Paul's Passing Thoughts

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

Someone posted this verse on our Facebook page this week and I am making good on my threat to post on it. Let’s jump right in.

If you have believed the gospel, you have “purified” your soul. This isn’t a substitution; this is a state of being. You are now holy as your Father in heaven is holy. You have been born of Him by His seed and through the Spirit. Some translations include, “through the Holy Spirit” which is fine. That isn’t saying our belief is brought about by the Spirit, it is saying that the purification of our souls, or the new birth, happens by the power of the Spirit. It is the same power that raised Christ from the grave. Church theologians want to interpret that as our faith coming from the Spirit because supposedly, faith, posed as an ability of man to choose, is a work. But clearly, the Bible states that we are saved by “faith, not by works” setting a demarcation between the two. Faith is not a work.

Secondly, we find out what the new birth is for: it is “for” love…not law. The new birth totally changes our relationship to the law. We don’t get up every morning with a goal to not sin against the law; we get up every morning with a goal to love. We don’t get up every morning to live a “lifestyle of repentance” because we are still under the condemnation of the law because we have no new nature and being transformed from death to life is only a manner of speaking, we get up every morning to live a lifestyle of love. That’s a meme: “Those born again live a lifestyle of love, not repentance.” Besides, you can’t sin when you are loving anyway. If you want to sin less, love more. If there is any atonement (covering) at all in the new birth, it is, “love each other fervently from the heart because love covers a multitude of sins.” Christ came to end sin, not cover it up. The true gospel is not a cover-up. That’s another meme. There is NOW…NO condemnation for those in Christ.

Thirdly, once saved always saved. You are born again by a what? Right, an “imperishable” seed. And, the seed is the word of God. That’s the seed. The seed is the word of God implanted by the Spirit and maintained by the life within itself, not some pastor, or a church. Pastors are not the Spirit, and the only temples are the bodies of those born again. The Spirit dwells in those temples, and the High Priest of those temples is the believer who possesses the individual body. Hence, how the body of Christ meets should reflect that in every shape and form. “Seed” has to do with family, not an authoritative institution. The gathering of saints together for God’s purposes, viz, love, should reflect that. If you go to meet with other Christians for purposes of repentance, you are still under law. We meet to encourage each other unto good works and love according to the wisdom of the law, not making the law another seed other than Christ: there is no life in a law that condemns you at any point or time.

Fourthly, our original birth into the world was with a seed that is like that which gives life to plants and flowers; and it withers away. When we are born again, the person who was born by that seed dies, and is reborn with the seed of God. According to Peter, that is the cardinal point of Isiah 40: 6-8.

That’s the good news. Salvation does not grow, those born with an incorruptible seed grow. We are enslaved to righteousness accordingly, not sin. Our wages are life, not death. We abide forever because the seed within us abides forever. We affirm infused grace by the seed of God within us. To deny infused grace is to deny the biblical new birth. “You must be born again.”

Church, therefore, is an under-law false gospel. The church train wreck is caused by a fundamental denial of the biblical new birth. Come out from among them and be separate.

paul