HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN? PERSUASION

 PERSUASION: 

  “Election” is not some type of divine lottery where, before the beginning of the world, living souls were destined for either Heaven of Hell; election was making everyone available for eternal life — that none should perish.

  John 3:16 is interpreted differently in the different versions. In the King James it is “should” and in many others it is “shall” in the sense that eternal life is that the elected certainly will not perish! Perhaps “should” is the best translation because it is the past tense of future tense “shall.” Standing in the future, if any perish, they should not have! How so? There is a choice.

  Free-will is given two choices, people can of their own volition select one. Everyone should be saved. Because grace is free, there is no reason not to be. No one should perish. Nobody is required to pay or lose anything to be saved. Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Act 26:28)

  Paul almost persuaded Herod Agrippa to be a Christian. That is to successfully argue that Jesus could be Agrippa’s Savior and should be! Agrippa remained unconvinced. His mind fought God all the way to Hell. Agrippa should have been spared from perishing.

  What would he have to do? Nothing; his mind would require virtual movement. Agrippa was given a choice; Is Jesus his personal Savior. There are two answers: Yes or no! Agrippa rejected Jesus because there was no cognitive movement. Grace would have been available to him as well if he had sacrificed himself to Jesus in return for Jesus’s sacrfice of Himself for Herod.

  The Jews accused Paul of persuasive arguments; “This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the Law” (Act 18:13). Paul was not arguing in contrariness to the Law. He was arguing that Jesus fulfilled the Law as Jesus Himself said.

  Their perception was the Paul was trying to outwit them to persuade them to change allegiance from Yahweh to Jesus. The Law was to have no other gods in My face, to literally translate the First Commandment. And there he was — Paul was arguing that Jesus is the Face of God, but they failed to see God’s Face because Moses said they would die of they did.

  The First Commandment meant death if the Hebrews saw anyone else’s face on Yahweh. Finally, at the transfiguration, Moses saw that Jesus is the Face of God, and his spirit lived on. Death is not the flesh perishing but the soul. The Jews failed to understand that just as Adam and Eve had not!

  With that said, there is not a new covenant and an old one. There is not a New Testament and an Old Testament; there is one testament, and that is Jesus fulfilling the Law (Luke 24:44).  That there is One Covenant is the Mystery of God. Just what is the mystery?

²⁶ Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: ²⁷ To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: ²⁸ Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. (Col 1:26-28)

  The mystery is old. It was hidden but is now revealed. That prosperity is not only for the Jews but the Gentiles as well. That the mystery all along was Christ in you (whosoever). That anyone who has Christ in him has the hope of glory. It is for every man, and the teaching is through appealing to reason in search of wisdom. That it is for everyone — for the human race — Jew or Gentile, and that Christ makes anyone perfect in Himself. In simpler terms that none should perish, not even pagans, and that all along it was through Jesus the Messiah. Furthermore, it was never by works but of grace.

  The Abrahamic Covenant promised “prosperity” to the Jews if they followed God. How to follow were given in the Ten Words of Jesus (The Ten Commandments) and are really the Ten Prescriptions for Eternal Health. It only depends if those who are sick understand them as commanded prescriptions where God forces the doses down the pallet or whether the sick person takes the “medicine” of his or her own accord.

  When does Jesus come? When people are of “one accord” (Acts 2:1) and 22 other places in apostolic scripture. In accord with whom? God and each other. The first four of the “Ten Prescriptions” are for accordance with God, and the latter six, accordance with one another. The Beatitudes reveal the cure of those in accord.

  For Abraham, the “land” from the sea to the Euphrates was the promise, but the Hebrews misunderstood! It was not the “Promised Land” but the “Promised Paradise.” Land is in the physical realm, but Paradise in the spiritual. For the Jews, prosperity is still about land. For Christians, it is about Paradise. Jesus made that point with one specific beatitude, “The meek shall inherit the earth.”

  Just like the Abrahamic Covenant, it appears that the meek (those in accord with Jesus and others) would inherit land. John set that straight when he saw New Jerusalem return to its physical place in Jerusalem. It was not just the land at all for prosperity; it was heaven and earth! For Jews and Gentiles, the mystery of God was the same Covenant, that by the grace of Jesus, glory is the hope of those who are persuaded.

  Where is Glory? In the Presence of God. The Garden Paradise was glorious(perfect) and so will be the City of God when it comes back to Paradise. The Jews understand that the Garden of Eden was on their land but fail to believe it will return to Paradise lost. To have the hope of glory, everyone must understand that there is a place to be saved, and a place to exist since they are lost.

  Sinners are saved from perishing; that place from which they are saved is Hell. Those redeemed by Jesus are bound for the heavenly Paradise. To be saved requires that there exists Hell and Heaven. The hope of Christians is salvation. Paul called it the “hope of salvation” (1 Thes 5:8).

  Agrippa believed that there was a Jesus. That was a good start. He may have followed parts of the Law, but he, like the other Jews, failed on one point — the Law of Love. With that, he failed on all Ten Prescriptions for Eternal Health. It was not worth him doing what was prescribed by Jesus (in the Ten Words of Jesus). On the other hand, the Pharisees took not their own “medicine” but forced everyone else to take theirs! Medicine cannot be forced on people or it will only be vomited up, only to require taking again — i.e., “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly” (Prov 26:11).

  The points made herein are four-fold: (1) There is but one Covenant and that is the Adamic Covenant (Gen 3:15), and that is the hope of salvation for those who endure to the end (Mat 24:13). Endure what? The world and its hatred. (2) Since it is the Adamic Covenant it is not race specific. It is for whosoever should not perish. (3) It is by grace for nobody, but Jesus, paid the price. Abraham knew that and it was accounted to him as faith. And (4) Signs are ineffectual: “(Jesus) said unto him, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Because of free-will, everyone must be persuaded and choose Jesus.

  Unlike the animals, Adam-kind was made in the image of God. God has a faculty that was created in His creatures. God’s Will for mankind is that they should be saved. That is a choice, and a decision to be made. People must want to be saved to be saved. The faculty of the will of people determines who shall be saved. Between should and shall is persuasion.

  Christians were first called that at Antioch. What transformed them from pagan people into chosen ones? After the others left, “Many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God” (Act 13:43).

  Continue? Yes! As recounted in part one (yesterday) they went part way. Jesus knocked and they answered. Paul was well on the way persuading them to be Christians! They would be persuaded because they were called to hear, listen, evaluate, and believe. That took no work on their part. They merely stood outside and listened, and Jesus began a good work in them. The Jewish congregation left as unbelievers and hearkened not unto Paul. The Gentiles hearkened unto Paul and through him they heard the Word speaking.

  The Gentiles were “humming” the Jewish song but the Jews left the choir: “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10). God was right then exalted among the “heathen” gentiles because they stood still and listened while the Jews went on their way!

 

P.S.

  This is not part of the commentary, but those at Antioch Pisida was where they were first called “Christians” (Act 11:26). There were two cities named Antioch. This one in the region of Galatia and another one in Syria.

  Yesterday, I had an epiphany! First a little background.

  The Church in Great Britain is as old as the apostolic age. Although its origins are not known for certain, there is evidence that Christianity flowed there in confluence with Rome. It seems that the Romans are the first to bring Christianity to “Britannia” as it was called at that time. A book even attempts to prove that Paul went to Britain and introduced the heathen to Christianity (Saint Paul in Britain by R. W. Morgan). He does present a good case, and a large portion of his argument is that Celtic Druids were ripe for Christianity based on their pagan gods and rituals. Paul showed at Antioch that pagan Celts there were receptive to Christianity.

  “Celts?” you ask. Galatians were Gauls or Gaelics. They spoke Gaelic, one dialect of the Celts. The Gauls prepared the world for proselytization from Hellenistic and Gaelic Druid gods and goddesses that were like the Greeks’ pantheon of gods. The Gauls inhabited the land between Thrace and Britannia two-and-one-half centuries before Christ was born. God allowed the Celts in nearby Thrace to defeat the indignant people of Anatolia and grew a Celtic area in its place as part of the Roman Empire.

  God builds nations for His purposes. He built Babylon to teach the Jews a harsh lesson, and He created the Roman Empire to spread the gospel. Not so obvious is that God had two plans in place. He created Celtic Galatia to spread the Good News as well!

  Joseph of Arimathea, according to ancient British texts, was the first to bring Christianity to the British Isles. Legend, or perhaps history, has it that Joseph was the keeper of the Holy Grail. I have written before that my opinion is that the Holy Grail is not the “cup” that the apostles drank but the “cup” that Jesus would not pass to others, in other words, His actual body, blood, and water suffering on the cross. The “Holy Grail” that Joseph may have taken t Britain was the Doctrine of Christ which was His Purpose for suffering death. The Holy Grail has never been found because it is perhaps the very Soul of Jesus and is the Container for His Holy Ghost. In other words, Joseph seems to have brought the Holy Ghost to Britain.

  Was Paul there? There is no credible evidence that Paul went to Britain. Morgan connected Rome with the founding of British Christianity. Perhaps it was not Rome’s proselytization, but Galatia’s (Gaul’s). Joseph is credited with forming the Church at Glastonbury in Somerset, England. The original name of Glastonbury came from the Celtic word, “Glestinga” which has an unknown etymology. I would like to think it is associated somehow with Galatia but that is mere hyperbole on my part.

  However, perhaps the Galatians are the true candidates for spreading Christianity to Britain. That makes sense as they were first called Christians in Galatia and who better to carry the gospel to the Celts than those speaking the Gaelic language? Linguists write that the common language of Galatia in apostolic times was Celtic (Wikipedia). Perhaps Joseph, accompanied by the Church at Galatia, carried the gospel to Glestinga! Maybe Paul in person did not go the Britain, but perhaps his first Church did. What did Jesus teach? To teach the nations about Christ (Mark 13:10).

  Rather than continue standing still outside the synagogue in Antioch or turning a deaf ear to Paul’s words about Jesus, the Galatians fulfilled the Great Commission. Well, it turns out that surely was the case:

⁴⁷ For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” ⁴⁸ And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. ⁴⁹ And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region. (Act 13:47-49)

  My hypothesis: That Celtic Gaelic speaking Gentiles were the first to take Christianity to Britain. What did the Lord command them to do? They should be the ones to take salvation to the ends of the Earth. In apostolic times, where was the ends of the Earth? Britannia. The end of the Earth stopped at Hadrian’s Wall between England and Scotland before it was ever built! I believe that Romans took war to Britannia, but Galatians took the love of God.

  “Thou (the Lord of Hosts) art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms” (Jer 51:20). The Romans could never defeat the Celts with their vast armies and power. However, the Celts overcame England with the Word of God. The Romans put up a wall to keep the pagans away from them. The Lord tore down that wall! He overcame the Druids in Britain and won the war for Christ… The war that the Romans lost, and the Church that the Roman Church forsook. 

(To be continued tomorrow)

(picture credit: Venice Church of Christ; "Paul at Antioch")