Jews should have understood the reality of their own sin, having been given the Law and prophets. Jesus makes this stunning indictment in vs. 42-47 "Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God." 
        So, they had completely missed the intent of the Law. It was never a remedy for sin. The legal/sacrificial system was never intended to bring about actual atonement of sin. God knew that no animal or human blood could pay the price, the debt of wrath that sin had incurred (Rom. 6:23 The wages of sin is death...) Read Romans 1:18-32; it is a massive and sweeping indictment of the whole human race. Perhaps the key is vs. 21, "For though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks..." And also vs. 23 "...they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator."
         The second response we rarely hear from church-goers, that of 'being redeemed' is characterized in Luke 5:1-11. Jesus had come to call Peter to be His disciple. When Jesus demonstrated mastery over the sea and the fish and Peter saw who He was, his first response was "Depart from me, for I am a sinful sin, Oh Lord." He knew in a moment that the Messiah, who is holy, could not have fellowship with him, a sinner.He had the prerequisite knowledge for true humility. For all of Peter's faults, one cannot say that he was a self-righteous man. His sinfulness and the Lord's holiness were ever before him, though he often forgot his place and said the first thing that came to mind!
         If we could spend a few months in the NT epistle of 1st John, we might just begin to get a sense of: how God views sin, how the Christian should view it and deal with it, and ultimately how much sin really affects the believer. The main passage we will look at is in ch. 1:5-10, and we will see that John is giving us not so much a set of do's and don'ts, but a series of tests by which one may determine who is a Christian, the first test being one's attitude towards sin. But before we go there, let's pause to reflect on a few passages:
   1. Romans 3:10-20 "For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin..." Pause and consider...what a shattering statement for the Jew AND for the Gentile. We can continue to develop this passage in Part II.

An introduction

Isaiah 40:5-8

"Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice says, "Call out." Then he answered, "What shall I call out?" All flesh is like grass, and all it's loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever."

This is the first post on my blog, The Gold Cord. The name is taken from one of my favorite books, 'The Gold Cord', which represents the weaving together of many gold threads; truths, God's miracles and works, God's servants, which, when woven together and seen in the light of God's sovereign working, form a gold cord in our lives.

I don't have any illusions that this one blog will become a popular site. I do intend to post studies that I am doing in God's Word, and I need to state clearly right now that this will NOT be a forum for debate as to the whether Scriptures are true, whether or not God exists and is the Creator, whether or not Jesus Christ is the sinless Son of God who came in the flesh, died as the propitiation for our sins, and rose on the third day, and is building His church and will return in these "last days" to take up His church and then to judge the earth. These things are cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith and this blog is based upon those truths and will be built on them. If you are an atheist or agnostic, or a seeker and have a genuine question, by all means, email me and I will happily do my best to answer them from God's Word. But the main focus is to encourage and challenge believers, those who name the name of Christ. I have chosen Isaiah 40:5-8 as a theme for this blog because it reminds us of three extremely important facts:

1. God has spoken with the purpose of revealing His glory

2. Man's life is only a whisper, a breath, and our lives are like grass

3. God's Word does not fade or wither; it stands forever