When Protestants Become Catholic: Are the Church Fathers a Danger to Born Again Christians?

Posted on 12/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

Today I read another article about a Protestant becoming Catholic through the reading of the early church fathers. Is this really where the writings of the church fathers lead?

I’ve been reading the writings of the 2nd through 4th century fathers for 20 years now, and I have never thought about becoming Catholic. On the other hand, the person who introduced me to the early church fathers became an Anglican priest–for a while–because the Anglicans claim apostolic succession like the Roman Catholics do.

I don’t think the early church fathers lead in any way toward Catholicism, but there is a reason that people are confused into believing that they do.

It’s because Protestants neither care about nor understand the church.

The Church Is the What???

I read a blog one day by a former Protestant pastor turned Catholic priest. He said the turning point for him was when a Catholic asked him what is “the pillar and support of the truth.”

He answered, of course, that the pillar and support of the truth is the Scriptures. So the Catholic told him, “Why don’t you go read 1 Tim. 3:15.”

1 Tim 3:15 says, of course, that the church, not the Bible, is the pillar and support of the truth.

He was on his way to becoming Catholic.

Which Church?

The question every Protestant will ask himself when he reads 1 Tim. 3:15 is, “Which church?” Which church is the pillar and support of the truth?

The Roman Catholics think it’s obvious. So do I.

But I think the Roman Catholics are obviously wrong. Here’s why.

How Can a Church Be the Pillar and Support of the Truth?

Rather than listening to Catholic reasoning or Protestant reasoning, why don’t we look at what the apostles said about the truth. How was someone supposed to know the truth.

Twice the Scriptures talk about how to escape corrupt men who try to seduce us away from the truth. Once, it’s in Ephesians 4:11-16. There the combination of, one, church leaders equipping us to build the church and , two, speaking the truth in love to one another leads to our being solid in the truth.

The other is 1 Jn. 2:26-27, where John tells us that the anointing will lead us into what is true and not a lie.

One important point Protestants miss when they read 1 Jn. 2:27 is that the “yous” in that verse are plural. The anointing will lead us, not me, into the truth.

Let’s think about this a moment …

How are we being led into truth? How are we being protected from error?

According to Ephesians 4 and 1 John 2, the church–which 1 Tim. 3:15 tells us the pillar and support of the truth–will guide us into truth by the following method:

  1. Church leaders equip us to be beneficial to the church … to build it up (Eph. 4:12)
  2. We speak the truth in love to one another (Eph. 4:13-16)
  3. The anointing–the guidance of God–leads us together into the truth

Now that we’ve got the how, let’s get back to the which …

Which Church Was That Again?

So what church can lay hold of these promises of God? Any church can, right?

No, actually not. Only pliable churches can lay hold of these promises of God. Only churches that can be led by the anointing can lay hold of these promises.

The Roman Catholic Church is not pliable.

Also, only local  churches can lay hold of these promises. You have to have Christians gathering together, seeking God together, and speaking the truth in love to one another. That requires a local church.

The Roman Catholic Church may have some local churches, but it claims to seek and know truth at the heights of hierarchy. It most certainly does not come from “lay” people.

The Roman Catholic Church Has Hijacked the Church Fathers!

Because Protestants have foolishly ignored the wonderful heritage of the apostles–the traditions taught by the apostles themselves and preserved in their early churches–the Roman Catholics have hijacked the fathers. They run an ongoing pretense that the church fathers are Roman Catholic!

They’re not!

There was no “pope” in the early church. Apostolic succession had to do with the preservation of truth, not authority.

The former Episcopal priest mentioned in the article that starts this blog took Cyprian of Carthage as his patron saint. He says:

He’s the one who said, ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation.’

In fact, Cyprian is one of many early Christians who said such a thing. Ireneaus, for example, writing some 70 years before Cyprian and less than a century after the death of the apostle John, says:

It is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the church; since the apostles, like a rich man in a bank, lodged in her hand most copiously all things pertaining to the truth, so that every man, whoever will, can withdraw from her the water of life. She is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers. (Against Heresies, III:4:1)

But which church?

Remember, there was no pope in the church in Irenaeus’ day. In fact, Irenaeus twice had to save the Roman church from the failings of its bishops, once when Victor was being seduced by the Valentinians and once when Eleutherus wanted to split the churches of the empire over the date on which to celebrate Passover (which we now call Easter).

The churches did consult with one another. Irenaeus adds:

Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us. Should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which the the apostles held constant intercourse and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? (ibid.)

Notice, however, that Irenaeus does not suggest consulting Rome. In fact, in the matter of the Valentinians and the dispute over Passover, Rome consulted him!

He recommends going to any church that can answer the question.

The Roman Catholic Church loves to make a big issue out of the fact that Irenaeus listed the succession of bishops in the Roman church from Peter to Irenaeus’ own time. But why did Irenaeus choose Rome?

Since, however, it would be tedious in such a volume as this to reckon up the successions of all the churches … (ibid., III:3:2)

All Irenaeus had was a collection of churches. There was no hierarchy for him to point to as the official organization that offered salvation to the world. When he spoke of a church, he meant a local church, just as Paul and John did when they spoke of the preservation and finding of truth within the church.

Missed By Protestants and Catholics Alike

There is a Protestant translation of the early church fathers called The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Despite being Protestant, they make the same mistake that Roman Catholics do, substituting some denomination or hierarchy for the local church.

In Tertullian’s brilliant work, The Demurrer Against Heretics, he writes about the truth that comes from the apostles through the churches. Yet even though he uses the word “churches,” plural, five times in chapter 21 of that work, the Protestant translators subtitle the chapter, “All Doctrine True Which Comes Through the Church [singular] from the Apostles.”

They’re wrong! All doctrine is true which comes through the churches from the apostles!

It’s part of his argument! He argues, “Is it likely that so many churches, and they so large, should have gone astray into one and the same faith?” (ibid., 28).

Sure it’s likely, if there’s a pope. If there’s no pope, however, and all the churches of his day (A.D. 200 – 220) were independent, then his argument has weight.

Which Church? A Practical Application

I recommend reading the church fathers. I recommend believing that there’s no salvation outside the church. After all, it’s the Scriptures themselves that tell us that if we are not exhorted daily, then we are in danger of hardening by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). You need the church, as Paul argues so effectively in 1 Cor. 12. You cannot tell the other members you don’t need them.

But once you believe there’s no salvation outside the church, then you have to get in the church that those early church fathers were talking about: the local church.

Which one is that?

It’s the one that’s scattered through all the denominations, split up and fighting with one another over stupid doctrines designed by men that are offensive to God.

It’s the one whose members are in fellowship with fakes, trying to reach out to them and smile at them in the pew next to them. They don’t know those people in the pew next to them, but they can be reasonably confident those people do not want to forsake all their possessions for Christ, open their homes to destitute brothers and sisters, or risk their lives ministering in the inner city or overseas. Shoot, those people in the pews haven’t even heard that they can’t belong to Christ if they don’t hate their family, deny themselves, and forsake their possessions (Luke 14:26-33).

We have to rescue that badly-divided, ineffective, almost invisible church. We have to gather those that have heard the Gospel of complete submission to Christ so that they can show the world around them what Jesus can do through people wholly submitted to him.

We have to gather them so that the truth can be gathered once again into the only container that can hold it: the local church.

I have heard a thousand complaints–from supposed but false Christians–about Jesus Christ’s statement that none of us can be his disciple without forsaking all our possessions (Luke 14:33). What does that mean? I’m on a computer. I’m wearing clothes. I’m sitting at a table in a warm house. In what way have I forsaken all my possessions?

That decision isn’t up to me. The truth of Jesus Christ’s statement is revealed and known when set upon “the pillar and support of the truth.” The pillar and support of the truth is a pliable and local church, nothing else.

Radical Christianity and Radical Restoration of the Church

When I say restoration, I don’t mean restoring some doctrine. I mean restoring the local church. I mean gathering those that love God with their whole hearts and who have wholeheartedly submitted to Christ, then letting them know they no longer need to fellowship with half-hearts. In fact, it’s divisive do do so.

That’s radical. Most people would say it’s impossible.

It’s not; it can’t be.

There isn’t any other church, and we need the salvation it possesses. In that church, there is great grace. In that church, there is a power unknown to those who have not experienced the daily fellowship of the local church, a gathered group of disciples, who are being taught by God as he bestows his anointing in subjection to the teaching of the apostles as found in the Scriptures.

Today, there is a huge flow of people leaving institutional Christianity to meet in homes. This is a terrific opportunity to be taught of God! This is a terrific opportunity to throw off denominational bonds and unite the disciples!

It needs two things:

  1. It needs to preach a true Gospel. Jesus calls us to wholeheartedly abandon our lives to follow him.
  2. It needs pliability and flexibility. It must be able to be taught by God. It cannot be focused on or based in doctrine carried over from denominations based in intellectual interpretations of the Scripture. The Scripture was written to produce good works in disciples (2 Tim. 3:16-17), not create ridiculous reasonings and doubtful disputations.

It’s worth it.

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Lights to Rule the Day and Night

Posted on 12/12/2009 by Paul Pavao

Genesis 1:14-19 describes the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on the 4th day.

Think about that sentence a moment.

What sort of days happen without the sun, moon, or stars? Can we really be discussing 24-hour days,  whether or not Genesis says there was an evening and a morning, when there’s no sun?

Some 1800 years ago, a respected Christian teacher, an elder in the church in Caesarea, wrote:

Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars—the first day even without a sky? (Origen, De Principiis, V:1:16)

Did Origen simply reject the authority of Scriptures because he thought that no one with any sense could fathom days without a sun? No, he adds:

In [the Scriptures] were intermingled not a few things by which, the historical order of the narrative being interrupted and broken up, the attention of the reader might be recalled, by the impossibility of the case, to an examination of the inner meaning. (ibid.)

In other words, because the historical order is impossible, we’re supposed to look for the hidden meaning.

That’s what we’ve been doing for the first three days of creation.

A Greater and Lesser Light

Have you ever noticed that the sun is not called the sun in Genesis one? It’s called the greater light that rules the day. And the moon is not called the moon; it is called the lesser light that rules the night.

It doesn’t take great insight to see the “hidden” meaning of night, darkness, day, and light in the Scriptures. We Christians are “children of the light and of the day” (1 Thess. 5:5). Jesus once said that “night is coming, in which no man can work.” In the same Scripture he says, “I must work while it is still day” (Jn. 9:4).

Despite the fact that Jesus said it was day while he was here, and that night was coming when he left. However, though he refers to himself as the light of the world, Paul also refers to the church as the light of the world. Why is it night if Jesus left us as the light of the world in his place?

Genesis one answers that for us. Jesus is the greater light. He rules the day. The church, however, is the lesser light that rules the night.

Like the moon, the church has no light of its own. Its light is the light of Jesus Christ. It’s job is not to produce its own light. Its job is to behold the light of the sun by rising above the earth, then reflecting that light to those who dwell in darkness.

Like the moon, the church has waxed and waned throughout its history, varying the amount of light there has been on the earth.

The Stars

Stars are said to represent all sorts of things in Scripture.

When we enter our glory, Paul says that we will vary in glory as the stars do. Jesus Christ himself is represented by the morning star, which is actually a planet: Venus. (Depending on where Venus is at in relation to the earth, it can also be the evening star.) Angels are also represented by stars in Rev. 12 (possibly), where satan is said to throw down 1/3 of the stars from heaven.

In fact, in that same chapter, twelve stars represent the tribes of Israel in a figure pulled from Joseph’s dream in Genesis 37.

Signs and Seasons

In Genesis 1, though, stars are particularly said to be in the sky for signs and seasons.

A star led the magi to Israel when Christ was born. Stars are also the only indicators, besides the weather, of what season we are in. Today we have calculated the orbit of the earth so precisely that we can simply count the days of the year on a calendar. That calendar, and the number of the days of the year, are based on the stars. Humans can tell that we’ve made one circumnavigation of the sun by stars returning to the same position that they were in the year before.

Today we recognize from the calendar that the beautiful constellation of Orion begins to rise in the east at dusk around this time of year with Sirius, the dogstar and the brightest star there is, following behind it. In the past, however, it worked the opposite way. Humans knew that winter was coming on because Orion and Sirius began to rise in the east in the evening. No matter the temperature, they knew that winter was about to come on hard and full (assuming they lived in the northern hemisphere).

The early church taught that these cycles are a sign of resurrection. God has set nature in continual cycle. The earth goes to sleep over winter, but it rises anew each spring. The days shrink to minimal length, but they climb again to warmth and long hours of light.

Early Christians marveled at the orderliness of nature. Today we can explain all of this. Orbits, gravity, and other natural laws can cause us to lose our sense of wonder. No matter how much we appreciate the incredible knowledge science has garnered, may we never lose our sense of wonder. It has been set deep inside us by God.

David wrote:

Day to day utters speech, and night after night gives knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. (Ps. 19:2-3)

It is good to stand in awe. Whether the orbit and spin of the earth happened by gravity compressing clouds of molecules into a spherical planet over a billion years or by divine fiat in an instant, it is the hand of God that put us where we are, spinning as we do at nearly 1,000 mph and circling the sun at 66,000 mph, this earth and its cycles are technological marvels that should move us to “be still and know that he is God” (Ps. 46:10).

It is in us to do, that awe placed deep in our hearts by the very breath of God.

The Testimony of God

To me, more than anything, day 4 of creation represents the testimony of God to who he is. The more we learn of the heavens, the more majestic God appears. As we’ve grown, our God has grown as well–or at least our understanding of him has.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.

Truly, we can say with God that we see that it is good.

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Genesis One, Day Three: Edible Vegetation – Grass, Herbs, and Fruit

Posted on 12/06/2009 by Paul Pavao

I’ve taken a couple days to address day three of creation because it stumped me for a while. “Hmm,” I thought, “Maybe day 3 really is just about saying God created dry land and plants.”

I really didn’t believe it, though, so I waited. Sometimes I have to seek God just a little bit more. It’s not good for us to adopt a cavalier attitude. Some treasures have to be sought for; you have to diligently ask.

The thing that jumped out to me today was the trees. Gen. 1:11 says, “Let the earth … bring forth the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind.”

What about the other trees?

Had Moses never heard of a cedar tree? A fir tree? An oak tree? Not all trees are fruit trees. Why are only the fruit trees mentioned?

In the creation story of Genesis one, only edible things are mentioned. Nothing inedible is created on any of the six days of creation.

Have you ever noticed that?

There’s Only Food in Genesis One

It seems apparent to me that this was no accident. On day six, after the creation of man, God says that humans are to have dominion over all the fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals that he formed on day 5 and 6, and he says that the herbs and fruit trees he formed on day 3 are for our food. He doesn’t mention the grass, but the grass is food for the animals (and if grains are included among the grasses rather than the herbs, then grass is food for us as well).

Now God doesn’t say animals are food for humans in Genesis one, but after the flood, in Genesis 9:2, he gives a list that uses the same wording as day 5 and 6 of Genesis one.

Atheists and skeptics like to suggest that there are two creation stories, one in Genesis one and one in Genesis two; that there are two flood stories mingled into one, the one requiring seven clean animals on the ark and the other requiring a pair of every animal; and finally, that all of the Pentateuch (the 5 books of Moses) is a combination of works compiled later.

Ok, maybe. It’s been 3,000 years since the Pentateuch was written, so who knows. Maybe it wasn’t all planned together as one consistent message by man. That makes the inspiration and breath of God all the more amazing because the spiritual message God put in the Scriptures is consistent, amazingly consistent.

Genesis 9:2 hearkens back to the creatures created on day 5 and day 6 in Genesis one, carefully reminding us that only food is mentioned in the creation story. Nor is it an accident. Do you think the Israelites were unaware that the fruit tree was not the only tree on earth? Were they unaware that edible and medicinal herbs are not the only plants that grow in the ground?

No, they knew. The creation story of Genesis one mentions only food … on purpose.

Why Only Food?

Because skeptical, scoffing evolutionists are wrong.

If you read my blog on any regular basis, then you know that I don’t think skeptical, scoffing evolutionists are wrong about evolution. I believe all life evolved. I don’t believe the soul of man evolved. I believe it was breathed into us by the breath of God, but I believe our bodies evolved. The chain from Ardipithecus ramidus through the australopithecines and the hominids is too consistent in time, geography, and morphology for me to deny. I think the consistency of that chain is as much the testimony of God as is the consistency of Genesis.

However, skeptics and scoffers love to use evolution as an argument that man is not purpose. Man, they say, is a simple lucky side branch on the evolutionary tree. There’s no purpose to us, it could just as well have been some insect that evolved to be the dominant species on the planet. In fact, dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years, and we’ve only ruled it for a few thousand years. We’re meaningless; just a side show, not an end.

I wonder what double blind study or what powerful empirical evidence they used to come to that conclusion?

God doesn’t agree. The creation story is all about man. It’s not about creation in general. It’s about man. That’s why it doesn’t matter if the science is accurate. It doesn’t matter whether the sky is really a solid dome (which is what the word firmament strongly implies) with the sun, moon, and stars in it. It doesn’t matter whether water can really be above the stars. It doesn’t matter whether grass, herbs, and trees can grow before the sun is created.

Genesis one isn’t about those things. It is only about man.

Because man is the purpose of creation.

So it took 14.7 billion years to go from the big bang to us (assuming scientists are right about all that). So what? Scoffers and skeptics want to use  science to argue against our being the purpose of God, but they ignore the fact that science has seen that “time” is almost a meaningless thought. I’m reading the June 2007 issue of Discover, and it has an article entitled “Does Time Exist?”

From our perspective, it looks like it took a very, very long time to get to us. But from God’s?

We don’t have any way of knowing. It could have been a fraction of a second, or it could have been much longer that 14.7 billion years would seem to us. This is a big universe. Maybe–indeed, probably–the earth is not the only place he’s working with life.

Anyway, enough of all my scientific speculations. The point is that Genesis one announces loudly that its concern is the creation of man, nothing else. Everything else is the side show; God cares about man, and it is man into which he breathed the breath of life.

Sorry, One More Science Comment

We keep finding out about some amazing abilities of animals. Apes can count, and one managed to obtain a several hundred work vocabulary. Parrots can not only distinguish between metal, plastic, wood, and various shapes, but they can name them when presented to them. One bonobo chimp had a 3,000 word vocabulary and African Grey Parrots have vocabularies up to 2,000 words.

It is not our abilities that make us unique. Yes, we can talk better that chimps and parrots, a lot better. Yes, we can reason better than any animal on earth. Yes, we’re the ones who have dominated the earth, not lions or dolphins.

However, it is not our intelligence that makes us unique. God chose us, gave us a soul, and entered into fellowship with us.

In the long run, it will be our eternal life that makes us unique. God has called us into fellowship with himself, offered us immortality, and made us not children of the earth but children of God.

Genesis one is not some general description of creation. It is the choosing of man as the heirs of God.

Now that’s intense truth!

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Genesis One: The Waters Above and the Waters Below

Posted on 12/03/2009 by Paul Pavao

I was really having a hard time getting anything out of day 2 of creation. Maybe Answers in Genesis can deal with the science of having water above the firmament which holds the sun, moon, and stars, but I can’t. How do you have water above the stars?

And I don’t think Genesis one is about science. What does God care about whether we understand science? We didn’t know about galaxies being millions and billions of light years away until the last few decades. Surely that isn’t important.

God cares about transforming us into his image, making us sons and daughters. So what do the waters above the firmament and the waters below the firmament have to do with that?

As I looked at it this morning, that was a mystery to me. So I waited, hoping God would give me something.

I think he did. Here’s my best shot. That’s what teachers do on subjects like this. They ask God and give it their best shot. Teachers need to get the important traditions of the Church right; those are the basic teachings of Scripture. Then, afterwards, if teaching is really their gift from God, then God will give them some insight into deeper things for one purpose: the building up of the saints.

It’s good for us to be excited about God and excited about the Scriptures. Teachings like these help that happen.

One Day Wasn’t So Good

What God showed me (I hope it was God) is that day 2 is the only day where nothing is said to be good.

Is that interesting, or what?

Now the typology is simple. Water can represent people, and it can represent purity and washing. In this case, I think it represents both. God separated heavenly wisdom and heavenly beings from earthly wisdom and earthly beings.

And this wasn’t good.

It wasn’t good, but it was necessary.

What encouraged me this morning was the tremendous full feeling I got as I saw that God had everything under control from the beginning. He had a plan, and nothing on earth was a surprise to him.

Now, I already knew that, of course. All of us Christians know that. But it was really driven home for me in this passage, and I hope I can pass that feeling on.

God knew there would be a rift between him and the earth. Right at the beginning he separated the waters above from the waters below. He knew there would be problems on earth, so he preserved heavenly beings and heavenly wisdom by pulling them far away from us … beyond the sun, moon, and stars, in fact.

That was not good. It was just necessary.

Heavenly Wisdom, Heavenly Things, and Heavenly Places

Those things were preserved. Seemingly, they are far away, but God doesn’t deal in distances. Science is discovering that space and time are not necessarily what they seem. They can be bridged in ways we don’t yet understand.

God understands, though. He’s beyond space and time, and heaven is not a planet in some solar system. Its distance cannot be measured in light years. It is further than the stars, but it is also near at hand.

(Okay, my explanation is just my guess. But the idea, the idea that heaven is not a matter of space and time and is not a planet–I think that’s a given; we Christians know it to be true.)

Here we are now. Earth has already fallen. All of creation is groaning, waiting for the deliverance that will one day come with the glorious revelation of the sons of God.

While we wait, there are things that did not fall. They are preserved. There is a heavenly wisdom. There are “things above,” where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of the Father. Those things are accessible to us who have been born again.

This is just one more evidence that “you must be born again.” You will not be able to access the pure waters that come from above by good works. You will not pull things down from heaven by your own righteousness.

There is a righteousness that comes from God, and if we will walk in that righteousness, much comes with it. The things that come with it are from above, from the Father of Lights, which home there is no shadow of changing.

The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, and willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17)

Before we go to day 3, I need to do a short, interim post on righteousness being a gift to the upright in heart and the difference between righteousness and uprightness in heart. Maybe I’ll make a web page and link it from here. I can’t do that right now, though. I have to go grade a friend’s son’s math exercise so he can pass his next test …

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Light and Darkness

Posted on 12/02/2009 by Paul Pavao

I started back through Genesis today, and I decided to really devote myself to the principles of Scripture interpretation that I talk about all the time. It made for a very short but very pleasant reading of only a part of Genesis chapter one.

In its early days, the church taught that Jesus came to fulfill the Law in the sense of “expand” or “bring to fullness.”  The Law given to Moses was necessarily limited because it was given to a fleshly people, not a spiritual one. When Jesus came to change us, giving us a new heart and pouring out his Spirit on all flesh, then the Law could be brought to its fullness.

What does that mean?

Well, one of the things that it means is that when the Scriptures address split hooves and the chewing of cud, we can forget about pigs and cows. As Jesus said, nothing going into a man can defile him. The food God really cares about is his Word, for man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

If you wish to be clean, this is what you must partake of. You must fellowship with those who meditate on the Word of God and who separate from the world. (This tie between meditating on the Word and chewing the cud used to be well-known enough that the word “rumination” still means both things.)

Genesis One and the Creation

So when I opened to Genesis chapter one this morning, I was not looking for a step-by-step, scientific description of the creation of the world. I was looking for the things God really cares about … spiritual things.

The stage opens on this world with the Spirit of God hovering over the face of a massive sea. There is not emptiness. There is the Spirit of God hovering. God waited no time at all to begin his work. He has been watching and setting the stage from the very beginning.

On day one, the very first thing that God creates–though water already exists and, seemingly, a globe as well–is light. God separated the light from the darkness, and he called the light day and the darkness night.

Day and night and light and darkness are constantly used in Scripture to represent the conflict between God and satan and between knowledge and ignorance.

God set up this battle in the very beginning. The very first thing he created was the conflict between light and darkness. He made the light, and he saw that it was good. He doesn’t say the darkness is good. Nonetheless, he doesn’t banish the darkness. He keeps it. He separates it from the light, and he calls it night.

I learn from this that God meant for this earth to be a place of battle. There is a kingdom of light, which is the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and there is a domain of darkness. That is not an accident. God meant for that to happen. In fact, it was the very first thing he meant to happen. He created that battle on day one.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Evening and Morning

What else is interesting is that God created evening and morning the first day.

We Americans consider the day to start in the morning. A Jewish day, however, starts with sunset. The night is the first part of the day, and the day is the last part, pretty much opposite from us.

God set the day up to be evening first, daytime second.

This is because the light delivers from darkness. It is darkness that comes first, then the light comes to rescue us.

All of us began in the domain of darkness. We did not begin in the kingdom of God. We’re children of Adam first, and only after does Jesus Christ deliver us from the death of Adam to be children of life and light.

Well, that’s my take on day one. Hopefully, I’ll get day two up tomorrow. I hope God gives me something! Waters above and waters beneath? hmm …

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David Servant and Grace

Posted on 11/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

I put David Servant’s name in the title because I’d like this post to be found under his name to provide him a little free advertising. I do that because what he provides is good, very good.

I’m not going to tell you what he does because I could never describe anything as well as he can. Incredible writer.

I’m sending you to his mutual fund page because I think it’s so well said. Don’t stop there. Feel free to be a part of what he’s doing. God will reward you.

 He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him his good deed (Prov. 19:17).

David’s daily eteaching–which is way too hard to find if one of you from Heaven’s Family is reading this–is an excellent resource. Today it provided a thought for my blog. I want to disagree with him … just a little bit.

Grace

David’s eteaching says:

Only those who do the will of the Father will enter heaven (Matt. 7:21). Where’s the grace in that, some ask? … God’s grace is not a license to sin, but a temporary opportunity to repent and receive forgiveness.

Actually, grace is the power of God to overcome sin (Rom. 6:14).

The emphasis Protestants put on grace as forgiveness for sins is just crazy. Mercy is the term for forgiveness of sins. Grace has little, if anything, to do with the remission of sins. Grace has to do with overcoming sin!

Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under Law but under grace. (Rom 6:14)

Everything else on grace in the New Testament is the same way. Grace will help you in your time of need (Heb. 6:14). Grace is the power and force behind spiritual gifts (1 Pet. 4:11). In fact, in most cases it is the Greek word charisma that is translated as spiritual gift,  which is a derivation of charis, the Greek word for grace.

In a sense, grace is the spiritual gift of holiness and righteousness.

Grace vs. Works

So why is grace contrasted with works in Rom. 11:6?

If by grace, it is no longer by works. Otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, then it is no longer of grace. Otherwise work is no longer work.

Here Paul is not contrasting working with sinning. He is not contrasting the works of the Law with living lawlessly. I hope it’s readily apparent in every one of Paul’s letters that he has no tolerance whatsoever for the works of the flesh, whether in himself or anyone else. He says in 1 Cor. 9:27 that if he didn’t discipline his body and bring it into subjection, then he’d be disqualified. (A word that he contrasts with being in the faith in 2 Cor. 13:5. It’s bad to be disqualified.)

Even in Romans, Paul is very, very clear that neither grace nor mercy is sufficient if you choose to live in the flesh:

So then, brothers, we are debtors–not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh you will die. But if you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, then you will live. (8:12-13)

So again, we have to ask, why is Paul contrasting grace with works?

Because there are two ways to avoid living by the flesh. One  works; one doesn’t.

Work

One way is to work in accordance with God’s will as at is written down.

Paul describes the ineffectiveness of this method in Romans 7. Work hard and fail is what it basically says. You cannot overcome the deeds of the flesh by human will.

The carnal mind is the enemy of God. It is not subject to the Law of God, nor indeed can it be. So then, those that are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom. 8:7-8)

Grace

The other way is grace.

In this way, you believe in Jesus Christ–for that is the route to grace (Rom. 5:2)–and you receive grace. As Paul puts it, “The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2).

Neat, huh? Here’s another way Paul put it in Romans. I love this verse. This is the ultimate salvation promise verse. It is the answer to Romans 7, and since it’s written in Rom. 8:3-4, it’s clear that Paul meant it to be the answer to Romans 7.

For what the Law could not do, since it is weak through the flesh, God did.

Let’s pause and dwell on that  for a moment, shall we, before we go on with this passage? The Law could not deliver us from our flesh. We cannot simply study the commands of God, whether old or new covenant commands, and go out and do them. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Okay, let’s go on:

By sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

That, my friend, is grace.

Ephesians 2:8-10

One of our favorite and most misinterpreted salvation passages begins in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,  which God has prepared beforehand for us to do.

Wow, another great, great passage.

Notice first that it is “by grace” that we are saved. It is “through faith.” That is because faith gives us access to the grace by which we are saved (Rom. 5:2). You can’t be saved without grace. That’s what’s going to deliver you from Romans 7 so that “by the Spirit” you can “put to death the deeds of the body.”

Mercy will take care of those times when you fall, but grace will be what prevents you from falling!

There’s a great passage in First John that mentions both grace and mercy:

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1:9)

The first is mercy. God’s forgiveness is known to us in English as “mercy.” The second is grace. Grace is not mercy. Grace is deliverance from the power of sin.

Here’s another way Paul describes grace:

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. (Titus 2:11-12)

You really can’t miss it. Grace is what saves us, and it does that by delivering us from the power of the flesh that causes us to sin.

Again, I’m not talking about sinless perfection here. John tells us that if we sin we have an advocate with the Father. Christians sin. But there is an “obvious” difference between the children of God, who have grace, and the children of the devil, who don’t.

At least, that’s what John says:

Little children, let no one deceive you. He that practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. He that is committing sin is of the devil. … In this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he that does not love his brother. (3:7,8,10)

You probably won’t need a concordance and lexicon to figure out what that passage is saying. Could anything be more clear? It’s stunningly clear, wouldn’t you say?

Grace vs. Works

So that’s grace and works. You’ll never be able to work your way into heaven, and God wants it that way because he doesn’t want you to boast (Eph. 2:9). However, you still have to have works to get to heaven!

There’s so many verses that say that, it seems silly to list them, but here’s some anyway:

  • Romans 2:5-8
  • 1 Cor. 6:9-11
  • 2 Cor. 5:10-11
  • Galatians 5:19-21; 6:7-10
  • Ephesians 5:3-7
  • Philippians 3:17-19;
  • Colossians 1:22-23; 3:5-6

Those are Paul’s. You can imagine how many verses we could find in Hebrews, and then there’s the old standard, James 2:24. But how about this one from Peter?

If you address as Father the one who impartially judges according to each one’s work, then conduct yourself throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear. (1 Pet. 1:17)

The question is not whether you can have works. The Bible is very clear over and over and over again, in every book of the New Testament, that you must have works. The question is, how will you get good works?

The answer is: grace.

You can’t work for good works. You will fail (Rom. 7). You need grace. With grace, sin will not have dominion over you.

What is the end of grace?

For by grace are you saved through faith … For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. (Eph. 2:10)

For the grace of God has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us so that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. (Tit. 2:11-14)

And how do we get grace?

… our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. (Rom. 5:1b-2)

Awesome, isn’t it?

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Evangelism and the Church

Posted on 11/10/2009 by Paul Pavao

This blog started as a comment on one of my other posts, but it kept growing. This post is self-explanatory without seeing the comment I’m responding to, but if you’d like to, it’s on my September 20 post.

The Great Commission

The statement that the great commission was for more than the apostles is made often, in the same way that you just made it … without justification or reference.

It’s simply the doctrine of the Evangelicals. There’s nothing Scriptural about it, though.

As I said, there is nothing in the epistles exhorting the church to evangelism. Nothing at all. The absence is very noticeable when one compares it to modern doctrines.

You add, “the book of Acts evidences what manner of preaching the apostles and the scattered church primarily actively engaged in.” However, there’s nothing in any of those Scriptures about anyone except the apostles preaching. When Acts speaks of the church, it says the church shared their possessions and spent time together and the apostles gave witness to the resurrection.

How Shall They Preach Except …

Stephen and Philip preached, too. Timothy did as well, and Timothy is exhorted to do the work of an evangelist. Remember, to the church, Paul said, “How shall they preach except they be sent?” Some are sent.

We have to stop sending those that God has not sent. Even Paul went nowhere preaching for over a decade before God sent him.

The Word in the Believer

Yes, the scattered believers went everywhere preaching the Word. A believer that has the Word in him cannot help but speak it. The Word is the Word. It is not the Silence. However, the fact is, today we exhort Christians to evangelize, evangelize, evangelize. The Scriptures don’t. It’s really as simple as that.

If Christians were doing what the Scriptures do command, then they’d have something to speak. They would be obedient to the Word, and the Word would grow inside of them. They’d speak automatically. In fact, quite often people would ask them the reason for the hope that is in them, which happens to us quite often.

Fruit

It is the results of the message RCV preaches that I love. I evangelized all the time in the 80’s. There was little fruit, and what fruit there was did not remain except with rare exceptions.

Preachers hold great revivals nowadays. Thousands “come to Christ.” Six months later, church attendance is not one iota different. Thousands of backsliders, not Christians, were created, inoculated against the Gospel.

Or, there’s people who proclaim a less “user friendly” Gospel, as your friend Chesterton put it. Those basically get no results, at least not in the US. That’s because there’s no demonstration of the life of Christ.

Henry Blackaby wrote a book called Experiencing God. He had people going to a college to witness. He basically told them to stop preaching and start following God around. Within a week, an unbeliever had invited one of their members to a Bible study to teach her unbelieving friends the Gospel.

The Navigators call that method “Friendship Evangelism,” and it is remarkably effective because it is close to the method recommended by the Scriptures. It involves believers being together and being in the world but not of it. It was so effective that one believer said, “I don’t like to invite people to our Bible studies because they always get saved there. I don’t get a chance to lead anyone to the Lord.”

The fact is, the reason people were being saved at their Bible studies is because those people were being led to the Lord. The Lord is present wherever two or more are gathered in his name.

The Effectiveness of the Church

When Paul was struck down on the road to Damascus, Jesus himself appeared to Paul. Jesus did not preach to Paul, though. Jesus sent him to the church in Damascus.

As anyone who reads my blogs knows, I have been reading the writings of the 2nd century church for a couple decades now, getting light from them on the writings of the 1st century church (the New Testament).

It’s interesting to note that there are no famous evangelists of the 2nd century. However, the 2nd century church was so effective that by the end of the 2nd century, around A.D. 200, Tertullian could write the emperor (who likely never saw Tertullian’s letter) and tell him that if he banished all the Christians for refusing to participate in war, he would be left with no one to rule over.

That’s an exaggeration, of course, but it does tell you the extent to which Christians had spread by the end of the 2nd century.

How did that happen?

When Justin, who also wrote a letter to the emperor, but fifty years earlier, describes those who have been converted, he mentions just three ways. They …

  1. Saw the consistency of their [Christian] neighbors lives
  2. They saw the honesty with which Christians transacted business
  3. They saw the extraordinary forbearance of Christian travelers when they were defrauded

The testimony of the Church is powerful, just as Jesus said it would be. Our unity and love will convince the world (Jn. 13:34-35; Jn. 17:20-23). Together we create, not a little light, but a light so bright that it cannot be hidden (Matt. 5:13-16).

Thus, Isaiah cries, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”

That’s from Isaiah 60:1. Read what the results of our arising and shining are. Talk about effective evangelism!

Preaching

Preaching is excellent. Preaching is a wonderful thing. As I said above, when a believer is attached to the vine, which means being in the church, which is the many-membered body of Christ, then he will be full of the Word. Wherever he goes the Word will come out of him, whether by speaking or by extraordinary forbearance when defrauded. People will actually ask him for the reason for the hope that is in him.

If you read through Romans 3 and 4 and James 2, you will see that Paul had a much different emphasis than James when it comes to faith and works. This isn’t because James and Paul had a different message. This is because the Christians in Rome needed faith emphasized in order to deliver them from the bondage of the Law. The Christians to which James wrote needed to be delivered from their belief in a false faith detached from works.

There is a time for everything. It would have been inappropriate to send James’ letter to the Christians (there was likely no church yet) in Rome. It would have been inappropriate to send Paul’s letter to those with a false faith that James wrote to.

So, it is wrong to emphasize preaching to evangelicals today. It is time to emphasize the church to the Protestants, who have forgotten it, its authority (1 Tim. 3:15), and its promises of truth (1 Jn. 2:27).

If this blog, and the comments in it, were being written to Mennonites or Amish, then probably an emphasis on evangelism would be a good thing. The fact is, though, that Protestants have created, by their emphasis on evangelism, a false doctrine that gets in the way of Christian growth, divides the saints, causes many to fall away, and prevents far more people from coming to Christ than it brings to Christ.

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Roman Catholics, Quote Mining, and Honesty

Posted on 11/10/2009 by Paul Pavao

I debated whether Roman Catholicism was really a topic that fits this blog. I thought some about the name of the blog. It is “The Rest of the Old, Old Story.”

This post definitely fits the blog title because I’m going to spend most of the time giving you the rest of the story left out by the Roman Catholics.

Quote Mining

Today, I was accused of quote mining for my teaching on apostolic succession.  The person accusing me of quote mining was Roman Catholic, of course, since it is a Roman Catholic doctrine I’m refuting on that page.

First, what is quote mining?

Quote mining is pulling quotes out of context to make an author say what he never said. One common example used is that the Bible says that Judas went out and hung himself. It also says, “Go thou and do likewise” and “What you do, do quickly.”

Put together, those verses say that you should hang yourself and do it quickly. Obviously, the Bible teaches no such thing.

Another example of quote mining could be obtained from my last paragraph. Someone could say, “Shammah said, ‘Those verses say that you should hang yourself and do it quickly.'” Obviously, I’ve said no such thing even though that’s an exact quote.

Roman Catholic Quote Mining

It’s funny that a Roman Catholic should accuse me of quote mining because they’re masters at it. The person who accused me of quote mining sent me to a page that he says has passages from the church fathers in context.

Really?

Let’s see. Let’s begin with this quote:

Thereupon Victor, who presided over the church at Rome, immediately attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as heterodox; and he wrote letters and declared all the brethren there wholly excommunicate.

They quote a little before that sentence in order to explain the topic over which Victor excommunicated all the churches of Asia. The issue was on what day to celebrate Passover. Victor and the church at Rome thought it ought always to be on a Sunday, and the churches in the east were celebrating it on the actual day of Passover.

Victor excommunicated them for it.

Well, there you have it. Look at Victor’s power. He was able to excommunicate all the eastern churches. This was A.D. 195, they say, though it was actually closer to A.D. 170. So there must have been a pope as early as 170, thus refuting Protestant charges that there was no pope in the early church.

But what’s the rest of the old, old story?

But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor. Among them was Irenæus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom.

The Catholic web site didn’t actually give the reference for the passage they cited. I had to go find it. Fortunately, it wasn’t too difficult because I already knew about this passage. It’s in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, book V, ch. 24.

Talk about quote mining! They didn’t mention that the reason Victor wanted to excommunicate them is because he wrote a letter in the name of the church of Rome telling the eastern churches to observe Passover the western way. Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus–a church that carried the exact same authority as Rome because both were founded by apostles–was upset about this. Rather than just give vent to his anger, he conferred with other bishops in Asia (which would be modern Turkey, not Russia or China or India) and was told it was fine to write Victor back telling him no.

The letter says they had always celebrated Passover on Nisan 14, and they would continue to do so. They were not going to forsake the tradition passed down to them from apostles.

Then, when Victor, who also had to be helped by Irenaeus in order not to slip into some gnostic heresy, couldn’t handle the response and flew off the handle, “bishops” sharply rebuke Victor, and Irenaeus, perhaps the most respected bishop of his day, “fittingly” admonished him.

So you decide for yourself. Did the Roman Catholics give you the whole story? On the matter of the papacy, they never do because there is no evidence whatsoever for a pope in the early church unless you quote mine.

More Quote Mining

Most of the quotes that aren’t ambiguous on the page I linked above are quote mines. Here’s another example:

And he says to him again after the resurrection, ‘Feed my sheep.’ It is on him that he builds the Church, and to him that he entrusts the sheep to feed. And although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, thus establishing by his own authority the source and hallmark of the (Church’s) oneness. No doubt the others were all that Peter was, but a primacy is given to Peter, and it is (thus) made clear that there is but one flock which is to be fed by all the apostles in common accord. If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the Church? This unity firmly should we hold and maintain, especially we bishops, presiding in the Church, in order that we may approve the episcopate itself to be the one and undivided.

They do at least reference this one. It’s from The Unity of the Church, a tract written by the great bishop Cyprian. He was bishop of Carthage in north Africa from 249 to 257.

Cyprian does talk a lot about Peter’s primacy. He’s the first early Christian writer to talk about Peter having the keys of the kingdom and passing them on.

However, do you notice anything missing from that paragraph above? How about a mention of Rome?

Those who read Cyprian know that the key phrase in the passage above is “in order that we may approve the episcopate itself to be the one and undivided.”

That’s translated pretty poorly there. The Ante-Nicene Fathers set has it as “that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided.”

What does he mean by the episcopate being one and undivided?

Well, the episcopate means all the bishops. Shortly after, he adds, “The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.”

In other words, all the bishops together are one leadership of the Church. They, together, received the keys of the kingdom from Peter. Not the bishop of Rome. Sorry.

Is that really what Cyprian meant? Well, as it turns out, Cyprian actually talked about whether the bishop of Rome had primacy. In fact, he called a council of 87 bishops in 258 to discuss the claims of Stephen, bishop of Rome, who is the first bishop of Rome that we know of to claim he has authority over other bishops.

According to the records of the council, Cyprian opened up the council with a speech in which he said:

For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power,
has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.

Hmm. I wonder why that Catholic web site didn’t quote this?

So now you know … the rest of the old, old story.

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Revival Preaching

Posted on 11/09/2009 by Paul Pavao

A fellow named Daniel Hamilton left me a link on one of his comments. It has videos of the preaching of one B.H. Clendennen.

Excellent preaching. Completely based in the traditions of men.

Listen, my friends, Jesus did not raise up a church that is a building. He did not raise up a church that is a series of meetings, no matter how good the preacher is at those meetings.

He hates your pews!!!

And your revival preaching isn’t much better.

The Church

In the church, leaders can have confidence that every one of the people of God is going to be growing until they enter the grave (Php. 1:6). The grace of God will be coming to them, and they will be blossoming like a branch on a healthy vine.

That is not the product of individual relationships with Christ. A hand is never joined directly to the head.

John 15 is not talking about individual relationships with Christ. It is not talking about revival. It is talking about the Church because today, unlike 2,000 years ago, Christ is a many-membered body (1 Cor. 12:12), not an individual man walking the earth.

In the church, John 15 happens. Branches just grow on their own due to being attached to the vine.

In revival-preaching religions John 15 doesn’t happen. Whether a preacher is preaching regularly or not, lots of members of that organization–I don’t care to call it a church–are not growing. If there is no preacher preaching revival, then almost all of the members will fall away.

Not so in the church. The church is a family of individuals joined to one another by their birth into a heavenly life, mediated by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God unites them as though they were one body, and they live one life together.

They care for one another. There are no “visiting” members. Their members have given up their own lives to be a part of this one new life which is the church of God.

In that place, where no one calls anything their own, but they have all things in common (Acts 4:32; but by this I do not mean enforced communism, but a lack of care about possessions and a great care about one another)–in that place, there is “great grace” (Acts 4:33).

In that place, life flows to the branches whether there is revival preaching or not. Let there be a B.H. Clendennen, a Leonard Ravenhill, an Evan Roberts … or let there not be. Because life flows from Christ into the body, the blood circulates through it, and the members are so joined that if you pinch one another will cry ouch–because of this, each member grows.

Oh, yes, there are exceptions, but look how Christ described those exceptions:

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. (Jn. 15:2)

Why is such a branch taken away? Because it is that branch’s fault that it is not bearing fruit. Grace and life always flow to every member of the church–where there is a church as I’ve described it. If a branch is not bearing fruit, it is because that branch is resisting the grace of God.

I do not speak here from Bible interpretation but from real experience. In the church there is a power that is unknown to the preachers of revival. It is unknown to the attenders of Christian clubs. It is unknown to denominational Christians clinging to brilliantly-devised doctrines.

What I’ve described here I’ve seen happen, repeatedly, and now it is my ongoing experience at Rose Creek Village.

So, listen to Mr. Clendennen’s preaching. It’s inspiring. Be inspired.

If, however, you wish to continue in the faith, join yourself to the body of Christ. Repent of your denomination and your pew-sitting. Find a brother and act like he’s a brother. Find a sister and act like she’s a sister. Promise one another that you are bound for life, that you will never make a decision alone again, but that you will together seek the wisdom that is present where two or more are gathered in his name.

Obtain the learning that is promised only to the local church, the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), the anointing given to a plural you (1 Jn. 2:19,27). This alone will provide for the saints a revival, a life, that will cause them–across the board–to continue to the end.

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Salvation Is Not a Plan, It’s a Man

Posted on 11/09/2009 by Paul Pavao

Except the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus make a man sick of his opinions, he may hold them to doomsday for me; for no opinion, I repeat is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God.

– George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, and III, p. 391

To remind people that Jesus Christ is real and that he himself can save has been a priority of my speaking about Christ for many years.

Recently my father in the faith, Noah Taylor, used the phrase, “Salvation is not a plan, it’s a man,” in a men’s meeting. The words captivated me.

I decided I wanted to write a booklet on those words, when, lo and behold!, I found out that George MacDonald already had! Over a century ago!

I don’t want to share the whole thing with you; just a few excerpts. These are from The Truth in Jesus:

When you say that to be saved a man must hold this or that, then you are forsaking the living God and his will and putting trust in some notion about him or his will. To make my meaning clearer: Some of you say that we must trust in the finished work of Christ. Or you say that our faith must be in the merits of Christ–in the atonement he has made–in the blood he has shed.

All these statements are a simple repudiation of the living Lord in whom we are told to believe. … No manner or amount of belief about him is the faith of the New Testament. (emphasis in original)

It goes without saying that I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Look around. Christians know that “trusting in the finished work of Christ” and “trusting in the merits of Christ” doesn’t work. We’re always looking for a better way to say it. We tell people they have to “really” believe. We tell them they have to “actually trust, not just give intellectual assent.” We give them illustrations about sitting in a chair or getting in the tightrope walkers wheelbarrow.

It does no good. Jesus doesn’t have a wheelbarrow, and no one can see the chair. “Really” believing doesn’t produce any better results than mere intellectual assent, and as soon as we remove works we remove the ability to tell the difference.

The Problem’s the Gospel You Preach

Some of you will be offended by being told the problem is in the Gospel you preach. Others of you will be thrilled. You’re tired of leading people to the Lord, then watching them show no interest in God or church. If anything, they’re frightened to see you again.

The problem’s the Gospel you preach.

Jesus shed his blood for our atonement and for the forgiveness of  our sins. That’s the true doctrine of the atonement.

It is not the Gospel.

The Gospel is to believe in Christ, not in the doctrine of the atonement.

If you read the letters to the churches you will find the doctrine of the atonement discussed regularly. It provokes us to obedience, awe, and praise to know that the precious blood of the Lamb of God was shed for our salvation.

If you read the book of Acts, you will find that the doctrine of the atonement is NEVER discussed with sinners. It is NEVER preached to the lost.

Because it’s not the Gospel.

The Gospel

I’m going to let George MacDonald finish this blog entry out. Again, all of this is from The Truth in Jesus.

It is the one terrible heresy of the church that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ.

Do you ask, “What is faith in him?”
I answer, the leaving of your way, your objects, your self, and the taking of his and him. It is the leaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, in atonement itself, and doing as he tells you. (emphasis in original)

While the mind is occupied in enquiring, “Do I believe or feel this thing right?” the true question is forgotton: “Have I left all to follow him?”
To the man who gives himself to the living Lord, every belief will necessarily come aright. The Lord himself will see that his disciple believe aright concerning him.

Sorry, I lied. I’ll let the writer of Hebrews have the final word:

 [Jesus] became the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him. (5:9, emphasis mine)

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