Earlier in the book (because now it is), I mentioned that if water baptism is saving (soterial), then water is the “god” and rather than Jesus, it is the worship of Poseidon. Albeit water baptism is not the Covenant of Grace, it is the “signature” of that Covenant. Regarding, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” is certainly true. The question is which baptism?
Scripture relates two: the baptism of John which is for repentance and the baptism of the Holy Ghost that is for “Comfort,” meaning safety.
“Wearing” the Holy Ghost as a Garment is as effective as Adam’s Comforter. As any southerner knows, a “comforter” is a heavy quilt for warmth during the cold season. Well, the darkness of the world is the “cold season,” and the Comforter is to be worn all the time.
In Adam’s day, the coat of skin was the whole armor of God to serve the purpose of protecting Adam from the fiery darts of the Wicked One. Most assuredly that Coat could be taken off when having carnal knowledge and logic would have it that the Holy Ghost, as the “Garment of Christians,” can never be ripped off but can be taken off. That is blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
Just what is blasphemy? A dictionary could be used but scripture reveals it, speaking about the claim of Jesus, the Jews said, “For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33). Jesus was killed for the sin of blasphemy as He claimed to be God in the Flesh. The Jews thought that Jesus was only a man who made Himself out to be God.
With that thought, blasphemy is diminishing God and exalting oneself. As such, that whole armor of God, be it the Garment of Adam or the Holy Ghost, is considered by many to be a burden. Blasphemy is rejecting the invisible Garment that Jesus wore, because man makes himself to be God!
Wearing the protective apparel is essential because rejecting it exposes the person to the fiery darts of Satan. Blasphemy means that the Holy Ghost can be rejected whenever anyone defects from God. When God is rejected, they are on their own and whomever becomes the “god,” just as the “Serpent” warned Eve.
Blasphemy is spiritual death, and it occurs before mortal death. The individual is as dead because the protection of God is rejected. Thus, the baptism of the Holy Ghost is in safety (sozos), whereas water quickly runs off.
Throughout scripture, water imperials mankind; with the people in Noah’s day, with the turbulence of the Red Sea, and with the swells of the Jordan River. With baby Moses, it was not the water that preserved his life but the little Ark. On the Holy Mountain, it was not water that changed Moses, but the Spirit from God.
As is written:
4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Eph 4:4-6)
Choose wisely; which baptism has the efficacy; the one by water or the One by the Living Water from the Belly of Jesus? (John 7:38).
There is One God as well who baptizes one way. That God is not Poseidon but Jesus! It is not a Poseidon Adventure in the water, but a Covenant of Grace wherein God puts His own “Garment” on the believer.
God is not a Dictator but a loving God. He never forced Adam and Eve to wear His Garments but as they wore their aprons of fig leaves, He showed them His Garments. Adam and Eve put off their useless aprons and allowed God to clothe them.
It is implied in scripture, that Eve took off her Garment for whatever “intercourse” it was that she had with Lucifer (Gen 4:1) because she provided for Adam a man, not Adam and not God, but she did it and not all by herself! The implication is that the armor of God can be taken off and can even remain off.
Paul warned the Christian, not as an afterthought, but as
imperative:
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His Might. 11 Put on the Whole Armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. (Eph 6:10-11)
Why wear the Holy Ghost, God’s “Armor” as His Mighty Power? Paul was speaking to brothers in Christ, to other Christians. Paul wore the Whole Armor of God, or he would not have recommended it to others. Why should a Christian wear armor? Paul answered that as well… to enable the brothers in Christ to withstand the wiles off the Devil.
The Devil was dressed appropriately for warfare. In my book, The Omega Variant, I wrote of an epiphany: The “Serpent” was wearing a “coat” as well. His “coat” was the spirit of Lucifer. The “Serpent” was not a viper but the innermost countenance of Lucifer, and the “Bringer of Light” was his Persona. The Shadow and Personal together is the Devil, Satan.
The wiles of the Devil is that he presents himself as a good image but all the while, he is thoroughly evil inwardly.
Adam and Eve, in the Book of Adam and Eve and Their Conflicts With Satan, were continually deceived by Satan, who changed his outward appearance to suit the occasion. Indeed, Satan morphs into whatever he needs to be, sometimes by changing his appearance and at other times robbing the flesh of fools, as he did with Judas and will do with the Antichrist.
The wiles of the Devil can fool even the elect (Mark 13:22). Election takes place not in a divine lottery but by God who foreknows the forthcoming change of heart of His creatures. (Rom 8:29).
Comparing the marriage of people to Himself, “Then saith He to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy’” (Mat 22:8). It seems that even the unworthy, those who would not come, were called (bidden). Jesus clarified that when He added, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mat 22:14).
Therefore, many are “elected” but few are selected because they are unworthy. They are not in Christ and are not wearing the “wedding cloths” — His “Garment of Spirit.”
Many who God elects never wear His Apparel, and some that do, are free to take it off.
That raises the question? Who does God “elect”? He elects
all those that He created. There is a storehouse of immortal souls in another
realm and God chooses which ones to create as living beings in this realm. They
are the “whosoever” in John 3:16. In fact, that one verse is a refutation of
Calvinistic election. Consider it in context:
15 That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 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. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 15-17)
“Whosoever” is the population, and the subjects are those who believe. Belief is pisteuo in the Greek and means those who are persuaded. Persuaded of what? That Jesus is God in the Flesh and that God sacrificed His only Son to defeat Satan as Jesus revealed in John 3:14.
Belief is not baptism. It is persuasion. Those who are persuaded have been “born again” (John 3:7). After some were persuaded to continue in the grace of God (Acts 13:43), those who were worthy (persuaded) became disciples of Jesus, “And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 13:52).
Nothing is said therein about water baptism. They were, however, baptized with the Holy Ghost. And during the ministry of Paul, he only baptized a few (Acts 19). God baptized all the others in “Living Water.” They were worshiping God, not Poseidon. The “Way” is walking with Jesus in Christ, not any other way!
Paul explained the gain of the key verse: “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14). The “prize” is Jesus the Christ, and theretofore, Paul had seen only the Ghost of Jesus. Where would he see Jesus? In Paradise in heaven.
Does “whosoever” obtain the same prize. God is not as liberal as liberals but is graceful: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Cor 9:24).
Paul likened Christianity to a race. A race is distance over time. Scripture likens faith to the race, and the “prize” is the “gain” of which Paul wrote in the key verse. To “run the race” is persuaded to follow Jesus which Jesus calls “born again.” The entry to the “race” is persuaded to follow Jesus. Everyone who is born again enters the race for the prize ahead.
The prize is not awarded before the race but for those who endure to the end. Not mentioned by Paul are the many hurdles that must be overcome; hurdles that are cunningly erected by the Devil. Why else would so many never finish? Weakness in the flesh is one of the obstacles to gain the prize (Mat 26:41). The “hurdles” are temptations, and usually they are those listed in Galatians chapter five.
To obtain the prize — to realize the gain of function — one must run. When Paul said that only one receives the prize; that would be discouraging.
Some will receive the prize, but it is not a group thing; each one must run themselves without any dependence on others. It is not a relay race but an individual finish to the end! Anyone is to run as if they are the only runner.
That is how Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile; he never looked back! Lot’s wife did and look where that got her. She was chosen by God for salvation, but she looked back. No others did but her! The prize was ahead but to her it was behind her. She did not see Jesus ahead in the Promise Land but “shiny objects” behind in “Hedon” (Greek; hēdonismos, “pleasure” in English).
It is worth repeating: The Serpent convinced Adam and Eve that they were safe and would not die (Gen 3:4). Lucifer knew death because he had experienced it when he of his own volition he defected from God. He also had free will and was much more than an automaton.
The doctrine of eternal security is a repetition of that falsehood; that if you are generated again, you will not die; that if you believe in Jesus at one time, that is sufficient. Scripture, however, is all about enduring and steadfast faith to the end. The end comes with death when Jesus decides where each immortal soul will abide.
Jesus forewarned, “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:6). In Christ is more than a Sunday visitation. It is abiding in Him every day of the week until death severs life on Earth, when the “silver cord is loosed” (Ecc 12:6). That “cord” is the lifeline to God, and since it is literally a “pale twisted thread” it may be either the double-helix of DNA or the brain’s gray matter. Either way, mortal death ensues.
Born again is coming to Jesus; by answering His call. In Christ is abiding in Him as Christ, or Christlike.
Since Jesus warned that those who are reborn must abide in Him, then it stands to reason that they can defect from him. That is the meaning of “apostasy.”
Persuasion is given two choices and selecting one or the other. That is also the definition of free will. The only “work” that a Christian need to do is exercise his or her own will. In the Greek, that is katergazamai, or to “work out” your own salvation (Phil 2:42) — to accomplish safety with no physical work involved. It is exercising the will to choose one thing or another.
This concludes the expository exploration of the key verse, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). However, knowing the stubbornness of Christians, they may refuse to believe the truth because falsehoods are so much easier.
Is not Christianity much easier if the Ten Commandments are thrown away? That is what sola gratia and eternal security does! It is indeed by “grace alone” but grace must be found and kept on and encompassing the Christian entirely to protect them from the wiles of the Devil.
Paul was all wrapped up in Christ to the extent that he considered himself to be as Christ. For him, it was a lifetime event, and so it is for everyone else. You may be chosen, but you are not special, and neither was Paul. What applies to him, applies to all. You too must lose your “head” for Christ, but Paul did it for real, and for you, it is only to give to God your thoughts.
(picture credit: Reddit; "Continuity error")
No comments:
Post a Comment