Paul's Passing Thoughts

Don’t you know, God’s design for Christian fellowship is susceptible to every bump and pothole in the road of life. Supposedly. Of course, the problem begins with the whole concept of church, which is where you go to get more gas for your salvation gas tank for motoring closer and closer to “final justification.”

Yes indeed, church is God’s authoritative institution on earth for the overseeing of his salvation process, and meanwhile, the process is hindered by all kinds of natural disasters, dictatorships, genocide, and religious persecution. In some countries, if you want to murder a bunch of Christians, they will accommodate you by meeting at a certain advertised place, on a certain day, and at a certain time. In other countries, organized religion is against the law unless state approved. In Western culture, church seems like a perfect system because it fits the culture.

Sarcasm aside, Christian fellowship has nothing to do with a salvation process, and is designed in such a way to not be hindered by any bumps in the road of life. The most recent example is the Coronavirus pandemic. I find it interesting that on the one hand, church is critical for obtaining the “ordinary means of grace” under the authority of “God’s ordained ministers,” but on the other hand, where is the biblical exception for when the church building gets leveled by an F5 tornado?

Already, several churches have cancelled services until further notice, and in some states, executive orders to limit ALL social gatherings to 500 people or less are forthcoming in the near future. So much for separation of church and state.

Funny, when a church is shut down, you never hear a concern about where people are going to get their weekly justification, even though that is church orthodoxy in a nutshell.

What could happen to the mega-churches is particularly interesting. During a pandemic, you can’t have thousands of people gathered together three times a week. Also, the bulk of tithing takes place when people are at the services. Furthermore, things like pandemics effect the personal livelihood of parishioners to begin with, while the need to go to the church for financial help increases. Well, the church isn’t going to be able to help. Add these realities to the fact that churches have gargantuan budgets and most mega-churches survive financially on a month to month basis.

It’s interesting that there is no interim orthodoxy for not being able to go someplace and receive salvation on the installment plan from “God’s anointed.”

God’s family is a literal family and functions like a family. Gatherings are for studying God’s word, sharing a meal together, prayer, and encouraging each other unto good works. Multiple self-sustained households can also accomplish various things at utmost efficiency. Institutions, invariably, are funded by individual households anyway.

This doesn’t mean that there is no organization; there may not be authority, but all families are organized. During a pandemic, the family may not meet for awhile, but everything else would remain the same.

And because its not a public institution, home fellowships are underneath the radar of cultural dramas of all sorts.

paul

The constant Bible-speak among Churchians is laughable; there is no Bible in the church. “The Bible says in”…cite chapter and verse…this, that, and the other…is really what they hear from the pulpit on Sunday and nothing more or less.

At least Catholics are honest about it. On the other hand, it’s amazing to watch John MacArthur preach as mindless parishioners are told what the words they are looking at say. Again, I like the honesty of Catholicism; they don’t even bother bringing their Bibles to church, while Protestants mock God by doing so.

So, how did Biblicism become a lie in the Protestant church? Well, it always was a lie, but Protestants strayed away from the lie for awhile and a sort of half-pregnant Protestantism ensued for awhile. And during that time, the church was actually halfway decent, at least, some churches.

The Protestant Reformation was founded on a historical-redemptive interpretation of the Bible. What’s that? Well, since salvation is progressive according to Protestant orthodoxy, the Bible has one role and one role only: to aid the Christian in the progression of salvation. It’s a “redemptive” interpretation, get it? What does “redemptive” mean? Duh.

And how do we use the Bible for the progression of our salvation? Well, since we are still supposedly “sinners,” and as John Calvin and Martin Luther stated, present sin removes us from grace (read: salvation), we must return continually to the same gospel that saved us for re-justification. The sole purpose of the Bible is to “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” Hence, every verse in the Bible is about the “saving works [note the plural] of Jesus.” The Bible is about “what Jesus did, not anything we do.” The Bible is the law that continually walks us back to the cross for more Jesus.

Thing is, most Protestants just wait for Sunday to hear a “gospel message” rather than to preach the gospel to themselves during the week. After all, that’s what we pay the preacher for, right?

Also, remember this: all of the quarreling about women pastors in the church boils down to the ability to re-condemn parishioners every week for purposes of leading them back to the cross. Seems to me that a woman can do that just as good as a man, if not better. Nagging in the pulpit by men every week in the church is rivaled by nothing.

Most pastors will claim they use the historical-grammatical interpretation method and they are either outright lying or don’t know what they are talking about. They may use a grammatical method to reach a redemptive conclusion regarding the text, but that’s not a true use of the historical-grammatical method.

It’s amazing to note the obvious: New Testament letters were read to the assemblies at large. The letters were not delivered to so-called pastors who then explained the letters to those assembled. Nor is there any indication in the Bible that such a format should be used in the assemblies moving forward.

Contemporary Christians know very little about the Bible because the knowledge of it is clearly doled out through the traditions of men. Christ said that makes the word of God void. There is no word of God in the church.

The Bible is about more than redemption. A free and collective study of the Bible by everyday Spirit indwelled Christians is the only way its treasures will be revealed.

paul

“You better educate youth, because one way or the other, they are going to do a revolution.”

There probably isn’t enough totally ignorant and un-self-aware millennials willing to leave their parent’s basement long enough to elect Bernie Sanders. That’s good, because otherwise, he would be elected. You see, we have it so good here in America that it is sort of like being in high school; reality can be experienced through fads without anyone ending up in a mass grave. We voted for the coolest classmate for class president, not because of any difference he or she would make, but because said person represents everything trending at the time.

Back in the day, people told me they voted for Bill Clinton because, “he’s cool.” And gee whizz, “wouldn’t it be cool to have a black president?” While liberals played the race card during the 2008 elections, the truth of the matter follows: America has become a culture given to low information and feel-good faddish trends; by virtue of Barak Obama being something different, he was likely to be elected. And frankly, with a woman president being the next big thing, I am very surprised Hillary Clinton didn’t win. She should have, and the fact that she didn’t speaks to her stunning incompetence.

Perhaps the best example of this was the Che Guevara “T-shirt fad” otherwise known as “Che chic” and widely popular among young people who tend to be enamored by revolutionary ideas and have an inherent sense of moral superiority. With young people, some sort of revolution is always needed. Call Che chic a mere T-shirt fad if you will, but if he would have run for president at the time of the fad, he would have received 100% of the millennial vote. Also note, during the peak of the New Calvinism movement in the church, “Jonathan Edwards is My Bro” T-shirts were wildly popular among the so-called “Young, Restless, and Reformed” who had no idea whatsoever what Jonathan Edwards believed or taught.

Be sure of this: the New Calvinism movement led by John Piper in the church is very parallel to the present-day phenomena of Bernie Sanders and his millennial generation following. The similarities of John Piper and Sanders are uncanny across the board. Only now do I look back and see how Piper brilliantly exploited the propensity of youth towards misinformed revolution to take over the Protestant church. Oh, and by the way, yes, the New Calvinism movement has taken over the Protestant church.

Does this lesson follow? You better educate youth, because one way or the other, they are going to do a revolution. It goes without saying that the church was woefully inept in educating its youth for hundreds of years. Ritual is not education.  And speaking of high school, what revolutionary ideas are being taught to those who have revolution built into their hormones? A clue: NOT capitalism. If you know anything about history, you know that the youth were key to the Chinese cultural revolution and the rise of Nazism. Misguided youth are a major tool of all tyranny trying to take over a culture. In all cases where they succeed, adults were asleep at the switch.

So, you know me, I believe the church hijacked Christianity circa 350 AD and is not worth saving. But since I am a compassionate soul and have friends on a crusade to save the church from New Calvinism, I can at least help them with that. Basically, they need to look at what those in the Conservative movement are doing presently in politics: they are redirecting the youthful propensity towards revolution with truth.

But that may be some bad news for my church friends because it means you are going to have to start telling the truth about Calvin and Luther in the same way the Conservative movement is telling the truth about Joseph Stalin et al.

In fact, had you done that correctly over the years, John Piper would have been rejected out of hand. “But Paul! Are you saying that Calvin et al were socialist tyrants?!!!!!”

See what I mean?

paul

Faith

According to the Bible, eternal salvation comes by hearing the word of God and believing it. This is not a mere intellectual assent, but what the Bible calls “faith.” Faith puts its hope in God, God’s wisdom, and God’s way of life. Faith and hope are closely related. Actually, faith is what the Bible is referring to when it speaks of belief. “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Faith results in a different mindset and behavior. Romans 10:17, Hebrews 11, Psalm 1:1-6, Psalm 119.

Faith, Seed, and New Birth

Faith comes by hearing and believing resulting in the new birth. The new birth is a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit that transforms a person into God’s literal child, or what the Bible refers to as God’s “offspring.” It is the hearing of God’s word and believing it that results in the word of God being implanted within the individual by the Holy Spirit. God’s word and God’s life are synonymous (Matthew 4:4). In fact, God’s word, faith, God’s seed (offspring) are for all practical purposes of salvation the same thing. Matthew 17:20, Matthew 13, Luke 17:6, Romans 4:13, Romans 4:16, and Hebrews 11:11. Belief, faith, and miraculous new birth are a common theme throughout the Bible. And…

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God (1Peter 123).

So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls (James 1:21).

Along with this word of God residing within the believer, the Spirit, Christ, and God the Father live within the believer as well (1Corintians 3:16, Ephesians 1:13-14, John 17:23).

What the New Birth is NOT

The new birth is not a mere “experience” or perception, or a subjective sanctification. It is not the result of a mere “legal declaration.” The new birth makes a person truly righteous as a state of being. In the biblical new birth, true righteousness and the holiness of God are NOT outside of the believer. The believer is not merely declared righteous; the believer IS righteous as the true and literal offspring of God.

The righteousness of God is transferable to the being of those born from above. This does not mean that righteousness originated with us, and therefore, making a substitution necessary that is not truly part of the believer. This denies the reality that God can join holiness with mortality. The reality of God becoming one with those born again is demonstrated by Mary and the virgin birth of Christ. This was hardly a righteousness outside of Mary; God used her body to bring the Savior into the world. “Christ IN you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Therefore, Martin Luther’s “alien righteousness” should be rejected with disdain.

The New Birth and the New Covenant

Hence, under the New Covenant, the Spirit not only implants the word within us, but He baptizes us. This does three additional things: it puts the old person to death and resurrects him/her to new life, changes that person’s relationship to the law, and makes the believer ONE with Jews and Gentiles. The baptism of the Spirit makes one part of the “commonwealth of Israel.”

Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He extinguished their hostility.

He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit (Ephesians 2:11-18).

The old us is put to death with Christ, and the new us is resurrected with Christ.

What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:1-14).

The baptism of the Spirit changes our relationship to the law.

Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?  For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress, even if she marries another man.

Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death. But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (Romans 7:1-6).

Because the new us is no longer under the law and its condemnation, no substitution for the penalty of sin or a perfect law-keeping righteousness is needed. We have been set free to serve another Master once and for all. That freedom means that there is NOW…NO condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1). Christ came to end the law Romans 10:4), not to continually fulfill it as a substitution in return for participating in “the ordinary means of grace.”

That doesn’t mean we are not under any law while under grace. The law, or Bible, is now our manual for loving God and others. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” The Bible is now useful for our “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).

The born again Christian now finds purpose in loving God and others aggressively with no fear of condemnation. “Sin” regarding a believer is really a failure to love and can bring Fatherly chastisement as well as practical consequences, but has no need of reacquiring Christ’s finished salvific works.

Note: any gospel that does not emphasize the TWO laws (both “nomos,” not two “realms”) of Romans 8:2 are necessarily a fulfilling of the law through a ritulistic substitution rather than fullfilling the law through love.

The Order of Salvation

All individuals born into the world are born with the abilty to ask God for eternal life because the works of the law are written on their hearts and their consciences either accuse them or excuse them. (Romans 2:12-16). Those under law are convicted of sin and the coming judgment by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8). And, as mentioned earlier, faith comes by hearing the word of God and believing it.

Hence, God seeks to save man through an internal conviction, an external conviction by the Spirit, and the preaching of the word by God’s children in the world. And, “God’s kindness leads to repentance” (Romans 2:4). Furthermore, creation testifies to God’s goodness and His wrath to come (Romans 1:18-20). The efforts of God to reach mankind is astounding to think about. The internal testimony, the testimony of the Spirit, the testimony of God’s people, the testimony of creation, and God’s personal testimony of kindness. Therefore, the Bible states that “man is without excuse.”

Salvation begins with an individual being persuaded by these messengers, believing it, and wanting this truth of God to be the reality of their own lives. In response to that, the Holy Spirit baptizes them. That is the order of salvation. To make this clear, the book of Acts describes a visual illustration that demonstrates it (Acts 10:24-48).

The Old Covenant

The Old Covenant was a will to which all sin was imputed. The New Covenant ends the Old Covenant (for believers) and all of the sin imputed to it. Galatians chapter 3, Hebrews chapter 9, Romans 10:4.

Saints under the Old Covenant had their sin imputed to the law, or “imprisoned” under the law. The New Covenant puts an end to sin altogether and baptizes Jew and Gentile into one body.

Justification

Justification is by the new birth apart from the law. Justification is by “the promise” of a seed apart from the law. Galatians chapter 3 states that there is only one seed. If the standard for justification is perfect law-keeping, the law is a second seed, but there is only one seed according to Galatians chapter 3. The law cannot give life.

Justification is the result of God’s seed being implanted within us. One who has the seed of God in them “CANNOT SIN.” This is just another way of saying a believer is justified and is the cardinal point of 1John chapter 3. Again, born again believers are righteous as a state of being.

Sanctification

Sanctification is the growing of the Christian life and not the progression of salvation in any way, shape, or form. Like any new birth, the birth event is a onetime finished event followed by the progression of life. The new infant grows by the “pure milk of the word” or in other words, the Spirit’s second use of the law to sanctify (John 17:17). The Spirit’s first use of the law is to convict the world of sin and the judgement to come.

Redemption

Redemption is the salvation of the body and is future; it is different from the salvation of the soul (Romans 7:24).

Fellowship

The church, inherently, is an institution, and therefore has no validity for fellowship among Christ’s called out assembly (ekklesia). All authority is vested in Christ alone, and the fellowship of God’s people is a cooperative body with Christ as the head. The body of Christ is a cooperative effort of collective gifts granted by the Spirit, not an authoritative hierarchy. True Christian fellowship functions like any other family would function.

However, we should also remember that we are ambassodors representing God’s kingdom and also a royal priesthood. A concerted effort to glorify God’s kingdom while we are here should be taken seriously and aggressively pursued through fellowship. Unity will be determined by agreement in the one mind of Christ. Fellowship is determined by who is fellowshipping together and not church membership.

What Justification by New Birth is NOT

It is not Catholicism versus Protestantism, which is an absurd notion. Both hold to a progressive salvation through church ritual. Catholicism refers to that as “the sacraments.” Protestantism refers to it as “the ordinary means of grace.”