MAX KLEIN BIBLE MINISTRIES
The Seven Baptisms
Written by: Max Klein
Baptism means identification or association:
Introduction:
1. This meaning began in Homer's time. Homer wrote of the one-eyed giant, Cyclops who had trapped Ulysses and his men in a cave and was eating them one at a time. The ingenious Ulysses devised a plan. He had his men sharpen a large log and together they rammed this log into the eye of the one-eyed Cyclops rendering him blind. They identified (baptized) the sharpened log with Cyclops’ eye which changed Cyclops from a seeing giant to a blind giant. Having blinded the Cyclops, they were able to maneuver their way out of the cave. Another example by Homer: Homer's Odyssey, book 9, used baptism for hot metal identified (baptized) with water when a smith dipped a piece of hot iron into water. This is how a blacksmith would temper swords in the ancient world. After this identification, the sword was made stronger and so less likely to bend.
2. Xenophon said that the Spartan military recruits after finishing infantry training would identify (baptize) their spears with pig’s blood. They would run by a barrel of pig’s blood and thrust their spears into this blood. This ritual, identified their spears with killing and the soldier’s readiness for combat with the enemy.
3. Euripides used the word for a ship identified with the bottom of the sea when it sank. Before sinking, the ship was valuable; after sinking it had no value at all.
4. So "baptize" in the classical Greek meant to identify one thing with another so that the characteristics of the original thing were altered. Therefore, the interpretation of the word "baptism" is identification with something that brings about a change.
5. There are a number of cognates related to this Greek word such as bapto, baptizo, baptisma, baptismos, baptistes, and embapto. A few examples follow:
6. John 13:26, “Jesus then answered, ‘That is the one for whom, I shall dip [the future of the Greek word bapto] the morsel and give it to him. So, when he had dipped [the aorist participle of bapto; the sop now takes on a new meaning that of honor] the sop [the morsel], He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.”
To give someone a sop [a special bit of food usually a piece of bread or meat with a tasty sauce] was the highest honor of a banquet. At a banquet a special piece of bread or meat was prepared along with a special sauce for the guest of honor who would then honor someone by giving it to that person. Jesus as the guest of honor took this sop and dipped it into a special sauce and gave it to Judas. In this way, the Lord Jesus Christ honored Judas as a member of the family of God, and for his ministry as an apostle to the Lost Sheep of Israel. This honor should have given Judas second thoughts regarding his plan to betray Jesus to the Sanhedrin.
7. Matthew 3:7, “but when he [John the Baptizer] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism [identification: the Greek word baptisma], he said to them, “You brood of vipers [poisonous snakes], who warned you to flee from the wrath to come [Baptism of Fire: identification with the fire of Torments and then the Lake of Fire]?”
8. Hebrews 6:1-2, “Therefore, leaving behind the elementary teaching about Christ, let us advance to maturity, not laying again the foundation [of the basics such as]: a change of thinking about dead works [just as an unbeliever must have a change of mind about Christ to obtain salvation, so the believer must have a change of mind about legalism (dead works) in order to obtain the spiritual life], and of faith toward God [Faith-Rest Drill], (2) doctrine of baptisms [the Greek word baptismos; a reference to the seven types of baptism as found in Scripture] as well as the laying on of hands [ritual rebound in the age of Israel], and of resurrection from the dead, and of eternal judgment [the Great White Throne Judgment].
9. Matthew 3:1, “In those days John the Baptizer [the Greek word baptistes; when John baptized someone into the Jordan River, the converts were identified with the plan of God and his kingdom.] came proclaiming [as a herald] in the desert of Judea.”
There are two categories of identification in Scripture namely an actual identification or a real baptism and a representative identification or a ritual baptism which uses water.
The four real or actual identifications with something that has significance.
1. The Baptism of Moses: 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 presents the baptism of Moses, "For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; (2) and all were baptized [the Greek word baptizo] into Moses in the cloud [the Lord] and in the sea." This was a real identification in which Moses was identified with the Lord and the open path through the Red Sea and the Jews were identified with Moses. By the way, none of the Jews got wet, only Egyptian unbelievers who were immersed in the water as a means of death.
2. The Baptism of the Cross is found in Matthew 20:22, “But Jesus answered [Salome by addressing her sons] and said, “You [plural: a reference to James and John] do not know what you [James and John] ask. Are you [James and John] able to drink of the cup [bear the punishment of all the sins of the world] that I am about to drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism [the sins of the world identified with Christ followed by the Father judging them] that I am baptized with [identified with]?” They [James and John] said to Him, “We are able. [the dumbest statement that James and John ever made]” [I selected the longer text as did Jerome.]
3. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Retroactive Positional Truth and Current Positional Truth) occurs at salvation for Church Age believers only.
Colossians 2:12. Having been buried [aorist participle] with Him [Jesus Christ] by means of the baptism [God the Holy Spirit identified us with the burial of Jesus Christ as part of our salvation] by means of which [Baptism] you have been raised up [main verb] with Him [in union with Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father] through faith [at the point of salvation] in the operational power from the source of God who has raised Him [the humanity of Christ was given a resurrection body] out from the dead [physical death].
Romans 6:3-9:
Romans 6:3: Or do you not know that all of us who [a correlative] have been baptized into [identified with] Christ Jesus [Current Positional Sanctification: we are in union with Christ in his life in heaven], have been baptized into His death [Retroactive Positional Truth and so identified with his substitutionary spiritual death on the cross]?
Positionally, (in union with Christ) we share His righteousness, heirship, priesthood, destiny, election, eternal life, royalty, sonship etc. All these making us a new spiritual species in Christ Jesus. The plural correlative hosoi (ὅσοι) means that if we were identified with Christ in heaven and we were, then also we have been identified with Christ in his substitutionary spiritual death in which he removed the power of sin nature. Thus, the sin nature should not have power over our lives.
A few more points will be noted:
1. Note that the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation enters the believer into union with Christ at the right hand of God the Father which union is called current positional truth.
2. This verse also mentions identification with Christ in His spiritual death on the cross which identification theologians call retroactive positional truth. Retroactive positional truth also includes identification with Christ in His physical death and burial as well.
3. Identification with Christ in His death, then, has a two-fold connotation namely all personal sins were judged at the cross and since that is the case, God the Father is free to provide in grace, the Recovery Procedure. The second connotation is that good and evil were rejected by Jesus on the cross since good and evil are a part of Satan’s policy and plan. On the cross, Jesus relied on the proto-type spiritual life which operated under the two power options namely God’s power system.
4. So, the old sin nature’s ruling power over the Christian has been broken since all sins were judged on the cross and the Recovery Procedure has been provided. So, Retroactive Positional Truth has destroyed the sovereignty of the old sin nature over the life of the Christian.
5. Also, since Jesus rejected the good and evil policy of Satan so should the believer reject Satan’s policy of good and evil as the believer applies Retroactive Positional Truth.
Romans 6:4: Therefore, we have been buried together with Him through the identification [Baptism of the Spirit] into His death [physical], in order that just as Christ has been raised up from the dead [on Resurrection Sunday], through the glory of the Father [through the Father’s power], [So also we, the dead in Christ, will be raised from the dead by the power of the Father, and those alive at the Rapture, by the power of the Holy Spirit.] in this manner we also might walk in newness of life [Experiential sanctification should reflect our future ultimate sanctification.].
Christ had to die physically “and Jesus having shouted clearly with a loud voice said, Father, into your hands I deposit my [human] spirit, and having said this, he exhaled” (Luke 23:46). This last exhale caused His soul and spirit to depart from his mortal body resulting in physical death. Just as Christ had to die physically in order to obtain his resurrection body, so we must depart from our body of corruption, or mortality in order to receive our eternal body called our resurrection body.
The Newness of Life:
1. The newness of life provided through the baptism of the Spirit includes positional freedom from producing good and evil. Not only are we free from the tyranny of good and evil but we are also free from having to produce good and evil.
2. The believer has no obligation to improve the devil’s world through social action, socialism, welfare state, communism, environmentalism, or any social gospel, social action, getting involved, etc.
3. The human race is protected from Satan’s policy of good and evil through the laws of divine establishment which promote freedom instead of improvement at the cost of freedom.
4. In addition to the Laws of Divine Establishment the believer is insulated from good and evil positionally through the baptism of the Spirit.
5. Divorced from the Old Sin Nature positionally and its useless activity of human good and the function of evil, the life of the believer can be devoted to glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ through maximum knowledge and application of Bible doctrine.
Romans 6:5: For if we have become united with Him [Christ, the new husband] in the likeness of His death [the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross], and we have, and not only this, but also, we shall be [united in the likeness] of His resurrection [Current Positional Truth: in union with the resurrected Christ].
Romans 6:6: Be knowing this [through Retroactive Positional Truth], that our old man [our former husband, the sin nature dates back to the Garden] has been crucified together [with Him], in order that the [human] body, with reference to its sin nature, [the sin nature located in the body] might be rendered powerless [when we use Recovery Procedure and the two power options], that we should no longer be slaves to the sin nature.
“Our old man has been crucified with Him” meaning that the power of the sin nature has been broken on the cross. Since the power of the sin nature was broken by the work of the cross, we as believers have no excuse for not executing the spiritual life. We will not be able to say to Christ at our evaluation that our sin nature was too powerful for us to execute the spiritual life.
A few points for further clarification:
1. Retroactive positional truth is that phase of the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation which identifies the believer with Christ in His spiritual death, physical death and his burial.
2. In the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross all the personal sins in human history were imputed to Christ, but at the same time the other two trends of the old sin nature were not imputed for judgment.
3. Good and evil is the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world and the function of the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life. In fact, the sin nature functions as the agent of Satan.
4. Good and evil were not imputed for judgment on the cross. Hence, in the spiritual death of Christ on the cross they were rejected to remain an issue in the angelic conflict, rejected to be perpetuated in human history as an issue every believer must face, and either overcome through the intake of doctrine or be entrapped by ignorance of doctrine and therefore lose out in glorifying God in time.
5. We are identified with Christ in His spiritual death, which means that we must understand that our sins have been judged and that good and evil has been rejected.
6. It all adds up to the fact that the sovereignty of the old sin nature over human life has been made powerless through retroactive positional truth.
7. The imputation of all personal sins of the human race to Christ on the cross means that the believer through the rebound technique is instantly forgiven sins, cleansed from all wrong doing which includes Satanic good and evil, restored to fellowship and filled with the Spirit.
Romans 6:7: For we who have died [the Christian is identified with the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ: theologically called Retroactive Positional Truth] have been acquitted [positional deliverance] from [the power of] the sin nature.
A few points for further clarification:
1. A dead person is discharged from the obligations of his former sphere of life. This is why the word “death” is used in this context. It is not a literal, physical death we are discussing but identification with Christ in His death.
2. As unbelievers we were under the authority of Satan as the ruler of this world, and under the authority of the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life.
3. Both the power of Satan and the old sin nature have been abrogated through the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation.
4. This passage, then, emphasizes the annulling of the power and the authority of the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life.
5. Positionally, the power of the sin nature has been broken. Experientially, the old sin nature controls to the extent that we fail to understand and utilize the provision and support of logistical grace.
Romans 6:8: Now if we have died with Christ, and we have [retroactive positional truth], we also believe that we shall live in association with Him [the instrumental of association; a reference to Current Positional Truth].
In this verse, the 1st Class conditional sentence shows the relationship between Retroactive Positional Truth with Current Positional Truth. The protasis, the ‘if’ clause states the reality of Retroactive Positional Truth and the apodosis, the concluding clause states the doctrinal inference and the reality of Current Positional Truth. While Retroactive Positional Truth presents positional rejection and separation from good and evil as the policy of Satan and the function of the old sin nature, Current Positional Truth relates the believer to the function of the royal family of God. In other words, they have separate functions.
Romans 6:9: Knowing that because Christ has been raised from the dead [He received a resurrection body], no longer can He die; [physical] death is no longer a master over Him.
Analysis:
1. Retroactive positional truth destroys the sovereign authority of the old sin nature over human life. Current positional truth, on the other hand, destroys the limited authority of physical death in human life.
2. Instead of being ruled by the old sin nature located in the cells of the human body and influencing our souls toward sin, good and evil, we now have a new sovereign, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are identified with Him in His deaths, in His burial, resurrection, ascension and session.
3. Before salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit our lives were under the absolute rule of Satan who is the ruler of this world and under the rule of the old sin nature which is the ruler of life, and under the limited rule of physical death. All of that, of course, has been changed since salvation.
4. Now both retroactive and current positional truth have abrogated the authority and power of these former rulers. The power of Satan over our lives has been broken through identification with the rejection of good and evil namely Satan’s policy and plan and through our position in union with Christ. The power of the old sin nature is broken through retroactive positional truth and the power of physical death is broken through current positional truth.
5. Therefore, having studied these things by principle and by implication we are now ready for application, verses 12 & 13 specifically.
6. Having been positionally liberated from the sovereignty of the old sin nature as an absolute ruler, and the authority of physical death, we must recognise and apply doctrine for the experiential victory commanded in verses 11-13.
Galatians 3:25-28, “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under the authority of [have need of] a school bus. (26) For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. (27) For all of you who were baptized into Christ [identified with Christ through union with Him] have clothed yourselves with Christ. (28) There is neither Jew nor Greek [no racial distinction], there is neither slave nor free man [no social or economic distinction], there is neither male nor female [no gender distinction]; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [All Christians have the same privileges and opportunities to execute the spiritual life.]”
Current Positional Truth, Elaborated:
In the Church Age, Current Positional Truth establishes our relationship with Christ as opposed to religion. It refers to the Church Age believer in union with Christ and is the key to understanding the Church Age and how the royal family came into being. Therefore, it is the basis for distinguishing between Christianity and religion. Christianity is a relationship with God without merit whereas religion is a system of works to gain the approbation of God. Never shall the twain meet!
The mechanics of Current Positional Truth is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, whereby the Spirit enters us into union with Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For also by agency of the one Spirit we are all baptized [identification resulting in becoming a new spiritual species] into one body [in union with Christ], whether Jews or Greeks [racial distinctions are removed], whether slave or free [class and economic distinctions are removed], even all were made to drink [the aorist passive, the voice of grace] the one Spirit [The Holy Spirit did not ask us whether we wanted to be put into union with Christ or not.].” Ephesians 4:5, “One Lord [becomes our Lord positionally at Salvation]), one faith [faith alone in Christ alone; Acts 16:31], one baptism [Baptism of the Holy Spirit takes place at salvation].”
Current Positional truth guarantees that there will be no judgment for believers in eternity, Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Thus, the condemnation which occurred at the first birth was removed at the 2nd birth. As a result of being born with the sin nature and the imputation of Adam’s Original Sin, we were condemned to the Lake of Fire for all eternity, but now that has been removed. Romans 5:12, “For this reason just as through one man [Adam] the sin [nature] entered into the world [procreation], and so spiritual death through the sin [the imputation of Adam’s Original Sin to the sin nature], and so spiritual death spread to all mankind, because all sinned when Adam sinned [since we were all genetically in Adam when he sinned, we will receive Adam’s Original Sin].” However, at our spiritual birth, the 2nd birth, our pre-salvation sins were all forgiven including Adam’s Original Sin. After which, the Spirit entered us into union with Christ where there is now no condemnation (Romans 8:1).
Current Positional truth qualifies the believer to live with God forever. To live with God forever, the believer must have eternal life and God’s perfect righteousness, 1 John 5:11-12, “And this is the deposition [testimony] that the God [the Father] has given to us, eternal life, and this life is in his son [Since we are in union with Christ, we share this life.]. (12) and he who has the son [a relationship with the Son] has the life [eternal life] and the one who does not have the son of God [relationship with the Son] does not have the life [eternal life].” 2 Corinthians 5:21, “And He [the Father] made Him who knew no sin [perfection] to be a sin offering [imputation of sins on the cross] as a substitute for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [current positional truth].” To live with God forever means you must have His life, and you must be as righteous as He is.
Positional truth guarantees the believer’s eternal security, Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded that neither death [nothing in death] nor life [nothing in life] nor angels nor principalities [ruling angels] nor powers [human organizations] nor things present nor things to come (39) nor height [nothing in heaven] nor depth [nothing in Hades] nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal life in Christ is for all eternity!
Positional truth belongs to all categories of believers whether they be apostate, mature, immature, spiritually adult, or carnal. Since Current Positional Truth occurs at the point of salvation before experience in the Christian life begins, it doesn’t depend on that experience. 1 Corinthians 1:2, “to the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus [at salvation], called saints together with all who call upon the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, their [Lord] and ours.” So, even though you may be carnal or in reversionism, you still have positional truth. Being in union with Christ has nothing to do with what you do [experiential righteousness], or don’t do [failure to execute God’s plan]. Current Positional sanctification is completely the work of God the Holy Spirit and so is not based upon our volition, but on the sovereign decision of God. We make the decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we don’t make the decision to enter into union with Christ “all were made to drink the one Spirit” as per 1 Corinthians 12:13. God the Holy Spirit graciously did that for us and so it cannot be undone.
Current Positional truth creates a new spiritual species in Christ as per 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ and he is, he is a new spiritual species. The old things have lost their power; behold, new things have come to pass.” You become a new spiritual species at salvation by being put into union with Christ. It is what God does for you, and therefore it is grace. It is not what you do after salvation, such as the self-righteous works of legalism. The “old things” have to do with spiritual death and those things related to that death; the “new things” refer to things you receive at salvation such as the 40 assets and the unique spiritual life.
Positional truth should motivate the production of divine good and a pattern of life compatible with royalty as per Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his creation, having been created in Christ Jesus [a new spiritual species with many assets] for the purpose of divine good production [via experiential sanctification] which the God [the Father] has prepared in advance [in eternity past, God the Father provided election and predestination as part of our Portfolio of Invisible Assets], that we in the sphere of them [election and predestination] may pattern our lives.”
Even though a Christian may die the Sin on to Death, he will not lose his position in union with Christ (1 John 5:18-20), and so cannot lose his salvation. In order for a believer to lose his position in Christ, he would have to sin in that status, but since the believer cannot sin in union with Christ, he cannot lose his position in Christ and so cannot lose his salvation. Thus, it is comforting and reassuring to a believer to know that even though a loved one may have died the ‘sin on to death’, he has not lost his salvation.
Because we are in union with Christ, we share His:
1. Eternal life, 1 John 5:11, “And this is the deposition [testimony] that the God [the Father] has given to us, eternal life [At salvation, God the Father imputes this life to the human spirit], and this life is in his son [The Christian also shares the life of Christ through union with Him]. (12) and he who has the son [a relationship with the Son] has the life [eternal life] and the one who does not have the son of God [relationship with the Son] does not have the life [eternal life].”
John 14:6, “Jesus said to him [Thomas], ‘I am the way, the truth and the life [eternal life]; no person [in human history] comes face to face with the Father [having an eternal relationship with the Father] except through Me.’”
2. Perfect righteousness, 2 Corinthians 5:21, “And he (God the Father) made him [Jesus] who knew no sin (perfection) to be a sin offering as a substitute for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him [positional truth]. Sharing the righteousness of Christ, we become the objects of God the Father’s love as per Romans 8:39.
3. Election, Ephesians 1:4, “just as He [the Father] has elected us for Himself in Him [Jesus Christ] before the creation of the world [in eternity past], that we may be set apart [experiential sanctification] and blameless [ultimate sanctification] in the presence of Him [Father].”
4. Destiny, Ephesians 1:5, “By means of love, He has predestined us for the purpose of adoption as adult sons to Himself through Christ Jesus our Lord according to the grace purpose of His will.”
5. Sonship, Galatians 3:26, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
6. Heirship, Romans 8:16-17, “The Spirit Himself testifies together [bears witness] with our [human] spirit, that we are the children of God. (17) Now, if we are children and we are, also heirs, on the one hand heirs of God [the Father], and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed [if it is true that], we suffer with Him [pass all three stages of undeserved suffering], that also we might be glorified with Christ.”
7. Sanctification, 1 Corinthians 1:2, “to the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints together with all who call upon the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, their [Lord] and ours.”
8. Priesthood, Hebrews 7:12-19, “For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change in the Law also. (13) For the One [the Lord Jesus Christ] concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe [the tribe of Judah] from which no one has officiated at the altar. (14) For it is evident that our Lord has descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests, (15) and this is clearer still, if another priest arises similar to Melchizedek, and there has, (16) who has become a priest not on the basis of physical requirement [a reference to the Levitical Priesthood] but on the basis of indestructible life [the Lord’s priesthood is forever]. (17) For this reason, it is witnessed, ‘You are a priest forever similar to the order of Melchizedek.’” [We are in union with Christ. Therefore, we are royalty and priests forever. We represent ourselves before God as royal priests.] (18) For, on the one hand, there is a rescinding of the former commandment [the Mosaic Law that authorized the Levitical priesthood] because of its weakness and uselessness (19) (for the Law brought nothing to completion), but on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope [the second door of hope for the Church Age believer—a personal sense of destiny—by which we enter the adult spiritual life] through which we draw near to God.”
Hebrews 7:26-28, “For it is fitting that we should have such a high priest, impeccable integrity, the One who cannot do evil, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; (27) Who does not need daily, like those Levitical priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for their own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He [Jesus] offered up Himself. (28) For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of His [God the Father’s] oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, who has become perfect forever [Jesus Christ is a perfect high priest].”
9. Royalty, 1 Peter 2:9, “ But you and only you are an elect [elect by God the Father] race [as a new spiritual species], a royal priesthood [since Jesus is a king-priest], a holy nation [God’s entity: a nation of priests: every Christian is a priest], a people for God’s own possession [a protected people], so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him [Christ] who has called [in eternity past] you out of darkness [spiritual death and the Cosmic Systems] into His amazing light [his plan];”
10. New Spiritual Species, 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ and he is, he is a new spiritual species. The old things have lost their power [Old Covenant]; behold, new things have come to pass [This would include the New Covenant to the Church.].”
Current Positional Truth changes our relationship with Angels.
1. Through current positional truth the believer is higher than angels positionally.
2. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, and so superior to all angels. By virtue of being in union with Christ, every believer is now positionally superior to angels.
3. Positional truth has fulfilled the believer’s triumph with Christ in the angelic conflict. We are victorious with Him already.
4. Furthermore, positional truth demands compatibility with experiential righteousness. Therefore, the believer’s walk on this earth must be compatible with positional truth since we have perfect security in Christ, we have the freedom to choose for Jesus Christ, to love Jesus Christ, to respond to His love, and to fulfill our purpose on this earth.
What positional truth is not?
1. It is not an experience, emotions or ecstasies.
2. It is not progressive; it cannot be improved in time or eternity.
3. It is not related to human merit or ability.
4. It cannot be changed by God, man or angels. It is eternal in nature.
5. It is not obtained gradually as you grow in grace, but in toto at salvation.
6. It is not known apart from the metabolization of doctrine.
7. From understanding the doctrine of positional truth, we progress in our spiritual life, but we cannot improve it since it is perfect at salvation.
8. We are not in Christ because of what we do (execution of the spiritual life) or fail to do (fail to execute the spiritual life), but because of what God has done.
A few points of explanation:
1. The conclusion from positional truth, whether retroactive or current, is that the Christian must apply these doctrines to his spiritual life.
2. In Romans 7:1-4 where we have an illustration of a woman whose first husband has died freeing her to marry another. This is what actually happens to us as believers at salvation. The old sin nature is the husband up to the point of salvation, but at the moment we believe in Jesus Christ positionally the sin nature is dead, as it were, the first husband has died and we have a new husband through union with Christ. Retroactive Positional Truth removes our first husband, the sin nature whereas Current Positional Truth enters us into union with Christ, our new husband.
3. The old sin nature-husband is still around, still seeking to regain his control over his former wife, the believer. But union with the second husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, has broken the first husband’s authority over the former wife.
4. The Baptism of Fire:
Matthew 3:11, “On the one hand I [John the Baptizer] baptize you [believers] by means of water because of a change of thinking [about Christ], but the one coming after me is mightier than I whose sandals I am not worthy to lace [loosen, remove]. He himself will baptize by means of the Holy Spirit [a reference to the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Church Age] and by means of fire [a reference to the Baptism of Fire at the 2nd Advent].”
Baptism of Fire: The baptism of fire (identification with fire) is defined as the judgment of unbelievers both Jew and gentile at the Second Advent. They will be removed from the earth and placed in fire for 1000 years until the Last Judgment, Luke 3:16-17; Mathew 25:31, 33. The analogy to the Baptism of Fire is found in Matthew 24:36-41. The one left in the field is the mature believer; the one taken is the unbeliever.
Parables of the Baptism of Fire:
1. The wheat and the tares (the unbelievers), Matthew 13:24-30, 36-40.
2. The good and bad fish (unbelievers), Matthew 13:47-50.
3. The ten virgins: five wise, five foolish (the unbelievers), Matthew 25:1-13.
4. The sheep and the goats (the unbelievers), Mathew 25:31-46.
5. The talent test, Matthew 25:14-30. The one talent man represents the unbeliever.
If Jesus Christ had not been rejected by the Jewish people, then the age of Israel would have continued until its completion (the Tribulation completes the age of Israel). (However, they did reject Jesus Christ as Savior and Messiah and so the client nation was destroyed, and the Church age was intercalated that is inserted before the age of Israel was complete.) After the completion of the age of Israel at the end of the Tribulation, comes the wrath of God namely the Baptism of Fire when the Lord removes both Jewish and gentile unbelievers from the earth and identifies them with fire forever. After which, the Millennial reign begins.
The Three Ritual Baptisms. None are extant at the present time. They are representative identifications in which water is used as a training aid to represent some principle of doctrine.
1. The Baptism of John is found in Matthew 3:2-6, “Saying, ‘Change your thinking [regarding Christ] for the kingdom of heaven is near.’ [The future king was already on the earth] (3) For this is what was communicated through Isaiah, the prophet saying, ‘The voice of one [John the Baptizer] proclaiming loudly in the desert [of Judea]. Prepare [the aorist tense is a one time-decision] the way of the Lord [an idiomatic expression for salvation]. Keep on making upright [the use of the Recovery Procedure followed by the development of experiential righteousness] His paths!’ (Isaiah 40:3) (4) Now, John himself kept on having a garment of camel’s hair [very uncomfortable] and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. (5) Then [after John went where God wanted him to be] Jerusalem kept on going out to him [face to face] and all Judea and all the districts around the Jordan. (6) and they were being baptized [identified with the kingdom] by him [under John’s authority] in the Jordan River [where Israel crossed when they entered the land], and they kept on confessing their sins [post-salvation confession of sins].”
MAX KLEIN BIBLE MINISTRIES
Second Corinthians Chapter Six
A verse-by-verse commentary by Max Klein
Let us bow our heads; If we need to use the Recovery Procedure as found in 1 John 1:9, let us do so at this time that we might be in fellowship. (pause) Father, we thank you for the privilege and opportunity to study your word and for the freedom that you have provided for us here in Corpus Christi, Texas, U.S.A.; furthermore, we express our appreciation to God the Holy Spirit who will enlighten us regarding the message this evening. We as priests pray this through the person of our Lord Christ Jesus, our High Priest, Amen.
2 Corinthians 6:1
As fellow workers [Paul approaches in a soft manner], we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain [by not executing the spiritual life].
Συνεργοῦντες δὲ καὶ παρακαλοῦµεν µὴ εἰς κενὸν τὴν χάριν τοῦ θεοῦ δέξασθαι ὑµᾶς
We received God’s grace through Common Grace, the Call of God followed by Efficacious Grace.
Common and Efficacious Grace:
The work of common grace is antecedent to the work of efficacious grace; We inhale the Gospel which is made clear by the Holy Spirit. Then, we exhale faith in Christ, which is made effectual by the work of God the Holy Spirit.
Regarding Common Grace, the unbeliever must hear and listen to the Gospel message or read it. When the Gospel is communicated, the Holy Spirit will make the gospel message understandable to the unbeliever. How can this be since the unbeliever is spiritually dead, and incapable of understanding spiritual matters since he does not possess a human spirit?
1 Corinthians 2:14. But the soulish man [the unbeliever] does not receive the things from the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him [information regarding the spiritual life], and he is not able to know them because they are spiritually discerned [the need for a human spirit].
So, this verse is telling us that the unbeliever cannot understand spiritual matters. However, though the gospel is spiritual phenomena, the Holy Spirit uses his power to makes the gospel clear to the unbeliever even though the unbeliever does not possess a human spirit.
John 16:8-11. And after that one [the Holy Spirit] has come, he will convince the world concerning sin [the sin of not believing in Christ], concerning righteousness [the need for perfect righteousness], and concerning judgment [if the greatest creature will be sentenced to the Lake of Fire, the unbeliever will not fair, any better]. (9) And concerning sin because they have not believed in Me. (10) Concerning righteousness because I go to my father, and you will no longer see Me [Jesus Christ went to the Father with perfect righteousness]. (11) And concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged [and so will the unbeliever if he should continue to reject God’s plan of salvation].
John 10:27-28. My sheep hear My voice [common grace, the divine call] and I know them [in eternity past] and they follow Me [efficacious grace]. I give to them eternal life and they shall never perish, and no one will ever snatch them out of My hand.
Once the unbeliever understands the gospel under the concept of Common Grace, God the Father will invite (the call of God) that unbeliever to enter into fellowship with His son through faith in Christ.
Efficacious grace is the theological term for the work of the Holy Spirit related to faith in Christ. This doctrine might be classified as the doctrine of effectual faith since the faith of the spiritually dead person would be ineffective without help from God, the Holy Spirit. Therefore, efficacious grace is tantamount to effective faith, whereby the Holy Spirit takes the unbeliever's faith in Christ and turns it into his eternal salvation.
Ephesians 2:8, 9. For by grace [Common and Efficacious Grace] you have been saved through faith [of the spiritually dead unbeliever], and this [The Greek touto is neuter and so cannot refer to the previous two feminine nouns, but to the previous concept namely salvation] salvation is not out from yourselves, but the gift from God. Not out from works lest anyone should boast.
The Invitation of God the Father which occurs between Common and Efficacious Grace.
The Call of God the Father:
Regarding the Call or invitation of God the Father:
1 Corinthians 1:9, “The God [the Father] is faithful through whom you have been called [invited] into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.”
Relating the ‘Call’ of God to the ‘Election’ of God: The Holy Spirit enables the unbeliever to comprehend the Gospel. (Theologically, this is called Common Grace). After the unbeliever comes to an understanding of the gospel, God the Father invites or calls that unbeliever to enter into fellowship with Christ through faith alone in Christ alone. If the unbeliever responds by believing in Christ, the Holy Spirit will take that faith or belief in Christ and make it efficacious. (Theologically, this is called Efficacious Grace.) Since God the Father always knew that this particular unbeliever would respond to His invitation, He elected him in eternity past. Thus, the unbeliever who accepts the invitation or the call of God the Father to believe in Jesus Christ in time has been elected into the Father’s plan in eternity past.
Ephesians 1:4. Just as He [God the Father] has elected [from the Greek word, ‘eklego’] us for Himself in Him [Positional Sanctification] before the creation of the world that we may be set apart [Experiential Sanctification] and blameless [Ultimate Sanctification] in the presence of Him [God the Father in the eternal state].
Believers are commanded to make their calling and election a reality.
2 Peter 1:10-11. Therefore, rather brethren, be more motivated [perception of doctrine regarding your portfolio of invisible assets] to make your calling [the Greek word, klesis] and election [the Greek word, ekloge] a spiritual reality; for by doing these things [fulfillment of the Protocol Plan of God], you will never stumble at any time [become a loser]. For in this manner [execution of the protocol plan], your entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ [Ultimate Sanctification in the resurrection body] will be richly supplied [conveyance of eternal Escrow Blessings to the winners].
Knowledge of God’s Grace plan and staying away from legalism and emotionalism prevents “receiving God’s grace in vain”.
The Grace Plan of God: God’s plan is based on grace, not some philosophical system of human works. Grace means freely given and undeserved. God does all the giving; we undeservedly reap all this giving. For example, in grace God provides for all believers the same spiritual I.Q. Human I.Q. plus the Filling of the Spirit equals spiritual I.Q. Any Christian who implies or states that he, the one with a high human I.Q. alone is able to learn the deep matters of God is in a state of arrogance and does not understand God’s system of grace. 1 Corinthians 15:10a, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” When we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we became the recipients of the greatest possible endowment of grace, and grace pursues the advancing believer his entire life.
2 Corinthians 13:14, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ [the greatest acts of grace took place at the incarnation and on the cross] and the love of God [the Father the author of reciprocal love] and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit [the enabling power of the Spirit].”
Taken from Thieme’s Bible Doctrine Dictionary page 116:
“Grace orientation: The mental attitude of the believer who recognizes that everything he is and will ever be depends solely upon the power and plan of God. Saved by grace, the believer lives by grace. From the realization of this unmerited divine favor comes grace orientation—the attitude of total reliance on God, adjustment to His grace policy, and utilization of limitless grace provisions. All power for executing God’s plan comes from grace (1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Tim. 2:1; Heb. 13:9), and without it, believers could not survive in the devil’s world. Accordingly, Scripture exhorts believers to “stand firm in it!” (1 Pet. 5:12). “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord” reinforces this mandate, for there can be no grace orientation without humility (James 4:10). Nor can there be growth in grace without following the tandem command to grow in the “knowledge of our Lord” (2 Pet. 3:18). Once the believer submits to God’s plan and adapts to grace procedures, he realizes that God alone does the work to meet his needs and solve his problems (2 Thess. 2:16; 2 Pet. 1:2–4). No longer preoccupied with human works and achievement, he relates God’s policy to himself and others. Encouragement, comfort, and self-exhortation come from divine wisdom in his soul, not from his own flawed desires, impulses, and understanding. A relaxed mental attitude is the basis of his conduct, meaning he demonstrates sensitivity and tolerance toward the weaknesses of others (Eph. 4:31–32; 1 Cor. 4:7; 1 Pet. 5:5). By winning the battle over legalism and pride, he invisibly, often unknowingly, represents the grace attitude of Christ to the world (2 Cor. 1:12; 8:9). The greatest heroes of the Bible reached maturity not by their own genius or strength but by fully submitting themselves to the gracious hand of God. David, at one of the lowest points of his life, penned a beautiful testament to God’s matchless grace in Psalm 23, acknowledging that “the Lord is the one who keeps on shepherding me, I cannot and do not lack anything” (Ps. 23:1, expanded translation). The Apostle Paul, humbled by intense suffering, recognized that “when I am weak, then I am strong,” as he fully oriented to his helplessness in light of God’s all-sufficient grace (2 Cor. 12:7–10).”
The Axioms of Grace:
1. God is perfect; therefore, His plan must be perfect.
2. A perfect plan can only originate and function from a perfect God.
3. If man can do anything meritorious in the plan of God, it is no longer perfect.
4. A plan is no stronger than its weakest link. For this reason, grace excludes all human merit, all human ability and talent.
5. Legalism (Cosmic good produced outside of the plan of God) is the enemy of grace.
6. Therefore, the works of human self-righteousness have no place in the plan of God.
7. All good produced outside of God’s plan is motivated by human self-righteousness and arrogance.
More about grace:
1. Maximum indoctrination results in grace increase. Notice that grace is related to the intake of doctrine, not our failures and disasters.
2. Grace is the policy or characteristic of the love of God, in providing blessing for the believer in time as well as in eternity.
3. God’s integrity does not depend on man’s sinfulness or the production of human good (Cosmic Good) and evil.
4. The integrity of God is not sponsored by the function of the Old Sin Nature or its trends.
5. Acts of personal sin do not increase grace blessing from the integrity of God, but rather increase discipline and punishment from the integrity of God. In summary, what the righteousness of God demands, the justice of God executes.
6. Being under the authority of God’s grace does not encourage us to acts of personal sin, but we are motivated to press on to maturity through the consistent intake of Bible doctrine.
7. Being under the authority of grace means utilization of grace. Utilization of grace means utilization of grace provision for victory over the Old Sin Nature. This means advance to maturity where we both glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and receive those maximum blessings from the justice of God. Those blessings are described as “exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think.”
8. Therefore, the believer cannot perform an occasional act of sin with impunity. There is always discipline. The believer cannot perform an act of human good from the Cosmic System with impunity. There is condemnation of that human good (Cosmic Good) from the integrity of God, and there cannot be a series of sins resulting in evil, or a series of human good acts resulting in evil, without divine punishment to individuals involved. In other words, we never function under the Old Sin Nature with impunity.
9. Being under the authority of grace rather than the Law does not imply that the justice of God no longer administers punitive action for the believer who chooses to sin, perform human good, or to become involved with evil.
10. Divine integrity punishes sinfulness and divine integrity blesses growth in grace.
11. Therefore, freedom from being under the Mosaic Law does not imply immunity from punishment or discipline.
Grace does not imply License:
1. Grace is never increased and never advanced by any function of the Old Sin Nature, whether sin or Cosmic good or evil.
2. Grace is the policy of God. Therefore, the Christian must use God’s grace provision in order to defeat the Sin Nature.
3. The Old Sin Nature, as an agent of Satan is opposed to grace. The Old Sin Nature’s counter attack comes in the field of Satanic good and evil, but grace is strictly from God.
4. Therefore, we have in this verse a rhetorical question which is a false assumption of two antithetical failures. One of these failures is legalism and the other is antinomianism.
5. The grace of God never encourages sin. To the legalist, a great sinner himself being immersed in mental and verbal sins, grace always appears to give the antinomian Christian a license to sin since the legalist only places emphasis on overt sins. To the antinomian believer, grace is not used to recover fellowship and advance spiritually, but an excuse to keep on sinning. Neither advance under grace and the two power options.
6. Neither legalism nor antinomianism can break away from the ruling power of the Old Sin Nature over life because both are distortions.
7.Only the divine provision and the divine support of logistical grace can exploit the positional victory over the Old Sin Nature.
2 Corinthians 6:2
For he [the Lord] says [quoting from Isaiah 49:8], "At the acceptable time, I listened to you [the Lord listens to the unbeliever and his desire at God-consciousness], and on the day of salvation, I helped you [Common Grace followed by the Call of God the Father followed by Efficacious Grace]." Behold [Paul speaks to the Corinthian Christians], now [Isaiah in the Old Testament; Paul now in the Church Age] is the time for acceptance [the Corinthians must seize the opportunity to evangelize both by lip and by life the many unbelievers in Corinth who desire to enter into a relationship with God]; behold now [between birth and physical death] is the day of salvation [the unbeliever must hear the gospel from the Corinthian believer to express faith in Christ].
λέγει γάρ, Καιρῷ δεκτῷ ἐπήκουσά σου καὶ ἐν ἡµέρᾳ σωτηρίας ἐβοήθησά σοι· ἰδοὺ νῦν καιρὸς εὐπρόσδεκτος, ἰδοὺ νῦν ἡµέρα σωτηρίας
God-Consciousness:
God consciousness is defined as the point at which a person becomes aware of the existence of God through at least five theistic arguments for the existence of God. It may also be classified as the point of accountability. If any member of the human race, regardless of geographical or linguistic barrier, desires relationship with God after reaching God consciousness, God will provide the necessary gospel information through which that person can believe in Christ for eternal salvation. On the other hand, if a person at the point of God consciousness does not desire to know God, then the following would apply.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4. But if our Gospel [our personal possession] is hidden [veiled or obscured by Satan who doesn’t want a clear presentation of the gospel], it is hidden to those who are lost [unbelievers], (4): in whose case the god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds [through religion, philosophy etc.] of the unbelievers [negative volition at God-consciousness and Gospel hearing; people do not accept the lie until they have first rejected the truths], that they might not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.
The Scripture documents that the gospel has been presented throughout the world.
Colossians 1:6. "Which has come to you just as the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace".
If the unbeliever at God-Consciousness expresses a desire to learn more, God is responsible to bring the gospel message to him.
Romans 2:7. "To those, on the one hand [positive at God Consciousness], by the expectation [the time between God-Consciousness and gospel hearing] of a good work [the work of Jesus Christ on the cross] are seeking [Acts 17:27a, “that they should seek God; if perhaps they might grope for him, and find him”] eternal life [their response to the gospel], there is glory [at spiritual maturity, the believer brings glory to the Trinity and receives glory as well], honor [for those who advance spiritually] and immortality [resurrection body]".
Actually, when one discovers that there is a God through the function of the soul via the Theistic Arguments, then, if he is positive at God-consciousness, there is a seeking for God, a thinking about God, a looking into the sky and wondering about God; the person wants to know about God and have a relationship with Him. So, he will keep seeking until he is provided with gospel-information.
A few points regarding this subject:
1. In this phase of the angelic conflict, human volition is tested at two points: God-consciousness and gospel hearing.
2. At God-consciousness man becomes aware of the existence and the power of God through the function of his own mentality and human perspicacity according to Romans 1:20, 21.
3. There are two exceptions to reaching God-consciousness namely a person who doesn’t have the mental capability to perceive God and therefore, is unable to come to God-awareness or a person who dies before reaching accountability. These exceptions are always automatically saved as per 2 Samuel 12:23.
4. When a member of the human race arrives at God-consciousness, he is accountable to the integrity of God.
5. The age of accountability varies with culture, language, historical circumstance, environment, and civilization or lack of it.
6. If any member of the human race, regardless of geographical isolation or linguistic barrier, desires relationship with God after reaching God-consciousness, then God will provide necessary gospel information by which that person can make instant adjustment to the integrity of God through faith in Jesus Christ. (Acts 17:27)
7. At gospel hearing, man understands the gospel through the convincing ministry of God the Holy Spirit as per John 16:8-11.
8. So “the expectation of a good work” as per Romans 2:7 is the anticipation of gospel information or communication of the work of Christ on the cross by which a further decision is made namely faith in Christ.
God-consciousness, also termed the age of accountability, is the point in time when an individual is capable of recognizing the existence of a Supreme Being (Romans 1:19–20), is able to understand the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:3–4) and becomes responsible for his own positive or negative volition toward God. God-consciousness is the result of thought and reasoning—the mentality of the individual comprehending facts and drawing conclusions upon which to act. The specific age in which this occurs varies among individuals and depends on several factors including IQ, geographical location, and education. In some cases, the point of God-consciousness might not be reached until the late teens or early twenties. Also, what about those people who die before reaching God-consciousness? What about babies, young children, or the mentally handicapped who cannot comprehend facts or draw conclusions to make a decision about Christ? To hold them accountable for their decisions when they lack the mental faculties to reach God-consciousness would be unfair. However, God is always just. Since every member of the human race is condemned at birth, and Jesus Christ died as a substitute for the entire human race, the love of God is free to secure in heaven the eternal future of those who never reach God-consciousness (2 Samuel 12:15, 23). In other words, any member of the human race who dies before reaching accountability is automatically saved.
The Mechanics of God-Consciousness: There are three basic systems of perception by which the human mind acquires information.
1. Empiricism determines reality through observation or experience, especially of the senses.
2. Rationalism determines reality through reason which is the supreme authority in matters of opinion, belief, or conduct.
3. Faith determines reality through confidence in the authority or veracity of another. Although during your life you rely on all three systems to determine facts and gain knowledge, faith is a fundamental means of comprehension. For example, in learning geography your teacher may have said, “There is a land called England.” You had neither been there nor seen the country. Yet, you believed England existed because you trusted the authority and veracity of your teacher. You could have refused to believe her, but you did not. You accepted the fact on faith. Perception by faith is a normal means through which you assimilate information even though you may eventually verify these facts through empiricism or rationalism.
There are a number of rational approaches whereby the human mind can come to the point of God-consciousness. These are theistic arguments which move past the range of human experience and beyond the sphere of material knowledge to consider the infinite. While these arguments contribute a theoretical basis for the existence of God, they are no substitute for faith in the self-revelation of God in Scripture.
Theistic arguments for the existence of God: There are five ways in which any normal human being can attain an awareness of God.
1. The Religious Argument. The religious argument contends that God exists because mankind universally believes in His existence. Among all people and tribes on earth there is a concept of the divine which manifests itself in some form of worship. Man’s religious instincts indicate the reality of a Supreme Being. Creatures do not crave what does not exist, and since God does exist, men seek after Him. The concept of man seeking God is found in Jeremiah 9:13, John 17:17, and Acts 17:27.
2. The Moral or Anthropological Argument. This argument says that to a greater or lesser degree man’s soul possesses both volition and conscience with an urge to choose right over wrong. Furthermore, the structure of human society is based on the recognition of virtue and truth. This recognition has no explanation apart from the existence and influence of a Supreme Being with perfect and eternal integrity. A material, ungoverned universe can know nothing of moral values apart from the absolute righteousness of a Supreme Being. Thus, acknowledging the existence of virtue and truth eventuates in becoming aware of the source of virtue and truth. Jesus said to him [Thomas], in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no man comes unto the Father except through Me.”
3. The Ontological Argument. Ontological reasoning says that since the human mind possesses the idea of a perfect and absolute being, such a being must exist. Apart from the religious and moral tendencies, the existence of God is a necessary idea to the human intellect, and beyond the relative which mankind measures, there is the absolute which gives value and character to the relative. (Obviously, God put that idea in the soul when he created it.)
4. The Teleological Argument. This argument is that the universe, by its telescopic and microscopic wonders, always form arrangement, purpose, and adaptation, which connotes a designer. Structure in the universe demands a designer. The more we discover about the perfect structure of the universe in science, the more we recognize the need for a designer. The order of the universe can no more be accidental than the shuffling of twenty-six letters of the alphabet into a beautiful poem. The chemical contents of the human body are never accidentally combined to form man.
Both microscopic and telescopic phenomena, from the structure of an atom to the configuration of galaxies, display order, design, arrangement, purpose, and adaptation that demand both a Creator and a Preserver. The probability that an orderly universe emerged from primordial chaos, even over a period of billions of years, is about the same as a Shakespearean sonnet appearing in a can of alphabet soup!
5. The Cosmological Argument. This reasoning states that the intuitive law of cause and effect demands the existence of God as the initial cause. Every new thing or change must have a cause. In no sense can the universe be its own cause. There must be a first cause! Thus, the universe demands both a creator and a preserver.
John 1:3. speaking of Jesus Christ as eternal God, says, “All things came into being through Him [He is the ‘initial cause’], and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
Colossians 1:16-17 teaches that Jesus Christ is not only the creator of the universe [the ‘initial cause’], but that He also holds it together for the perpetuation of human history until the end of the Millennium, “For by Him were all things created both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or empires or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. (17) He has existed prior to all things and by Him all things hold together.”
Hebrews 1:10, “In the beginning [in eternity past], O Lord [Jesus Christ], You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the workmanship of Your hands [He is the ‘first cause’].”
The above Theistic arguments are not exhaustive, and it may take a combination of approaches for the human mind to come to the point of God-consciousness (God-awareness). However, it is clear that all normal members of the human race simply through thought can come to the knowledge that God exists. When anyone reaches the conclusion that “God exists,” and not merely a figment of his imagination, then, if he should desire gospel information, God will provide that information at the proper time.
On the other hand, rejection of the truth produces a vacuum in the soul resulting in the infiltration of the satanic lie and the blackout of the soul as per Ephesians 4:17, 18. Thus, heathenism is the result of negative volition either at God consciousness or Gospel hearing or sometimes both. People do not believe the lie until they first have rejected the truth. Just as every believer has equal opportunity to fulfill the Protocol Plan for the Church, so every unbeliever in history has equal opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life. To protect mankind from self-destruction and all the evil Satan seeks to perpetuate on humanity, God has provided both language separation and national boundaries.
Heathen are heathen not because the truth has never been presented in their geographical area, but because they were negative at God consciousness and sometimes again at Gospel hearing. The unbeliever who is negative at either God consciousness or Gospel hearing or both enters the Cosmic System and eventually will become antagonistic toward the gospel and other forms of truth as well.
The paragraph below is taken from the booklet, Heathenism page 7 by R. B. Thieme Jr.
“PEOPLE OF PRIMITIVE CULTURES have lived for centuries in the remote mountains, jungles, and deserts of the world. Wherever they are, these communities are far removed from the mainstream of commerce and civilization despite the advances in communication technology. They may be the Papuans of New Guinea, the Hottentots of South Africa, or an Indian tribe in the Amazon. Inevitably the skeptic of Christianity will ask, “What about the ‘heathen’ who have never heard the Gospel? How can these people decide for or against Jesus Christ?” If the skeptic truly wants an answer he should ask, “What about those who apparently have never heard the gospel?” Although he may be ignorant of the facts of worldwide evangelism, the underlying implication of his question is clear, “God is unfair! How can a loving God condemn anyone under these circumstances?” This accusation against God is a demonstration of their total ignorance of history and the Word of God.”
This is described in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4. But if our Gospel is hidden [veiled], it is hidden to those who are lost [unbelievers], in whose case the god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers [negative volition to the Gospel at God consciousness and Gospel hearing], that they might not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.
Negative volition at God consciousness is described in some detail in Romans.
Romans 1:18-20. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all negative godliness [negative volition at God consciousness; several generations of rejecting God will eventuate in heathenism] and unrighteousness of men who suppress truth through all unrighteousness [after they have rejected the truth, some become immoral and anti-establishment while others become morally self-righteous]. Because that which may be known about God is evident within themselves [at God consciousness], for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes [eternal power, divine nature] have been clearly seen, being understood through that which has been made [by observation], so that they [unbelievers] are without excuse.
Creation demonstrates His existence. His wondrous works are visible to the heathen. Therefore, they have no excuse for a negative attitude because they have been provided with the clear opportunity to reach God-consciousness. If they desire to know more about God, then gospel information will be brought to them at the right time. However, after reaching God-consciousness, if they do not desire additional information, God is not responsible to bring them gospel-information since they have already made their decision “they are without excuse.”
Then, Paul states in Acts 17:26-27 that men of all nations should seek the Lord. “And He made from one [people], every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God [at God-consciousness], if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him [at gospel hearing], though He is not far from each one of us.
Sometimes God directs Gospel information toward a person with negative volition so that those in his periphery with positive volition will have the opportunity to hear and believe. Such was the case with the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Moses told Pharaoh not only how to receive personal salvation, but also how to deliver Egypt from divine discipline. However, since the Pharaoh was not interested in God at the point of God-consciousness, (God-awareness) he also rejected the truth at gospel-hearing and consequently hardened his heart. Not only did the divine judgments against Egypt namely the ten plagues demonstrate God’s power, but the news of Moses’ words to Pharaoh was also widely circulated (Exodus. 11:9). Before Pharaoh relented and released the Jews from slavery, there was a great revival throughout the empire so that when the Jews finally departed Egypt, they were accompanied by a large number of saved Gentiles namely the “mixed multitude”.
Involvement in the Cosmic System and its consequences:
2 Peter 2:20-22. For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the Cosmic System by knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ [a reference to Common Grace], they are again involved in them [the Cosmic System through rejection of the gospel] and are overcome [by the Cosmic System], the latter state [after rejecting the Gospel resulting in blackout of the soul] has become worse for them than the first [before they had rejected the gospel]. (21) For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness [the gospel message] then, having known it, to turn away from the holy mandate delivered to them [to believe on His Son, Jesus Christ]. (22) It has happened to them according to the true proverb [Proverbs 26:11], ‘A dog returns to his own vomit [by analogy the Cosmic System], and a sow after washing returns to wallowing in the mire [also a reference to the Cosmic System]’.
In effect, the one who was negative at God-consciousness comes out of the Cosmic System long enough to hear the Gospel. But once he rejects it, he goes right back into the Cosmic System; namely the vomit or the mire. So, this refers to the blackout of the soul or the blindness of the mind caused by negative volition at God consciousness returning to the mire or vomit when he has negative volition at Gospel hearing.
A good summary of God-consciousness is found on pages 110-111 of Thieme’s Bible Doctrine Dictionary. Also on page 4 of this same doctrinal dictionary is a short statement on the Age of Accountability.
“Describes the state of an individual who is able to recognize the existence of a Supreme Being and is therefore responsible for his choice toward a personal relationship with God. God makes Himself known to the entire human race (Rom. 1:19–20). By comprehending facts and drawing a conclusion, human beings can come to the knowledge that God exists. There are many approaches whereby the human mind moves beyond the material to consider the infinite: The fact that humans can even conceive of a Deity brings some people to God-consciousness. For others, our moral nature points to a Supreme Being who sets the standards for right and wrong, the perfectly ordered physical universe indicates the need for a Designer, or the logic that the universe cannot be its own cause leads to belief in a Creator. Children may simply hear about God in their periphery, glance up at the sky, and think, “God is up there somewhere. I wonder what He is doing now. Does He know I am down here?”
Once a person, at any age, can recognize God’s existence, he is accountable for his decision for or against a relationship with God [see age of accountability]. Aware of a Supreme Being but ignorant of God’s nature and plan, that person faces a choice: does he or does he not desire further knowledge? If his volition is positive toward a relationship with God, then God will provide the news of Jesus Christ and His saving work, regardless of geographical isolation or linguistic barrier. If his volition is negative—having no desire for further information—then God is not obliged to provide the Gospel. Should the unbeliever’s desire for truth, occur at a later time, the Gospel message will then be made available. God desires that all mankind be saved, and in His perfect righteousness, love, and fairness, He provides everything necessary for that salvation (1 Tim. 2:3–4; 2 Pet. 3:9). Anyone who wants to know Him will receive the Gospel (Jer. 29:13; John 7:17; Acts 17:27). Those who for one reason or another do not arrive at God-consciousness are automatically saved, because they lack the ability to make a responsible decision. Some examples include babies, young children, or the mentally handicapped. All others are left “without excuse” for rejecting the saving work of God (Rom. 1:20).”
Age of Accountability:
“The point in life when an individual is capable of recognizing the existence of a Supreme Being, capable of understanding the Gospel, and responsible for his own decision toward a relationship with God. This is also called the point of God-consciousness. Scripture is clear that God makes His existence evident within the world (Rom. 1:19–20). Accountability is reached when, through simple thought and reasoning, a person can consider that existence and draw conclusions. The specific age at which this occurs varies among individuals and depends on several factors, including geographical location, social conditions, education, and individual mental capacity. Generally, the point of accountability falls sometime after the age of four.
Individuals who die before reaching accountability, including infants and the severely mentally handicapped, are taken directly into the presence of the Lord (2 Sam. 12:22–23). In grace, God automatically saves anyone who lacks the mental ability to reach God-consciousness and make a responsible decision about Christ.”
The Delusion of Heathenism
The delusion of heathenism (unbeliever reversionism) occurs when the unbeliever has negative volition at God-consciousness, and if he should hear the gospel message, negative volition at that point as well. As a result, he goes through the Eight Stages of Reversionism becoming an absolute fool. The delusion of reversionism occurs in every generation. Several generations of negative volition and the nation goes out. Sodom and Gomorrah, Assyria, Chaldea, Persia, the Hellenistic monarchies, Rome, Hitler’s Germany, etc. can give testimony to this.
1. These “fools” of delusion accept darkness into their souls and then apply it to life, people and circumstances and call it wisdom—a delusion.
2. This affirmation of non-existent wisdom is the status of heathenism in the last three stages of reversionism—blackout of the soul, scar-tissue of the soul, and reverse process reversionism.
3. The apostate (the reversionist) sets up false norms and standards for wisdom, then uses these false norms and standards to allege and conclude the possession of wisdom.
4.This explains the blindness of the sincere liberal, the do-gooder, the person in politics legislating his delusionary ideas on the peoples of his nation.
5. Negative volition at gospel hearing triggers the unbeliever’s reversionism. The unbeliever may have been pro-establishment before his rejection of the truth at God-consciousness and gospel hearing. However, this rejection of truth produces a vacuum in the soul by which he will believe every Satanic lie or any other falsehood.
A few more points:
1.To be the kind of fool described in the following verse, there must be the arrogance and pride of reversionism. Romans 1:22, “Although professing themselves [delusional unbelievers] to be wise, they became fools [from blackout of the soul etc.],”
2. Self-righteous arrogance in reversionism is creative in the sphere of evil even to the point of creating its own gods.
3. Arrogance sets itself above the essence of God and distorts the perfect attributes of God into ridiculous images of human and animal power.
4. The arrogant man declares that the images which he has constructed are gods by which he may contact demons. The fact that man can manufacture a god is the epitome of arrogance, the quintessence of human folly, and total blasphemy.
Man is corruptible because of his Old Sin Nature; man is mortal because of death; man is perishable because of the human body. All the same, images of men who exercise great power and authority in life are sometimes set up and worshipped. Animals are also worshipped. Many countries have some form of bird-worship since birds have the power and ability to soar like the hawk and the eagle etc. The bull was worshiped for his power in ancient Egypt and Crete. Today, the cow is worshipped in India. Snakes and crocodiles were also worshipped in many ancient countries. Today, the monkey and even the rat are worshipped in certain parts of India.
There is no excuse for the heathen, the reversionistic unbeliever for he has rejected that which he has had total cognizance—the understanding of God at God-consciousness and in some cases, the salvation message at gospel hearing. Instant adjustment to the plan of God at salvation is as simple as Ephesians 2:8,9; Acts 16:31. Rejection of Christ as Savior is instant maladjustment to the plan of God.
Summary:
1. One of the blessings of instant adjustment to the grace of God at salvation is to have a permanent relationship with God.
2. On the other hand, to abandon the grace provision of God at salvation is the most awful thing which can happen to any individual.
3. The unbeliever in heathenism lives a horrible life and dies miserably only to be followed by eternal condemnation to the eternal Lake of Fire.
4. Therefore, there is a sign at the entrance into heathenism for unbeliever-reversionism: Abandon all hope, he who enters therein.
5. Here, then, is negative volition at the point of gospel hearing with the self-seeking promotion of the self-righteous unbeliever.
6. Disobedience to the gospel, negative volition at salvation, means obedience to evil and the perpetuation of that maladjustment.
7. Such perpetuation of unbeliever-reversionism causes the integrity of God to adjust to the status quo of the maladjusted, and that means God’s punishment of the unbeliever’s rejection of the gospel in time, and the wrath of God’s judgment of the unbeliever for all eternity.
The extremely self-righteous unbeliever is very difficult to deal with since he in his mind doesn’t need to hear about a grace solution, a solution for what? I don’t have a problem!
1. As long as any person in the world thinks that there is any system of human righteousness, talent, ability, planning or system of works which can satisfy the integrity of God and clings to any system of self-righteousness, whatever it maybe, he has no chance of ever having a relationship with God.
2. No human factor, including Jewish or Gentile self-righteousness, can therefore provide or add anything to salvation adjustment to the integrity of God. The first issue we face in the human race is salvation and there is nothing that we can add to what the grace of God has already provided.
3. No Jewish rationalism of being better than the Gentiles will provide salvation or spirituality, or maturity.
Jews and Gentiles are under the same condemnation of sin. At birth, each member of mankind is born with a Sin Nature which was passed down to him in copulation. At the instance of birth, God imputes Adam’s Original Sin to that person and condemns him to the Lake of Fire.
Romans 5:12. For this reason just as through one man [Adam] the sin [the Sin Nature] entered into the world, and so spiritual death through the sin [Adam’s Original Sin is imputed to the Sin Nature at birth], and so spiritual death spread to all mankind, because all sinned when Adam sinned [Since we were seminally in Adam when he sinned, we receive the Sin Nature through his seed and consequently receive the imputation of Adam’s Original Sin].
Psalm 51:5. Behold, I [David] was born in iniquity [Adam’s original sin imputed] and in sin I was conceived [Sin Nature passed down at conception].
Romans 5:19. For as through one man’s disobedience [Adam] the many [the human race] were made sinners [the imputation of Adam’s Original Sin at birth], even so through the obedience of one [the humanity of Christ], many [those who believe] will be made righteous [imputed righteousness at salvation].
Salvation is not out from Works:
There are seven categories of salvation by works which are practiced at the present time.
1. Verbal works such as: repent regarding one’s sins, beg God to save you, plead the blood, invite or receiving Christ into your life or heart, acknowledge Christ publicly.
2. Ritual works: circumcision, water baptism, and rarely but occasionally the Lord’s table.
3. Psychological works: raise your hands, walk the isle, etc.
4. Corporate works: joining the church for salvation, tithing, or some other system a church may require for salvation.
5. Religious works: keep the Law, perform penance, practice the Lordship of Christ, associate your decision for Jesus by throwing a faggot on the fire, a candle-light service during which one prays in his salvation, taking vows, functions of asceticism for salvation.
6. Behaviouristic works: giving up something obnoxious, following a set of taboos, change your personality.
7. Emotional works: any system of ecstatics, speaking in tongues, weeping tears at the altar, etc.
2 Corinthians 6:3
We [Paul and his team] put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited.
µηδεµίαν ἐν µηδενὶ διδόντες προσκοπήν, ἵνα µὴ µωµηθῇ ἡ διακονία,
Paul mentions this since the Corinthian Christians are not witnessing by lip and by life. (This should be quite apparent from the two Corinthian Epistles.) They are failing in both of these areas but especially in their lifestyle. The unbelievers living in Corinth can’t help but witness the terrible mental attitude and lifestyle of the Corinthian Christians. As a result of this, these Corinthian Christians are placing many stumbling blocks hindering the unbeliever from believing in Christ. In fact, their ministry toward these unbelievers has been completely discredited.
Evangelism, Principles of:
Knowledge of salvation is necessary for witnessing. You cannot witness for Christ unless you know the gospel. You must qualify yourself as an ambassador for Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:18-21. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us [as ambassadors] the ministry of reconciliation: (19) Namely that God [the Father] was by means of Christ reconciling the world to himself [the principle of unlimited atonement] not counting their trespasses against them [the penalty of our personal sins were imputed directly to Christ on the cross; the only personal sin ever imputed to us was Adam’s Original Sin], and he committed to us, the doctrine of reconciliation. (20) Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God [the Father] were making His appeal through us. We [as ambassadors] invite you [through the gospel message] on behalf of Christ become reconciled to God. (21) And he [God the Father] made him [Jesus] who knew no sin [impeccability of Christ] to be a sin offering [Jesus Christ, the high priest offered himself as a sacrifice for the penalty of our sins] as a substitute for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him [positional truth].
2 Corinthians 4:5-6. For what we proclaim [It is used for a herald announcing something about the king who in this case is the Lord Jesus Christ. So, witnessing is making a proclamation about the Lord Jesus Christ] is not ourselves [the person is not important; it is the message], but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. (6) For God [the Holy Spirit], who said, "Let light shine out from darkness,"[relating the light of truth in this passage to the creation of light in the restoration of the earth by God the Holy Spirit as per Genesis 1:3] who [God the Holy Spirit] made the light [of Bible doctrine] shine in our hearts [souls] with the enlightenment of the knowledge [the Greek word gnosis is academic understanding which would emphasize the daily intake of God’s Word] of the glory of God in the person of Christ [a reference to Jesus Christ functioning under the Prototype Spiritual Life].
The Christian has a two-fold witness ministry. Being a witness to the unbeliever and before angels in the Angelic Appeal Trial are the responsibilities of every believer.
Acts 1:8. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you [the Filling of the Holy Spirit]. And you shall be witnesses [to the unbeliever but especially in the Angelic Appeal Trial] to Me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
The human race was created to function as witnesses in Satan’s appeal trial. So, being witnesses to the unsaved human race is not the primary function of the Christian though important. So, even though a Christian may witness to many unbelievers during his lifetime, if that same believer does not function as a witness in this Angelic Appeal Trial, basically he has failed in his primary mission.
The effectiveness and clarity of the believer’s witness depends upon his understanding of the last judgment as taught in Revelation 20:12-15 and the convincing ministry of the Holy Spirit as per John 16:8-11. These two passages make it clear that a person’s sins are not the issue in salvation except the sin of not believing in Jesus Christ.
Witnessing is impossible apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit:
John 16:8-11. And when that one comes, he [God the Holy Spirit] will convince the world [the unbeliever] concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; (9) concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me [the sin of rejecting Christ as savior is the only sin not judged on the cross] (10) and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me [the need for perfect righteousness]; (11) and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged [If the greatest creature ever created did not escape judgment nor will you].
Regarding God’s word, the unbeliever can only understand the Laws of Establishment and the gospel via Common Grace and nothing else since the unbeliever does not have a human spirit. So, don’t try to teach the unbeliever about angels, prophecy, any aspect of the spiritual life etc.
1 Corinthians 1:18. For the Word of the cross to the ones who are perishing [the ones rejecting the gospel] is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
If the unbeliever refuses to listen to the gospel or rejects the gospel information after hearing it (Common Grace followed by the Call of God the Father), then the gospel and all other spiritual information in the Bible will appear to him as foolishness.
1 Corinthians 2:14. But the soulish-man [ψυχικὸς δὲ ἄνθρωπος is a reference to the unbeliever] does not accept the things from the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are discerned spiritually [learning about the spiritual life and other Biblical truths require both a human spirit and the ministry of God the Holy Spirit].
The dynamics of witnessing depend upon the believer’s mental attitude:
Romans 1:14-16. I am under obligation both to the civilized unbelievers [those with Greek culture and language] and to the uncivilized unbelievers [like the barbarians of Spain] both to the wise [mature believers] and to the ignorant [includes baby, adolescent, and reversionistic believers]. (15) Thus, my eagerness to proclaim the good news [both the gospel and the spiritual life] to you who are in Rome. (16) For I am not ashamed of the good news regarding salvation, for it is the power of God for providing salvation to anyone who believes in Christ, both to the Jew foremost [first in privilege] and likewise to the Gentiles.
1 Corinthians 9:16-23. For if I communicate the good news [maybe I will; maybe I will not], I have nothing to boast about [neither evangelism nor communicating the spiritual life is a basis for boasting], for I am under necessity [I’m just doing what I should be doing; it is my responsibility]; for woe is me if I do not proclaim [at the point of opportunity] the gospel [fail in my responsibility as an ambassador and fail in my responsibility as a communicator of the spiritual life]. (17) For if I do this willingly [communicate the good news with correct motivation while in fellowship], and I do, I have a reward [for witnessing even though the unbeliever may not respond for example]; but if I unwillingly fulfill a responsibility with which I have been entrusted, (18) What then is my reward [There is no reward for witnessing or communicating God’s Word unwillingly since the believer is functioning under false motivation]? That, when I proclaim the good news [the gospel to the unbeliever; the spiritual life to the believer], I may offer the good news without charge [Paul never took money from the unbeliever nor did he take funds from the Corinthian believers], so as not to make full use of my right [Paul had the right to receive remuneration from the Corinthian Christians] in the gospel [in presenting the good news to those Christians]. (19) For though I am free [the Law of Liberty] from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more [souls for Christ]. (20) To the Jews I became as a Jew [for example abstaining from eating pork] so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being under the Law myself [Paul was not under the Mosaic Law], so that I might win those who are under the Mosaic Law [the Jewish unbeliever]; (21) to those who are without the Law [the Gentile unbeliever], as without Law [so, Paul would eat pork with them for example], though [Paul] not being without the Law of God [Paul used the Old Testament for instruction, but not for his spiritual life] but under the Law of Christ [the Law of the Filling of the Spirit], so that I might win those who are without Law [the Gentiles]. (22) To the weak [certain Jewish and Gentile unbelievers] I became weak, that I might win the weak [to the Lord]; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. [In matters of doctrine, Paul was adamant and dogmatic, but in matters of expediency, Paul was flexible without deceit and without compromise.] (23) I do all things for the sake of the gospel [the gospel-message], so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.
2 Corinthians 4:2. Rather, we [Paul presenting the ministry of witnessing for all believers] have renounced secret and shameful ways [dishonest methods and gimmicks]; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God [through false issues, false doctrine and human viewpoint]. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly [by the unveiling of the truth; the Greek word ‘phanerosis’ means to remove the veil; by clearly presenting gospel information, we are removing the veil over the cross and at the same time attempting to remove the veil of blindness over the eyes of the unbeliever] we commend ourselves [the believer while under the Filling of the Spirit in witnessing] to every man's conscience [the gospel receives favorable attention from the conscience; the standards based on right and wrong reached at God consciousness demand a hearing of the gospel] in the sight of God [We witness as unto the Lord before the omniscience of God. Whether people know or not is not the issue. So, you don’t need recognition from people for motivation. Also, for those who love the Lord, there comes an animation and enthusiasm in witnessing].
Paul had a sense of obligation based upon a sense of honor. From that sense of honor toward God, comes a sense of duty or responsibility toward others both to the unbeliever and to the believer.
There are two areas of witnessing namely the witness of the life and the witness of the lips:
The witness of the life: 2 Corinthians 3:3. Being manifested [to people and angels] that you are a letter from Christ, having been ministered to by us; therefore, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of the human heart [stream of consciousness].
The witness of the lips: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21. For the love for Christ keeps motivating us, having concluded this, that one died [a substitutionary spiritual death] for all, therefore all died [real spiritual death at birth]; (15) and He [Christ] died as a substitute for all in order that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was resurrected [rose from the dead in an eternal body] on their behalf. (16) Therefore, in the future we regard no one from the human viewpoint [according to the flesh]; even though we have known Christ from the human viewpoint [from the typical viewpoint that we had before we were saved], but now [with cognitive self-confidence and beyond] we know Him in this way no longer. (17) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, and he is, he is a new spiritual species; the old things have passed away [lost their power over you like people emphasis over God emphasis]; behold, new things have come [the ten unique features of the Church Age; the Ten Problem Solving-devices; the distribution of Escrow Blessings for time and the anticipation of the distribution of Escrow Blessing for the eternal state]. (18) Now, all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, (19) namely, [His ambassadors] that God was by means of Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (20) Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God [by believing in Jesus Christ as your savior]. (21) He made Him who knew no sin to be a sin offering on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [in union with Christ].
There is reward for witnessing in fellowship with God:
1 Corinthians 3:13-14. Each man’s work [Christian work or production] will become evident; for the day [the Evaluation Platform of Christ after the Rapture] will show it because it is to be revealed by fire, in fact the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. (14) If any man’s work which he has built upon it [Christ, the Rock] remains, he will receive a reward [this includes witnessing in fellowship with God].
Paul knew that all the human ability and power in the world cannot persuade even one sinner to trust in Christ as savior. Only the power of the Holy Spirit working through the gospel can break through into the human soul causing an unbeliever to believe in Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:4. Both my doctrine and my preaching were not in persuasive words of man’s wisdom [not in Greek culture and philosophy; not in rationalism or empiricism], but in the demonstration of the Spirit [regarding the gospel: common and efficacious grace; regarding Paul’s teaching after salvation, it was done under the Filling of the Spirit and the power of metabolized doctrine in his soul] and in His power [God’s power is used both in the presentation of the gospel and in the teaching of God’s word which follows salvation].
A few points for clarification regarding the presentation of the Gospel:
1. Human public ability and eloquence will not bring a sinner to Christ.
2. Human popularity or success will not bring a sinner to Christ.
3. Human attractiveness will not bring a sinner to Christ.
4. It is not necessary to be intelligent or an intellectual to reach intellectuals.
5. You do not have to learn the unbeliever’s religion, philosophy or viewpoint to present him with the gospel-message.
6. You do not have to cultivate people or become friends with them to witness to them.
7. Witnessing is not winning a debate. If faith in Christ were founded on logic, it could be refuted by logic. All it takes is a greater debater, a smarter person using logic. The objective of witnessing is not to win a debate, not to present a logical platform, subject to debate, but to present an absolute namely the gospel. The Holy Spirit will do the rest.
Proper Evangelism:
1. Give the unbeliever information pertinent to salvation and stay on the subject. Avoid false issues such as legalism: salvation by change of behavior, feeling sorry for sins, joining the church, etc.
2. Never put the cart before the horse. Do not try to get the unbeliever to live the Christian way life. The issue is not living the Christian life, the issue is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,” Acts 16:31; John 3:36.
3. Be sure to declare the good news of the gospel; discussing personal sin is not good news. Your responsibility is to emphasize the person of Christ and His work on the cross. However, after explaining the good news, you may state what will happen if the unbeliever should reject the good news.
4. So, do not add to the gospel. Nothing is accomplished by getting a person to give up his sins, to improve his behavioral pattern, or to feel sorry for his sins, to join a church or to walk down a church aisle.
5. Provide information and do not get in the way of the Holy Spirit with regard to the decision of faith. You can’t force the volition of any member of the human race; even God can’t do that.
6. Never ask an unbeliever for money, and avoid any kind of a gimmick that would confuse the issue like asking him to come forward or to stand up during an evangelistic appeal.
Pitfalls in personal witnessing:
1. Avoid argumentation. You are not trying to win a debate; rather you are trying to win a soul to Jesus Christ. Hence, your job is to disseminate information rather than to argue over its validity.
2. Do not be sidetracked by false issues such as: Is the Bible the Word of God? Use the Word of God, don’t argue as to whether the Bible is valid or not. The issue as to whether the Bible is the Word of God or not is an issue for the believer but not for the unbeliever.
3. Deal with the individual alone wherever possible. Often people will give you a hearing, but they will not do so in the presence of others who might ridicule them.
4. Avoid the concept that you must speak to a certain number of individuals each day or you are not spiritual. This is a human viewpoint-pressure system.
5. Avoid bragging about witnessing; avoid judging other believers for their apparent failure to witness. Bragging and judging should not be related to evangelism.
Four types of false motivation in witnessing related to the lust pattern.
1. Materialism lust. A person witnesses for money.
2. Approbation lust. A person witnesses for recognition or praise.
3. Power lust. A person witnesses in order to gain ascendancy in some Christian group.
4. Ego lust. Witnessing motivated by competition with other believers. For example, if you witness to five people a day, I’ll witness to six!
Evangelism without Prejudice:
1. In evangelism, one must avoid national prejudice in the presentation of the gospel.
2. There must not be any racial or social prejudice in the presentation of the gospel.
3. Arrogance in the form of prejudice destroys the effective presentation of the gospel in the following three categories: the personal witnessing of every believer, the evangelist who witnesses to groups of unbelievers within a nation, and the missionary who functions outside of the Client Nation.
The removal of national prejudice in communicating the gospel.
1. From B.C. 1441 to A.D. 70, over 1500 years of history, client nation Israel had the responsibility of evangelizing Gentile nations.
2. The failure of the Jewish people in evangelism related to missionary activity was one of the reasons for the three administrations of the fifth cycle of discipline to Israel: to the Northern Kingdom in 721 B.C., to the Southern Kingdom in 586 B.C. and to Judea in 70 A.D.
3. During their 1500-year history, evangelism within the nation was quite extensive. However, in missionary activity, they had completely failed. We know of only one missionary during this period, and he had to be forced to go to Assyria. Why was this the case? They had become arrogant about their culture and all that the Lord had given to them including their salvation. They failed to appreciate that when Christ would go to the cross, he would be judged for the sins of the entire world. Therefore, in conclusion, there shouldn’t be any national prejudice in presenting the gospel whether it be within one’s nation or outside of it.
4. Now, let’s move from history to eschatology. While there will be no Client Nation existing during the Tribulation, there will be much evangelism not only in Israel, but throughout the world.
5. In spite of anti-Semitism reaching its peak in the Tribulation [Revelation chapter 12] Jewish evangelists namely the 144,000 followed by Moses and Elijah will reach thousands even millions of Gentiles in Gentile nations. Furthermore, these Jewish evangelists of the Tribulation not only will perform their evangelistic responsibilities without the support of a client nation, but will do so under the greatest period of anti-Semitism the world will ever know. In the Church Age, Paul witnessed under the power of the Filling of the Spirit and metabolized doctrine in his soul. In the Tribulation, Daniel’s Seventh Week, the last 7 years of the Age of Israel, the 144,000 Jewish evangelists and others will witness from the power of metabolized doctrine and possibly from the Enduement of the Spirit as the prophets were given in the Old Testament.
The failure of the unbeliever to respond to the gospel.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4. But if our Gospel [our personal possession] is hidden [veiled or obscured by Satan who doesn’t want a clear presentation of the gospel], it is hidden to those who are lost [unbelievers], (4) in whose case the god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds [through religion, philosophy etc.] of the unbelievers [negative volition at God-consciousness and Gospel hearing; Principle: people do not accept the lie until they have first rejected the truth], that they might not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.
Blindness of the unbeliever begins at the point where he becomes aware that there is a God; this awareness is known as God-consciousness which is defined as the point at which a person becomes aware of the existence of God through at least five theistic arguments. It may also be classified as the point of accountability. If any member of the human race, regardless of geographical or linguistic barrier, desires relationship with God after reaching God consciousness, then God will provide the necessary information (the gospel message) through which that person can believe in Christ for eternal salvation. On the other hand, if any person at the point of God consciousness does not desire to know God, then God is not responsible to bring gospel-information to that person.
Ephesians 4:18. Having been darkened [by a lack of light (truth)] in their understanding [way of thinking] and having been alienated from the life of God [unbelievers and believers in degeneracy] because of the ignorance which is in them [in their souls; no desire to learn the truth], because of the hardness [every time a person says ‘no’ to truth, callousness, scar tissue is formed] of their hearts [of the mentality of their souls].
1 John 2:11. But the one [the believer] who hates his brother is in darkness [in Satan’s Cosmic System] and walks in darkness [his lifestyle], and he does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes [the believer without truth in his soul cannot understand God’s plan].
How about those who do not reach God-consciousness? Those members of the human race, who for one reason or another do not arrive at God consciousness, are automatically saved because their volition did not reject God. This would include morons, brain damaged children, premature death in babies and young children below the age of accountability.
2 Samuel 12:23, “But now that he [David’s first son from Bathsheba] has died, why should I [David] fast [This was an answer to his servants who asked why he quit fasting?] Can I bring him back again [from death]? I shall go to him [David will see his son in heaven, his firstborn son from Bathsheba], but he will not return to me [from heaven].”
Worldwide Evangelism: Even though Satan blinds the stream of consciousness of the unbeliever, this does not prevent worldwide evangelism in every generation.
Acts 17:6. When they did not find them [Paul and Silas], they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, "These men who have upset the world [the Roman world] have come here [Thessalonica] also.
Colossians 1:6. [The good news] being present in you even as it is in all the world [in the Roman Empire and beyond, the gospel and Bible teaching entered Satan’s domain; Satan then counterattacked with Gnosticism], and is constantly bearing fruit [paraphrastic construction which is one of the strongest expressions in Greek] and increasing even as also in you from the day you heard [the constative aorist tense: after believing they kept on learning] and began to fully understand the grace of the God [Grace Orientation] in the sphere of doctrine [Doctrinal Orientation].
1 Timothy 3:16. And by common acknowledgement, great is the mystery of the spiritual life [the prototype and the operational type]. He who was revealed in the flesh [Hypostatic Union]: He was vindicated by the Spirit [Filled at birth and remained under that ministry during his 33 years on the earth including the cross]; He was seen by angels [both elect and fallen because it was the crossroad of history]; He was proclaimed among the nations [the nations of the world]; He was believed on in the world; He was taken up into glory [resurrection followed by Ascension and Session].
Extra-Biblical historical documentation of the world-wide dissemination of the Gospel:
Justin Martyr, 103-165 A.D., “There is no people, Greek or barbarian or any other race by whatever appellation or manner they may be distinguished, however ignorant of the art of agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons among whom prayers and thanksgiving are not offered in the name of the crucified Lord to the Father.”
Tertullian, 160-240 A.D., “We are of but yesterday and yet we already fill your islands, cities, camps, palaces, Senate, and forum. We have left you only your empty temples.”
Origen, 185-251 A.D., “In all Greece and among all barbarous races within our world there are tens of thousands who have left their national laws and customary gods for the law of Moses and the word of Jesus Christ. Though to adhere to that law is to incur the hatred of idolaters, and to embrace that word is to incur the risk of death as well. And considering, how in a few years and with no great store of teachers and in spite of the attacks which has cost us life and property, the preaching of the Word has found its way into every part of the world, so that Greeks and barbarians, wise and unwise adhere to the doctrine of Jesus Christ.”
Eusebius, 266-344 A.D., “There flourished at that time many successors to the apostles who reared the edifice on the foundations which were laid, continuing the work of preaching the Gospel and scattering abundantly over the entire earth the wholesome seed of the heavenly kingdom. For a very large number of disciples, carried away by a fervent love of the truth which the divine word had revealed to them, fulfilled the command to the Savior. Leaving their country, they fulfilled the office of evangelist to carry the gospel to those who had not heard the word of faith.”
Verses 4-5: the power of the spiritual life deals with pressure
2 Corinthians 6:4
Rather, as ministers of God we commend ourselves in every way in great staying power [to remain under great pressure with happiness]; in troubles [mental pressure from distressing circumstances of life], under compulsions [some form of compulsion: loss of privacy and freedom, being bullied into a false system, being tortured] and distresses [a general term for being crushed with excruciating pain of soul or body];
ἀλλ’ ἐν παντὶ συνιστάνοντες ἑαυτοὺς ὡς θεοῦ διάκονοι, ἐν ὑποµονῇ πολλῇ, ἐν θλίψεσιν, ἐν ἀνάγκαις, ἐν στενοχωρίαις,
In the passage, verses 4-10, we have three demonstrations of the ministry, the universal ministry of the believer as a priest and as an ambassador. The first of these demonstrations is pressure, verses 4-5. The second one is stability, verses 6-7. The third is adaptability, verses 8-10. All of these demonstrations are from Bible doctrine in the soul of the believer. In other words, the concept of residual doctrine in the believer’s soul. As a believer we are given as a gift from God, pressure, and this pressure is to demonstrate that inside of us is that wonderful edification which He has provided. In effect, God says, ‘I am going to show the world what kind of armor you have protecting your soul. I am going to show Satan and the fallen angels and all human beings in Satan’s Cosmos System, the greatest soul-strength in the world. The only way He can do this is through suffering.
Eight principles regarding suffering:
1. There is a far greater power in the Problem-Solving Devices deployed for action against suffering than the power of suffering.
2. Therefore, what suffering God does not remove, he intends for us to bear, not through the function of prayer, but through the Problem-Solving Devices.
3. The Problem-Solving Devices deployed on the FLOT line (forward line of troops) of the soul are designed to deal with every category of suffering in life.
4. If the suffering is designed for one’s spiritual growth, remove the suffering and you remove the potential spiritual growth and blessing.
5. Suffering is often an FTX, a field training exercise for gaining spiritual strength and growth.
6. Suffering is for application of the Ten Problem-Solving Devices.
7. In suffering, the solution is not prayer since prayer is not a Problem-Solving Devices although prayer may be used as a vehicle for the function of the Problem-Solving Devices.
8. Believers who pray for miracles never understand the proper use of the Problem-Solving Devices. Some incorrect prayers are as follows: Father, heal my friend who has rejected the spiritual life, in Christ name, Amen. Father, deliver our nation from evil politicians, even though evil people elected them, in Christ name, Amen.
2 Corinthians 6:5
In beatings [subjected to various categories of violence such as bruises, blows and wounds], imprisonments [in this context, it refers to unfair incarceration, being deprived unjustly of the normal functions and freedoms in life] and riots [mob violence, political persecution]; in hard work [to the point of mental exhaustion], sleepless nights [suffering from being deprived of sleep] and hunger [suffering from a lack of food];
ἐν πληγαῖς, ἐν φυλακαῖς, ἐν ἀκαταστασίαις, ἐν κόποις, ἐν ἀγρυπνίαις, ἐν νηστείαις,
Verses 6-7: deals with stability
2 Corinthians 6:6
By means of purity [purity of life, purity of thought pattern, purity of motivation, purity of behavior pattern maintained through the Recovery Procedure], knowledge [the spiritual life begins with unmetabolized academic information], steadfastness [not easily moved by emotions; thought must control the emotions] grace orientation [goodness, mercy: this fulfills the concept of growing by knowledge and grace which growth prevents arrogance], by agency of the Holy Spirit [the omnipotent power of the Spirit that works through the power of metabolized truth] by means of unhypocritical love [love with all of its components with emphasis on integrity];
ἐν ἁγνότητι, ἐν γνώσει, ἐν µακροθυµίᾳ, ἐν χρηστότητι, ἐν πνεύµατι ἁγίῳ, ἐν ἀγάπῃ ἀνυποκρίτῳ,
2 Corinthians 6:7
By the Word of truth [the Word in the Bible must be transferred to the soul as metabolized truth; this truth must impact our motivation, thinking, decision-making and action], by the inherent power of God [we must make use of the omnipotence of all three members of the Trinity], with weapons of righteousness [the greatest weapon in our soul is maximum integrity used offensively to advance and used defensively to avoid the Cosmic System] on the right hand [used for offensive weapons by the Roman military] and on the left [the left hand was used to hold the shield for defense];
ἐν λόγῳ ἀληθείας, ἐν δυνάµει θεοῦ· διὰ τῶν ὅπλων τῆς δικαιοσύνης τῶν δεξιῶν καὶ ἀριστερῶν,
Verses 8-10: deals with adaptability
2 Corinthians 6:8
Through glory [people praise and honor] and dishonor [people can change their thinking suddenly without due cause accusing one of dishonor unjustly], through evil report [through condemnation: means to malign or slander someone] and good report [through commendation: means to say something good about someone]; being misunderstood [you are right; they are wrong; all the same, you don’t go around explaining yourself] yet genuine [you are in fellowship and living the spiritual life];
διὰ δόξης καὶ ἀτιµίας, διὰ δυσφηµίας καὶ εὐφηµίας· ὡς πλάνοι καὶ ἀληθεῖς,
“Through glory and dishonor”
1. Antithetical circumstances are mentioned to demonstrate the ability of the mature believer to cope with rapid changes of circumstances.
2. The mature believer is able to stand up under circumstances which change through adversity. You start out with glory and you wind up with dishonor: a rapid change of circumstances. Adaptability to the rapidly changing circumstances is a sign of the great stability of the mature believer.
3. Therefore, the mature believer is stabilized and adaptable. Adaptability is the utilization of the spiritual life in time of sudden disaster.
4. Adaptability then manifests the believer’s grace orientation; it is the manifestation of the reflected glory of the spiritual life.
5. Adaptability is the perpetuation of that stability into the extremes of suffering which are caused by a rapid change of circumstances.
6. This phrase, “through glory and dishonor,” is suffering through a rapid change of circumstances; it is suffering which comes from vacillation and instability on the part of others, whether it is an individual who is unstable or a collective group.
“Through condemnation and commendation”
1. Rapidly changing circumstances produce suffering and disorientation unless you possess spiritual strength.
2. The believer who orients to both condemnation and commendation without loss of happiness, without loss of a relaxed mental attitude, obviously has a great spiritual life.
3. A mature believer’s happiness does not depend on what people think about him; his happiness is related to his relationship with the three persons of the Godhead.
2 Corinthians 6:9
As unknown [not prominent or famous], and yet known well [because of success or fame]; dying, and yet we live on; being chastened [intensive divine discipline], and yet not executed [recovery from intensive discipline and so spared from dying discipline];
ὡς ἀγνοούµενοι καὶ ἐπιγινωσκόµενοι, ὡς ἀποθνῄσκοντες καὶ ἰδοὺ ζῶµεν, ὡς παιδευόµενοι καὶ µὴ θανατούµενοι,
“As unknown, and yet known” The believer’s happiness does not depend on either success or obscurity. For example, you may have been unknown as a young believer and then, you become successful through divine blessing and promotion. Now, through this blessing and promotion, you are well-known and in the public eye and receiving some approbation. However, keep in mind that the majority of believers no matter of their spiritual attainment, remain unknown to the public. The point is that the advanced believer lives his life to please the Lord and is not concerned about what the public knows or does not know about him.
“Dying, and yet we live on” This is actually the suffering that comes from danger. Under conditions of danger where death is involved. For example, you as a soldier might be going through a battle in which you are constantly in danger. It is only when the battle is over that you actually know whether you will continue to live or not. This is a case, not of dying grace, but of the possibility of survival or the possibility of going on to be with the Lord. So, the believer is actually facing death and simultaneously completely relaxed about everything. Residual doctrine gives stability in the face of death. Grace Orientation recognizes that as long as God has a purpose for his life, he is going to stay alive, and if it is God’s time to take him home there is no way he is going to survive.
“Being chastened, and yet not executed”
1. As long as the believer-priest continues to be alive, he must orient rapidly to suffering caused by discipline. You must orient quickly through the Recovery Procedure and keep moving spiritually.
2. In so doing, the cursing of discipline is turned to blessing, and the suffering you may still experience is now suffering for blessing instead of suffering for discipline because you are back in fellowship and you have continued your spiritual advance.
3. Principle: If the suffering should continue after the use of the Recovery Procedure, the purpose of the suffering is for blessing.
4. This is because grace found a way to turn cursing into blessing even when we are being severely disciplined.
5. It means here to be delivered from death and as a result you are still alive so you keep moving. Recovering from intensive discipline and possibly even dying discipline, the believer assumes that God has a purpose for his life, and so doesn’t look back and doesn’t enter into guilt feelings or self-recrimination. He disregards the matter and moves on. This is adaptability under discipline.
2 Corinthians 6:10
Sorrowful [facing many tragedies in this life, but not succumbing to them], yet always rejoicing [in the midst of these tragedies experiencing the happiness of God]; poor [to be completely impoverished suddenly, to be in a state of destitution, but still alive], yet making many rich [when a certain type of unbeliever sees your life, he will listen to your explanation of the gospel; when the believer sees your happiness under great suffering, he too will be motivated to listen to you as well] having nothing [to have lost all the details of life but still have the necessities such as food and clothing], and yet possessing everything [you still have all of your spiritual assets].
ὡς λυπούµενοι ἀεὶ δὲ χαίροντες, ὡς πτωχοὶ πολλοὺς δὲ πλουτίζοντες, ὡς µηδὲν ἔχοντες καὶ πάντα κατέχοντες.
2 Corinthians 6:11
Our mouths [Paul, Apollos and Timothy] have been opened face to face with you, O’ Corinthians; our stream of consciousnesses have been enlarged [all three communicators knew the spiritual life well].
Τὸ στόµα ἡµῶν ἀνέῳγεν πρὸς ὑµᾶς, Κορίνθιοι, ἡ καρδία ἡµῶν πεπλάτυνται·
2 Corinthians 6:12
You have not been hindered by us, but you have been hindered by your emotions.
οὐ στενοχωρεῖσθε ἐν ἡµῖν, στενοχωρεῖσθε δὲ ἐν τοῖς σπλάγχνοις ὑµῶν·
This introduces emotional revolt as part of the 8 stages of Reversionism.
The Stages of Reversionism:
Galatians 5:16, “but walk by means of the Holy Spirit, and you will never ever fulfill the lust of the flesh.” The believer is either under the authority of God the Holy Spirit, or he is under the tyranny of the sin nature. Qui non proficit deficit. (He who does not advance in the spiritual life through thought retrogresses in the spiritual life through sinful or wrongfully applied emotion.)
Reversionism: (Going backward in the Spiritual Life)
1. Reaction and Distraction
When the believer reacts to people or to his circumstances, it is because he is being distracted by sins related to emotion and arrogance such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, vilification, self-pity, inordinate ambition and competition, worry and fear, maligning, judging and gossip etc.
Reacting emotionally to any form of pressure will produce stress in the soul resulting in the believer being distracted from the spiritual life. If a Christian does not have metabolized doctrine in his soul, he will react emotionally to difficulties, problems, pressures, calamities, disasters and catastrophes. This leaves the believer in a state of stress. If a Christian does have metabolized understanding of the Problem-Solving Devices, but chooses to react emotionally to his problems, pressures, calamities etc. then he also will experience stress in his soul. Only, when the Christian with doctrine chooses to apply divine power in the form of the Problem-Solving Devices to his problems, pressures etc. is he able to remain in fellowship with God the Holy Spirit and to continue to possess tranquility in the soul.
Only Christians with divine thought are able to control the temptations of fear and other sins. People, controlled by emotion and possessing false priorities easily succumb to fear when pressure occurs. If the Faith-rest Drill or some other Problem-solving Device is not used when a person faces difficult problems or pressures, the believer will easily enter into a state of fear. In a state of fear and stress, he cannot solve his problems rationally. Only the stable Christian with doctrine in his soul and applied can handle the pressures of life and glorify God.
Stress: Principles related to it:
1. Adversity is outside pressure of life; stress is inside pressure of the soul.
2. Stress is caused by oneself; adversity is caused by other people and outside circumstances.
3. Adversity is inevitable; stress is optional.
4. Stress destroys the spiritual life of the believer. Therefore, the believer must name the sin which caused the stress to God the Father as soon as possible.
5. There is a definite relationship between stress and cognition, namely the more stress the lower is one’s cognition.
6. Stress makes a person forgetful and impairs the memory in regards to acquiring new knowledge. Therefore, stress impairs the ability to learn.
7. Stress affects a person's perception of reality. At the Red Sea the Jews with stress in their souls considered themselves already dead.
8. If a person remains in a stress situation too long, all his cognitive ability will be destroyed, and he will enter into a psychotic state.
Besides the form of distraction which comes through reaction, distraction from the spiritual life can also be caused by apathy, indifference, having wrong priorities or the failure to organize one’s life around good priorities. For example, if a believer should decide that learning the Word of God is the number one most important factor in his life, then he must organize his life in such a way as to receive that Biblical information and to set aside a certain time for the daily perception of that spiritual truth. So, not only can indifference and wrong priorities cause one to be distracted from the spiritual life, but also the failure to be organized.
Only when the believer has acquired understanding of the spiritual life, and has extrapolated the Problem-Solving Devices from this understanding is he able to solve his problems, difficulties, pressures etc. and in so doing prevent reaction. Reaction is prevented by applying divine thought to the situation or persons etc. rather than reacting emotionally to people and difficult situations.
As a Result of Reaction and Distraction:
2. Frantic Search for Happiness
The believer can only be happy when he is fulfilling God’s plan for his life. However, the believer out of fellowship doesn’t realize this and so tries to find happiness by seeking to gratify his lusts. A lust is any desire originating from the sin-nature and has many different forms. For example, the believer may develop a particular lust pattern for power, approbation, crusading (trying to force his personal beliefs and ideas onto others), wealth, chemicals (alcohol and drugs) sex or crime. Even more subtle pleasures such as a desire for an active social life or a desire to travel may originate from the sin nature. Though none of these things are able to produce happiness in the believer’s life, he is convinced that they will. He is deceived by his own sin nature; he deceives himself and enters into some form of stress.
In the state of stress, the believer is unhappy. In that event, the unhappy believer will try to compensate for his unhappiness by pursuing some form of pseudo happiness. This pseudo happiness promised by the sin nature via lusts whether it be something innocuous like traveling or something more sinister like sin cannot make the believer happy since the believer can only be happy in fellowship with God operating under the Two Power Options namely metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness and the Filling of the Spirit by which God the Holy Spirit provides his omnipotence to enable the believer to learn, apply and advance in the spiritual life under His authority.
A Frantic Search for Happiness thru Wealth:
3. Operation Boomerang
Under Operation Boomerang, the believer’s unhappiness will intensify. If the believer out of fellowship with God gets what he thinks will make him happy, an illusion, he will become disillusioned because it cannot make him happy. As a matter of fact, nothing can make the believer happy when that believer is operating under the authority of his sin nature. On the other hand, if he does not get what he thinks will make him happy, he will become frustrated. In his frustration, he will continually tell himself that if only I could obtain such and such, I would have become happy. This believer is deluding himself.
Under the miserable state of Operation Boomerang, the intensity of misery should cause the believer to understand that something is wrong and that he needs to get back into fellowship with the Spirit and get back to learning God’s plan. Only through the execution of God the Father’s plan can the believer ever obtain the great happiness that God intends for him to have.
She thought that Marriage would make her Happy:
He thought the Stock Market would make him Happy:
She was just Jilted by her Boyfriend whom she thought would make her happy:
4. Emotional Revolt of the Soul
Emotional revolt means that emotion replaces thought as the criterion by which one makes judgments and decisions. The believer becomes irrational, egocentric and unstable through emotion for emotion in itself is an empty physiological response; it contains no doctrinal content, no mental function, no norms and standards, and no common sense. The spiritual life cannot be executed through emotion, only through divine thought.
Seeking pseudo-happiness which results in frustration and depression leads to stage four: emotional revolt of the soul. This is where the believer’s thinking, decisions and action are all subordinate to emotion. If he feels good, he thinks he is spiritual. If he weeps when singing a hymn, he must love God. If he feels that he loves a person of the opposite sex, he proposes marriage. There is no divine thought circulating in the soul. The reversionistic believer does not make decisions on the basis of truth or principle, but on subjective thinking, feelings and emotions. He has no control over the emotional sins such as fear, worry, self-pity etc. He rejects confession of sins and the learning the Word of God because these things are mental processes and as such do not stimulate him emotionally. As emotion fortifies its dominance over the mentality of the soul, it becomes more and more difficult for the believer to reverse his downward spiral.
Christians under emotional revolt of the soul become very arrogant and self-centered. In their arrogance they demand things from God and people. When they are suffering either through their own self-induced misery or from divine discipline, they assume that they can pray to God to remove their suffering. They think that it is God’s will for them to pray for the removal of their suffering when in fact the solution lies in the correct use of their own volition.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual persons [believers filled with the Spirit], but as unto carnal [fleshly, under the control of the sin nature], as childish ones [because emotion was their criterion for life] in Christ. I gave you milk [basic doctrine] to drink, not solid food [advanced doctrines], for you were not yet able [to receive it], moreover even now, you are still not able [to receive solid food]. For you are still carnal, for while [there is] jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal and keep walking in conformity with men [unbelievers]? Yes. [Expects a ‘yes’ for an answer]
2 Corinthians 6:11-12. O, you Corinthians, our mouths [means of communication by Paul, Apollos, and Timothy] have been opened face to face with you; our right lobes have been enlarged [we were prepared]. Therefore, you have not been hindered by us [Paul, Apollos, Timothy], but you have been hindered by your emotions.
Philippians 3:18, 19. For many [can mean the majority] keep on walking [living out of fellowship] whom many times I kept on telling you [warning you] and now even weeping [in privacy] I say [that they are] the enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction [they will die the sin unto death] whose god is their emotions and whose glory [in resurrection body] is in their shame [they will experience shame at their evaluation]. They who keep on concentrating on earthly things [have no eternal values].
No Soul-strength when Emotion is the Criterion for Life:
5. Locked-in Negative Volition
Once emotion becomes the criterion for one’s life, that person no longer relies on thought to solve problems and so loses interest in learning God’s word. In effect, he locks himself into negative volition by always going to emotion when under some form of pressure rather than thought. He no longer can solve problems through thinking and so is unable to use the Problem-Solving Devices.
As a result of the first four stages of reversionism, the believer depends upon emotion as his criterion for life, suffers loss of Biblical priorities, Biblical norms and standards and loses control of his life and destiny. This causes permanent negative volition toward learning God’s word. If the believer rejects learning God’s word, he can never understand God’s will, plan and purpose for his life. Therefore, he cannot grow spiritually. As a result, all his works are dead works totally unacceptable to God. He is operating in the energy of the flesh rather than in the power of metabolized doctrine and in the power of God the Holy Spirit.
In his rejection of God’s word, he will become arrogant; he will become proficient in the use of the arrogant skills, so called because they are something that one practices so well that they come to use them without even thinking, just as one rides a bicycle.
There are three arrogance skills, namely:
1. Self-justification (self-rationalization: I have a right to sin for example I have a right to be angry; I’m not responsible for my sins for whatever reason)
2. Self-deception (you lie to yourself regarding sin, happiness, and spiritual status)
3. Self-absorption (completely controlled by his mental and emotional sins)
Under self-justification believers in this category, are not taking responsibility for their sins. This automatically brings about self-deception; these believers lie to themselves regarding their spiritual status. They assume that they are great believers when in reality they are totally failing in the spiritual life. Without the power of the spiritual life, these believers succumb to emotional and mental sins. This is the third arrogance skill of self-absorption.
In locked-in negative volition, self-absorption is also locked-in.
Leads to Psychiatric Problems
6. Black-out of the Soul
Without truth in the soul, black-out begins. Since the believer in the 6th stage of reversionism has little or no metabolized doctrine in his soul, he has no protection against believing false information. In this status, the believer will believe Satan’s false propaganda (Ephesians 4:17, 18; 1 John 2:11, 1 Timothy 4:1). Only truth in our stream of consciousness is an adequate defense against false doctrine. False information through black-out of the soul, believed and stored in the stream of consciousness will eventually remove all truth previously learned and stored there.
1 Timothy 4:1. But the Spirit [the Holy Spirit is the teacher of Bible doctrine] explicitly teaches that in latter periods of time [between the 1st and 2nd Advents] some [believers] will withdraw from doctrine, concentrating on deceitful personalities [demon evangelism through false teachers] and doctrines from demons.
The Christian must possess doctrine in the soul to prevent a vacuum from forming which vacuum will suck-in false concepts and doctrine.
Ephesians 4:17. Therefore, I communicate this, and because of the Lord, I insist that you no longer walk as the Gentile Walk [as unbelievers] in the vacuum of their mind [faculty of thinking].
When there is no divine truth in the soul, there is nothing to protect the believer and prevent him from believing the Satanic lies, Operation Black-out. One must understand that Satan is infinitely smarter than any human being and so without some protection, the human will believe Satan’s lies. So, a vacuum created by an absence of divine truth will suck in Satanic thinking.
Representing the Black-out of the Soul:
7. Scar Tissue of the Stream of Consciousness
At this point there is no truth in the compartments of the soul: no truth in the frame of reference, memory center, vocabulary storage, categorical storage, in the conscience, momentum [produced by the power of metabolized doctrine in the compartments of the soul and the power of the Holy Spirit, maintained and accelerated through the deployment of the 10 Problem Solving Devices], and wisdom compartment.
Ephesians 4:18. They are darkened in their way of thinking [via a vacuum established which pulls into their soul false ideas, concepts and doctrines]; they have been alienated from the life of God because of ignorance which is in them [in their souls], because of the scar tissue of their right lobes [false ideas and doctrines scar the soul].
The believer is alienated from the spiritual life that is ‘from the life of God’ for two reasons namely ignorance of God’s plan and hardness of the mentality of the soul. Ignorance begins the process; scar tissue or hardness of the mentality finishes the job. Blackout of the soul merely explains the mechanics of how the believer accumulates false ideas, concepts and doctrine when there is ignorance of God’s plan in his soul. Scar tissue is the result of the damage caused by these Satanic ideas and doctrines.
Remember that scar tissue is developed through sin and rejection of the truth. Every time a person rejects the truth, scar tissue is formed in his soul. This makes him increasingly more insensitive to the truth. Each time when the Pharaoh disobeyed God’s command to free the Jewish people, he developed scar tissue in his soul “he hardened his heart.” Just to illustrate this matter, as scar tissue on the finger tips makes a person more insensitive to heat so scar tissue in the soul made the Pharaoh more insensitive to God’s commands. So, each time he rejected God’s command, God would have to bring about a more severe plague to penetrate the scar tissue (insensitivity) of his soul.
Whatever truth resided in the soul in the past has now been replaced by the false principles and beliefs. The soul was designed to function on truth, not on falsehoods. In this state, the believer is extremely antagonistic to the truth and to those who teach the truth. By rejecting Bible doctrine, he has rejected the thinking of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and thus confirms his own hatred toward his God and Savior (Matthew 6:24).
Scar Tissue in the Soul is portrayed by this person’s Appearance:
8. Reverse Process Reversionism
This is the final stage of reversionism, a combination of the sixth and seventh stages. This results in the antithesis of being an invisible hero. Everything that is worthwhile and valuable in life is rejected; everything that is useless and nonsense is accepted. Prolonged residence out of fellowship causes a complete reversal of all mandates, all priorities, and all norms and standards related to the Protocol Plan of God. There is no integrity or honor remaining in the soul. The person now has evil motivation, thinking, decision making and actions.
2 Timothy 3:2-5 states. For persons will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful ones and anti-establishment [totally irresponsible]. (3) Unloving [no capacity for love], implacable [unforgiving person], malicious gossips, without self-control, violent and brutal [unreasonable in thinking and action], not lovers of intrinsic good [no spiritual values and skills]. (4) Treacherous [disloyal], thoughtless types [insensitive], having become pumped up with arrogance [manifests itself in legalism, socialism, crusader arrogance, activism, and civil disobedience], lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God [false priorities]. (5) Holding to a superficial form [outward appearance] of the spiritual life, but they themselves have disregarded its power [the Two Power Options]; avoid such ones as these.
Some examples of Reverse Process Reversionism are as follows:
1. A lover of internationalism rather than patriotic nationalism.
2. A lover of one’s national enemy rather than loving his own country. A lover of the Muslim Arabs rather than being pro-Semitic.
3. A husband pursuing girlfriends rather than loving his wife.
4. A wife responding to paramours rather than her appreciating and respecting a faithful and loving husband.
5. Parents completely ignoring and neglecting the teaching and training of their own children, but placing them under the care of in many case evil people rather than fulfilling their God-given responsibilities under the Laws of Divine Establishment.
6. The person who uses emotion as a criterion for decision-making rather than the gathering of facts for analysis and synthesis before making a decision.
7. A person who lives his life by deceit and pathological lying rather than integrity and honor.
8. The political authority who operates as a tyrant rather than as a servant of the people.
9. The person in authority who micromanages rather than operating under leadership principles.
10. The person who advocates socialism and communism rather than free market function as presented under the Laws of Divine Establishment.
11. The tree-huggers who thinks that preserving all trees in their natural state is better than turning these trees into homes and other worthwhile products.
12. The person who wants to preserve all animals at the expense of feeding and clothing people.
13. The person who is anti-military and desires to make his country defenseless before his country’s national enemies.
14. The person who loves rioters and on the other hand hates police since he does not adhere to the Biblical principle of using a greater violence to stop rioters and in Reverse Process Reversionism has no respect for an honorable and well-trained police force.
15. The judge who makes decisions based upon some leftwing ideology rather than on unbiased laws formed from an understanding of the Laws of Divine Establishment.
16. The juror who cast his vote to be easy on or to free a person convicted of a crime such as murder, rape, kidnapping, and drug racketeering rather than to remove these criminals permanently from society via capital punishment and in so doing honor the victim or victims.
17. The government confiscating the weapons of law-abiding citizens rather than protecting their property and encouraging the citizenry to use his weapons in the protection of family and property.
18. These are just a few examples of the function of Reverse Process Reversionism.
The person in Reverse Process Reversionism is an Evil Person:
The Christian in Reverse Process Reversionism will die the Sin unto Death.
1 John 5:16: If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to [physical] death [the believer is not dying the sin unto death], he may ask [pray for him] and he [the Father] will give life [restore his physical well-being] to him, to the ones committing sins not leading to [physical] death [Job 42:7-9]. There is a spiritual failure [missing the mark, failure, sin] unto [leading to] death [physical death, the believer being executed by the Lord], and I do not say that you should pray concerning this one.
If you know doctrine well enough to discern whether a fellow Christian is “growing in grace and knowledge” (2 Peter 3:18), and you discover that he is very sick and dying, you may pray for his recovery. However, if a Christian is dying from ‘the sin unto death’, you may not pray for him.
How do you know if a Christian is dying the ‘sin unto death?’ In some cases, you will not know. However, if a Christian knows nothing about the spiritual life because he has failed throughout his life to learn the Word of God and is dying, or if a Christian full of fear comes to you screaming “Help, help, I am dying – pray for me please!” Then after a few questions, you will discover that he knows nothing of the spiritual life and is obviously dying ‘the sin unto death’.
2 Corinthians 6:13
Now, as a fair exchange [we communicate to your mentality; you should respond to our teaching cognitively, not react emotionally under emotional revolt of the soul] (I speak as to children [who have not grown-up]) open wide your minds also [a command to intensify their learning of the spiritual life through cognition of Bible doctrine in order to move away from emotional revolt of the soul].
τὴν δὲ αὐτὴν ἀντιµισθίαν, ὡς τέκνοις λέγω, πλατύνθητε καὶ ὑµεῖς.
In verses 14, 15, Paul deals with the problem of marrying unbelievers.
2 Corinthians 6:14
Stop being unequally yoked together with unbelievers [in marriage]. For what do righteousness [believers] and lawlessness [unbelievers who reject the command to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ] have in common or what fellowship has light [believers advancing spiritually in the light of the Word] with darkness [unbelievers with darkness in their souls from living in the Cosmic System]?
Μὴ γίνεσθε [present passive imperative] ἑτεροζυγοῦντες ἀπίστοις· τίς γὰρ µετοχὴ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ἀνοµίᾳ; ἢ τίς κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος;
2 Corinthians 6:15
What harmony is there between Christ and Belial [worthlessness: a personal name for Satan as the quintessence of evil; the father of evil; thus, there is no harmony]? What does a believer [a child of God] have in common with an unbeliever [a child of Satan: nothing in time and certainly nothing in the eternal state]?
τίς δὲ συµφώνησις Χριστοῦ πρὸς Βελιάρ, ἢ τίς µερὶς πιστῷ µετὰ ἀπίστου;
Marriage, and related Subjects:
1. The following principles explain every problem in marriage, in romance, and in human relationships.
a. Application without truth is false.
b. Application without facts is folly.
c. Application from emotion is the life of the loser.
d. Application without principle or doctrine is distorted thinking.
e. Application without virtue is distorted living.
2. Doctrinal truth comes from the Scripture. You cannot base doctrine on experience. You cannot base doctrine by observing what other Christians are doing or failing to do. You must base doctrine on what the Word of God says. Neither empiricism nor rationalism are the source of absolute truth. If experience or what seems correct contradicts the Bible, then the Bible is correct.
3. Success in Christian marriage is related to truth. Application of doctrine cannot be made without inculcation of the principles of doctrine. You are designed to learn doctrine and apply it from your own soul. You have to learn doctrine, metabolize it, apply it, and use it to solve problems. The pattern is learning, thinking, and solving. For the Christian, the basic solutions to marriage are spiritual. So, the necessity for spiritual growth.
4. Problems in marriage cannot be solved by psychologists nor by anyone else. All psychological solutions from counseling are not only human viewpoint but are someone else’s thinking. Neither psychology nor the thinking from someone else’s frame of reference can solve the problems in another person’s marriage.
5. Success in marriage begins before marriage. While marriage inevitably changes people for the better or for the worse, they are basically no better in marriage than they were as single individuals. Winning and losing lifestyles carry over into marriage. If two Christians were losers spiritually before marriage, they will be losers in marriage apart from spiritual growth and vice versa. Success in marriage begins in childhood where children are either obedient or not. In childhood, children are commanded to respect and obey both parents.
Ephesians 6:1-3. You, Children keep on obeying your parents in the Lord; because this is right and just. (2) Be respecting your father and mother for such is the first commandment with a promise of blessing. (3) That you may prosper, and you shall have full life on the earth.
Disobedience in childhood where the child does not accept the authority of the parents, brings about arrogance and damages the soul with scar tissue. This may not become apparent until faced with the pressures of marriage.
6. There are three stages in the man/woman relationship namely the attraction, compatibility and rapport stages.
Attraction:
(1) This first stage elicits interest or attention; hence, an attractive quality in another person.
(2) There are two man/woman relationships in which attraction occurs, first in romance and then in marriage.
(3) Attraction is generally overt and emphasizes physical appeal. It can include many things, such as allurement, enticement, or fascination. It may include physical beauty, overt personality, or seeing the fulfillment of one’s personal standards (knight in shining armor).
(4) Attraction is the reconnaissance stage of the man/woman relationship. It has to do with the superficialities of life, such as dress, appearance, personality, manners, smell, and sex appeal. This stage is the empirical approach and is dangerous since you assume that what you see is what you get, and that is rarely true in marriage.
(5) Attraction is the blind stage of romance or marriage since a person often sets aside, ignores, or is blinded to the flaws or potential flaws in the object of romance. He doesn’t see the real person.
(6) Since attraction is often based on libido, most people get married in this stage, which is a great disaster.
(7) The attraction stage has not come to grips with the problems the other person has or can create, and has not resolved any of the problems of incompatibility, or even recognized the existence of incompatibility. For example, the incompatibility of a spiritually advanced believer with a baby Christian who may not even understand eternal security or the incompatibility of an advanced believer who is highly motivated to learn the Word on a daily basis with a Christian who has no desire to learn the Word consistently.
(8) The attraction stage has not yet faced the facts of life. Do you, the man have the capacity for marrying this woman and can you handle her additional problems? Another person’s problems may be the catalytic agent that destroys the relationship.
(9) Concentration on the object of love in the attraction stage has a very narrow field of vision, often resulting in the erroneous conclusion that the object of your love is the only person in the world for you.
(10) This false confidence of subjectivity rejects or ignores warning signs against marrying this person. Rationalization, simply dismisses the warning signs.
(11) People who get married in the attraction stage have very little chance of success, but it can be overcome by strong spiritual growth.
Emotional revolt in the attraction stage: When the believer is overpowered by emotion in the attraction stage, virtue and stability in romance are virtually eliminated. The removal of virtue and wisdom, caused by emotional revolt of the soul, is in direct contrast to the normal and legitimate emotional function of romance and love.
(a) Emotional revolt of the soul results in blotting out everything that sustains love such as humility, integrity and wisdom. This is because emotion has no doctrinal content, no ability to think or reason and so if emotion takes control, then bad decisions will occur.
(b) Emotional revolt of the soul often leads to premarital sex which will add additional confusion regarding the selection of a future mate, and if marriage does follow after a period of fornication, it has little chance of success.
(c) Emotional revolt of the soul brings into romance two categories of sins: the sins of arrogance such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge, slander, gossip, maligning and the sins of emotion such as fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, violence, and murder.
(d) Emotion is irrational arrogance which blots out reality and virtue and ignores the Problem-Solving Devices.
(e) While emotion can respond to love and does, it cannot be love.
(f) Emotional arrogance is a system of converting reality into illusion and hallucination.
(g) The strength of romantic love is virtue, which is produced by consistent perception and application of God’s Word which transitions from attraction to compatibility.
Compatibility:
(1) Compatibility is the capacity of a man and a woman to combine and remain together without undesirable after effects.
(2) Compatibility is a mutual tolerance, motivated by three categories of virtue-love: personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, and occupation with the Person of Christ.
(3) Compatibility is a total adjustment to the other person so that he or she is the most important person in the world to you.
(4) While attraction is the blind stage of romance, compatibility is the enlightened stage. In this stage, you have learned the strengths and weaknesses of the object of your love, and you have already resolved most of the problems of the relationship. Whatever the sins, failures, and weaknesses of your partner, they do not diminish your love for him or her.
(5) Compatibility is the Problem-solving stage of romance; therefore, it is the best time for marriage. Those involved have used the privacy of their own priesthood to solve the problems in the relationship.
(6) In compatibility, both male and female take responsibility for their own decisions. Tolerance and understanding prevail in this stage.
(7) When attraction in romance becomes disappointment or disillusion, you can end the relationship forever, but when attraction in marriage becomes disappointment or disillusion, you are locked-in and so cannot jump out and be in the Directive Will of God.
(8) Compatibility must be established before marriage, not after marriage. Do not get married in the attraction stage, but first attain compatibility. No decision should be made about marriage until you have all the facts required, and all the facts are not in until you have reached the stage of compatibility.
(9) The greatest manifestation of compatibility is conversation. A successful marriage is a long conversation that seems all too short. Your moment-to-moment compatibility is in conversation.
(10) Premarital sex destroys those standards of virtue upon which compatibility is based. Premarital sex causes the fornicators to use emotion as the strength of their love, and emotion has no strength. The strength of romantic love is virtue, which is produced by learning, thinking, and solving problems using Bible doctrine.
Rapport:
(1) Rapport is the harmonious stage of romance and marriage. This is the status quo of sympathy and empathy through coalescence of souls and spiritual identification with the object of your love.
(2) This is the fusion of opposites in the understanding of feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of the object of your love.
(3) This is the fulfillment of the divine mandates of marriage.
Colossians 3:18-19. Wives, submit to the authority of your husbands, as is protocol [fitting] in the Lord. (19) Husbands, keep loving your wives, and stop being bitter against them.
Ephesians 5:22. Wives, be subordinating yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:25. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her.
The husband is required to have personal and impersonal love in marriage. The wife is required to have respect, enforced and genuine humility, objectivity and teachability.
(4) Rapport is where wisdom from metabolized doctrine pays great dividends in human relationships, including how to rear children.
7. An ode to a loser: Personal love in the human race always begins, then turns out base. Minus virtue, it cannot stand; loss of control, it’s out of hand. Love is the victim of its own decision; life without virtue has no precision. The arrogant cannot give it; the loser cannot live it. Frustrated love becomes an obsession; the lover fails and loses possession. You cannot hold a husband or wife; for minus virtue, all is strife. So, think again before you leap; without virtue, life is cheap. Your love becomes a real frustration; leaving you as a bitter illustration.
8. One liners:
a. Intimacy should not destroy privacy.
b. Love is motivation for communication, but it takes more energy to communicate than it does to copulate.
c. Possessive people are possessive because they are preoccupied with themselves.
d. The arrogant male does not take responsibility for anything in marriage; therefore, he reverses the role with the woman.
e. A good husband is a man who is unattractive to other women.
9. Marriage for the Christian is the most difficult, the most challenging, and the place of more failures than anything else in life. Failure in marriage is a failure of the believer’s own spiritual life.
10. Marriage is designed by God as a divine institution for both believers and unbelievers. However, in the Church Age, Christian-marriage must be in harmony with the spiritual life. In other words, the Christian can only have a great marriage in spiritual maturity.
11. In a bad marriage as marriage progresses, it retrogresses because attractiveness begins to disappear as people age. Flaws that were hidden by youth and attractiveness become manifest in older people. In a good marriage, as the two people grow older and become less attractive, the relationship becomes sweeter.
12. Any relationship in life must be founded on principle. In order for marriage to continue, there must be an understanding of the principles of Bible doctrine. You cannot build a marriage on human viewpoint, practical application, or philosophical writings. You must know and apply biblical principles.
13. No marriage will last without the capacity for love, just as no believer can advance to maturity without capacity. Legalism and moral degeneracy as well as immoral degeneracy destroy the capacity for love and consequently destroy marriage. So, marriages do not fail because of financial problems, unfaithfulness, or other controversies, but because believers fail to execute the Protocol Plan of God and thus, never acquire capacity for love.
14. Personal Love and Intimidation. If the man is intimidated by his wife, he cannot have full capacity for personal love. Intimidation begins in romance, not in marriage. Intimidation in marriage eliminates capacity for love and substitutes fear. Fear introduces emotional and irrational sins which complicate the marital relationship. The husband can be intimidated in two categories namely by a strong woman who assumes the masculine role in marriage, and secondly by a weak woman who intimidates by nagging, self-righteous arrogance, and legalistic activism. A woman in polarized legalism is always right in her own eyes and is always trying to superimpose her viewpoint on her husband. Intimidation in marriage becomes a problem without solutions when one or both partners are ignorant of the Problem-Solving Devices.
15. The unharnessed woman in marriage rejects the authority of her husband. Therefore, she will inevitably enter the three stages of Christian degeneracy.
1 Corinthians 11:8-9. For the man does not originate from the woman, but the woman from the man; for indeed, the man was not created for the woman, but the woman was created for the man.
A harnessed woman under authority with great patients is a blessing to the man, and receives the greater happiness.
16. Marriage and family are tests regarding one’s spiritual life since they are problem-manufacturing devices. No relationships in life are more dramatic than the relationship between the man and woman in marriage or between parents and children. Therefore, marriage and family demand the best from every believer.
17. What you really depend on in life will determine the status of your marriage. To depend on Bible doctrine means ultimate (not immediate) success. To depend on the advice of others means confusion, misdirection, and ultimate failure. Success or failure in marriage is a reflection of your spiritual life.
18. Marriages fail for two general reasons. First, getting married in the attraction stage of romance and secondly never growing up in marriage and so never attaining the stages of compatibility or rapport.
Taboos and other points in the Selection of a Mate.
1. If you are a believer, do not marry an unbeliever.
2 Corinthians 6:14-15. Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness [those with imputed righteousness] and lawlessness [disobedient to God’s command to believe in Christ], or what fellowship has light with darkness? (15) Or what harmony has Christ with Belial [worthlessness used for Satan], or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?
If you become a believer after having been married to an unbeliever, do not seek a divorce for you will have the opportunity to evangelize your spouse.
2. If you are positive to doctrine, do not marry a person who is negative to doctrine or your Biblical convictions. Spiritual compatibility is the only hope for resolving many of the problems in marriage.
3. Do not regard marriage as the solution to the problems of life. Marriage is not a problem-solving device, but a problem-manufacturing status. The more problems you carry into marriage, the less chance the marriage has of succeeding. If you cannot solve your problems while alone, you cannot solve them in marriage.
4. Do not marry on a wave of libido, which is tantamount to getting married in the attraction stage. This is especially true in teenage marriages.
5. Do not marry a person involved in substance abuse, which includes alcohol and drugs.
6. Do not marry to escape from an unhappy home life, abusive parents, or an unhappy set of circumstances.
7. Do not marry a status symbol, for security, or because of peer pressure. Status symbols are usually troublesome persons. Do not marry for money, or to improve your economic situation, or for financial security. Do not go in debt to get married. Do not believe that two people can live as cheaply as one person.
8. Do not marry because you love and want children. Children do not improve a marriage, nor do they ever save a marriage.
9. Do not marry a person for his or her beauty or attractiveness alone. Beauty gives little indication of the real character of a person. Beauty blinds the ignorant, the shallow, the superficial, and the non-discerning person. Beauty can be a disguise for flaws and defects. These need to be recognized before marriage. Beauty fades and is often corrupted by arrogance. Without virtue, beauty is often susceptible to flattery.
10. Do not marry a person unless you are in the compatibility stage of your relationship. The compatibility stage has five characteristics.
a. Spiritual compatibility. If you can’t agree on doctrine, the same pastor, or the same local church, you will have trouble. This is the most difficult of all compatibilities to recognize.
b. Mental compatibility. This is discovered through conversation.
c. Physical compatibility. This is determined after marriage, and the discovery is fun. Sex is a learning process.
d. Economic compatibility is agreement on how to handle finances.
e. Recreational compatibility. This is the most important compatibility in the attraction stage.
11. Avoid getting married under peer pressure. It is better to take your time and avoid making a mistake.
12. The Scripture states the following regarding finding a wife:
Quoting the Septuagint: Proverbs 18:22. Whoever finds a good wife receives grace from the Lord, but he who divorces a good wife divorces a blessing and takes a woman who is unchaste and stupid.” The Hebrew says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains grace from the Lord.
13. Do not marry a neurotic person, which is dangerous to the soul and mental compatibility. This type is too unstable, too emotional, too hysterical, too self-centered, and too self-destructive to adjust to marriage. No marriage to a neurotic person ever works out.
14. Do not marry a divorced man except under those circumstances dictated by the Word of God: his former wife has died, he divorced his wife prior to salvation, his former wife has remarried, he is the innocent party of an adultery divorce, or his divorce involved the desertion of his former wife.
15. Do not marry any man unless you can submit to his authority in three categories: his spiritual authority, his mental authority, his physical authority. The mental and spiritual are far more important than the physical.
16. Do not get married until you have the capacity for marriage. This capacity requires the ability to deploy the following Problem-Solving Devices: Personal love for God the Father, Impersonal love and sharing the Happiness of God and to have some love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
17. The Christian can only be consistently happy if he is a mature believer for only the mature believer Shares the Happiness of God. Sharing the Happiness of God and Occupation with Christ are two sides of the same coin.
18. If two unhappy people who cannot maintain happiness under the pressure of single life, get married, how can they have a happy marriage! Then, people wonder why there are so many unhappily married Christians. The answer should be obvious: no capacity for marriage.
The Problem and Danger of Premarital Sex:
1. Premarital sex destroys the virtue and values on which compatibility and rapport in marriage are founded. Generally, both men and women enter into premarital sex to satisfy their libido; hence, the involvement of the third arrogance skill, which is self-absorption.
2. Premarital sex generally occurs in the attraction stage of romance which blocks off and closes the door for entering compatibility and rapport, the second and third stages of romance. Therefore, it makes a direct attack on two postulates in marriage. The first postulate: marriage is more than finding the right person; marriage is being the right person. Premarital sex eliminates being the right person since integrity, humility, authority orientation etc. have been destroyed at least temporarily. The second postulate: A happy marriage is like a long conversation that always seems too short. This conversation begins in the attraction stage, increases in the compatibility stage and reaches its peak in the rapport stage.
3. Premarital sex becomes the enemy of marriage, and can destroy a marriage long before the marriage occurs. Marriages are often destroyed by the pattern of sexuality in adolescence and young adulthood. Premarital sexual experience has an adverse effect on post-marital sex. Periods of unrestrained licentiousness are often followed by periods of unrestrained guilt and depression. Promiscuity before marriage creates handicaps for marriage. The couple involved in fornication and other forms of promiscuity are in the process of destroying the very Biblical standards of virtue required for a successful marriage.
4. One of the dangers of premarital sex is the development of an arrogant problem regarding self-gratification, in which a single person desires sexual sensation rather than an honorable relationship with a sexual partner in marriage. So, instead of developing integrity, the person follows his lust pattern creating scar tissue in the soul and garbage in the subconscious, and at the same time destroying the physical potential of having wonderful sex with his or her mate in marriage. Self-gratification is no substitute for integrity and honor.
5. Principles of Application.
a. Application without truth is false.
b. Application without fact is fiction.
c. Application from emotion is irrationality.
d. Application without principle and doctrine is life without direction.
e. Application without virtue is distorted living.
6. Premarital sex not only abandons the virtue necessary for compatibility and rapport, but causes the fornicators to encapsulate their so-called romance in deceitful lust. Hence, the basis for their alleged romantic love is related to the sins of arrogance and the sins of emotion rather than virtue.
7. The strength of romantic love is virtue. For the unbeliever this virtue is attained through the observance of the Laws of Divine Establishment,
Ecclesiastes 9:9. Enjoy life with the woman [this unbelieving man has integrity and so has properly prepared himself for marriage] whom you love all the days of your fleeting life [since he is unbeliever] which He [the Lord] has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life [having a great marriage] and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun [the unbelieving man also has happiness in his right occupation].
For the believer, this virtue necessary for marriage is attained through his or her advance to spiritual maturity. Only in spiritual maturity, can the woman and man obey the mandates found in Ephesians 5.
8. Loss of standards through premarital sex creates two categories of problems which destroy romance and marriage namely the problem of the arrogance and lust controlling one’s life and the problem of substituting emotion as the criterion for love and romance. This is tantamount to irrationality in the relationship since there is no doctrinal content, no Problem-Solving Devices, no common sense, and no discernment in emotion.
9. Reactions related to promiscuity: Entering a life of promiscuity with many sex partners results in Christian immoral degeneracy which brings about many reactions. The reaction of seeking comparable stimulation in chemical dependence when sexual life is no longer stimulating. The reaction of guilt, depression, self-pity, and even suicide.
10. Biblical warning against premarital sex.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-4. For this is the will of God, your sanctification [experiential] that you should abstain [infinitive of purpose] from fornication [an illicit sexual life], (4) in order that each one of you [each believer, male and female] should know how to possess [middle voice: each should benefit from the sexual relationship] his own vessel [body] in sanctification [experiential sanctification] and honor.
Hebrews 13:4. Let marriage be held in honor by all [who are married], and let the marriage bed be undefiled [the relationship of marriage unsoiled by infidelity], for you see [the reason for the previous statement] God will judge fornicators and adulterers [When a statement like this is made, it means an extremely harsh judgment; promiscuity is not only an attack on marriage, but also attacks the stability of the nation. Furthermore, it prevents the married couple from ever being able to complete the Corporate Testimony of the Angelic Conflict.].
11. Premarital sex handicaps rapport. Both men and women enter into mutual consenting premarital sex to satisfy their own libido. When this occurs, there is no genuine love or sense of responsibility for their sex partners, the man especially violates any sense of responsibility when he engages in premarital sex. Many men like what is referred to as free and safe sex. Furthermore, after an elapse of time, if the relationship doesn’t suit him, he merely walks away. The woman has to be stupid to go along with this total irresponsibility on the part of the man. Even if the man should eventually marry the woman, it is unlikely that the married couple would every obtain soul rapport.
12. Premarital sex handicaps one from being the right person. Premarital sex eliminates being the right person, so that finding the right person is frustrated with regrets. Premarital sex generally eliminates the possibility of ever attaining compatibility or rapport in marriage. However, after marriage, compatibility and rapport with daily and diligent spiritual advance can still be accomplished.
13. Premarital sexual experiences have an adverse effect on post-marital sex. Premarital sexual experiences often hinder any chance of a successful marriage. Premarital sexual experiences often result in Christian immoral degeneracy which eliminates the virtue prerequisite for a successful marriage. Remember that the most important factor regarding sex is virtue.
14. Promiscuity destroys discernment. This means that a couple involved in premarital sex rarely marry the right person with whom they could be compatible. Furthermore, in the attraction stage of romance, premarital sex destroys the spiritual life and keeps a lot of believers from ever executing God’s plan for their lives.
15. Recovery of virtue after it is lost through licentiousness: Promiscuity leads to emotional revolt of the soul, which emotional revolt converts a genuine personal love into pseudo love. Emotional revolt of the soul does not have capacity for true love. The irrationality of emotional revolt of the soul takes over the life and erodes the virtue-standards on which true love is based. For the believer, premarital sex substitutes the emotional complex of sins: guilt, fear, worry, hatred, anger, anxiety, and occasionally murder. Reestablishment of virtue not only includes the use of the Recovery Procedure, but demands inculcation of doctrine, and the function of the Problem-Solving Devices.
16. Illicit sex is one path to disaster. Periods of unrestrained licentiousness are always followed by periods of unrestrained guilt and depression. Licentiousness often results in suicide. Men and women are responsible for their own decisions in life. The woman uses her own free will to respond to the man’s sexual advances. She may blame the man afterwards, but she is just as guilty. The road to disaster is always paved with sex, drugs, and excessive alcohol.
17. Premarital sex destroys arousal patterns and mutually satisfactory fulfillment. There is a physiological factor in sexual arousal, as noted in the phrase “one flesh” in Genesis 2:24; Fornication destroys the rhythm and the pattern. Libido is the function of biological sex, but maximum effectiveness of sex in marriage depends on other factors such as status quo of the soul, the function of the spiritual life, and attainment of spiritual maturity. Major handicaps occur through premarital sexual activity which numb normal sexual responses and normal sexual rhythms. 1 Corinthians 6:18 implies that violation of premarital chastity decreases the source of sexual energy in marriage. This is why sex becomes dull for married people.
18. Generally, premarital sexual experience solidifies the mind-set a person will have toward sex for the rest of his life. Apart from the overruling grace of God, the effects of premarital sexual experience on the husband and wife are detrimental, and often disastrous.
19. Bondage verses liberation: The more premarital sex partners one has, the more difficult it is to adjust to one partner in marriage. Each premarital sexual relationship tends to be conditioned to the response pattern of the other person involved. Many premarital sexual encounters produce a variety of responses and rhythms. Hence, the sexual acts result in a specific response pattern for each person. A new premarital sex encounter does not extinguish the previous pattern of the previous sexual relationship. Therefore, promiscuity eventuates in sexual conditioning to a composite of one’s sexual affairs. Unrestrained sexual activity does not lead to freedom, but to bondage. Premarital control of sexuality is liberation for it prevents the handicaps of fornication etc. Undisciplined, uncontrolled premarital sexuality hinders effective sexual relationship in marriage. Premarital chastity produces self-control which makes a husband an effective lover of his wife and the wife an effective responder.
Sexual Perversion:
This is the degeneracy of homosexuality and lesbianism etc. and its influence where it is accepted by the citizens and government. If not punished by the law, it will eventually produce so much degeneracy that the nation is destroyed.
1. Both homosexuality and lesbianism are not only perverted sexual functions of the Sin Nature but also manifestations of reversionism and will be punished by the Supreme Court of Heaven as illustrated historically by God’s judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
2. Psychologist Alfred Adler admits that “homosexuals have a deep-seated revolt against adjustment to the normal sex role”, plus “a tendency to depreciate females, plus a display of increased over-sensitivity, ambition, defiance, distrust of others, and a desire to dominate.” Lesbians have a similar attitude toward men.
3. No one is born as a homosexual or as a lesbian. Rather these perversions are the result of the rejection of truth.
4. Other sexual abnormalities include:
a. Transvestism: A male sexually stimulated by wearing the clothes of a female, and vice versa.
b. Sadism: The derivation of sexual pleasure through cruelty and inflicting pain, humiliation, and other forms of suffering on individuals. In other words, sadists are sexually aroused through brutality.
c. Masochism: The derivation of sexual pleasure from experiencing pain and humiliation.
d. Necrophilia: Sexual relationship with a corpse.
e. Necro sadism: Sexual arousal through the mutilation of a corpse.
f. Sexual murder: Sexual arousal by killing another person of the opposite sex.
g. Narcissism: Sexual arousal from contemplating, admiring, or caressing one’s own body. Masturbation, a type of autoerotism is stimulating one’s body usually to the point of orgasm.
h. Paedophilia: Called pederasty in which an adult, usually a male forces younger boys into a sexual relationship.
i. Bestiality: Sex with animals.
j. Incest: The sin and crime of having sexual intercourse with a parent, child, sibling, or a grandchild.
All abnormal involvement in sexual sins can be reversed, but the road back to normality is not easy. As it took many sins to get to the point of perverted sexual activity producing much scar tissue in the stream of consciousness and garbage in the subconscious so, it will take many good decisions to recover. A believer will need to become extremely consistent in learning and applying the Word of God while simultaneously avoiding these sins.
Verses 16-18: further reasons not to marry an unbeliever and not to make unbelievers your close friends;
2 Corinthians 6:16
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols [none]? For we are the temple of the living God [We are indwelt by all three members] just as God has said, [quoting from Leviticus 26:11-12, a Millennial passage which Paul applies to the Church and in so doing makes some minor changes] I will dwell in them [Church Age believers; in the Leviticus passage, “I will put my dwelling place among you”]; I will walk among them [the idea of fellowship], I will be their God [for those with the capacity to appreciate God], and they shall be my people [the Church Age believer replacing Israel during their 5th Cycle of Discipline].
τίς δὲ συγκατάθεσις ναῷ θεοῦ µετὰ εἰδώλων; ἡµεῖς γὰρ ναὸς θεοῦ ἐσµεν ζῶντος· καθὼς εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς ὅτι Ἐνοικήσω ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐµπεριπατήσω, καὶ ἔσοµαι αὐτῶν θεός, καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔσονταί µου λαός.
The Corinthians as believers were involved with idolatry brought-on by sexual lust. You see, the best prostitutes were housed in the heathen temples located in Corinth.
Idolatry:
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The prophet Habakkuk on the Imbecility of Idols:
Habakkuk 2:18-19. What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he fashions speechless idols. (19) Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’ To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’ And that is your teacher? Behold it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all inside it.
2. Idolatry is analogous to spiritual adultery. Spiritual adultery was often used in the Old Testament as a synonym for apostasy.
Jeremiah 3:6-10. Then the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have you seen what faithless Israel [the Northern Kingdom] did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there [as part of the phallic cult]. (7) I thought, 'After she has done all these things, she will return to Me'; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah [the Southern Kingdom] saw it. (8) And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, [the 5th Cycle of Discipline administered to the Northern Kingdom by Sargon II of Assyria], yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. (9) Because Israel’s harlotries [the degeneracy of the Northern Kingdom] mattered so little to her [she did not learn from this degeneracy and the Lord’s judgment of it], she polluted the land [of the Southern Kingdom] and committed adultery with stones and trees. (10) Yet in spite of all this, her [Israel’s] treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception," declares the Lord.
3. Ezekiel warns the Southern Kingdom before the invasion of the Chaldeans.
Ezekiel 16:23-43. Then, it came about after all your wickedness ('Woe, woe to you!' declares the Lord God), (24) that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every square. (25) You built yourself a high place at the top of every street and made your beauty abominable, and you spread your legs to every passer-by to multiply your harlotry. (26) ‘You also played the harlot with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and multiplied your harlotry to make Me angry. (27) Behold now, I have stretched out My hand against you and diminished your rations [economic disaster]. And I delivered you up to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd conduct. (28) Moreover, you played the harlot with the Assyrians because you were not satisfied; you played the harlot with them and still were not satisfied. (29) You also multiplied your harlotry with the land of merchants, Chaldea, yet even with this you were not satisfied [because of all of the scar tissue and garbage].’ (30) How languishing is your heart,’ declares the Lord God, ‘while you do all these things, the actions of a bold-faced harlot. (31) When you built your shrine at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every square, in disdaining money, you were not like a harlot. (32) You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband! (33) Men give gifts to all harlots, but you give your gifts to all your lovers to bribe them to come to you from every direction for your harlotries. (34) Thus, you are different from those women in your harlotries, in that no one plays the harlot as you do, because you give money and no money is given you; thus, you are different.’ (35) Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. (36) Thus says the Lord God, ‘Because your lewdness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered through your harlotries with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your sons [child sacrifice] which you gave to idols, (37) therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, even all those whom you loved and all those whom you hated. So, I will gather them against you from every direction and expose your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness. (38) Thus, I will judge you like women who commit adultery or shed blood [in child sacrifice] are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy. (39) I will also give you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare. (40) They will incite a crowd against you and they will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords [the administration of the Sin unto Death]. (41) They will burn your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. Then, I will stop you from playing the harlot, and you will also no longer pay your lovers. (42) (So, I will calm My fury against you and My jealousy will depart from you, and I will be pacified and angry no more [a future restoration]). (43) Because you have not remembered the days of your youth but have enraged Me by all these things, behold, I in turn will bring your conduct down on your own head,’ declares the Lord God, ‘so that you will not commit this lewdness on top of all your other abominations.
4. The Judgment of Ecumenical Religion and the punishment of those who adhere to it:
Revelation 17:1-5. Then, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, [While the teaching angel comes to the geographical location of John, John must come to the presence of the angel from his own positive volition. He must be motivated to want to learn, to desire the information.] I will show you the judgment of the infamous prostitute [the system of ecumenical religion in the Tribulation which religious system attracts a lot of customers as an infamous prostitute] who sits [ just as a horse rider, sitting dominates the horse so, the harlot sitting dominates many areas of the world] on many waters [waters represent the multitude of the peoples throughout the world who are converts to ecumenical religion]. (2) with whom [ecumenical religion] the rulers of the planet earth have fornicated [the only way to fornicate with ecumenical religion is through spiritual immorality], furthermore, the inhabitants of the earth have become intoxicated with the wine of her spiritual fornication. (3) Then, he [seventh angelic messenger of the execution squad who is now the teaching angel produces the action] brought me by agency of the Spirit [God the Holy Spirit] to a desolate place [religion is a desolate place: joyless, devoid of warmth, comfort or hope, wretched] then, I saw a woman [ecumenical religion] sitting [implies domination: the union of religion and state and religion will initially dominate and be in control] on a scarlet [the color of the Romans when they became conquerors] beast [religion will be united with the dictator of the Revived Roman Empire in order to use their power together to influence and dominate Israel], full [neuter plural to indicate the combining of political power with religion] of blasphemous categories [religion functions from the gates of Cosmic Two], having seven heads [were seven religious empires which influenced and dominated Israel in the past to include Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia-Chaldea, Media-Persia, Graeco-Macedonia, the historical Roman Empire, and the Revived Roman Empire of the Tribulation; more details given in the rest of this chapter] and ten horns [the ten nations of the Revived Roman Empire]. (4) The woman [by analogy a high-class prostitute] was clothed in purple [the color of ecumenical religious leadership] and scarlet [the color of the political hierarchy], and adorned with gold [This is a very wealthy organization] and precious stones and pearls [precious stones and pearls representing the culture and the high-class function of this religion], having in her hand [the hand of ecumenical religion] a golden drinking goblet full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality [literal lasciviousness, sexual immorality on the part of the phallic cult]. (5) and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery [The mystery cults of the ancient world were all demonic as will be this future ecumenical system which is a system for demonization, demon contact and possession], "Babylon the Great [ecumenical religion of the Tribulation], the mother of Harlots and the Abominations of planet earth [the various evils of the phallic cult: demonism, idolatry, fornication, human sacrifice].
Revelation 16:2. Then, the first angel departed and poured out his bowl on planet earth, and it became an ulcer [The Greek word ἕλκος (helkos), the ancient Greek word for cancer, ulcers, or abscesses.] on the skin both pernicious and painful to those persons who had the mark of the beast-dictator, and who worshipped his image.
5. The Christian cannot worship the Lord during the Communion service and simultaneously while living in Satan’s Cosmic System.
1 Corinthians 10:14-21. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry [worship of Satan and his organization]. (15) I speak as to wise men [those with metabolized doctrine in the Corinthian Church]; you indeed discern [evaluate] what I say. (16) Is not the cup of blessing [The cup is called “blessing” because we are blessed by what Jesus Christ did on the cross. It was a cup of cursing for Christ during those last three hours on the cross] in which we rejoice, communion [fellowship] with the blood of Christ [linking the animal sacrifices with the cross; His work on the cross]? Yes, it is [expects a ‘yes’ answer in the Greek] Is not the bread [Christ in hypostatic union] which we break [a picture of His Substitutionary Spiritual Death], communion [fellowship] with the body [person] of Christ? [Fellowship with the body of Christ is a reference to Current Positional Truth.]? Yes, it is [expects a ‘yes’ answer in the Greek] (17) Since there is one bread [the person of Jesus Christ at the right hand of God the Father], we who are many are one body [Church age believers in union with Christ, a reference to Current Positional Sanctification]; for we all partake of that one bread [all saved the same way]. (18) Observe the racial Jews of Israel [literally Israel according to the flesh]; are not those [Jewish believers] who eat the sacrifices [speaking of the work of Christ on the cross] partakers of the altar [fellow worshippers]? (19) What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? (20) No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons [idolatry] and not to God; and I do not want you to become worshippers with demons. (21) You cannot drink the cup of the Lord [the Communion table requires fellowship] and the cup of demons [demon influence: living in the Cosmic System and other Satanic functions]; therefore, you cannot partake of the table of the Lord [to worship at the Eucharist requires the spiritual life] and the table of demons [living in the Cosmic System under demon influence and its modus operandi].
The Protocol Plan of God and Satan’s system are mutually exclusive. This passage also teaches that Satan has a communion table, a way of worshipping him via the Cosmic System. When the Christian lives inside of the Cosmic System, he is paying tribute to Satan. He is living the life that Satan has designed; he is drinking the cup of demons.
6. Idolatry is related to demonism, demon possession with the Phallic cult, and involved even child sacrifice. It was one of Satan’s greatest systems of religion.
Leviticus 20:1-6. Then, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, (2) You shall also say to the sons of Israel: 'Any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech [for child sacrifice], shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. (3) 'I will also set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people [to execute him], because he has given some of his offspring to Molech [in child sacrifice], so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name. (4) 'If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech, so as not to put him to death, (5) then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him, by playing the harlot after Molech. (6) 'As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.
7. Idolatry is related to sexual sins and human sacrifice.
Ezekiel 23:37. For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands [through child sacrifice]. Thus, they have committed adultery with their idols and even caused their sons, whom they bore to Me, to pass through the fire to them [the idols] as food.
Deuteronomy 12:29-32. When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, (30) beware that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?' (31) You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. (32) Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.
Jeremiah 9:14. But they followed the scar tissue of their hearts and after the Baals, in which their fathers had trained them [parents teaching their sins and evil to their children].
8. Idolatry is always forbidden by God in any form. The first commandment of the Decalogue prohibits mental idolatry; the second commandment prohibits overt idolatry.
Exodus 20:2-5. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (3) You shall have no other gods before Me. (4) You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above [like the Greek god, Zeus who rules heaven as the King of the Olympian gods or Uranus, the first ruler of the universe] or on the earth beneath [like the Greek god Hades as the ruler of the dead] or in the water under the earth [like the Greek god, Poseidon]. (5) You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
9. Idolatry results in the national judgment of the Fifth Cycle of Discipline.
Jeremiah 2:27-30. Who say to a tree [a piece of wood], 'You are my father,' And to a stone, 'You gave me birth.' For they have turned their backs to Me [rejection], and not their faces; yet, in the time of their trouble [during national judgment], they will say, 'Arise [from your slumber; as if the Lord were asleep] and deliver us.' (28) Where then are the gods which you made for yourselves [idolatry]? Let them [their false gods] arise, if they can deliver you in the time of your trouble [they are very close to the 5th Cycle of Discipline which will occur in 586 B.C.]; For according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah. (29) Why do you contend with Me? You have all transgressed against Me," declares the Lord. (30) In vain I have struck [intensive divine punishment] your sons; They accepted no chastening [did not respond to divine discipline]. Your sword has devoured your prophets like a destroying lion [they murdered their prophets].
Jeremiah 7:17-20. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? (18) The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven [idolatry], and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me. (19) Do they spite Me?" declares the Lord. "Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame? (20) Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, my anger and My wrath [an anthropopathism for divine discipline] will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.
Ezekiel 6:4-6. So, your altars will become desolate and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will make your slain fall in front of your idols. (5) I will also lay the dead bodies of the sons of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars. (6) In all your dwellings, cities will become waste and the high places will be desolate, that your altars may become waste and desolate, your idols may be broken and brought to an end, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out.
10. Israel became idolatrous through association with the Canaanites.
Psalm 106:34-39. They did not exterminate the peoples [Canaanites], as the Lord had commanded them, but they mingled with the nations, and adopted their customs [the Phallic cult and idolatry], and they worshipped their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their own sons and daughters to demons. Consequently, they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with their blood. They defiled themselves by what they did, by their deeds they played the whore.
11. The believer is commanded to have nothing to do with idolatry.
1 Corinthians 10:14. Therefore, my beloved brethren, flee from idolatry.
2 Corinthians 6:16. What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols [none]? For we are the temple of the living God [We are indwelt by all three members] just as God has said, [quoting from Leviticus 26:11-12, a Millennial passage which Paul applies to the Church and in so doing makes some minor changes] I will dwell in them [Church Age believers; in the Leviticus passage, “I will put my dwelling place among you”]; I will walk among them [the idea of fellowship], I will be their God [for those with the capacity to appreciate God], and they shall be my people [the Church Age believer replacing Israel during their 5th Cycle of Discipline].
12. Idolatry is caused by rejection of Jesus Christ as Savior which rejection creates a vacuum, and into that vacuum is drawn idolatry.
Romans 1:18-25. For the wrath of God [in Latin ira deum] is being revealed [made evident, plain] from heaven [decisions and judgments from the Supreme Court of Heaven] against all ungodliness [heathenism or unbeliever reversionism] and unrighteousness [after they reject the truth some become immoral and anti-establishment, others become self-righteous and so enter moral degeneration] of mankind who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, (19) because what may be known [evident, plain] about God is revealed in them [in their souls at the point of God consciousness]; for God has made it plain to them. (20) For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly perceived, being perspicuous through the things He has created, namely, both his eternal power and his divine nature [such as grace, righteousness justice and omniscience] so that they [the human race] are without excuse. [no defense against the integrity of God for negative volition at God consciousness]. (21) For even though they knew him as God [at God-consciousness], they did not glorify [or honor] Him [Christ] as God [negative volition at God-consciousness] nor did they feel obligated to thank Him, in fact, as a result of their negative volition they became futile [received worthless thoughts] in their speculations [evil deliberations], and their foolish heart [ignorant stream of consciousness] receives darkness [black out of the soul]. (22) Although professing themselves [delusional unbelievers] to be wise, they became fools [from blackout of the soul], (23) and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and birds and quadrupeds and reptiles. (24) Therefore, God turned them over to the lusts from their stream of consciousnesses [the sin nature takes control of the soul when there is unrestrained sin nature function] to sexual impurity [any sex outside of marriage], for the degrading of their bodies with one another. [There is degradation and degeneration such as in homosexuality, lesbianism etc.] (25) for they exchanged the truth of God [understood at God-consciousness] for the lie, and they worshiped and served the creature [Satan and his Cosmic System] rather than the Creator [the Lord Jesus Christ], who is worthy of praise and glorification forever, Amen.
Judges 2:10-13. All that generation [that entered the Land] also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord [unbelievers], nor yet the work which He had done for Israel. (11) Then, the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, (12) and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them [idolatry]; thus, they provoked the Lord to anger [an anthropopathism for divine judgment]. (13) So, they forsook the Lord and served Baal [the storm god] and the Ashtaroth [the goddess of love, war and fertility of the Canaanite religion].
13. The Christian is not to imitate the lifestyle of the immorally degenerate unbeliever. If he does, he will lose his eternal inheritance. Though he will lose the inheritance of the greater blessings, he cannot lose his salvation.
Ephesians 5:5. For you know [Ephesian believer] this [principle of application] if you have learned the pertinent doctrine that every male prostitute [the idolater of the Greek phallic cult], either a pervert or a pimp [or a panderer], who is an idolater will not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ even God [This is a warning to the Ephesian believers that they could lose their inheritance through promiscuity.].
14. Idolatry begins in the mind and proceeds to overt practice.
Ezekiel 14:7a. For anyone of the house of Israel or of the immigrants who stay in Israel who separates himself from Me, sets up his idols in his heart [in his soul] . . .
15. Idolatry in relationship to emotional revolt of the soul produces psychotic conditions as well as a variety of phobias.
Jeremiah 50:34, 35, 38. Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of the armies is His name; He will vigorously plead their case [the case of the Jews against the Chaldeans] So, that He may bring rest to the earth, but turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon. (35) A sword against the Chaldeans," declares the Lord, "And against the inhabitants of Babylon [the capital city of the Chaldeans at that time] and against her officials and her wise men! (38) A drought on her waters, and they will be dried up! For it is a land of idols, and they are mad over fearsome idols.
16. Certain unbelievers are distracted by certain sins.
Revelation 21:8. But for the cowardly ones [unbelievers only in the sense of not being able to face death and eternal future] that is the unbelieving ones [they do not believe in Christ]: detestable ones [people who would tend to make you throw up mentally such as self-righteous people who think that they are qualified by their own merit and so see no need for salvation] murderers [too much scar tissue in the soul caused by sin which scar tissue destroys one’s faith, and too much garbage in the subconscious which links up with the sin nature to make it even more powerful], male fornicators [including adultery; those preoccupied with sex and so do not give the gospel a thought], drug abusers [unable to comprehend the gospel due to drug use], idolaters [distracted through religion and demonic involvement] and all the pathological liars [who never face reality and so do not face the reality of life after death], their part will be in the Lake which burns with fire and sulfur, which is the Second Death.
17. Do not associate with Christian idolaters.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11. I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people [those involved in immoral degeneracy]; I did not at all mean with immoral people of this world [unbelievers for they need to hear the gospel from you], or with the greedy [pimps and panderers] and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world, but now I write to you not to associate with any so-called brother, if he should be an immoral person, or greedy, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or a swindler--not even to eat with such a one.
The Indwelling of all three members of the Trinity:
The Indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.
The purpose of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is to provide a temple in the body of every Church Age believer for the indwelling of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory and the indwelling of God the Father. No believer in the Old Testament was ever indwelt by the Spirit nor will any believer in the Tribulation or in the Millennium be indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 3:16. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
Both the Sin Nature and the Holy Spirit reside in the body of the believer and wage battle against one another for control of the soul.
Galatians 5:17. For the Flesh [the Sin Nature] desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit is against [totally opposed to] the Sin Nature for these [two] are constantly battling against each other [for control of the soul] [and you have subordinated yourselves to the Sin Nature] so that you are not doing the things which you might wish to do [Even though most wished to execute God’s will, they were failing].
This is expressed through a 3rd Class Conditional Clause. Either the soul of the Christian is controlled by God the Holy Spirit under the concept of Filling or the Sin Nature will control the soul.
The Indwelling of Jesus Christ:
The Prophecy of the Indwelling of Jesus Christ:
John 14:19-20. Before long, the world will see Me no longer, but you will see Me; because I live, you also will live. (20) In that day [Church Age], you shall come to know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
"I am in My Father" is a statement declaring the deity of Christ. These believers would come to know that Jesus Christ was true deity while in Hypostatic Union. “And you in Me," is the prophecy of the Baptism of the Spirit, equal privilege under predestination prophesied. "And I in you," is a declaration of the indwelling of Christ in every Church Age believer.
Colossians 1:27. To whom God [the Father] willed to make known among the gentiles what are the riches of His glory of this mystery [not known in the Old Testament] which is Christ in you, the hope of glory;
Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory indwelt the Tabernacle and Temple not only as a guarantee of Israel's security, but also of their prosperity and blessing. Jesus Christ now indwells you as a guarantee of your security, riches, and fantastic blessings. If God the Son Christ indwelt a building in the age of Israel, and he did, how much greater is the Indwelling of Christ in the body of every believer in the Church Age?
"The hope of glory" is the mature believer's confidence that at the point of maturity he will receive his escrow blessing which will glorify God both in time and eternity. The confidence or future expectation of the adult believer who recognizes that the Indwelling of Christ as the Shekinah Glory is the guarantee of greater blessings for time and eternity.
Christ indwells us for the purpose of motivation and spiritual power. Knowing that He indwells us gives us a strong and powerful motivation to keep advancing through each stage of spiritual adulthood with its accompanying categories of undeserved suffering. Adult believers who have fellowship with Jesus Christ have a greater power than those who are living in the Cosmic System and serving Satan. It is a matter of infinite power verses finite power. Though Satan with great power rules the world, Jesus Christ with omnipotence controls history.
1 John 4:4. You and only you [believers living the spiritual life] are from God, dear children, and you have overcome them [with the power that comes from the spiritual life to overcome false teachers and others living in the Cosmic System] because greater is He who is in you [indwelling of God the Son] than he [Satan] who is in the world [the inventor of the Cosmic System].
2 Corinthians 13:5. Be testing yourselves to determine if you are in the doctrine; keep examining yourselves or do you not know this about yourself that Jesus Christ is in you [indwelling of God the Son] unless indeed you fail the test [of doctrine].
Indwelling of God the Father:
Romans 8:11. Now if the Spirit from Him [God the Father] who has raised Jesus from the dead indwells in you and he does, He [God the Father] who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies [mortality becomes immortality via the resurrection body at the Rapture of the Church] through the agency of his [Father’s] Spirit who indwells in you [those alive at the Rapture will receive their resurrection bodies via the power of the Holy Spirit].
God the Father indwells as per Philippians 2:13. For it is God [the Father] who is operational in you both to will [God the Father provides the motivation which must bring about good decisions; implication: We have liability to the Supreme Court of Heaven for both our motivation and decisions.] and to be effective [via the spiritual energy provided by God the Holy Spirit] for His good pleasure. [Correct motivation leading to correct decisions resulting in correct action or effectiveness in the spiritual life which pleases God the Father].
The indwelling of the Father insures the effectiveness of the following:
1. The father as the author of our Portfolio of Invisible Assets
2. The father as the granter of our Escrow Blessings
3. The father as the author of the Protocol Plan
4. The father as the designer of the dispensation of the Church Age
2 Corinthians 6:17
Therefore, come out from among them and be separate [separation from religion and Cosmic thinking through daily perception of doctrine in order for God to be our God and to be compatible with being the Lord’s people as per the previous verse], says the Lord. Stop contacting the unclean [it could be an unbeliever or a believer filthy with Cosmic thinking or religion or both], and I will embrace you [to welcome back with an embrace].
διὸ ἐξέλθατε ἐκ µέσου αὐτῶν καὶ ἀφορίσθητε, λέγει κύριος, καὶ ἀκαθάρτου µὴ ἅπτεσθε· κἀγὼ εἰσδέξοµαι ὑµᾶς,
Separation:
1. Separation is the technique of switching from personal love to impersonal love when dealing with friends or loved ones in the Cosmic System. You love them from afar! Abraham had to separate from his father, Terah in order to complete his spiritual life. Joseph, in order to prepare himself spiritually to become the prime minister of Egypt had to be separated from his family. From seventeen until thirty, Joseph was in slavery in Egypt which the Lord used to prepare Joseph to be the greatest man of his age.
2. One must establish correct priorities in life and one of those priorities is to separate from distractions that might hinder one’s momentum. Until one establishes priorities, he cannot make a correct decision about separation.
3. Separate from Christians who reject doctrine:
2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14. Now we command you, brethren, by the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw [separate] yourselves from every brother [Christian] who walks disorderly, [as a result, there is no momentum in the spiritual life], and not according to the tradition [teachings of Paul handed down from one group to another] you have received from us [these Christians have rejected Paul’s authority]. (14) If anyone does not obey our doctrinal teaching in this epistle, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he may be put to shame.
2 Timothy 3:5. They [believers in the cosmic system] hold to external forms of the spiritual life, but have renounced the power [the two power options] of that same spiritual life; you also be turning yourself away from these persons.
4. Separation from troublemakers:
Romans 16:17-18, “Now I urge you, brethren, look out [have discernment through doctrine resident in the soul] for those who are causing dissensions and apostasies contrary to doctrine, which you have learned from a teacher; in fact, be separating from them. (18) For such believers do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own emotions serving themselves; and by their smooth and flattering speech, they deceive the stream of consciousnesses of the unsuspecting [naïve believers with little doctrine].
5. Separation in marriage, and friendship.
2 Corinthians 6:14-15. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers [in marriage]. For what do righteousness [believers with imputed righteousness] and lawlessness [those who will not obey the mandate to believe in Christ] have in common or what fellowship has light with darkness? (15) What harmony is there between Christ and Belial [a personal name for Satan as the quintessence of evil] or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever [in marriage, in friendship, in social life]?
6. The believer is to separate from the "fast crowd.
1 Peter 4:3-4. For the time already past is enough [sufficient for you] to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles [associating with the fast crowd], having pursued a course of sensuality [unrestrained sexual activity], lusts, excess of wine, carousing, drinking parties [related to Bacchus] and abominable idolatries [human sacrifice]. (4) In which manner of life [the fast crowd of the previous verse], they are astonished [mental sins related to pride] that you do not run with them into the same excesses [the fast crowd repeats itself] of dissipation and they keep on maligning you [the vicious side of the fast crowd].
7. The believer is to separate from violence and criminal activity.
Proverbs 1:10-16. My son [Solomon was a teenager], if sinners [technical for the wrong crowd] entice you, do not consent. (11) If they say, "Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; Let us ambush the innocent without cause; [murder] (12) Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, even whole, as those who go down to the pit; [enjoy killing people] (13) We will find all kinds of precious wealth; We will fill our houses with spoil; [enjoy robbery] (14) Throw in your lot with us; We shall all have one purse, [we will split the spoils of our robbery; in government this is called socialism] (15) My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path, [stay away from these hoodlums] (16) For their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed blood.
8. Separation is generally applied to believers. Separation must never be used as an excuse for not witnessing.
1 Corinthians 5:9-11. I wrote to you in my letter [this first letter we do not have] not to associate with immoral people [Paul was referring to fellow Christians]; (10) I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world [unbelievers], or with the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters for then you would have to go out of the world [the only way to separate from all sinners is to go to heaven]. (11) But now, I wrote to you [to clarify his previous instructions] not to associate with any man who is called a brother if he should be a fornicator [including adultery and incest] or covetous or an idolater [religious activity like the devil’s communion table] or a railer [a person who is verbally abusive of others: maligner, gossiper, judger, criticizer, nitpicker etc.] or a drunkard or extortioner [swindler, a believer involved in dishonest business practice], not even to eat [have social intercourse] with such a one.
9. However, you must separate from religion.
Revelation 18:4. I heard another voice [the Officer of Arms from the Angelic College of Heralds] from heaven, saying, “Come out from her, my people [believers], so that you might not be associated with [participate in] her sins and might not receive the judgment of her plagues;
We have in this verse a mandate from the Officer of Arms to separate from religion. Why the mandate to separate? If you are in an apostate religious system, a cult of any kind, you will be deemed guilty by association and so you will be disciplined by God because of your association. Separation demands that you stay away from apostate religious systems. Both believers in the Tribulation as well as those believers who are living on the earth in this dispensation of the Church who fail to separate themselves from religion will be disciplined by association or because of participation. Association means that you be punished by association with evil even though you may not be sinning yourself; participation means that you are participating in the sins, Cosmic good and evil of the organization and will be punished accordingly.
2 Corinthians 6:18
I will be a Father to you [fulfilling the relationship with provisions; a father provides for his family; a necessary relationship in contrast to bad relationships with people], and you will be my sons and daughters [you will function in relationship to me and in doing so, you will not need anything other than my provision], says the Lord Almighty.
καὶ ἔσοµαι ὑµῖν εἰς πατέρα, καὶ ὑµεῖς ἔσεσθέ µοι εἰς υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, λέγει κύριος παντοκράτωρ.
God as our father provides everything which we need in this life and a lot more besides. So, by application God can provide good social life among spiritually advanced Christians and can provide a mature Christian mate for you if it is his will for you to get married. So, one does not need to panic when it comes to friendship and marriage.
