Paul's Passing Thoughts

It’s good that we call church, “church” because it is distinct from family, specifically, God’s family. Declaring myself a Dohse doesn’t make me a Dohse, being born into the Dohse family makes me a Dohse. Though there is legal adoption, there is only ONE way into the literal family of God; new birth through the one-time baptism of the Spirit established by Christ’s resurrection.

Church is an institution, and like all institutions, it can’t replace family. A good example is what I do for a living: skilled nursing facilities can take care of people who can’t care for themselves; but we cannot by any means replace family. Residents who have an involved family do demonstrably better mentally and physically than residents who don’t have an involved family.

However, unlike most institutions that aide families in being better families (in other words, they are a supplement) the church is an institution we can liken to gangrene—gangrene is an infection that eats away tissue undetected for a period leading to necessary amputation of limbs. One example among many ills we can liken this to is the “fallen pastor” epidemic. A church like Apex in Dayton, Ohio can seem to be soaring to new spiritual heights until it’s discovered the pastor was involved in a ten-year illicit affair. No one saw it or felt it coming, but amputation became necessary to save any credibility the ministry ever had.

Is it possible the epidemic could be a result of the church’s gospel? Gangrene doesn’t ask such questions.

What is the difference between church and the literal family of God? Two gospels. The church gospel is justification by faith; the family-of-God gospel is justification by new birth. These are two different gospels; one false, the other true.

A new movie, “The Heart of Man,” produced by the church will seek to further the justification by faith false gospel. Simply stated, what is that gospel? Answer: you are justified by faith in what you know alone, but not by any change in your state of being. Yes, yes, I know the church talks about the “new creature,” but again, you are a new creature because of what you know and perceive, not because you are a changed person resulting in different behavior.

In fact, attempts to please God through behavior is what the church is trying to save itself from, and this movie is the latest effort accordingly. The assumption, actually, what we call “assumptive deception” (allowing people to assume certain things in the process of deception) follows: this constant drumbeat heard in the church speaks against a salvation PROCESS of good works. Deceived churchians are allowed to assume that the church denies a salvation process, but this has never been true. The church’s gospel, Protestantism in particular, is a progressive justification and always has been.

When salvation is NOT a one-time miraculous act of God alone resulting from faith alone, a works salvation is the only thing that can follow. When we are living in the midst of a salvation process, our participation is unavoidable. We must participate by doing something, whether actually doing something, or doing nothing with intentionality, which is doing something. When you decide to do nothing, that’s a decision, and a decision is doing something.

But we could also talk about participating in the “means of grace” found only at church. Again, folks are allowed to assume that the “means of grace” only pertain to mere “blessings” enjoyed by churchians. Nope. The “blessings” being referred to is salvation itself. You go to church, and obey the church, to get more and more Jesus, viz, salvation. The progression of assumptive deception within the church has now reached the point where the who’s who of evangelicalism now say this in broad daylight with little or no ambiguity.

Recently, at a fellowship, Susan saw a book laying on a table and began to thumb through the pages. It was a newly published work by a former SBC president. She brought it to me and pointed out progressive justification, literally, on every other page. However, if you don’t know what to look for, you aren’t going to see it. A caveat that will help is reading the word, “grace” for what it is really intended to mean in church-speak, “salvation.”

Christ specifically names the false gospel of the last days: “anomia.” In the English rendering we call it, “antinomianism.” When you attempt to discuss the specific last-days false religion called out by Christ with churchians you will be accused of “using big theology words to bring glory to yourself.” Apparently, any word with more than four letters qualifies for such among this dumbed down horde.

But at any rate, what is anomia (anti-law)? According to church orthodoxy, it is the rejection of the law as the standard for justification. So, the standard for righteousness (justification/salvation) is perfect law-keeping lest you be called, “antinomian.”

In contrast, what is the true biblical definition of antinomianism? Answer: it is the removal of love from the life of the “believer” and makes all loving acts performed by Christ (or the Spirit) and not the “believer.” This is because church orthodoxy only has one perspective or definition of law; ie., the standard for justification. Hence, only those who can keep the law perfectly are just, and since no person can, the perfect law-keeping of Christ must be continually applied to the “saint” in order for the saint to remain saved, and this is accomplished by participating in the “means of grace.” Get the picture?

But the true new birth obtained by faith alone and through the Baptism of the Spirit changes the believer’s relationship to the law. How? It completely removes the condemnation of the law and makes the law a manual for love. It completely removes the death of the law, and makes it a law of life for the believer. It completely removes the bondage of the law, and makes it a law of liberty.

Therefore, is a proper understanding of Romans 8:2 paramount to understanding the whole Bible? absolutely.

Key to having life, and having it more abundantly is an aggressive endeavor to apply the law to one’s life as a way to love God and others with no fear of the law’s former condemnation. The true new birth transforms one from the death of the law to the life of the law. Nothing here has ever changed; in regard to the law, Moses exhorted us to “choose life.”

Back to the movie. It’s based on the Bible parable of the “Parodical Son.” Supposedly, this parable is meant to demonstrate the futility of attempting to keep the law for God’s approval. Well yes, if you are still under a single perspective on the law, and therefore still, “under law.” In other words, the church’s definition of “under grace” is being under law except that Jesus fulfills the law (think, “love”) for us as long as we partake in the “means of grace,” which, of course, can only be found in the church, which, of course, insists that we tithe at least 10% every week, which, by the way, is another “means of grace.” Just perfect; who knew?

In the promotion of the movie, premiering September 14th at selected theaters, we read:

It’s a story inviting us to leave behind our broken, moralistic and religious way of thinking and relating to God and to others. Once we begin to know who God is (and as a result who we are), we have something to invite the world into. Freedom from performance. Freedom from managing our behavior so we appear acceptable to God.

And by the way, Pastor Tullian Tchividjian, like so many others, was the sultan of this gospel and we know what his life ended up being about, right?

Well, far be it from the truly born-again to be free from the performance of love. And as true children of God, why would we attempt to appear acceptable to God when we are His children to begin with? Do we love our parents to gain their acceptance? No, we love them because they’re our parents, and we love other Christians because they’re our brothers and sisters.

True antinomianism removes the born-again perspective of the law from the sanctification of the believer and substitutes it with Jesus’s perfect law-keeping which is imputed to our account through ritualistic traditions of men. This is EXACTLY what the Pharisees were guilty of. No, truly born-again believers who obey the law of love are not Pharisees, the church is.

Also indicative of ills associated with this false gospel is an utter lack of justice in the church. Since we cannot love and are only saved by substituted love found in grace, we should “forgive the same way we were forgiven.” We find a hint of this in the movie promo as well:

It reveals the antidote to shame — grace. The grace of the Father for his children and the grace we can have for each other…in the midst of our darkest moments.

And trust me, the church has its share of “dark moments.” In fact, almost all wars recorded in human history flow from religious ideology. Historically, Protestants have murdered millions who refused to forgive the way they were forgiven.

And FYI, pedophilia also qualifies as a “dark moment” experienced by many. After all, “sin is messy, and churches are full of sinful people with messy sinful lives.” In contrast, the true household of God “walk[s] circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. ”

How close are we to the return of Christ? If the rampant anomia in the church is any indication, close. And remember, residual details aside, the church’s disdain for individualism expressed in its total depravity doctrine shares a commonality with many other religions and secular politics.

paul