Paul's Passing Thoughts

Are there any saved Baptist pastors out there? Here is what I heard a Baptist pastor say last night: “There is no perfect church.” Of course, we hear this coming from the mouths of Protestants constantly. Yet, Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Houston, we have a problem; Jesus said to be perfect, but Protestants constantly insist that no church is perfect.

Well, amen to that. So, how does the average Protestant interpret Jesus’ use of the word “perfect.” Answer: perfect law-keeping. Why is that their interpretation of the word “perfect” in biblical context? Because they are still under law.

First John, chapter 3, defines the regenerate person as perfect based on the new birth; you are perfect because you have God’s “seed in you.” You are literally born of God. That makes you perfect in and of itself with an expectation of new behavior because you are a new creature, “behold, ALL things are new.” Furthermore, the new birth changes your relationship to the law (Romans 6 and 7); it can no longer condemn you, and “where there is no law, there is no sin.”

Why is there, therefore, “no perfect church”? Because they are all under law and chock-full of lost people. Why have you experienced, “church hurt”? Answer: because that’s how lost people act; especially when they confess that they can do no authentic act of love—Jesus obeys the law for them lest they would have a “righteousness of their own.” Come now, be honest, this is the verbiage we hear at church constantly.

In fact, read the book of First John very carefully; this whole idea of believers still being sinners was the exact same false gospel he was writing about.

So, biblically speaking, “perfect” is a biblical term for the regenerate/born again. It means we are perfect because we are born again and no longer under the law’s condemnation.

Full stop: what is going on when a pastor says, “church can be messy because it is full of people who sin.” Does the Bible not say that we are no longer under condemnation? When the apostle Paul stated, “there is NOW…NO condemnation for those in Christ,” what is going on when we constantly hear that “believers” are “sinners saved by grace” and a group of “messy people.” Um, well, that’s condemnation. What is more evident? And by the way, “NO condemnation” includes self-condemnation.

Why is church so focused on self-condemnation? That’s very evident as well: “We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” Why? Because we are still under condemnation and in need of the same gospel that saved us every day. Just google the whole “we must preach the gospel to ourselves every day” and see how prevalent it is in the church. It’s this whole idea that the law (or Bible) “shows us our sin” (viz, condemns us), and constantly leads us back to the cross. This is a dominant view propagated in the church and boils down to progressive justification defined by perfect law-keeping imputed to our account when we obtain Jesus’ perfect law-keeping by “living by the gospel” or “living by faith alone” in sanctification which was refuted by James.

Folks, there is no new thing under the sun.

Christians don’t sin; they fail to love because we are still embodied in the weakness of mortality and long for the salvation of the body. We fail to fulfill the law of love, but we are no longer under the condemnation of the law.

And it matters not that someone supposedly fulfilled the law of condemnation in our stead; how is that a “justification apart from the law”? Why would Christ come to fulfill a law that cannot give life, but only death?

Please read Galatians chapter 3 with your own mind and not the thoughts of others.
Please go forth and love aggressively with no need of Baptist morbid introspection.

paul

FYI, I will no longer put up with being told I am lost because I am not a member of a “local New Testament church.” I don’t go to church because the vast majority of church members support a false gospel. While proclaiming the “new birth,” most church members, and for that matter pastors as well, have a clue-not what the new birth is.

Upon being sent the link to the posted screen shot attached to this article, I responded swiftly with no holds barred. I don’t tell churchians they are lost because they support a false gospel because only God knows that for certain and they could be saved but confused/misguided, and in fact, useless to the kingdom, but nevertheless saved by the skin of their teeth. My response was pulled down and my personal Facebook account blocked from this Baptist tyrant’s site; I obtained the screenshot via our PPT FB account.

What was the content of my response? Well, first of all, the Hebrews passage cited only pertains to believers assembling for mutual edification in whatever context. Rubbing shoulders with the family of God is the subject; not the where, when, and how. Furthermore, the context is not salvation or the testing of it by church membership. How do these people get from a discussion on baseball statistics to the question of life on Mars in the same conversation? It’s like Matthew 18 being about “church discipline.” Not only is “church discipline” nowhere found in the Bible, where is “church discipline” in Matthew 18? In addition, where are the “elders” in Matthew 18? It’s like the “seed of the woman” being the “Adamic Covenant” when God was speaking to the serpent and not Adam or Eve!

What are these people smoking?

Furthermore, my response stated the following fact: the vast majority of pastors and church members, if not all, would answer the three following questions/statement in the affirmative; did Jesus die for all of your sins; past, present, and future? Did Christ obey the law perfectly so that His righteousness can be imputed to us? Christians are “sinners saved by grace.” Proclaiming these three statements as true is an overt denial of the biblical new birth.

Moreover, it makes the new birth a perpetual reinstatement of a mere legal declaration and not a onetime transformation of one’s state of being. The error is almost too obvious; if we are still “sinners” we still need salvation. If we are still “under law,” we need continued forgiveness for present and future sin. If Jesus obeyed the law for us so perfect obedience can be continually credited to our account, we are unable to please God with our own acts of love.

So, when we “obey,” it’s not really us obeying? Come now, be honest; this is what you hear in church constantly while being warned about “having a righteousness of your own” because “righteousness is a gift from God.” But isn’t a gift owned after it is received? If you are born again via a holy Father, are you not holy as His offspring? But, we have to keep getting Jesus’ perfect obedience to the law imputed to us by faith alone? How is that a “righteousness apart from the law”? Duh. Pray tell, where does the Bible say that it is a righteousness apart from our obedience as believers? The issue is the law period; not who keeps it. If those who attend church would only start paying attention and begin reading the Bible with their own minds, they would see church for the cognitive dissonance cesspool that it is.

So, what does the true new birth accomplish? It changes our relationship to the law. That’s Romans 6 and 7. Any theology that has a singular perspective on the law and sin denies the new birth. Clearly, all “local New Testament churches” teach a singular perspective on law and sin; law is law and sin is sin. That denies the new birth.

Look, I have written thousands upon thousands of words explaining this and more help may be found here, and here, but suffice for this post, a true perspective on the new birth teaches that a changed relationship to law and sin effected by the new birth makes a believer truly holy and the one who is actually doing the obedience and love.

Hence, good works are not substituted for salvation in the same way that Christ was a substitution for our sins against the law. If good works have to be substituted as well, does this not deny a true change in the believer? Sure it does. Yet, this is one of the foundational doctrines of Protestantism: “double imputation.”

This denies the new birth and models institutional salvation where the “means of grace [salvation]” are doled out because believers “still sin” because they are still under law. Home fellowships (NOT church in a home) model true new birth into a true literal family of God as opposed to additional mediators other than Christ or what the church calls, “under shepherds.” Really?

Not only am I going to start calling people out on this in no uncertain terms, I invite public debate on this to give arrogant Protestants a chance to defend their high and mighty church orthodoxy.

Put up, or shut up…if anyone here is lost, it is those who deny what the Bible defines as the new birth and replaces it with church tradition.

paul

It dawned on me two days ago that all is well. Yes, regardless of life’s insistence that doom awaits us at every turn and our final destiny with God is unsure, from time to time, I stop to ponder a real vision of who God is and all of life’s threats vanquish.

It is a vision of hope and love that promises that this present life has no hint of the glory to come for eternity in God’s presence. It beckons the memory of what the apostle Paul wrote: “What can this world do to us?”

It didn’t surprise me that this, in a manner of speaking, “vision,” or better stated, remembrance, came via my 6-year-old grandson; but I am struck that his words have impacted my life more than anything else I can remember save a few other experiences.

Recently, we have been attending my son-in-law’s Saturday night fellowship gathering around food, fellowship, the Bible, and prayer. David, and my daughter Heather have a table at the gathering where free items are offered. My grandson Blayne picked a Bible from the table and approached me while holding it up and saying, “Tell me the words grandpa, tell me the words.”

Understand this. We don’t talk to Blayne about God. Certainly, he sees the theme of our life while he is with us, but we have never made it a point to “preach the gospel” to him or “hit him over the head with the Bible.” From time to time we have answered questions about God that he initiated, but we have never been focused on indoctrinating him or taking him to church every Sunday when he is with us because we don’t go to church.

And, we don’t go to church because it is a lie. Yes, the whole shebang is a big fat lie. Please, save me the whole, “There are good churches out there” because that’s not true. Besides, during World War II there were good Germans in Germany, so what’s your point? However, I will grant you this: the more confused a church is about authentic Protestant orthodoxy the better they are as far as “better” goes. In fact, I would almost consider going to a church that is confused enough because they might accidently tell some biblical truth now and then…almost. Herein is the problem; the Neo-Protestant movement has taken over the vast majority of churches and this is a return to a refined understanding of authentic Protestantism. Hence, even accidental love and truth are in short supply if not absent in church altogether. I mean, do you pay any attention to the news at all?

I was reminded that life is an astounding thing when the words of a 6-year-old struck me more than any words I have ever read or heard in seminary. The request of this child to me proclaimed many truths in the Bible that came from nowhere but his very own heart. This is intuitive knowledge that God creates in the heart of every human being born into the world. Children lack knowledge and the errant interpretation of life experience that pushes back against that intuitive knowledge. And nothing pushes back against that knowledge more than church.

In church, children are bored, and subjected to the same formal structure that they experience in school all week long. Incredibly, parents trust institutions to tell their children how to think all week long, and then take their children to the institutional church on the weekend to do the same in regard to spiritual matters lest parents would do anything but feed/cloth their children and deal with the fallout of vile ideologies based on group think.

Sorry, but unchurched children seek God because God creates it in their hearts to do so naturally. And, if you don’t go to church, you will have the opportunity to exclude the following information: they are totally depraved, can do no good work, and regardless of what happens to them or others in church, it is the only way to obtain heaven. And by the way, God selects some for salvation while excluding others so God may or may not love any particular child. Maybe God loves you; maybe He doesn’t. Those are all really, really, bad ideas. Also, you can add general confusion because the church will deny they teach children this…while clearly doing so. You see, you only think you are being taught what you are being taught because you are ignorant, and as the notable Protestant scholar Albert Mohler has said, “Pastors are God’s ordained agents to save His people from ignorance.” Children don’t like confusion, unlike many adults, they want to “know the words.”

As a formally pathetic individual, I would have taken Blayne to an expert mediator (pastor) other than Christ to be told the words. How’s that working for ya? Most churched children are indifferent to God and basically dysfunctional. I believe many young adults opt out of college because education is boring and they get sick of being told how to think and what to think. Then they go to church on the weekend and get the same thing.

Your family is not an institution, and God’s family is no more an institution than any other family, and your family doesn’t function in an institutional setting. In a home setting children thrive, experience love, and ask questions about God that will astound you. Families thrive when they function as families, not institutions. Ability to contribute is not determined by authoritative caste systems that drive institutionalism, but body life. Healthy bodies function as each part fulfills its purpose. Institutions necessarily deny literal family life and the biblical new birth that brings people into a real family life. Functioning in an authoritative institution demonstrably denies literal family life and the new birth. Like any other corporate jingle, “When you are here you are family,” such is “family” defined by church. When you are there you hear a lot of family-speak, but try leaving for a while.

And if you don’t think children sense all of this, you are clueless.

We meet in homes as a family the way “the way” did for 300 years before Augustine came along because that’s what families do, and that is a message that children will hear loud and clear resulting in a true belief that they are really part of God’s family and were literally born into it. As I began telling Blayne “the words” on his bedside with Susan’s helpful input, I perceived that Blayne was having trouble grasping the concept of new birth into God’s family. But you want to know something? It might have been easier for him to grasp if I would have used the living example of my son-in-law’s home fellowship and why God’s people meet as a family. Children relate to what they experience in real life; adults use education and the thoughts of others to partake in cognitive dissonance. This is what makes adults less teachable.

Also note another intuitive notion found in children: family is where you find answers to questions about life. Blayne didn’t ask for a phonebook, he came to grandpa. What do parents normally do? They take the child to an expert because the church has taught them that they themselves are unqualified concerning spiritual matters. This is why our culture is utterly unable to think for themselves and are easily led to the slaughter like a dumb ox.

Another way I fell short is explaining to Blayne from actual Bible texts why these things are in his heart. How does he know in his heart that the Bible has “the words”? This would validate the Bible in confirming how he is experiencing life. In contrast, church will teach children that they can’t know anything in their heart (intuitively) because they are totally depraved. If you “know” what the church wants you to know, well, that means that you were preselected to understand it. Any knowledge that comes from within your totally depraved self is false.

FYI, no Protestant parent has a right to expect anything from their children but corruption based on the whole “sinners saved by grace/total depravity” motif. In fact, an inability to see or display such evil suggests that their “eyes have not been opened to the gospel.” Yet, regardless of witnessing this proclamation to their children week after week, they seem perplexed when their children behave like little despots. And plenary confusion of the like is not missed upon the children as well.

It makes me wonder: are children and the knowledge they are born with the single greatest threat to the future of the church? The church invests huge resources in children’s programs such as The Gospel Project and The Bible Project which teach children the historical-redemptive hermeneutic on their level. What’s that? It presents the Bible as a tool for self-condemnation in order to keep children at the foot of the cross. Supposedly, Bible “stories” are not “moral examples,” but rather examples of how totally depraved we are resulting in deeper gratitude for our ongoing need for salvation.

Right, teach children that…brilliant.

Of course, the institutional goal is the same as with most institutions; control, and many would do well to remember Christ’s warning about hindering children from their natural inclination to seek God’s kingdom. This warning also pertains to the unwitting actions of parents who relinquish their responsibility before God to teach their own children. In the final judgment, being duped like Eve will be no excuse; there is only one mediator between the human race and God, viz, Christ, not a myriad of men certified to think the thoughts of other men.

And as far as independent home fellowship networks being susceptible to cultism, remember that the very definition of a cult is the fusion of authority and faith which ALWAYS results in authority as truth. Home fellowships are predicated on body life, and life that creates the oneness of family, not authority. Home fellowships are a cooperative body seeking more and more unity around the mind of Christ, not a church caste system determined by men who buy authority through seminary degrees.

This whole matter of explaining the words to our children from our own independent study like good Bereans is a new endeavor, and we will get better with practice. Don’t worry, as we supply a free family atmosphere where these questions are encouraged, the children will lead us, and in return…

…we will stand against the Protestant empire’s onslaught against what our loving God instilled into the hearts of our children when He knitted them together in the womb.

paul