The “gain of function” of biogenetics is a process. First, a dangerous virus is identified, then, the DNA of a virus is altered to make it more dangerous. To avoid a pandemic that could kill off most of the population of the world, the next step is to create another process that overcomes the first.
Gain of function is research; it is the process of creating something that is found in nature by synthetically changing its characteristics, or how it functions. The research is to be for the better understanding on how to combat future pandemics. It is meant to provide safety because the world mutates viruses naturally.
Gain of function is when virologists mutate the naturally existing virus. The research is for the better understanding pandemics and to get a head start on a vaccine before a dangerous virus emerges.
The motive for gain of function is for the “greater good” and disregards the “lesser evil.” For the larger population to survive, the research depends on many that may not.
For the first time ever exposed, because it could not be hidden, rather than samples of human beings or even animals, the entire population of the world has been part of the research. For socialist-minded people, the greater good was more important than the potential loss of human beings.
The basis of Marxism is that some good “plants” may be lost in destroying the “tares.” The basis of Christianity is that the tares are threshed out and destroyed so that the good “plants” can be saved. Thus, in Christianity the “function” is judgment of the crop, the tares threshed out for destruction, and the good “seed” and “plants” survive for “reseeding” or “replanting” in a better “Garden” than the exhausted earth wherein the crop now dies.
“Gain of function” research has good motives and provides hope for mankind, but due to that research, it has caused millions to die, and possibly many more whose process of death has been accelerated but is almost undetectable. Rather than samples, the hopeful ideologists used the entire population of planet Earth to be their experimental “beasts.”
In other words, just as Eve was dying and Adam saw no change, he ate as well. Very soon, they both detected change — they were withering in every cell of their body. Their DNA was dying. Perhaps sin weakened their telomeres so that eventually only their kind (of their DNA) would die out. That would not be equitable to God, so sin jumped the species, and all life would eventually die.
Adam was conditioned by the “Serpent” by the function of Eve. She was to be the example to deceive Adam who was beguiled (made wicked) by her words, and what appeared to be truth.
Gain of function research is much the same technique as Lucifer used in the beginning. Now, after some “ate” of the appealing “fruit” and there seemed to be no consequences, the entire population “ate” as well, just as with Adam and Eve. All the living were exposed to sin because of deception. In this day, misinformation (deception) is now the normative. Because it is a global pandemic as never before, the COVID pandemic functions just as sin in the beginning!
That is enough about COVID and their so called “vaccines” but for one point: Adam’s kind has been deceived and rather than faith in God; their faith has been for those whose love is money — the root of all evil. Look what Paul warned about wealth: “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Tim 6:10).
Remembering that life is as a garden and people the crop, then the pursuit of gain is the function, or tool, of Satan. The disconnect is that pursuing material gain is not functional, but the pursuit of spiritual gain is functional!
Big pharma has erred from the faith. The question has not been answered: Is gain of function research for the love of money to make a name for themselves, or is it for gain over future pandemics?
That brings the reader to the Doctrine of God. His will for mankind is not material but spiritual prosperity. The Israelites, for the most part, were always looking at the Promise Land rather than the Paradise in another realm. Their hope remains to this day on the land of Israel and their hope lies in the future because for them, the “Vaccine” has yet to be discovered. That refers, of course, to the very blood and water, again from the “side” of God just as in the beginning to renew Adam’s kind.
The Figure (at the end) is a plot of “Faith Over Time.” It could as well be entitled, “Spiritual Gain of Function.”
The “pandemic” is that all have sinned. (Rom 3:23). Sin is in the seed, meaning that sin is a germline and it is passed down genetically.
What did sin do? “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me” (Exod 20:5). Because Adam sinned and Eve was his mate in sin; their “seed” passed sin down through the generations, genetically. Hence the function of sin is iniquity (aon in the Hebrew). Iniquity is depravity, or corruption.
Both Adam and Eve were corrupted, or mutated, by sin from the Wicked One. Their flesh changed — likely the DNA in every cell of their body and even in their gametes.
God indicated to Moses that it was genetic, and that Adam’s germline had been mutated. The passing down of sin is iniquity, and as David indicated that for himself, and everyone is shaped in iniquity (Psalm 51:5). Sin is genetic and is in the DNA of all mankind. DNA is their identity, and the identity of Lucifer remains in everyone to this day.
Iniquity is the “function” of everyone. The gain is the second most oft quoted verse in scripture, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Iniquity perished everyone and it is in the blood. God had a plan for everyone, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
That plan is spiritual gain of function. God established that plan long before iniquity came along. Iniquity was the global pandemic that God expected and being all-knowing (omniscient); He had the gain planned as well. The gain of spiritual function was, “Whosoever believeth in Him (Jesus) should not perish but have everlasting life.” That was the gain of which Paul wrote.
The “solution” in Jesus is the “Gain.” His DNA and Spirit (blood and water) is infused into all who have faith in Him. “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood” (1 John 5:6), as the explanation for the “Solution” pouring forth at the Crucifixion (John 19:34).
Thus, Adam’s kind is the problem and Jesus is the “Solution.” His blood and Holy Ghost are the “gain of function” because the propitiation of the blood of Jesus wiped out all sins that are past (Rom 3:25), meaning from Adam and all his germline through the generations until now.
Saul had never seen the Man, Jesus, but he saw the bodily shape of the Ghost of Jesus. Saul was changed inside when he saw the innermost being of Jesus. No longer did he see the “cup” but the contents therein. He perhaps saw the DNA of Jesus with no “serpent” in it because the DNA was spiritual, and as I believe, all YY-DNA as I explained in my book, On the Origin of Man and the Universe.
Jesus had changed from worldy to glorious by dying. (John 7:39); “But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” Jesus was “glorified” when He revealed His Holy Ghost to all mankind so that they could see that the Son of Man was the Son of God as well. Longinus, the centurion, saw that as did Dismus, the repentant sinner!
Because Saul saw Jesus as God, he was born again on the Damascus Road. Saul was changed from the old creature, Saul, to the new creature, Paul, signifying that he was a new man made in the image of God. He looked the same on the outside, but on the inside Paul was in Christ by Christ being in him!
Now consider the dependent variable in the graph of figure
#2 (faith):
11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen... 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Heb 11:1,3)
“Now” is moreover. It is substantial in function. “Faith” (pistis) is fidelity to Christ. Jesus Himself explained the fidelity. He functioned on your behalf since mankind is dysfunctional in their perversity. He demonstrated fidelity and faith by those who had the poison of the Serpent in them but lived because they saw the “Serpent” as dead on a pole (the Judas Tree). The Israelites saw Jesus’s gain of function, and so must Christians to be saved. Saved from whom or what? The Serpent and iniquity.
The Israelites would not finish the journey. Their exodus was done before they were saved across the Jordan. They remained safe by the grace of God, but they lost affection for God and defected from Him time and again until they died without receiving the Promise. Their defection from God, although He had kept them safe, even from peril time and again, they were lost to death, and forfeited their gain.
What is “hoped for”? That the gain is in sight. It is the perception that Paradise is real and just beyond this world and life is in it. It is not wishing it to be true but seeing it as reality.
Faith is “substance’ in that it is substantial reason for belief. Faith is that there are unseen things beyond substance that is as real as material substances. It is the belief that when God created the heaven and the earth (Gen 1:1) that there were two creations: one seen and the other seen. Faith is the perception that the heavenly realm is as real and tangible as the earthly realm. With that in mind, the Ghost of Jesus was as real to Paul as the Flesh of Jesus had been to the other apostles, and they all accepted that his faith was as real as theirs!
“Hope” implies a future; thusly is time dependent. Therefore, faith is not just a cross-section in time but throughout time all the way to the future. The plot in figure #1 is from the natural birth of anyone through eternity.
The plot could also be, but was not, plotted backward in time to the beginning before the world came into existence. Because God foreknew each soul and put flesh on each one at their own natural birth (Eph1:4), that could have been plotted.
The soul of everyone alive was selected for flesh, not your soul for gain, because all souls were before the foundation of the world to exist in heaven. Election was not to live forever but to exist in bodily form.
The chart then is faith over time, and death is the end of physical
life:
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Mat 24:12-14)
Iniquity has been explained before, but it is essentially out of Christ with no faith in the propitiation of His blood. It “abounds” because all have sinned and fell short of God’s expectations for them (Rom 3:23). In other words, the creatures do not function as God designed them; and that is to serve God and preserve their fellow creatures.
God designed man to function by serving Him and preserving his seed (Gen 2:15). That is goodwill toward God and others, or agape love ( (BLB Institute 2021). Born again is affection for God, or to love Him. “Waxing cold” his love for God is waning. It is a defection from God after once having affection for Him. In the English it is “falling away” and in the Greek, apostasia, or “defection” from God (ibid).
Apostasy is the loss of spiritual function and the wage of that is death. Do not be dismayed for all have sinned, and there is a part two: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23). The “wages” of functioning as designed by God is the gain of eternal life of which Paul wrote.
Eternal life is the plan and future for all who remain in Christ to the end. It is the gain of function, and on earth it will be as in heaven as is prayed, to wit: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Mat 6:10).
The kingdom coming is the gain of which Paul spoke and it is the hope of salvation there. The “function” for that “gain” is Thy (God’s) Will be done on Earth as it will be done in Heaven. How are sinners to function? As Christ, “the Word” (John 1-3,14). The Word is not only Jesus, the Flesh of God, but God’s audible Voice that is enunciates so clearly in scripture. The Bible, both Testaments, is God’s Will for mankind to be His heirs and receive His Estate in Heaven, not of perishable stones but imperishable forever!
Now back to the chart. From birth to “born again” is the brutish (Psalm 49:10) function of the animal, man. The functions of those outside Christ are as the beasts who copulate instinctively, destroy, create havoc, and such in the world. The natural man is one who does things instinctively without regard to the Will of God. It is the Satanic Law of “Do what thou wilt; that is the whole law” (Anton LeVey). That is the function of the iniquitous man, and it is in their genes.
The time between born and born again is “lost.” They are as Cain who wonders in the unknown realm of Nod without God. Nothing is their God in Nod; they do what they will to do.
The iniquitous are “lost” because they have not found grace like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and even King David. The “mystery of Christ/God” is that grace was always there but had to be found. Paul persuaded the Gentiles to find grace by becoming Christians as they are baptized in the Holy Ghost. Grace is there as a gift of faith, but it must be sought and thereafter used. If faith is not used, the law of sin will condition those who have had affection for God to defect from Him.
Both Adam and Eve were “good” images of God. They were designed to be affectionate to their Creator. Original sin was a loss of affection for God and a transference of that affection to Lucifer with the “Serpent” as his inner demonic angel. This original sin was defection (apostasia) that theologians call “rebellion.” Rebellion can not happen unless theretofore there has been allegiance (fidelity).
Adam fell away as the pleasurable fruit conditioned him to salivate for what Lucifer provided. Ironically, Lucifer encouraged Adam and Eve by deception to steal God’s fruit from God’s tree. Hence, one of the commandments was broken that would soon come.
Time is independent. So long as the world exists there is time. Time is the rate of decay of carbon expressed in “half-lives.” It is the decay of the carbon-chain in man as well.
Time measures the rate of decay of mankind, and the entire Bible is about the decay, or increase in the depravity, of Adam’s kind. Original sin was the first episode of decadence and it increased until the DNA of the daughters of men was mutated by the sons of God, the Gregori angelic demons from the fifth heaven, according to the Book of Enoch.
Throughout the genealogies in the Bible, the rate of decay
would increase again until things will be as in the days of Noah (Luke 17:26). Man
will become more and more dysfunctional until only a few will receive the gain
of which Paul wrote:
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Mat 7:13-14)
The world becomes more decadent each day and more dysfunctional with time. The longer anyone is in the world, the more dysfunctional that person becomes. Rebirth, as in “born again” makes one more functional in a spiritual manner, that is reflected in their behaviors and thoughts.
he entire world at the present is dysfunctional! Perhaps now is the time of salvation!
“Wide is the gate” implies that most people become decadent and spiritually dysfunctional; their ways and thoughts drift from the Ways and Thoughts of God: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord” (Isa 55:8), indicating that spiritually dysfunctional people can know themselves by how distant they are from God’s Thoughts (Holy Scripture) and God’s Ways (goodwill).
The evidence for functionality is simple: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:6). So, Christians are to obey, but the obedience is not in their works but thoughts. Agape love is goodwill, and those are elaborated on by the Greatest Commandment — to love God fervently and your neighbor as yourself… to have highly good will toward God and others. That is in essence, functionality.
The “lost” have no faith in God and as such their faith is in themselves or someone else. For those who are fatalistic, that there is nothing after death, then their faith is apathetic. Those who are lost, perhaps with no god or an unknown god, have no hope beyond themselves; and they have become their own gods. As such, they are terribly dysfunctional because their god is powerless either to generate, regenerate, or even degenerate people.
The sad part is that Lucifer has power as well, and it is the God-given power to degenerate. That is evident from God’s encounter with Satan and his demons in Job chapter one. Lucifer (aka, Satan) has powers that are given by God to only to test the functionality of His creatures.
When robots are made, the manufacturers do two things: (1) They simulate the environment, and (2) they test the machines by giving them hard things to do many times over. The world and Satan are the “laboratory” and “hard thing” that functional Christians must overcome is sin in the world. Unbeknownst to the dysfunctional, the functional have an invisible hand aiding Christians to overcome the gravity of the world. Scripture calls that invisible hand the “Holy” Ghost and the “Comforter.”
When babies are in utero, they become persons and are born with a personality. The outward appearance of the babies is the “persona,” but inside lies a “shadow” of Lucifer since they are shapened in iniquity, or depravity. Infants are slightly depraved because they are instinctual. As time is spent in the world, depravity increases, and they become less functional in spiritual terms.
The soul of all the living is inborn, but the soul of the dying can either remain dead or be reborn.
Since newborns are without knowledge, by grace, God has levity. As they become more depraved, God convicts them, and guilt ensures. John Wesley called that conviction, “prevenient grace” that God has on mankind just because they exist, and he wants that none should perish.
Birth is a process from conception through gestation to deliverance. Rebirth is also a process from conception through deliverance to God; to be in Christ.
The gestational stage in that process is identified in scripture and was written by Paul as well: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). “Working out” therein is not physical work (ergon in the Greek) but accomplishment (katergazmai ). “Thinking our your own “salvation” would be as indicative, but their remains one issue: What is salvation?
In the Greek, it is soteria which means, “future salvation, the sum of benefits and blessings which the Christians, redeemed from all earthly ills, will enjoy after the visible return of Christ from heaven in the consummated and eternal kingdom of God” (BLB Institute 2021).
That definition is in scripture many places and is translated “shall be saved,” or in the interim “preserved,” or to live in functional “safety.”
Calvinism and Armenianism hinges on whether soteria means salvation or safety, and whether sozo means saved or safe. Because it is ambiguous which is correct for the contexts, requires that other passages must be closely examined. That shall soon follow.
“Born” is when the soul is paired with the flesh just as when God breathed life unto the image that he had created and called him, “Adam.” God selected a soul then made an image of material substance that matched the bodily-shaped form of the soul, as can be deduced from the baptism of Jesus (Luke 3:22).
God selects (elects) who exists and who will not, and which soul goes with which image of flesh. Thus, biological birth is an act of grace on God’s part and to terminate His Will is a grievous sin. The slogan, “My body; my choice!” is rebellion from dysfunctional sinners.
Apparently, Paul was familiar with rampant sexual intercourse (fornication) and its consequences (abortion) when he fervently wrote about casual sex, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Cor 6:19).
The womb is a sacred place and is where an individual becomes functional — when the soul of the little creature obtains flesh and becomes whole, and as anyone soon finds out, with a mind of its own!
So, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mat 19::6), and that pertains to the product of Holy Union as well as the Holy Union itself.
At birth, everyone is born functional in that like Eve, they are not held accountable because of innocence from most of the body of knowledge. However, the child functions as a child would, and Jesus appreciate their innocent acceptance of Himself. But for adults, that would not be enough because of the knowledge that they have acquired.
In the world is where evil knowledge is accrued. It begins with instinctual desires, and before long the world has conditioned even the most innocent infants to demand more. As they are given more, they demand more until they are appeased. By the time of adolescence, they have become as gods, just as Lucifer predicted. He knew that because he had experienced that dysfunctionality himself.
The depraved adolescent degenerates quickly because of the depravity in their genes. The Bible is basically biogenetics throughout from the ideal genes of God to the depraved symbiotic genes of Cain’s progeny, to nearly totally depraved man of this age. Because God still calls, and some answers means that a minute portion of goodness resides in almost everyone. God, by grace again, gave everyone free will. They would not be “robots” of God nor “robots” of Satan but have ability to choose good or evil given any and every choice to be made.
The driving instinct of every person is to survive. If dependence on God is the only answer to survival, so it is. That survival instinct is what drives man to God.
If there is only one Way to eternal life, and Jesus is that “Way,” then that is the Way we should go, to wit: “Who (God) went in the Way before you, to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night, to shew you by what Way ye should go, and in a cloud by day” (Deut 1:33).
God never gives up! He was and is always there to show the Way, and Jesus is the Way to the real Promise Land. Jesus said to doubting Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).
Thomas doubted not only that Jesus was Jesus, but that Jesus IS God. Thomas had Jesus near him and visible, yet Thomas doubted. Even with that, Christians are expected to believe “beyond a shadow of a doubt” whatever that means! Better said was that Thomas had little faith even after Jesus rose from the dead because little faith means much doubt!
Consider now faith: When running a race, the runner has a limited speed and endurance. There are some who excel but supermen do not really exist. Humans are limited by their genes. They are not gazelles but humans. Hence, they can run so fast given any amount of time.
The same goes for faith. Because Christians are images of God and not the “Supra-Man” they have their limits. Thomas found his limit; he had little faith when he doubted that Jesus was Jesus.
Supra-Man (God) knows who He is. He said that: “I AM THAT I AM” (JHWH, Yahweh or JHVH, Jehovah). God revealed to Moses in absolute confidence that He knows who He IS! God has complete faith in Himself because without a doubt he told Moses who He IS (Exod 3:14). Because he was not God, Moses accepted God’s claim. He believed God because the Voice from the Burning Bush told him of His Existence.
Moses saw God in the Bush (as a Tree) and God manifested is Jesus. He heard God speak, and that was with intelligence that required great thought. He understood the Mind of God. Furthermore, Moses felt the heat and even saw it as a fire. Like those on the day of Pentecost, Moses saw the Holy Ghost as a fire. Moses understood both the nature and supra-nature of God because he saw Jesus and the Holy Ghost while hearing the Thoughts of God. The message: I know who I AM, and you can trust me!
Moses trusted God, and the variable “trust” over time is “faith.” Then with faith identified, faith is time dependent as well. That is the reason to chart faith over time; it does vary because of impedance from evil beings and thoughts of evil. Iniquity wears them down and can until they fall down.
Ask yourself the question? Why the choice to, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph 6:11), if you are in jeopardy without all the armor, let alone any of it?
The whole armor of God protects against the wiles of the Devil, just as Adam was faced with the cunning of the “Serpent” (Gen 3:5). Was innocent Adam in jeopardy? He thought so, because he made an apron to protect his vulnerability but as it turned out God put His whole armor on both Adam and Eve as he clothed them with the skins of lambs. Why? To keep them safe from the “fiery darts” of the wicked ones (Eph 6:16).
Why would Satan continue with fiery darts against the Christian unless said Christian could fall dead? Paul used logic and persuasion. Why cannot the Christian understand logical conclusions rather than parrot what has been imbedded in their minds. For some, questioning their parents is as much as questioning God! People believe what they believe, not by inspiration from God, but misinformation from some preachers.
I think of a young relative who spews cultish doctrines as if there is a “Gospel According to Him.” Many others do that as well!
Functional Christians have put on the whole armor of God to protect them from the wiles of the Devil. Adam’s and Eve’s coats of lambskins were their individual Comforters that God made and put on them. Those coats were armor against the wiles of the Devil.
Those coats, as ancients wrote (Book of Jasher) were passed down to Noah and God put one on him when he “found grace,” undoubtedly the Garment of Adam.
Not long after safety, Noah took off the coat, and Ham found him naked and stole the Garment of Adam from him, as Jasher relates. Noah became vulnerable when he laid aside grace and drank wine. He even thought he was God because rather than God, Noah became the “Husbandman” (Gen 9:20).
If not for the Promise (the bow in the sky), Noah would have lost the grace that he had found. Noah could have gone the way of Ham although Ham had enough faith to board the Ark to safety. Ham had a little faith; and that is shown on the vertical axis. A little faith is the beginning of variable faith, and that little faith is a gift from God.
Noah found great faith. He was not God with absolute faith, but he saw hope in of the bow! It is assumed because it had rained that that the Promise was a rainbow, but from where Noah landed east of the Euphrates on Mount Judi in the mountains of the nation of Ararat, Noah probably saw the fertile crescent described to Abraham in the middle where God would plant the “Tree” on which Jesus was crucified. The Promise was not so much radiant light, but the “Light of the World” that is Jesus (John 8:12)!
The ”mark” of faith is the upper limit on the chart. It is certainty. The faith of Christians is missing that high mark, and having a degree of doubt. God knows that He is God and without a doubt as he indicated to Moses. Because Christians are not gods, they have faith that God is correct in the appraisal of Himself. Since God is Existence and they merely exist, then there remains doubt.
God still has grace. With just a little faith, rebirth is available to all those who have found it. Some do not find grace because their minds are occupied by the world. Grace is still there but remains silent as God’s grace remained silent for 400 years between the prophets and John the Baptist.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). From that grace precedes salvation. Grace is the cause and “salvation” the effect.
The issue is twofold: (1) Is it safety or salvation, and (2) is it now or sometime in the future. “Sozos” (Greek) therein is for “saved” but the literal meaning is,” From a primary sos (contraction for obsolete saoz, "safe"). (BLB Institute 2021).
Primarily, it was Calvinists who translated the King James Version of the Bible. It is not absolute but their version of the truth. It could as well read, For by grace ye are safe through faith. So long as there is faith, therefore, then there is safety.
Salvation cannot be forfeited because it is a finished event. Nobody can get “unsaved.” That is irrational! Once saved, indeed, always saved, but once safe, then unsafe is a rational possibility. Even those who are looking directly at Jesus can fall into unsafe waters as Peter demonstrated when he took his eyes off Jesus (Mat 14:28-30). He was already in Christ with Christ, yet he fell into the water indubitably because Satan distracted him with turbulent waters.
Peter asked Jesus for help, “Lord, save me!’ (verse 30). He literally said, “Sozo me” — make me safe!
Peter had a little faith as he demonstrated and previously Jesus had given him faith by Himself walking on water. Peter believed that only God could overcome the world, but when he turned his eyes to the tribulation from Lucifer, Peter’s faith was reduced. Not long after, Peter denied God. He denied that Jesus IS God after seeing what only God could do; and that was two things: (1) Overcome the world, and (2) preserve whosoever has even a little faith!
Hence, “born again” is the gift of faith. The gift ushers in regeneration just as when God breathed life unto Adam ushered in generation.
Peter, like the centurion much later, saw Jesus as God. However, soon Peter would deny Jesus three times. Peter had been kept safe by Jesus but when was Peter saved? His “gain” was when he carried his own Cross as an apology to Jesus for doubting His Identity long before. Peter was said to have been crucified upside down so to not insult God. Jesus redeemed the one who denied him, but Peter would not be saved from the world and the Evil One until he tasted death.
Peter once had affection for Jesus, but his denial was defection (apostasia in the Greek). Because Peter was crucified himself, it was if Jesus has been crucified all over again. Since Peter was in Christ, his crucifixion was according to scripture: Once enlightened (seeing the Light of Jesus), “If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” (Heb 6:6).
The upside down crucifixion of Jesus would not put Jesus to shame because Peter was finally in Christ. His “denial” that time was refusal to put Jesus to shame by being crucified right side up as Jesus was. Peter’s “reasonable service” as Paul said, “By the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom 12:1). Since Peter did not put Jesus to shame, his sacrifice of Himself was the reasonable service of those who were in Christ.
Peter fell away but because of his sacrifice, but the Lord was merciful unto him.
Judas, the friend of Jesus (Psalm 41:9), who had affection for Jesus, defected from him when Judas betrayed him. His affection turned to defection (apostasia) as he fell away from Jesus for a bribe — the love of money.
The Romans crucified Peter as they had Jesus, but Judas “crucified” himself and his works were not enough to save himself. Judas had become dysfunctional as an adversary of Jesus where before he had been a friend!
Thus, the self-sacrifice of Judas was not efficacious for the gain because he had defected from his affection for his friend. He no longer loved Jesus as much as money. He could not serve two masters but defected from God to be mastered by money. As is written, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (the demon of covetousness) Mat 6:24). Judas defected from his friend, Jesus, to the demon of silver.
Money made Judas fall away from following Jesus all the way
to Paradise. If it can happen to Judas, it can happen to any friend of Jesus:
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thes 2:3-4)
Speaking to the Christians at Ephesus, Paul wrote for them to not be deceived for if they are, there will come a falling away. That would ne before the Day of Christ, that many believe is the rapture of Christians… except there come a falling away (apostasia) wherein those in Christ defect from the affection they had for Jesus and become outside Christ.
Paul persuaded some to be Christians. What is often missed is, “Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God” (Acts 13:43). That grace of God was to proselytize, or convert, them from heathenism to Christianity.
This commentary is for that very reason; to persuade Christians that they must continue in the faith because they can fall away from what is given them!
It is imperative to understand that in Christ a Christian is safe but vulnerable. They must endure unto the end to be saved (Mat 10:22). Therefore, the endurance is the “function” that precedes salvation on the chart. It is the branch of steadfast faith to the end of life to death wherein life continues in another realm.
(To be continued)
(picture credit: Malaysia's Christian News; 'The Death of a Fig Tree")
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