Just a Thought "105"

Their are people who are extremely proud of their humility. There are those who put humility on a show for the sake of elevation self. These people want to tell people how humble they are. But the selflessness Paul has in mind does not point to itself. It does not tell others how selfless it is in order to call attention to it’s self.

The selflessness Paul is talking about does not seek a response from others. It does not have to make an appeal to the emotions of others for the purpose of calling attention to it’s self. True selflessness would point to the selflessness of someone else rather than it’s self. The Christ mindedness sitting in Philippians, Christ sacrificed self for the sake of others. Let a misunderstanding arise and no self protection will rear it’s ugly head such as to not take the first step towards reconciliation.

Joy is directly related to our thinking, this is why Paul redirects our thinking in Philippians, who’s thought had become fleshy oriented. Attitude always precedes action, Paul is giving us cause to think on common ground. How can we rejoice without giving some thought as to what we have to rejoice about. We all have worries and care, but worry never robs tomorrow of it’s sorrow, it only saps today of it’s joy.

Paul does not saying IF we do these things and IF we judge another then we are guilty. Paul is saying whenever we judge another we are automatically condemning yourself, because the truth is we do the same things, we may do them in a different way, but rest assured we do them. Anytime we condemn the coming shortnesses in others, we need to understand the reality of the fact that we are all in the same boat, we all come short in the righteousness department due to that indwelling sin nature.

We all come short of God’s measure of rightness. A person who is in the gutter, so to speak, oftentimes realizes the situation they have gotten themselves into, but a person who believes they are in a position to judge someone else; a person who has rationalized away their own short comings is one who is failing to recognize the sins of self.

Romans 2:2 - Paul begins with this statement in order to contrast God’s judgment with people’s judgment. God’s judgment is according to truth. No slanting of the facts to protect the guilty. No self-justification based on the convenience of the moment. No ethics geared to the situation at hand according to Paul, but God’s judgment is according to truth, our own moralizing standards set aside. The human race is guilty.

If we are pleading that some individuals do in fact measure up to God’s righteousness, Paul has just dispensed with that foolish notion. We all appear at different places, at different times within the list called: GUILTY. There is a short-coming of righteousness in the world, because there is a short-coming of righteousness in individuals, and that includes everyone.

Matt. 12:36 - The meaning of ‘idle word’ is careless or useless sayings. Starting in Matt. 12:22, their was a Pharisee who was guilty of everything in the context of that story. Paul is who that Pharisee was and Paul was not only first in line, when it came to dispensing the grace of God, Paul was also foremost in crime when it came to murdering the saints of Israel’s earthly kingdom program.

If Paul was at Pentecost, would Paul himself, if he took part in stoning Stephen for believing the message given at Pentecost, would he have been a blasphemer at Pentecost? In Paul’s pre-grace zealousness, he would have been a foremost rejecter of any notion whatsoever that Jesus was Israel’s messiah or that Jesus had been risen from among the dead.

First in line, first in crime are apt descriptions for the Apostle of Grace. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation of grace. God is not dealing with Israel nationally today, he is dealing with all alike in the Age of Grace. The apostle Paul dispensed a message that the 12 apostles had not dispensed, and that message was different, and that message was geared to the Gentiles.

Paul is the chief pattern of God’s grace to all, he is the foremost example. We need to understand that even though Paul was saved, Paul still considered himself to be a sinner. Paul understood the word: Sin. And Paul understood that word meant to come short of the righteousness belonging to God himself. Paul is the foremost example of the impossibility, the total impossibility of gaining righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh. Those who are sealed in Christ, our careless or useless sayings and words are a Judgment Seat of Christ issue.

Just a Thought "104"

To many people think salvation is the end result, but salvation is the starting point. Understanding peace with God comes from understanding the accomplishment of Jesus Christ, but letting the peace of God rule in our hearts is not the same thing as understanding the reality of having peace with God. We need to understand, God had much more in mind when he designed the body of Christ than a library full of learning or a theater of theologians.

There is an element of pride today on the part of many who think God must be looking on them with special favor because they happen to belong to a particular denomination. There are people who take great pride today and elevate themselves above others because they rightly divide the Word of Truth, when rightly dividing the Word of Truth is merely a tool to use, so that you come out with a proper understanding of scripture. Who knows how many have died believing their church affiliation was sufficient to get them into heaven, that attitude is coming from what scripture calls the pride of life and nothing more.

This ministry of reconciliation is not to the saved, we know we are reconciled, but now all have access to God, a change in status for the entire world. Does this mean the entire world is save? No. There are those who mistakenly suppose that reconciliation is the same thing as justification. These people have jumped to the conclusion that Jesus Christ taking the sin issue off the table of God’s justice through his becoming sin for the human race is that which makes a person as righteous as God; they have mistaken reconciliation for justification. Being declared righteous is God’s gift to the believing sinner and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the sinner himself doing anything to deserve or merit that righteous standing.

Allow the peace of God to rule in your hearts, Paul’s really making readily apparent the fact that not everyone will do so. We do not naturally gravitate naturally towards truth, nor towards agape behavior. But we do gravitate naturally towards those dealing around us by emotion. We let emotion, our emotion rule us. Yet, love is the bond that unifies and edifies other members of the body of Christ. Love is the behavioral glue, attitudinal adhesive that God intended to keep the body of Christ functioning smoothy and operating efficiently and effectively.

Words mean things or at least they are supposed to mean things! Justification is not a process, but is a one-time act, complete and definitive. God could only declare us to be right on the bases of who and what he is, not on the bases of who and what we would be apart from him. God had to devise a way to see us that way, and the way he devised to do that was by joining us to, hiding us in our perfectly righteous savior, thus freely crediting to our account Christ righteousness.

The realization that God’s love accomplished some fantastic things on our behalf. God is anxiously awaiting his own inheritance, which happens to be us, God considers believers to be his own inheritance, he purchased us with the blood of his son, we are God’s valuable inheritance. Sin causes a debt to God so large that it can never be paid by ourselves, but the person who knows what Jesus Christ really accomplished, exist in a completely new relationship with God. Justification is a legal act, wherein God deems the sinner righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness.

To many people obviously have behavioral characteristics in mind when they think of that word Christian, because they think forgiveness has to be paid for on the installment plan. But according to Paul we have all our forgiveness and we have it all upfront. The only reason God could say through Paul, “Grace and Peace be unto you” is because God’s son fully paid the price. Justification by grace through faith, what a marvelous thing God has done, and who would have thought of a salvation in the sense that God’s plan would call for him to join a person to his son, therefore, what belongs to the son would now belong to believing people who have been joined to the son.

Satan and his forces know the power that emotions play, when emotions become the cement that seals the door of the mind, such that a mind remains closed and the door locked. To be open to that which  moves a person from the mental comfort zone to which that person has become accustomed, becomes not only an unsettling inconvenience, it becomes a mind-shaking threat to many people. There are multitudes who are putting faith in their feelings, emotional cravings, the minds of the vast majority of so-called Christendom today, emotion trumps doctrine.

Could it be that God is NOT giving people all these emotion tweaking experiences, because he knows that Satan and his forces will come with all manner of lying signs and wonders. People may be going by a religious belief system that is a totally false belief system, why would God refuse to give people neat little things to look at today to determine his presence, his power, his predisposition, his purpose, and his plan? Could it be that God is having people walk by faith and not by sight, because God knew that Satan will be performing the miraculous in the last days of the age of grace.

The Nicene Creed (Just some thoughts)

The conscious survival of the soul and its reattachment to the body at the resurrection. Cheating people out of being caught to meet the Savior in the air, when the Age of Grace is over.

Paul never alluded to the conscious survival of the soul and its reattachment to the body at the resurrection, that is a notion totally foreign to Paul and to Scripture as a whole. Paul did not think the question of the status of the person between death and resurrection was a question that needed to be considered. 

The reason is that for Paul, those who die in Christ, their relationship with Christ is one of immediacy, because they have not awareness of the passing of time between their death and resurrection.

As believers, we do not possess the life that Jesus got when God raised him from among the dead as an inherent quality any more than we possess God’s righteousness as a property in our own nature. Just as in the midst of our sinfulness, we are righteous, so in the midst of our self-evident mortality, we are going to get the life God gave to Jesus. 

Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what we have or do not have, what we have done or have not done, we are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who we are in Christ. 

Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns.

What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. Sin causes a debt to God so large that it can never be paid by ourselves, but the person who knows what Jesus Christ really accomplished, exist in a completely new relationship with God. Justification is a legal act, wherein God deems the sinner righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness.

Justification is not a process, but is a one-time act, complete and definitive. God could only declare us to be right on the bases of who and what he is, not on the bases of who and what we would be apart from him. God had to devise a way to see us that way, and the way he devised to do that was by joining us to, hiding us in our perfectly righteous savior, thus freely crediting to our account Christ righteousness. Reconciliation and sanctification are not one and the same, they are two different truths. A sanctified identity in Christ comes not as a result of behavior, it comes as a result of belief. 

What an identification God has given you, every believer’s sanctification comes by way of your union-identification with Christ Jesus. We find the amazing and comforting truth that God’s love for those who are joined to his son, is the same unalterable and unending love God has for his son. The judicial decree of rightness God grants to those who believe is called justification, God alters your identity by removing you judicially in God’s mind from an identification with the first Adam and now you are judicially identified with the last Adam (Christ Jesus). That joining itself is where sanctification comes into play; sanctification is not a process, it is a past tense accomplishment that can never be revised, reduced, or retracted. 

You have also been sanctified or set apart in that you were identified with Christ by God’s resurrection power, baptized into Christ at the point of your belief. You need to look at sanctification from the standpoint of who is doing the setting apart. It is entirely a work of God for the believer, not a work of the believer for God. No effort of the flesh could accomplish it, no effort of the saint can add to it.

The fact that Christ became a redeemer of the world, does not mean that the world will accept the gift the Redeemer purchased on their behalf. Christ’s faithfulness was the only faithfulness sufficient to merit God’s favor. God used our faith in Christ’s faithfulness as the means whereby he would credit Christ’s righteousness to our account.

To be justified does not mean to be perfectly righteous in performance. It also does not mean to become perfectly righteous or even more righteous in performance through time. It means having Christ’s perfect righteousness freely credited to the account of the ungodly who believe.

Our justification was something accomplished for us by God’s grace. This gift decree of righteousness comes totally apart from any and all human promise, any or all human performance, or any or all human production. God will never consider our works as a payment for God’s justifying declaration.

Justification is God’s gift! To say your works have anything at all to do with God’s gift declaration of righteousness is to slap the giver in the face. Remember, we were given our righteous standing as a free gift. 

The Nicene Creed (Box 3)

The Box

My thoughts about being disingenuous with arguments, testing doctrines against the word of God the way the Bereans did to Paul. Let’s begin with the assertion that there are “many” verses proving the Deity of Jesus Christ, showing that Jesus is God incarnate. The following references play havoc with that Doctrine. 

1. James 1:13 - Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for GOD CANNOT be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.
   
2. Hebrews 4:14-15 - Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. There is already a conflict…but there is much more.
   
3. Matthew 4:1-11 - Tells how Jesus was led up of the spirit into wilderness to be tempted of the devil and it lists the temptations. If Jesus is God incarnate as the “many” verses prove, then Matthew’s account contradicts James…another conflict.
   
4. Mark 1:9-13 - Mark describes how the spirit drove him into the wilderness where he was in the wilderness 40 days, tempted of Satan. If Jesus is God incarnate as the “many” verses prove, then Mark’s account contradicts James…another conflict.
   
5. Luke 4:1-13 -  Tells how Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. If Jesus is God incarnate as the “many” verses prove, then Luke’s account contradicts James…another conflict. Until these conflicts can be resolved, it is useless to further study the word of God. Something is bad wrong here and must be seriously considered. 

The Nicene Creed (Box 2b)

The Box

Let’s take a long look at these two historical events that took place. Point (a) “My nature will become evident from my actions,” clearly Yahweh brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the rest is recorded history! Yahweh was not identified with nature, Yahweh transcended nature; and Yahweh wasn’t known through nature or natural phenomena. Yahweh was known through history, events and a particular relationship with a man, which Yahweh formed from the dust of the earth. Need I say more about point (a)?

Point (b) The servant is Israel herself! The punishment that Israel suffered, even if excessive-that punishment isn’t meaningless, it will lead to redemption. Israel will be healed by her wounds. Israel’s suffering is serving a purpose in the divine plan, it’s necessary. Israel needs purification and redemption and that will prepare her for a new role in world history.

The fall of Jerusalem shattered the national and territorial basis of Israel’s culture and religion. The Babylonians had burned the temple to the ground, they carried away most of the people to exile, to life in exile in Babylon, leaving behind mostly members of the lower classes to eke out a living as best they could. And it was the completion of the tragedy that had begun centuries earlier, and it was interpreted as a fulfillment of the covenant curses. 

It was the end of the Davidic monarchy, although the son of Jeholakim was alive and living in Babylon, kind of holding out hope that the line hadn’t actually been killed out, hadn’t been completely wiped out. But the institution seemed to have come to an end for now. It was the end of the temple, the end of the priesthood, the end of Israel as a nation; as an autonomous nation, the Israelites were confronted with a great test. One could see in these events a signal that Yahweh had abandoned Israel to, or had been defeated by the god of the Babylonians, and Marduk would replace Yahweh, as the Israelites assimilated themselves into their new home. 

And certainly there were Israelites who went that route, but others who were firmly rooted in exclusive Yahwism did not. Yahweh hadn’t been defeated, the nations’s calamities were not disproof of Yahweh’s power and covenant, they were proof of it. Yahweh’s desire for morality as expressed in the ancient covenant, the prophets had spoken truly when they had said that destruction would follow, if the people didn’t turn from their moral and religious violations of Yahweh’s law. The defeat and the exile had the potential to convince Israelites of the need to show absolute and undivided devotion to Yahweh and his commandments.

The traditions of gods abandoning their cities in anger, leaving them to destruction by another god. The primary difference here is that Yahweh, rather than another god, is Yahweh himself also bringing the destruction. Yahweh doesn’t retire to heaven, nor abandons his people. Yahweh doesn’t remain behind with those left in Judah, but Yahweh moves into exile; those left behind are guilty. Yahweh does not stay with them; Yahweh moves east with the righteous exiles. Need I say more about point (b)?

The Nicene Creed (Box 2a)

The Box

(a) Exodus 3:13-14 - Moses said to God, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” He continued, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you.’ ”

Not having been raised among his own people, Moses is ignorant of their God’s name and fears he will lack credibility with the Israelites. God’s proper name, disclosed in the verse 15, is YHVH (spelled “yod-heh-vav-heh” in Hebrew; in ancient times the “vav” was pronounced “w”). But here God first tells Moses its meaning: “I Will Be What I Will Be,” meaning “My nature will become evident from my actions.”

Yahweh was not identified with nature, Yahweh transcended nature; and Yahweh wasn’t known through nature or natural phenomena. Yahweh was known through history, events and a particular relationship with a man, which Yahweh formed from the dust of the earth.

Then God answers Moses’ question about what to say to the people: “Tell them: ‘Ehyeh’ (“I Will Be,” a shorter form of the explanation) sent me.” This explanation derives God’s name from the verb “h-v-h,” a variant form of “h-y-h,” “to be.” Because God is the speaker, he uses the first person form of the verb.

(b) The context of Isaiah, particularly in chapter 53 (Israel was the suffering servant of Yahweh).  

There have been many attempts to equate this man of sorrows with all kinds of figures. Early on, Yeshua’s followers saw Yeshua as the suffering servant of Yahweh in Isaiah. New Testament writers specifically borrowed passages from Isaiah, particularly in chapter 53, when constructing their narratives of Yeshua, taking those verses and using them in describing his story.

So Yeshua is depicted as the innocent and righteous servant who suffered for the sins of others. In the teachings of Paul, however, you have a different use of these verses. Christians, generally, are identified as the servant who suffers with and for Yeshua. Isaiah chapter 53 wasn’t talking about a remote Nazarene teacher and charismatic healer who would live more than five centuries later.

The servant is Israel herself, the punishment that Israel suffered even if excessive-that punishment isn’t meaningless, it will lead to redemption. Israel will be healed by her wounds. Israel’s suffering is serving a purpose in the divine plan, it’s necessary. Israel needs purification and redemption and that will prepare her for a new role in world history. 

The Nicene Creed (Box 1)

The Box

This is who Jesus Christ himself is. Let’s start with the one thing that will define who God really is? What is eternal life? John 5:26b…For as the Father HAS LIFE IN HIMSELF; so has he given to the son TO HAVE LIFE IN HIMSELF. The life Jesus referred to is eternal or everlasting life.

By his declaration and definition, he declared that he himself did not have eternal life at the time he was walking the earth or he was a complete liar! If you truly believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then you have to believe that Jesus Christ spoke the truth. If so, from his own mouth, he declared that only God had eternal life. Christ himself only had the promise of eternal life!

In this context of John 5:2 - 5:47, but beginning in John 5:16, Jesus is going to capitalizing on the popular understanding of the condition of the dead in ‘hades.’ Jesus made use of this popular belief several other times, not to endorse it, but to impress upon the minds of his hearers of different important lessons. Many of Jesus’ hearers had come to believe in a conscious state of existence between death and the resurrection, though such a belief is foreign to Scripture.

You see, the Greek word ‘hades’ came into Biblical use when the translators of the Septuagint chose ‘hades’ to render the Hebrew ‘sheol.’ The problem is that ‘hades’ was used in the Greek world in a vastly different way than ‘sheol.’ In Greek mythology, Hades was the god of the underworld, and then the name of the nether world itself. Charon ferried the souls of the dead across the rivers Styx or Acheron into his abode, where the watchdog Cerberus guarded the gate, so that none might escape. The pagan myth contained all the elements of the medieval eschatology: there was the pleasant Elysium, the gloomy and miserable Tartarus, and even the Plains of Asphodel, where ghosts could wander who were suited for neither of the above.

This Greek conception of ‘hades’ influenced Hellenistic Israelites, because of the conscious decision of Alexander the Great. He used what is called ‘religious syncretism,’ Alexander took this tendency of syncretism, of mixing together different religious traditions from different places, and he used it as a self-conscious propaganda technique. But what Alexander and his successors did, was they made sort of a conscious, propagandistic decision to use religious syncretism to bind together their kingdoms.

The Hellenistic Israelites adopt the belief in the immortality of the soul and the idea of a spatial separation in the underworld between the righteous and the godless. The souls of the righteous proceeded immediately after death to heavenly felicity, there to await the resurrection, while the souls of the godless went to a place of torment in ‘hades.’ When Jesus came on the scene, the current Israelite concept of Hades became a subterraneous region where the light of this world does not shine. This region is allowed as a place of custody for souls, in which angels are appointed as guardians to them, who distribute to them temporary punishments, agreeable to every one’s behavior and manners.

According to Hellenistic Israelites, ‘hades’ is divided into two regions. One is the region of light, where the souls of the righteous dead are brought by angels to the place known as the bosom of Abraham.” The second region is in perpetual darkness, and the souls of the ungodly are dragged by force by the angels allotted for punishment. These angels drag the ungodly into the neighborhood of hell itself, so that they can see and feel the heat of the flames, but they are not thrown into hell itself, until after the final judgment. But a chaos deep and large is fixed between them; insomuch that a just man that has compassion upon them, cannot be admitted, nor can one that is unjust, if he were bold enough to attempt it, pass over it.

Jesus did indeed capitalized on the popular understanding of the condition of the dead in ‘hades,’ not to endorse such views, but to drive home the importance of heeding in this present life the teachings of Moses and the prophets, because this determines bliss or misery in the world to come. In John 5:21, the word ‘quicken’ means give life to, which was universally believed by the Israelites. The word ‘raise’ means awake or to rouse up from sleep; the resurrection.

Jesus was explaining that he was given the authority to give the promise of this eternal life to whomever he wished. He was not the source of that eternal life, but he was the only way to obtain the life from God himself. Jesus did not have life in himself, so he could not be the source of that life; however, that being said, he was given the authority to give the promise to whomever he wished. He was not the source, but he was the only way to obtain the life from God himself. This is not semantics, the scriptures make it quite plain to anyone who reads it.