The interval between birth and rebirth (born again on the chart) is a period of spiritual dysfunction which is most often accompanied by physical dysfunction. That is because the flesh is master of those not of the Spirit of God. Those not in Christ are in the flesh.
Paul defined functioning:
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Rom 8:8-10)
“In Christ” is if Christ be in you and the body, or flesh, is dead to sin. Not that a person cannot sin, but sin is no longer deadly. In Christ is not that there is no sin, but that Christians are not judged by sin. Hence born again is safe from sin. In Christ is like Adam and Eve, only that Christians are in the “Coat” of the Lamb of God — in the Spirit of Christ.
The Spirit of Christ is the nature of God in the world. Jesus was without sin and in Christ is as if the Christian is impermeable to the virus of sin. Christians still sin but it is not accounted to them as sin because Christ in you covers the sin.
Sin is work. It is pleasurable but it is still work because it is putting thoughts into action.
To function as Jesus, the Christian must exercise self-control: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13. ESV). Self-control is your own abilities, and it seems to be very hard work and it is not ergon work but katergasmai work. It is accomplishing temperance (Gal 5:23). Temperance is mastering the senses and controlling the passions. In Christ lessens the mental burden because the Holy Ghost stands between the mind and the flesh.
The lost are dysfunctional in depravity because they have not found grace. Grace is there but their thoughts are not God’s thoughts and God is far away from their minds.
Jesus always came near to sinners to give His virtue, as with the woman with a blood issue. To heal her, Jesus lost virtue as Jesus felt it gone from Him (Mark 5:3).
The virtue that one masters for self-control (temperance) is virtue going from Jesus to the Christian. In Christ is depending on the virtue, or goodness, of Jesus to overcome the world. It is Jesus who truly overcomes the world through the mind of the Christian. So, like Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33)!
What need the sinner do? Be near to God to obtain His virtue. And how can that be done? To be in the Word, for the Word is Jesus; it is the same Voice that had grace on Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and all the prophets!
Paul, referring to wicked men — the lost — said, “all men have not faith” (2 Thes 3:2). In fact, most men have no faith because wide is the gate to destruction.
On the other extreme is the faith of God (Rom 3:3). Since faith is a gift of God and not of yourself, God must have abundant faith to share with the world (Eph 2:8). How abundant? Enough to share with billions of sinners if they desire to have the gift.
Thus, the faith of God is paramount faith, and hence faith is a variable whose range is from no faith to the faith of God, as shown on the graph.
Because Christians are not God, they cannot have the faith of God. Sin is not so much “missing the mark” but doubt is missing the metric of the faith that God has. “Doubt” in scripture is to question God. As such, Paul had been “doubtful Saul” just as Thomas is called “doubtful Thomas.”
Thomas questioned whether the arisen Christ was Jesus or not, and for that matter, whether Jesus was God or not.
Thomas saw God in the flesh but still questioned reality. Paul saw Jesus in the Spirit and he also questioned. Saul saw something in his blindness. It does make sense that Saul must have seen Jesus as the Tree of Life that he thought he knew so well from scripture!
That faith is a “variable” means that it is not constant. If faith was a constant, it would be a straight horizontal line on the graph. Instead, it increases and decreases over time. That is shown as wavering faith, to wit: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb 10:23; ESV).
But that is wavering hope, is it not? Faith and hope are co-variables in time, as is written, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).
What is the “gain” for which Paul hoped? It was an invisible prize at a distance in time from his present status. He hoped for eternal life. That occasion was a distance in time from when he wrote that. His hope was fulfilled when he died. Paul had varied from a state of safety to security, because at death He was not only in Christ but with Christ in Paradise, just like the repentant thief on the Cross had been (Luke 23:43).
Hope implies that there is some doubt. When Paul saw Jesus, his questioning was reduced, but he only saw Christ in his mind. Jesus most certainly put a mental picture therein to reduce the doubt, but the picture was an Image of Jesus whether in Spirit or the Flesh, Paul would not know (2 Cor 12:2).
Just when did Paul’s hope become as the faith of God without any doubt? When he died and saw Jesus right there at the right hand of the Father, not at God’s right hand side as it says literally, but on the throne as God with the honor and authority of God. Jesus was not as God but IS God, and in heaven, Paul would gain because he saw Jesus as God (Mark 16:19).
The “gain” of Paul was not only eternal life in the hereafter but validation of his hope. As a functioning man, Paul saw an image of Jesus that was mental. He was blind so he was seeing nothing either physical or spiritual.
When Paul was beheaded, the first thing he would see is Jesus on the Throne of God because it was Hs throne all the time! No longer did Paul have faith nor hope but upon death confirmation. Finally, his “gain” was that he had the faith of God because he saw God as the Supreme Existence.
The dead shall have no doubts. Even the wicked, once they die, shall no longer doubt God! However, their faith will be as dead as their bodies and souls because they took the Name of the Lord God in vain.
But does not scripture say that you know? Does not Joyce Meyer say, “I know that I know that I know that I am saved?”
Well, examine scripture, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Cor 2:12). “Know” in that verse is not certainty but perception (BLB Institute 2021). Paul wrote that the Corinthians could perceive God. What had Saul done to “know” Jesus? “to perceive by any of the senses” just as the Greek word edido means, according to that source.
Christians do not “know” that Jesus is God and that He IS “Yahweh saves.” They trust that He is who He said He was and who He demonstrated Himself TO BE. They perceive that Jesus is who he says He IS and that His Purpose is salvation. Perception is faith because it entails hope. Mrs. Meyers should have said, I perceive that Jesus shall indeed save me when I die and keep me safe until that time!
A tenet of Calvinism is “preservation of the saints.” O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful” (Psalm 31:23). Who are saints? Those who are faithful to trust in God, and not themselves nor any others.
“The faithful” (saints) are those having faith. How much faith? Scripture does not say great faith or how much faith. It does imply that some faith is required. “Babes in Christ” implies at least a little faith. God has ample faith to give to all, but like any seed that is planted, faith must be grown. Paul told the Thessalonians, “your faith groweth exceedingly” (2 Thes 1:3). Just as the soul is a “tree” of the Garden, faith is a “plant” in the world. Christians are to “continue in the faith” as Paul taught (Acts 14:22). That implies that they may function without any faith.
God gave the gift of faith so that Christians can grow the faith. Jesus used the parable of the talents (Mat 25) to demonstrate how faith can be grown; it is taking the gift, never to bury it, and multiplying it just as Adam was told to multiply the seeds that God planted!
Faith, therefore, is not only variable but the function of multiplying God in the world. Faith is analogous to a “crop” and the “harvest” of it was Paul’s gain. Paul perceived that his crop of faith would result in a bountiful harvest. He did not know that it would but trusted God for His Promise.
If Paul had absolute knowledge, then faith would have been unnecessary. He would not hope for things unseen but realize them in actuality.
Paul had great faith, and little doubt. He did not have perfect faith with no doubt, because only God has absolute faith. Since Paul was not God, then his faith was not absolute but lacking. Rather than “know” of his gain, he trusted that God would fulfill His Promise to all who would trust him to kill the Serpent (John 3:14).
Those who suggest that they know without a shadow of a doubt innocently imply that they have the faith that God has. They are ‘as God” just as Lucifer rightfully said after Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge. He said that God would fear that they would be as Him, and claiming absolute knowledge is a claim to the entire body of knowledge that only God has. It makes the person omniscient instead of God. It is acceptable to have great confidence in the Word but to say that anyone has the knowledge that only God has, diminishes God, and elevates the person.
Any shortcomings in faith are increases in doubt. Missing the mark is indeed not having the faith that only God could have.
Why does Satan tempt? To increase doubt. When a person sins, he is expressing doubt. Is there truly a God who will judge? Is sin truly as wrong as He says it is? God says it is, so even Christians continue to sin as if there is no God, and he is his own master. To say that you are certain that you are saved means that you must be without sin because sin expresses uncertainty.
Furthermore, salvation, as will be shown is in the future. Nobody but God knows the future because regardless of what the person wills to do, Satan offers impedances to keep that from being done! Why else would Jesus say, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”(Mat 26:41)? You can only perceive that you shall be saved, or why else the impedance (temptations) from Satan?
Satan exists for one reason. His function is to test the functioning of the Christian; to see whose will be done given two choices.
Satan tested Job. His faith was so great that Job passed the test. God designed the test and Satan, along with his demons, were mere “tools” in God’s, the carpenter’s, “tool box.” Why the test of faith if faith could not fail?
Sometimes logic must be used. Things are written in the Bible for God’s purposes, and the Book of Job was about the testing of Job’s faith. God was certain of the outcome, but throughout the entire book, Job questioned his own faith.
With that said, Christian should always test their own faith to keep Satan’s demons at a distance.
How can faith be tested? James wrote in several places much the same thing as this one, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (Jas 2:26).
On the chart the path to spiritual death is shown as “falling away” and is tagged as “apostasy.” Again, it is losing affection for Jesus, and defecting from Him. That is a gradual decline because fait is not being grown but shelved. Apostasy is spiritual death! Hence, those who fall away from the faith die spiritually before they die bodily, as is shown on the graph.
Noah found grace (Gen 8:6). After finding grace, what did Noah do with it. He worked the faith for over one-hundred years. He became the “husbandman” because after the carpentry work was done, and he was safe, Noah continued the husbandry by growing the vineyard (Gen 9:20).
Noah slipped, not in mud from the flood, but into the wine. As he became unvigilant, Ham stole his grace — the Garment of Adam from his body. Noah who once had great faith, had less faith. Noah, the recipient of great faith, had Satan steal away some of his faith. “Grace,” of course, was the undeserved gift of faith.
Apostasy is the “loss of function,” but Paul continued in the faith until he “lost his mind” with beheading. Faith is not a work in the sense of ergon, but thoughts. It is the will to do what God Wills that you do. It is His Thoughts becoming our thoughts!
(To be continued)
(picture credit: dreamstime,com; "Portrait of Girl Showing Doubt")
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