Paul's Passing Thoughts

Newsflash concerning the judgement day: if God lifts up your Jesus cloak and there is a sinner underneath, you will be eternally condemned.

— Paul M. Dohse (@PaulMDohse) July 4, 2017

Source: Matt Chandler: Christians Need the Gospel in the Same Way That Unbelievers Do

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