I am not out to argue with anyone or prove them wrong. I’m fighting with the 2000 years of evil doctrine and theology that have trapped today’s believers in powerlessness as they long for God in the midst of their pain and bondage to sin.
Galatians 5 is a good example. Paul was concerned about believers getting tangled back up in the law because of teachers who had a different view of the Gospel. In verse 1 he says that if a person doesn’t continue to insist that God’s truth is true and thus chooses to believe something else, the end result will be a yoke of some type of slavery.
In verse 2, he focuses on the lie being taught that the men must be circumcised in accordance with Jewish law in order to be saved. This contained two lies. 1) They needed Christ plus just a little performance on the men’s part. 2) Women were less than men. But, Jesus had elevated women. The Judaizers were seeking to put them back where they had been. Paul said if this is the route you want to go, then Christ won’t benefit you.
In verse 3 he tells them that if they choose to follow even one law in order to please God then they have to follow all of them. Why? Because if they are not going to depend solely on their believing Christ as the security of their salvation then they have to save themselves.
In verse 4 he continues by telling them whoever chooses to live by rules (law) "has become barren, because they have moved away from Christ.” He then says they have fallen "out of the grace.”
As he says in verse 7, they knew the truth. They had been living in victory. "Who has cut into the truth so that you are no longer persuaded of it?” The word "cut into” is consistent with what the Gnostics and other heretics sought to accomplish. They sought to turn the oneness of God’s revelation of Himself into different pieces. The Triune God was no longer a whole unchangeable being but a monster with many faces, and you could never be sure which face was looking at you.
In verses 16 through 26 he wraps it all up by reminding them of the source of evil behavior, which in verse 19 he calls works, because those works make life a continual struggle. He then compares such evil behavior with the fruit of the Spirit. It is no struggle to make a vine produce fruit. All you do is properly feed, water, and remove the weeds and it will produce wonderful fruit, with no additional effort. The weeds are primarily wrong beliefs because of wrong teaching.
Paul, like John, was combating terrible doctrine which, if the people chose to believe, would make them powerless, "so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” It wasn’t the flesh or what they were doing that was causing them to sin. They were sinning because they were believing teaching that was contrary to what they had been taught in the beginning.
By the Fourth Century, the Church Fathers were seeking a way to codify sound doctrine by creating what came to be called the Nicene Creed. Unfortunatley, the Nicene Creed was the final gasps of a Church that was being overwhelmed by heresies seeking to remove all of its power and what made believers look different from the world.
In less than 200 years after that the world had entered the dark ages where the knowledge of God no longer was visible. When the world began to emerge from that darkness in the 1500s, believers no longer had the foundation laid by Jesus and the Apostles. They had the Greek texts. Everything they needed was there, but they had no foundation upon which to discern what God was saying. So, their understanding of what they read was filtered through each person’s own personal theology, which had just emerged from the dark ages.
I don’t believe people were seeking to believe lies. They were looking for answers to perplexing and disturbing realities in their lives and society. But, they didn’t have the foundation needed to properly understand the scriptures they were studying. Their interpretations of scripture were honest, but wrong.
This was not the design of man but the design of Satan. With very little help from any original documents, they were studying scriptures from the perspective that God was not really Who He claimed to be. If anyone would have suggested God is love, their proof otherwise was the 1000+ years of hell through which the world had just come and the misery they were still living. Their perspective is understandable. Newly emerging believers had little, if any, knowledge that would support that God is love or that He didn’t have a mean streak and was out to get anyone who crossed Him. But, they had plenty to confirm that the split in the nature of God promoted by Gnosticism was the truth. That split is what has enabled religious leaders to gain such control over the masses as well as making Christianity one more source of money power.
Whereas in the beginning believers knew where the concept of a dual nature God had come from, they now didn’t even know that the doctrine was heresy. Their own lives were proof of the duality and there was little to no evidence available to take them back to what the early Church had really believed. Too many, who by then were in "control” of the Church, had too much to lose by considering the real Gospel, if they even knew one existed. Until this day, there have been few to stand up and say, "The emperor has no clothes.” Now only God can restore what was lost, and He is.
Regarding Todd’s comments about the breaking point of God’s Word, don’t confuse human reasoning with God’s reasoning. Reasoning that uses God’s Word to say He meant something other than what He said absolutely does break down. But God is truth, and when what He says doesn’t make sense to us, He invites us to come boldly to His throne where He will joyfully tell us what He means. He doesn’t want us to change what He says to fit what we believe is possible. We don’t have to be afraid of taking God literally. What we need is for our eyes to be open to see what He is really saying.
Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I’m offended, because I’m not. Todd, you are the one that said if I can’t agree with you then this conversation can’t continue. "If you can't agree with even this point how can the discussion continue?"
Dave, you’re straining at gnats while swallowing flies. I thought the fact they died was too obvious to address it in my responses, but I give in. The Greek word translated sleep does, metaphorically mean death... OF COURSE those people who fell asleep died. That wasn’t the point. Does the fact that they died preclude falling asleep first? Of course not. Many First Century believers understood their union with God in Christ. They had no fear. Their fellowship with God was like Jesus being sound asleep in a raging storm that had the disciples apparently screaming in terror. There’s no contradiction. Yes, they died. But, don’t ignore the fact that it was common for believers’ everyday lives to be what today would either cause church members to stand in awe, or throw them out. Please don’t reinterpret the scriptures to say only what you believe is possible. Rather, let’s look at God’s Word and say, "Father, I believe you meant what you said. Now cause me to learn everything you can teach me from it.” Much of the world of theology experts hates what I am saying (and others like me) because they only want a God they can define as they see fit. You may not have thought of this but, if those believers who died really fell asleep first, then massive amounts of theology break down. It’s time it happened.
Let’s keep going in the things that will let believers discover the victory they long for. I’ve had enough of religion. What say you?
