Paul's Passing Thoughts

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Good evening, this is your host Paul Dohse and we have a lot to cover tonight. So, if you would, obtain your Bible, a notepad, and a writing utensil of your choice.

Tonight, we are going to cover the basic fundamentals of change in sanctification. We are going to focus heavily on the biblical definition of words used in the Bible that explain how we change in our Christian living.

This ministry believes that Christians really change to the glory of God in a lasting and meaningful way. Protestants, that is, Protestants who really know what Protestantism is about DO NOT believe that people change in a meaningful way pleasing to God.

But here is the rub of the deception: Protestantism defines change as perception only. FAITH is defined as a seeing only. You ever heard the maxim, “Perception is reality”? “But Paul, I have heard these guys say, ‘faith works,” Right, BUT what do they mean by that? In other words, who’s doing the works? Trust me, not us, and I have that in print all over the place. Early on in this ministry when I was the darling of many so-called “Old Calvinists,” they used to say to me, “Paul, it’s like the New Calvinist’s are saying that Jesus obeys for us.” Well, that’s exactly what they are saying, but we are not going to get into how they supposedly make that work in this study. Suffice to say that Augustine, Luther, and Calvin borrowed from Eastern mysticism to make it work.

Tonight, we are going to focus on the real deal. Look, at some point we stop seeking to prove people wrong, shake the dust off of our feet, and let the dead bury their own dead. I am almost to the point where I am saying, “Let’s get the home fellowship networks going and all but completely ignore the perpetual drama of the institutional church.”

Let’s start our study with the word, “sin.” What is “sin”? As Christians we need to stop more often at the four-way word stop and stop running stop signs with presuppositions. Here is what we do with words like sin: we see the red word sign coming and we drive right by without a pause while saying, “Sin is doing bad stuff.” Good is good; sin bad.

Where did sin come from? What is it? How does it function? To not have a complete understanding of sin greatly cripples your ability to understand sanctification. Listen, you don’t need to be a Bible scholar, all you need to be is a wordsmith. All you need to do is remember to stop at the word signs.

Let’s go to the Scriptures and first look at where sin came from:

Ezekiel 28:12 – Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

13 Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was in thee; in the day that thou wast created they were prepared.

14 Thou wast the anointed cherub that covereth: and I set thee, so that thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was found in thee.

16 By the abundance of thy traffic they filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore have I cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; and I have destroyed thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

17 Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I have cast thee to the ground; I have laid thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

18 By the multitude of thine iniquities, in the unrighteousness of thy traffic, thou hast profaned thy sanctuaries; therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of thee; it hath devoured thee, and I have turned thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee (ASV).

Also,

Isiah 14: 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!

13 And thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north;

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit.

16 They that see thee shall gaze at thee, they shall consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

17 that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their home?

18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house.

19 But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a dead body trodden under foot.

20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever.

21 Prepare ye slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers, that they rise not up, and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities (ASV).

Sin originated in an angel created by God. Revelation 12:4 may indicate that he led a rebellion in which 1/3 of the angels followed him. We know that some indeed followed him in rebelling against God. This is the origin of sin.

Of course, the metaphysical possibilities here are endless, and what we are going to do is stick with what we know objectively, yet, I will pause here to throw a few pennies into the philosophical coin jar. Unlimited possibilities does not necessarily equal a deficiency in creation. God doesn’t know everything because the word “everything” implies there is a limit to knowledge and that limits God. Knowledge in the eternal realm can’t have a beginning and an end because that limits God’s ability to know. Knowledge in God’s creation can have no bounds because that limits God. Unforeseen results isn’t the point, eternal knowledge with no limitations is the point.

What God creates is good, but has unlimited possibilities, and that doesn’t make it ungood. Is God able to create something with unlimited possibilities, or must he limit His creation because it could cause Him some sort of trouble? Predestination presumes that God is limited. He must control everything lest His own creation becomes a metaphysical boomerang. Before God created Lucifer, did He have knowledge of evil? If so, where did that come from? Or, is God unlimited by the unlimited? If God is unlimited, why does he need predeterminism? In contrast, freewill suggests God can’t be limited in any way by His own unlimited creation.

That’s the long version of, “We simply don’t know.” But I do know this: I was teaching a Bible study one night for a Reformed church I was a member of and suggested that Christ didn’t know some things. Where do I get that? Among other places in the Bible, Mark 13:32. I tell you, the claws came out like you wouldn’t believe! The hostility was unreal! I was thinking, “Wow, are these folks going to start getting physical with me?” Yet, Christ plainly stated that there were things He didn’t know—get over it! When God visited Abraham and told him that He only knew what was going on in Sodom because of reports brought to Him, is that what He meant or was He just sporting with Abraham?

This is where we get into a discussion of God being limited by attributes assigned to Him by silly men. God is omniscient; therefore he cannot not know something. I beg your pardon, God can choose to not know something if that’s His desire—He is not limited by so-called omniscience. Look, I didn’t write the Bible, if God says He doesn’t know something that’s good enough for me.

But this is interesting, a Reformed person, actually more than one, has protested to me that by making the assertion that Christians are functionally righteous is to attribute an attribute of God to us, in essence, making ourselves God. Let me clarify this idea: they are saying that righteousness is an attribute of God like omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. To say that we, as Christians are actually righteous in the truest sense is like saying that we are also the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Interesting.

Now, back to what we know definitively and can actually apply to our lives in order to please God and experience wellbeing. We are hunkering down on the word, “sin.” We are going to jump ahead a little bit and mention the primary catalyst of sin, or agent of sin, or the arms, legs, and feet of sin, DESIRE. Take note of our first major bullet point in defining sin: it’s an unrighteous, or misplaced desire. Lucifer desired to be a coequal with God in authority, and put a plan of insurrection into to place that led to a rebellion in heaven. It could even be argued that he wanted to surpass God in authority, if “authority” is the right word. The concept of “authority” might have been misconceived by Lucifer to begin with.

At that point, God doesn’t decide to immediately destroy Satan and the angels who participated in the rebellion. Some angels rebelled and others didn’t, I believe this is the metaphysical principle of freewill in action. We often hear it argued, “If I had a choice, and I chose God, that makes me better than the guy who didn’t choose God.” But wait a minute; didn’t God create all of the angels equally good? He did; equally good and with an equal ability to choose. Choice is just that, “choice.” It’s a created ability, not a predetermined outcome. If it’s a predetermined outcome, why would it be a choice? At this point, why wouldn’t God just put an end to the rebellion and call it a day? Did God predetermine that something He created as good fall into sin? I doubt it.

Next, we have Satan approaching Eve in the garden and using the catalyst of sin, desire.

Genesis 3:1 – Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

For our purposes in this study, we want to focus on, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.”

Satan created a misplaced desire in her mind, and when the desire was acted upon, sin was conceived and it brought about death. Let’s now go to James 1:12ff.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

When we obey a sinful desire (we will revisit the obedience of sinful desires in much detail later), some sort of death comes about. In the life of a Christian, this death can be very subtle. Obviously, Christians can choose to obey sinful desires to the point where the death is not so subtle, but more times than not the death is subtle. Unkind words to your spouse may seem like a little sin, and it may be so trivial that she covers it with love, but where does the subtle death take place? Probably in the bedroom. Hey guys, let’s jettison ahead and toss up an example of how we are going to be able to help Christians with the word of God in the future as we tap into the unchartered territory of sanctification. When a fellow brother has ED, yes, it might be a medical problem, but it may also be the result of deaths. And even if it is medical, what led to the medical problem? Let me ask you a question: is eating a desire? And, is the third trip to the buffet a good desire or a misplaced one? Eating is a good desire until it becomes overeating, or an escape. Some people drink a 12-pack, other people will just grab a spoon and a whole half-gallon of ice cream. Right?

With that said, let me throw out another principle: we never judge, we eliminate (James 5:13-16). Indeed, Christians can suffer, and even be overweight due to difficult circumstances beyond their control, but you always eliminate death choices as one of the possibilities. If these principles are emphasized in home fellowships it will enable families to counsel themselves. No one knows their own life better than them. Ironically, formal biblical counseling has saturated the institutional churches and its popularity is exploding, but all that tells me is sanctification hasn’t been properly taught for years. Young men go to seminary to learn how to counsel, not to equip so they don’t have to counsel. What’s up with that? If the average Christian knows how to live life why do we need the present-day gargantuan biblical counseling movement? The institutional church has been derelict in their sanctification duties for 500 years and are now making millions off of their own failure!

David Powlison, one the biblical counseling gurus of our day: “We are bringing counseling back to the church.” That begs the question: what have you Protestant Bozos been doing for 500 years? Has there been a lack of funds? Why should we trust you now?

Look, teach good, strong sanctification from the word in the home fellowships and the movement will explode. Why? because that breeds life, and people like life. Make the teaching of the word central to your home fellowships and everything else will be icing on the cake.

Not only that, the only place where real change is going to be propagated is in the home fellowship movements—the institutional church is not going to buy into the idea of real change within the believer.

In verse 12 the word for trial is better interpreted, “temptation.” That should be evident from the verses that follow where the word “tempted” is used. And what is the reward for saying “no” to sinful desire? Right, the crown of life. Is that rewards of life in this life or when we stand before Christ? I think both (James 1:25).

Now, let’s go back to the garden. When Adam and Eve obeyed the sinful desire, they received indwelling sin:

Genesis 3:15 – I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Here is another HUGE word in the sanctification scheme of things, “seed.” We are going to look at a lot of words that make the complete sanctification picture, and this is one of the dominate sanctification themes throughout Scripture, “seed,” or “offspring.” Obeying the sinful desire gave birth to sin within Adam and Eve, and all of humanity then came from Adam and Eve. This doesn’t change until the Virgin Mary bears the Messiah, she is “the woman” and “the seed” of the woman is Christ.

But the primary purpose of Christ, the seed of the woman, is twofold: to bear the sin of humanity, and enjoin Jew and Gentile into one body through His resurrection by the Holy Spirit. This is “the promise” (the baptism of the Holy Spirit Acts 1:4,5) made to Abraham and Christ (Galatians 3:13-18).

On the other hand, the Holy Spirit was regenerating immediately after the fall. Christ told Nicodemus, “you must be born again” (John 3:7), and that was before the cross. The new birth and the baptism of the Holy Spirit are two different things; the baptism of the Holy Spirit united Jew and Gentile into one spiritual body. In one of the parts of this series we will be looking at the Holy Spirit’s ministry in depth.

Believers “lived” by faith, or faith made them alive. Saving faith believes God. Hebrews 11 makes this clear. Their belief also made them righteous (2Peter 2:8). From the very beginning, in this way, there was enmity between sin and the seed of the Spirit:

1John 3:7 – Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother…

11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Notice the contrast between “of [ek] God” and “of [ek] the devil” or “of [ek] the evil one.” Ek is a Greek preposition that denotes origin—where something came from (“out from”). All people born into the world process sin that came from Adam and Eve. However, indwelling sin does not make humanity direct descendants of Satan in the same way that the new birth makes believers direct descendants of God. When sin was found within Lucifer, it was the creation of a separate entity unlike the new birth imparts God’s seed within the believer. The new birth is being born of God and you are part of His actual linage—God’s seed is not a separate entity working in the believer. Sin, of course, has commonality with Satan in regard to character and enmity against God, but biblical references to people being descendants of Satan is in a manner of speaking. Sin does not make people direct descendants of Satan.

Let me bring my point into clearer focus. There was a time in history when Satan in fact tried to up-the-ante and create a human race that would have been direct descendants of the fallen angels. Said angels actually cohabitated with the daughters of men. God incarcerated those angels until the last days when they will be released as a judgment, and then wiped out mankind in the flood because of this direct descendancy which was also an attempt to wipe out the lineage of Christ (Genesis 6:1-4, Jude 6,7). Post-flood, another attempt at this is made at Sodom and Gomorrah and we know what happened accordingly (Genesis 19).

That’s an important distinction because this brings us to our next point in knowing the enemy; i.e., sin. SIN is a master. People born into the world are really more direct descendants of sin than anything else, they are the “children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). Certainly, Satan can rule over people through the mutuality of sin, but sin is a master in and of itself.

Genesis 4:6 – The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Again, we see the concept of life and death. The Hebrew word translated “accepted” in the ESV is really “lifted up.” Disobedience leads to a fallen countenance, a form of death, and obedience leads to being lifted up, a form of life. Again, we see the catalyst of sin—desire. Sin desires to master, and uses desire to tempt people to sin. As we will see further along in the study, disobedience not only leads to some kind of death in various and sundry forms subtle and not so subtle, the desire for the sin increases in intensity and becomes an enflamed lust that enslaves the individual. It could be argued that this is the first detailed gospel presentation in the Bible. Remember, people who believed God in the Old Testament were born again of the Spirit. Salvation is not just believing in the facts of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, it is a plenary believing of God that says, “God said it and that settles it” misunderstanding at times notwithstanding. Cain did not believe God in regard to the fact that sin is a master who wanted to dominate Cain, so we read the following:

Genesis 4:8 – Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

Death, right? Do you see the progression of death via disobedience and not believing God? See the intervention of God at various stages? That’s evangelism. God is modeling evangelism here. Let’s read further:

Genesis 4:13 – Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. 16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

God puts a restraint on the consequences of his sin in order to continue the evangelism process, and be sure of this—this is a microcosm of every life on earth and the way God seeks man out in the same way He did Adam and Eve in the garden. God uses us and the Holy Spirit to seek men out, and yes, many of the righteous will die in the process.

So, if man is enslaved to sin, why are there any positive things in the world at all aside from Christianity? Because man is created in the image of God. But let’s not run that stop sign, ok? Let’s stop and ask ourselves what that means. It means a lot of things; such as, man is made to work, create, and take satisfaction in his accomplishments. Man is made to produce and will not be happy unless he is accomplishing things. Man functioning against the purposes of creation is also sin, and I think the kind of death propagated by laziness is extremely obvious, right?

When man creates something and stands back saying, “It is good” that imparts life, not death. Also, man is created with the works of God’s law written on his heart and a conscience either accusing or excusing his actions. The bad feelings associated with a conscience that is condemning you is definitely a form of death, and a clear conscience is definitely life. Secular psychologist and former president of the APA Orval Hobart Mowrer built a whole career on this concept and helped more people than any other psychologist in human history. Basically, the same counsel God gave Cain; if you do well, your countenance will be lifted up, if you do wrong, you will be downcast. How does one love life?

1Peter 3:10 – For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;

Do we have a problem in our society with people not loving life, viz, depression? You bet. To me, it is clear why depression is so rampant in our society. Also, note that Peter is citing an Old Testament passage,

Psalm 34: 12 – What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? 13 Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. 14 Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

We have to note that the very same death/life—cursing/blessing concept is operative in the New Testament as it was in the Old. Before we move on, here is another sanctification/counseling nugget: when an unbeliever comes to you for counsel it is a perfect opportunity to present the gospel. Please don’t take the approach that if they don’t become a believer any counsel that you would give them is a waste of time. No, tell them, as God told Cain, that God’s wisdom can indeed make them happier in this life, but ultimately they are still condemned. Both Christians and unbelievers live under the death/life construct, but only the Christian can have eternal life. Showing God’s wisdom for living reinforces the fact that the One who created us knows what’s best for us in this present life, but that doesn’t deal with eternal life, only present life. They need both, and that makes a great gospel presentation. If they opt out of the eternal for the time being, every time you teach them about present life it is going to remind them that they need eternal life. See how that works?

Sin is a master, and this now brings us to the ancient slave/master motif presented in the Bible; primarily, the slave trade, or the marketing of slaves and how they were purchased from one master by another from time to time. All born into the world are born into the slavery of sin.

Romans 7:14 – For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

We will be discussing the law’s relationship to this later in the study, but for now, focus on the fact that those born of flesh, are sold to the sin master. This concept has a myriad of biblical citations. This concept also makes a strong connection between the teachings of Jesus and the apostle Paul.

John 8:33-36 – They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.

Romans 6:22 – But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

And then,

1 Corinthians 6:20 – for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1Corinthians 7:23 – You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.

1Peter 1:18 – knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

2Peter 2:1 – But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Christ’s death purchased all men from the sin master. All of mankind has been freed from slavery, but choose to remain enslaved; they deny the Lord that has bought them. Their present master is a real salve master who enslaves them, but the Master who has paid for them with His life wants to set them free. His yoke is light, and gives rest from the fear of condemnation. Though His servants live in fear regarding present death or life, the death or life of eternal life is a settles issue. It is a rest from works for justification, not sanctification. They are free from the fear of condemnation, and free to aggressively love God and others in sanctification. Christ is an altogether different Master. As he said, His servants will remain in the house forever unlike the household of the sin master. Not only that, He is a Master that is a brother and friend to the servants. The servants remain in the household forever because they are true family:

John 15:15 – No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

Hebrews 2:11 – For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,

Lastly, sin is presently a defeated enemy. Sin was defeated on the cross by Christ, but many men choose to be enslaved by sin and carry on its work. Nevertheless, Christ will not strive with man forever and will put an end to the works of sin. Christ came to destroy the works of sin created by the devil (1John 3:8). In the Millennial kingdom, Christ will put an end disease and sickness, and finally he will end the last enemy, death:

1 Corinthians 15:54 – When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is our segue into next week. Sin is the cause of death, and the power of sin is the law. All fear of death has to do with judgment. What does this mean? We have met the enemy, next week we will learn what empowers him, and how he is defeated in the Christian life. “How Christians Change: Biblical Dynamics of Change in Sanctification; Part 2, Defeating the Enemy.”