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Watch a four part teaching series on The Dead Are Dead

Saturday, June 14, 2008

What does the Bible say about the cremation of a dead body? Is it right or wrong in God’s sight
Category: Religion and Philosophy

What does the Bible say about the cremation of a dead body? Is it right or wrong in God's sight?

There is no Bible verse that specifically addresses the issue of cremation in terms of whether it is right or wrong for Christians. In fact, God does not give any commandments about what a society is supposed to do with dead bodies. In the biblical cultures there were many different ways of dealing with the dead, and God does not specifically and directly encourage or prohibit any of them.

The preferred method of dealing with a dead body in ancient Israel was to bury it, but that was a custom, not a commandment. There were times when bodies were cremated, such as when the people of Jabesh Gilead cremated the body of King Saul, which had been desecrated by the Philistines, and they also burned the bodies of Saul's sons (1 Sam. 31:12). Also, the bodies of some criminals were cremated, such as egregious sexual offenders (Lev. 20:14; 21:9). Achan and his family, who brought the wrath of God down upon Israel, were cremated by the congregation (Josh. 7:25). Also, as is indicated in Amos 6:10, if there was a siege or plague, the bodies of the dead may have been burned. It is possible in these cremations that the bones were collected and buried, as was the case with Saul (1 Sam. 31:13).

Another practice in Israel and some surrounding countries was to leave the dead bodies of despised individuals on the ground, where they rotted and/or were eaten by birds or wild animals. That is what Goliath threatened to do with David (1 Sam. 17:44), and what David retorted that he would do to Goliath (1 Sam. 17:46). That is how Jehoiakim, an evil king of Judah, was treated (Jer. 22:19). After the future Battle of Armageddon, there will be so many dead bodies that they will be left unburied to be eaten by the birds and animals (Jer. 7:33; Rev. 19:21).

Like the Israelites, the Egyptians usually buried their dead, and even went so far as to elaborately embalm some of them. The Persians sometimes exposed their dead in the open air (which is what some American Indian tribes did). The ancient Greeks practiced burial, but later widely practiced cremation as well. The Romans generally preferred burial, but also used cremation, and, predating the Christian era, there are Roman memorials along the Appian Way (a major Roman road) to people who had been cremated. In Jerusalem during the Roman era, there is some evidence that the bodies of criminals were occasionally thrown into the Valley of Hinnom (in Hebrew: "Gehenna") just south of Jerusalem and burned.

Considering all the different ways the people of the biblical cultures dealt with their dead, it seems certain that if God had a particular way He wanted us to dispose of the bodies of our loved ones, He would have said so, if not in the Old Testament, certainly in the New, when cremation was much more widely practiced.

Why does it not seem to matter to God what we do with our dead? Although we may never be completely sure, one thing we do know: it places great emphasis on what we do while we are alive. The words of Ecclesiastes might ring in our ears: "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" (Ecc. 9:10).

Furthermore, no matter how dead bodies are handled, eventually they go back to "dust." God said that to Adam some 6,000 years ago, and it is quite true: "for dust you are, and to dust you will return" (Gen. 3:19). The Hebrew word translated "dust" is aphar, which is translated a number of ways in the Old Testament: dry earth, dust, powder, ashes, earth, ground, mortar, rubbish. There are a number of ways this decomposition back to dust can happen. A person could: 1) be buried, and slowly decompose underground; 2) be burned up in a fire, and thus decompose quickly; 3) drown, and eventually decompose under water; 4) die unattended and be eaten by animals and insects. Eventually, no matter how we die or what happens to our bodies afterward, we will end up as "dust." Apparently from God's perspective, in terms of how to dispose of a dead body, there is no right or wrong way for that to happen.

Personally, and practically, we think cremation makes sense in many cases. Though most Christians have been taught that death is only "separation from God," and that a "dead" person is "alive" in some incorporeal form, Scripture says that death is the end of life. Therefore, the person who died cannot know what happens to his body. And those who are responsible for its disposal will save a lot of money by having it cremated rather than spending a fortune for a fancy casket that will be buried and eventually rot away.

Jesus said that knowing the truth will make one free (John 8:31 and 32), the obvious converse to that is believing error puts one in bondage to some degree, whether he knows it or not. The erroneous teaching that only the body of a person dies, while his soul or spirit lives on somewhere, opens up all kinds of problematic ideas for his loved ones who are still alive.

In regard to the subject of this article, survivors may think that their dead relative is able to see how they dispose of his body. They may also think that the dead one now has the power to affect their lives either positively or negatively. Those beliefs may lead them to take on a large amount of debt in order to buy an expensive casket rather than one more reasonably priced, placing a financial burden on the family, which is a very sad situation.

To us the message in the Bible is very comforting, because it means we do not have to be consumed with grief about what has happened to the bodies of those we loved, no matter how or where they may have died. Biblically, there is no "right thing" to do with a dead body, which, from God's perspective, makes perfect sense. Death was never in the plan of God to begin with, and it is not permanent. Death is an enemy (1 Cor. 15:26), and those who sleep in death will be raised from the dead, no matter how their body retuned to dust, or how long they have been dust.

A point that is worth considering when it comes to the treatment of dead bodies is that after God raises the dead and judges them, each person will have one of two fates: live forever with God in a body that will never die and thus never need to be buried or cremated; or else be thrown into the lake of fire where the person will at some point be completely burned up, cremated by God.

Although there is no correct way to deal with a dead body, there is a right thing to do with your living body: get saved, come unto a knowledge of the truth, and serve God. If you get saved, you can be assured that if you do "fall asleep" before Christ comes for the Church, no matter when or how you die, you will be raised to everlasting life in a new body, never to die again. Every Christian will one day live again when the Lord Jesus comes to raise all dead Christians and take us up to meet him in the air, forever to be with him (1 Thess. 4:16 and 17).

Other great articles related to this topic:

What happens if or when you die?

In What State of Being Are the Dead?

Do Christians go to Heaven if they die?

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

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Category: Religion and Philosophy

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Watch a five part teaching series on the Permanence of Christian Salvation

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Adopted by God
Category: Religion and Philosophy

FAQ: I know that as Christians we are "born again of incorruptible seed" (1 Pet. 1:23). Why then do several places in the Church Epistles speak of our being "adopted" by God?

The Greek word translated "adoption" is huiothesia, and it occurs only five times in the New Testament, all in the Church Epistles (Rom. 8:15, 23; 9:4; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5). According to Vine's Lexicon it means: "the place and condition of a son given to one to whom it does not naturally belong." Louw and Nida's Greek Lexicon says: "to formally and legally declare that someone who is not one's own child is henceforth to be treated and cared for as one's own child, including complete rights of inheritance." Huiothesia literally means, "to place as a son."

"Adoption" clearly indicates that a Christian is a member of God's family. In the Roman culture, the adopted son or daughter had four major changes: a change of family, a change of name, a change of home, and a change of responsibilities. [1]

Most importantly, by using the word "adoption," God emphasizes that salvation is permanent for the Christian, which is why it appears only in the Church Epistles. Some versions translate huiothesia as "sonship," but we believe that is not as good as "adoption." While it is true that someone adopted into the family attains sonship (the status of a son), "adoption" is more accurate to the Greek meaning of the word, and it correctly expresses the fact that the adopted child is permanently placed in the family.

Birth seems so much more desirable than adoption that it is fair to ask why God would even use "adoption." The answer is that the Romans recognized that when a baby was born, "you got what you got," whether you liked it or not. This would include the sex of the child, birthmarks, etc. Thus, according to Roman law, a naturally born baby could be disowned from the family. However, people adopting a child knew exactly what they were getting, and no one adopted a child unless that specific child was wanted as a family member, so according to law an adopted child could not be disowned. He or she was permanently added to the family. Many early believers were Roman citizens, and using the word "adoption" was one of God's ways to let the Church know that He chose the children brought into His family, and they could not be taken from it. The Roman historian William M. Ramsay writes:

"The Roman-Syrian Law-Book…where a formerly prevalent Greek law had persisted under the Roman Empire—well illustrates this passage of the Epistle. It actually lays down the principle that a man can never put away an adopted son, and that he cannot put away a real son without good ground. It is remarkable that the adopted son should have a stronger position than the son by birth, yet it was so." [2]

Roman customs and laws differed from those of the Jews, and it is by understanding Jewish laws and customs that we see why "birth" is used in Peter and James, and "adoption" is used in Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians:

"Among the Jews, adoption had no importance, and hardly any existence. The perpetuity of the family, when a man died childless, was secured in another way, viz., the levirate. Only sons by blood were esteemed in the Hebrew view." [3]

The "levirate" that Ramsay refers to was the law stating that if a man died childless, his wife was to marry the man's brother, and then her oldest son would be counted as the child of the dead man and carry his name (Deut. 25:5-10; Mark 12:18-27).

God made salvation permanent for Christians, which was radically different from before the Church started on the Day of Pentecost. He worked very hard to communicate that change to His Church, which is composed of both former Jews and former Gentiles (when a Jew or Gentile believes, he or she does not lose his nationality, but in God's eyes is now a Christian, a new creation in Christ). Thus, in Scripture that has a distinctively Jewish flavor, such as Peter and James, God speaks of "birth" (anagennao, 1 Pet. 1:3, 23; apokueo, James 1:18), because birth and genealogy were very important to the Jews. They would immediately understand that a child "born" into God's family was a permanent member of His family. God also uses a word for "birth" (paliggenesi) in Titus 3:5. It is noteworthy that all three of these Greek words for birth are unique to writings to the Christian Church, another indication of the permanence of Christian salvation.

However, in books such as Romans, Ephesians, and Galatians, which were addressed to people with a Gentile background, He also speaks of "adoption." The same truth is communicated by both terms: the Christian becomes a permanent member of the family of God, because he is forever sealed in Christ (Eph. 1:13), and has a guaranteed hope (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14; NIV, ESV). While no verse in the Old Testament even hints that one day God would make salvation permanent, the permanence of salvation for Christians is the hallmark of the Sacred Secret.

This total change to permanent salvation is clearly taught in Galatians 4:1-5. The first three verses of the chapter show that before Jesus came, though the people of God were heirs, they were equal to slaves, being under guardians and enslaved to the basic principles of the world. God's equating Old Testament believers to minor children equal to slaves is very important, because a slave is not guaranteed a place in the family. Galatians goes on to say that when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son (3:4) so that we might receive "adoption" into His family.

Galatians 4:5 then says: "[God sent His Son] in order that he might redeem those who were under the law in order that we might receive the adoption." The two "in order that" clauses show that for people to be adopted into God's family, Christ first had to redeem them, and before Christ redeemed them they were under the law. Without Jesus paying the redemption price, no adoption was possible. Thus no Old Testament believer was adopted into God's family because adoption was not available yet. Adoption was available only after Christ died, and God started bring people into His family by "adopting" and "birth" on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after Christ died on the cross. Thus, permanent salvation was not available until Christ died, and was first made available when the Church started on the Day of Pentecost. For further study on the permanence of Christian salvation, see our book, The Gift of Holy Spirit: The Power to be Like Christ, Appendix A: "The Administration of the Sacred Secret."

Guaranteed Salvation

Righteousness - Every Christian's Gift from God

Which parts of the Bible are written to you?

A New Holy Spirit: The Power to be like Christ

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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Free Bible-based audio teachings
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Please check out our free Bible-based audio teachings!

Some of the teachings you will find are:

What is the Church?

Take up the Armor of God

Truth Matters: Part One - Truth Seekers

Jesus Christ Our Approach Offering

Understanding Healing in its Biblical Context

Failing Forward

What Jesus Christ is Doing For Us Today

Healthy Submission

Financial Stewardship - God's Heart Concerning Money And Possessions

Overcoming Evil with Good: A Response to the Tragedy of September 11, 2001

The Role Of Women In The Church

The Last Week Of Christ's Life

The Ministry of Angels to Believers

To listen to these, and many more, click here!

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

What is the point of Prayer?
Category: Religion and Philosophy

FAQ: If, as the Bible says, God knows what we need, what is the point of prayer, and why should we spend valuable time praying to Him for something?

I'm not sure—let me pray about it. Just kidding. The easy answer to the question is: because God tells us to (e.g., "Pray continually"). But that begs the question of why He tells us to pray, so let's delve into that a bit. And "a bit" is all we can do here, at least compared to how many verses of Scripture there are about prayer. For more elaboration on this critical subject, I recommend our audio teaching, Let Us Pray. I also recommend a book by Brother Andrew titled, And God Changed His Mind, as well as The God Who Risks, by John Sanders. Among many books on the subject of prayer, the work of E.M. Bounds is very good.

Although prayer can be most simply defined as "talking to or with God," there are in the Bible various kinds of communication and conversation with the Almighty. Thinking of a Father/child relationship helps us determine what categories such communication would fall into. Why and how would a child talk to his father?

Petitionary prayer is perhaps what most people think of first, that is, asking God for something for ourselves or for someone else. God often encourages us to come to Him for whatever we need, be it big or small (e.g., Phil. 4:6). 1 John 5:14 guides us to pray for things that are in accordance with His will, and His Word is where we find His will. Far too many Christians needlessly preface their prayers with "If it be your will…" when more understanding of Scripture would reveal to them whether or not this is the case.

Praise, worship, thanksgiving, and exaltation of God are other forms of verbalizing to Him what is in our heart (see just about any Psalm). He loves it when we tell Him how wonderful we think He is. Why, because His ego needs to be stroked? Heavens, no! Everything God asks us to do is for our benefit, first and foremost. When we praise God and magnify His goodness, it solidifies for us how much He loves us and wants the best for us, and our faith in Him is strengthened.

What about just talking things over with God or the Lord Jesus? That's cool.

Asking for guidance and/or direction—there's another form of prayer. See James 1:5ff for more details.

How about griping? I'd say there is plenty of that kind of upward communication in the Psalms. David was always ready to pour out his heart to God, be it good, bad, or ugly.

How does God say we should pray? According to Luke 18:1ff, we should pray insistently, vigorously and persistently. Luke 18:9ff shows that we should pray with humility. 1 John 5:14 says that we should pray for things that are in line with God's will. Philippians 4:6 says that we should pray with thankful anticipation of our prayers being answered. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says that we should pray continually—in other words, God really wants us to stay in touch with Him!

OK, but why does God tell us that we should pray as much as possible? The basic reason is because of how He originally chose to relate to mankind. That is, (a) once upon a time (b) when He was all alone (c) in the beginning (d) all of the above, God sovereignly decided to enter into a personal, working relationship with mankind. Scripture calls us "God's fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9)," and shows that, generally, God needs our prayer in order to get involved in the affairs of men and bring to pass His will. According to the Bible, life is not a big puppet show with God pulling all the strings.

Think about it—if God had carte blanche to intervene in the world and right every wrong, He would constantly be doing so, because by His very nature ("God is love") He is bound to do all He can to help people. But God gave Adam the legal dominion over Creation, and Adam "delivered" it to the Devil (Luke 4:6), and because God cannot act unrighteously, even toward Satan, He cannot intervene unless He is given the legal right to do so.

And who is it that gives God that right? A born-again son or daughter of His who, by virtue of his or her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior, has been given authority to invoke "the name of Jesus Christ" and thereby access the same power that created the heavens and the earth and raised Jesus from the dead. That's who. Is that who you?

Have you ever watched "Bigtime Wrestling," and seen a tag team match? It is akin to how prayer works. Let's say that you are the one of your two-man team who is inside the ropes wrestling one of the other team partners. He gets you in a hold that will pin you unless you can somehow stretch out and touch your tag team partner.

But why do you have to touch him? Why doesn't your partner just jump in and clobber the guy? He can't, because the rule is that he cannot intervene unless you "tag" him. Unfortunately for you, however, your teammate has his back to the ring, oblivious to your predicament, signing autographs! Not if he is a good partner, he doesn't. What is his posture? He is leaning over the ropes as far as he can toward you, extending his hand for you to touch him.

When it comes to the spiritual war in which we live, God and the Lord Jesus are never out of reach, and if you stretch out in prayer and "touch" them, they will always provide something beneficial for you, even if it is "only" comfort and strength in time of suffering.

I forget who it was that said, "Prayer is not forcing God's reluctance; it is taking hold of God's willingness," but I love that statement. When we pray, we are connecting with the Creator. Prayer focuses our hearts on God and reminds us of our absolute dependence upon our heavenly Father. Perhaps that is why Philippians 4:7 says that when we pray with thankful anticipation, "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

When we know God's will from His Word, we can pray with greater faith, knowing that we are aligned with His purposes. The traditional "praying hands" are not like they are in a tug-of-war with God. In fact, even the palms-together posture seems insufficient to me. I think "praying hands" are palms up, expectantly ready to receive our Father's blessings.

Despite the popular ideas among many Christians that "God is in control" and that "everything that happens is God's will," Scripture says otherwise. Jesus himself debunked the latter of those two myths in "the Lord's Prayer" when he instructed his followers to pray, "Thy will be done on earth..." If everything that happens is the will of God, why pray that?

Yes, thanks to the finished work of Jesus Christ, God's ultimate goal of a family living forever in Paradise will come to pass, but who will be there and what rewards they will receive is determined by the individual, free-will choices that people make moment by moment during their lives. Remember, God is not the Big Puppeteer in the sky. How do I know for sure that God is not in control of my life? Because if He were, it would be a lot better!

If the future were already fixed, prayer would be superfluous. But God chose to enter into genuine personal relationship with mankind, and thus our prayers make a difference to Him. The prayers of Moses (Ex. 8 and 32) and Hezekiah (2 Kings 20) are two Old Testament examples of God responding to people and changing what He saw was going to come to pass. Prayer changes things (actually, prayer allows God to change things)—history would not be the same had people not prayed. God has invited His people to participate with Him in shaping the future.

Some quotes from The God Who Risks, by John Sanders (pp. 272 and 273), are most pertinent here: "God wants us to be His partners not because He needs our wisdom, but because He wants our fellowship…Our requests are important because God is interested in us. God loves us and takes our concerns to heart just because they are our concerns. This is the nature of a personal, loving relationship. The relationship is not one of domination or manipulation but of participation and cooperation wherein we become co-laborers with God (1 Cor. 3:9)…It is so only because God wanted a reciprocal relationship of love and elected to make dialogical prayer an important element in such a relationship."

"God has open routes into the future, and He desires that we participate with Him in determining which ones to take. This should not be construed, however, to mean that we get whatever we want. We may prevail with God because God genuinely takes our desires into account. Yet God may also prevail with us, getting us to change our minds and pursue a course of action that we did not initially think best. In this regard, prayer provides a dialogical resource for God to work in this world. When we turn to God in prayer, we open a window of opportunity for the Spirit's work in our lives, creating new possibilities for God to carry out His project. Dialogical prayer affects both parties and changes the situation, making it different from what it was prior to the prayer…Our asking in faith may make it possible for God to do something that He could not have done without our asking."

I don't know about you, but knowing that my heavenly Father longs to have me share my heart with Him, and that my prayers make a difference in the course of history, motivates me to pray. And I need to remind myself of this—often.

Should we pray? Yes!

Why should we pray? Because God needs our prayers to help Him bring to pass His will.

How should we pray? Passionately!

When should we pray? Any time!

Where should we pray? Anywhere!

Recommended Reading:

Don't Blame God! A Biblical Answer to the Problem of Evil, Sin and Suffering

Is it true that a hurricane is an "act of God"?

Where was God on September 11, 2001?

To Grieve or not to Grieve?

Must Satan Ask God's Permission To Do Evil?

Does God determine the time of a person's death?

Is God A Murderer?

Does God know every future event in human history?

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How to be Saved and Salvation by Faith

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Becoming a Christian: Why? What? How?
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Why Should I Care?

There is a very common statement that only two things are certain—death and taxes. Though death is unavoidable, people instinctively fear it and are always in pursuit of a way around it. Some wealthy people are freezing their bodies in the hope that a future society can cure the sickness that killed them. Others pursue medical means of averting the aging process—just to live a few more years. Christianity makes very specific promises concerning the availability of a wonderful everlasting life. If there is even a remote chance that the Bible is right and man can live forever, doesn't it make sense to check it out?

The other crucial issue concerns the quality of one's life here and now. People spend vast amounts of time and money in pursuit of happiness and personal fulfillment, very often without finding satisfaction and true peace of mind. Wealth, physical fitness, community recognition, leisure time, wide screen televisions, and vacations in Bermuda all fail to deliver a lasting sense of true contentment to the restless human soul. If there were a way of discovering the keys to experiencing authentic love, joy, peace, and other such desirable and intangible commodities, wouldn't it make sense to pursue this knowledge? Christianity boldly makes this claim—that these things can become the everyday reality for those who learn how to cultivate a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

What is a Christian?

Biblically, a Christian is someone who is "saved." This is also known as being "born again." At your first birth—when you were born into this world—you were born with a sin nature. This is a major reason why people sin. When you confess Christ as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, you become a Christian, i.e., you get "born again" and become a member of the family of God. At your "new birth" you receive a new nature, the righteous nature of God and Christ.

What is "salvation"?

The Bible uses the word "saved" to refer to people who are "rescued" from eternal death by receiving the gift of everlasting life. When a person who cannot swim falls into the water, he yells, "Save me," meaning "rescue me." That is what "saved" means. It means to be "rescued" from eternal death.

Every human being is born into sin and death and has subsequently sinned against God by breaking His laws. Therefore, every person needs to be rescued ("saved") from the penalty of that sin. Romans 6:23 says: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life...." Your sins have earned you death, but salvation from the power of sin and death is available through Jesus Christ.

What if I don't feel like a sinner? Why should I worry about it?

Even if you don't feel like a sinner, when you are honest you are aware that something is fundamentally flawed about you and the world around you. We all experience ourselves knowing what is the right thing to do and yet not being able to live accordingly. We find ourselves and others gripped by self-destructive behaviors that make no sense, yet we continue on. This experience is the direct result of what the Bible calls "sin," or a state of separation from, and disobedience to, the heart and will of God. Therefore, whether you feel it or not, you are affected by the disease of sin and cannot escape it unless you are "inoculated" against it by the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Other religions either deny the reality of sin or cannot provide a legitimate atonement for it.

How much will salvation cost me?

Nothing. Why? Because it was paid for by someone else. Have you ever received a gift? How much did the gift cost you? Nothing. Why? Someone else paid for it. All you had to do was accept the gift. Well, the gift of salvation has also been paid for. Scripture is clear that Jesus Christ paid for our salvation with his life. The best known Bible verse in the world says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). You see, the wages of sin is death, and so Christ died to pay that debt. God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for you so you can have everlasting life.

Salvation comes to you as a "gift." Remember Romans 6:23 just quoted above? It says, "...the gift of God is eternal life...." And Romans 6:23 is not the only verse to call salvation a gift. In Romans 5:15-17, the word "gift" is used five times! You don't work for a gift—it is freely given. The gift of salvation and everlasting life is being offered to you simply because God loves you. Why should God love you? Because He is love, and He created you. He wants you to spend eternity with Him, too, but that is up to you—it is your decision. You can have eternal life through Christ if you want it.

How do I receive the free gift of God's salvation?

Scripture is very clear on this. God really wants you to be saved, so He has made the instructions very easy:

Romans 10:9
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Simple, huh? Sure it is. It is a gift—it was paid for by Jesus Christ and is now being offered to you. What kind of "gift" would it be if it were hard to get? By definition, gifts are easy to receive. Salvation is very, very important, so let's be sure we understand God's instructions. To be saved, you must confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

What does that mean? It means that you say what the Bible clearly declares; that Jesus is Lord, i.e., that he is the Son of God who died for your sins, was raised from the dead and highly exalted to the right hand of God. Have you ever opened your mouth and said, "Jesus is Lord?" You know, a lot of people think Jesus is Lord, but they have never said it. Why not say it right now? Just say, "Jesus is Lord."

Once you have said with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, Romans 10:9 goes on to say that you are to believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. What is it to believe in your heart? It means to really believe it. Is that difficult? No, not at all. You probably believe that George Washington was the first president of the United States, even though you never saw him. In the same way, there are many, many valid reasons to believe that God raised Jesus up from the dead.

Once you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you are saved. Salvation is very easy because God wants all men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), and He is offering it as a free gift.

Many verses in the New Testament show that salvation is easy to get and that you get it by believing, or trusting, in Jesus. The Bible often uses the phrase having "faith in Jesus." "Faith" is a biblical word that means "trust." Thus, having faith in Jesus simply means trusting in him, and thus trusting that his work is adequate for you to be saved. The following are just a few of the Scriptures that clearly teach that salvation is by faith.

Romans 3:22
"…righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ…." (Righteousness is the state of being right before God. When you confess that Christ is Lord and that he rose from the dead, your sin is paid for and you are "right" with God, so the Bible says that your righteousness comes by faith [trust] in Jesus Christ. All saved people are righteous in God's sight).

Romans 3:26
God "...justifies those who have faith in Jesus" ("Justifies" is a legal word. We are "just" in the sight of God because Jesus has paid for our sin and there is no sin against us, so the Bible calls us "justified." A good way to remember the definition of "justified" is by thinking, it is "just if I'd" never sinned).

Romans 3:28
"…man is justified by faith…."

Romans 5:1
"…we have been justified through faith...."

Romans 9:30
"…righteousness that is by faith."

Romans 10:4
"Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."

Galatians 2:15
"[We]…know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ."

There is no need to quote more verses, the point is made—God makes it easy to be saved. Once, in his travels, the Apostle Paul was thrown in prison. A jailer asked Paul the most important question any human could ask: "...what must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). Paul's answer was short and to the point: "...Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved..." (Acts 16:31). The same is as true for you and me as it was for that jailer nearly 2000 years ago. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, you will be saved.

Don't I have to do some kind of work to be saved—get baptized in water, confess my sin, etc?

No. Christ paid for your salvation. It is offered as a gift. The Bible says your salvation is a gift. It plainly states you get salvation by faith. It also specifically says that salvation is not earned by works:

Ephesians 2:8 and 9
(8) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
(9) not by works, so that no one can boast.

This verse is very clear. It says that you have been saved by God's grace through your faith. That means that when you have faith in Christ, God saves you by His grace ("grace" is undeserved favor from God). The verse goes on to say that salvation is a gift and that it is not by works.

Many Christians do not realize that salvation is a gift of God's grace and that it is "not by works." They are taught that to be saved they must go to church or lead an almost perfect life with no drinking, dancing, etc. That is simply not what the Bible says about salvation! No one can find a verse that says, "You must go to church to be saved," because there is no such verse. Nor are there any verses that say that you must lead an almost perfect life to be saved. Salvation is a gift—you do not earn it by your works, you receive it by faith in Christ's work. God saves us because we need it, not because we earn it or deserve it.

There are many people doing good works who have never confessed that Jesus is Lord and who do not believe in his resurrection. Often they are taught that if you are a good person, God will give you eternal life. The Bible is very clear that good works do not save you, as we have just read in Ephesians 2:8 and 9. It is wonderful to do good works or be a "good person," but that does not get you saved. The Bible says that the unsaved person is dead in sin (Eph. 2:1), and no one who is "dead" can do any good works. He must first receive life via the new birth, and then he can work for God. Don't guess about how to get eternal life. God gave you His Word to openly show you the way of salvation, and Jesus said, "...I am the way and the truth and the life...." You come to the Father through Jesus.

Do I lose my everlasting life if I sin after I have been saved?

You cannot get saved by doing good works, and you cannot undo your salvation if you sin. Your salvation and everlasting life are gifts from God. God never takes back His gift of salvation. The Bible is very clear about this. It says: "for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable" (Rom. 11:29). In the translation of the New Testament known as The Message, that verse is translated very powerfully: "God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded."

Many people teach that if you sin, you lose your salvation and then you have to get saved all over again, but that is not true. God wants you to be absolutely sure that you cannot lose your salvation, so the Bible emphasizes its permanence in many ways.

As you have seen, salvation is called a "gift" over and over, and the Bible specifically says the gifts of God are irrevocable.

A term for salvation is "born again" or "new birth" (1 Pet. 1:3 and 23). We all know that birth is permanent. Once I am born, I am a child of my mother and father forever. Even if I am a horrible kid and my parents really don't like me, the birth is permanent. God wants Christians to know that He loves us and that we are His children no matter how we behave, so He uses the term "birth" to describe what happens to us when we are saved. Birth is a one-time occurrence that cannot be undone.

Another term for your salvation is "adoption." At first you may wonder why God would say you are "adopted" when saying you are "born" into His family seems so much more wonderful. The answer to that question lies in the Roman law and culture at the time the New Testament was written. According to Roman law, adoption into a Roman family was permanent, but a naturally born child could be disowned. So, in writing to the Roman people (as in the books of Romans, Ephesians, and Galatians), God used the word "adoption" so they would be sure to understand that their salvation was permanent. [For further study read Adopted by God.]

When you are saved, God gives you holy spirit, His gift, on the inside. Because it is spirit, you can't feel that it is within you, but it is God's permanent seal in you that you are His child. Ephesians is very clear about getting saved by believing and then being sealed with holy spirit:

Ephesians 1:13 and 14
(13) And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised holy spirit,
(14a) [which] ...is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance….

Read those verses again. They are so rich. The Bible says you are sealed with holy spirit, God's gift. Therefore, you are sealed. God's salvation does not "leak out" if you sin. You were sealed when you believed, and that seal is a "guarantee" of eternal life, your "inheritance" with the Lord.

Because your salvation is permanent and you cannot lose it, God says you are His child! "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! ...Dear friends, now we are children of God..." (1 John 3:1 and 2a). Surely it cannot be that one day you are a child of God and the next day you aren't. God chose to communicate to us in the words we use in our everyday speech, and we all know that children are a permanent addition to a family. No one has children in his family one day and then does not have them in the family the next day. The same is true for God's family as for our human families. God calls you His child to make the point that you are permanently in His family. That is also why unbelievers are never called "children" of God—they are not part of the family.

Children have their father's "seed" in them, and Christians are born of "imperishable seed" (1 Pet. 1:23). The Bible is very clear: If you are saved, you are born into God's family, you are permanently adopted, you are sealed with holy spirit and God calls you a child of God.

Why should I stop sinning if I cannot lose my salvation?

That's a good question, and there is a good answer. First, anyone who lives a sinful life becomes a slave "to sin" (Rom. 6:16). People who live lives of sin are often guilt-ridden, depressed, unhappy people. Sin takes its toll on people, and Christians should want to escape the tyranny of sin.

Second, you are united to Christ, identified with him in the most intimate way possible. That is, you were crucified with him, you died with him, you were buried with him, raised with him from the dead, ascended with him and seated with him at the right hand of God (Rom. 6:1-10; Eph. 2:6). Being thus joined with Christ, why would you want to continue to be joined to sin in your day-to-day life?

Third, it is right and proper to thank the one who has given you a gift. God and His Son have given you the greatest gift of all—everlasting life. The greatest gift you can give back is your life in service to them.

Fourth, there are many people who do not know God and who desperately need salvation. They could die any day and miss eternal life. What a terrible loss that would be! One of the things that turn people off to God and the Church is hypocrisy. If you are a Christian don't live like one, you make it more difficult for the non-believer to come to Christ.

Fifth, how you live and serve in this life will determine how God will reward you in your future life in God's kingdom. Christ is going to come back to earth and set up a kingdom ("...the meek...will inherit the earth"), and not every person in that kingdom will have the same rewards. Many verses attest to this truth:

Matthew 16:27
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

1 Corinthians 3:12-15
(12) If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,
(13) his work will be shown for what it is,…It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work.
(14) If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward
(15) If it is burned up, he will suffer loss....

2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Colossians 3:23-25
(23) Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,
(24) since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
(25) Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.

There are many other verses like these that plainly say that Christians will be rewarded in the future kingdom of Christ for what they do for him now. The Bible exhorts you to work hard now so that you will be richly rewarded in the future kingdom.

I've done so many terrible things in my life. Can I still be saved?

The Word of God is clear that every person has sinned. Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." When it comes to sin, God's opinion of all people is the same: "...There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Rom. 3:10-12).

God is realistic about people—we are all sinners. The Bible never makes a statement like "Christ died for everyone except murderers" or "Christ died for everyone except adulterers." The Bible states very clearly that God gave His Son so that "...whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

The Apostle Paul described himself as "chief of sinners," because he tortured and killed Christians before becoming one himself. To him, he was as low as a human being can go morally—to actually be a murderer of God's people. Paul is a wonderful example of the mercy and longsuffering of the Lord, for if a man like him can be saved, anyone can be.

I have heard that people change when they are saved. Is this true?

There is a wonderful spiritual transformation that occurs in your life when you get saved. However, the changes do not automatically occur in your mind or your behavior. The changes occur in what you receive from God and in the relationship you have with Him. When you are saved, you:

Become a child of God

Are given holy spirit, the gift of God's divine nature on the inside.

Are righteous in God's sight.

Are justified before God.

Are sanctified (that is, "made holy") in God's sight (1 Cor. 1:2).

Are redeemed from the power of sin and death.

Go from being dead in sin to having everlasting life.

These changes are very real and should powerfully influence how a Christian thinks and lives. But because these changes do not automatically affect a person's behavior, each Christian has a decision to make. Are you going to believe what you see and feel ("Gee, I don't feel righteous or holy, etc.") or are you going to believe what God says in His Word? As a Christian, you must learn to "...live by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). It is essential to good Christian living to learn to trust what God says. For example, God says He loves you, and God's love is real even if you don't feel loved. The same goes for what God has made you to be in Christ and how He thinks about you. God made you righteous, sanctified (holy), and justified even if you do not feel that way.

I have heard that you can tell a saved person by the good works that he or she does.

When you are saved, you are brought into God's family. You become a child of God, are born again and sealed with holy spirit. However, your behavior does not usually change right away. Occasionally you hear of someone who, at the time he was saved, had a wonderful change in his life that God accomplished. For example, an alcoholic may have immediately given up alcohol. That kind of thing sometimes happens, but it is the exception, not the rule.

God gives careful instructions to His children regarding godly behavior. The Bible says not to lie, cheat, or steal. It commands you not to commit adultery. It says to put away bitterness and revenge and instead to be patient, kind, and loving. It says to be giving and to pray. There are many things the Bible tells you so that you can lead a godly life. It takes time, effort, and discipline to learn to keep the commands of God and live like a Christian. Many verses attest to this, and we will quote two:

Galatians 5:16 and 17
(16) So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
(17) For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other....

Romans 12:2
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind….

You have to make up your mind to obey God and do what He says. If you don't, you will listen to the "...desires of your sinful nature" and miss out on His blessings. It is not always easy to keep the commands of God. Even the great Apostle Paul occasionally wrestled with his sinful nature and had a hard time (Rom. 7:14-20). You may not always succeed at keeping God's commands, but He wants you to do your best. You will be rewarded at the Judgment for the things you do for Christ now. Changing the flesh is your job. God will help, but He can't do it without you. The reason that so many Christians are "carnal Christians" is that they have never decided to go to war with their flesh and bring their body into obedient submission to the Word of God. These carnal Christians are still saved, but they are living like unbelievers.

Does the Bible say what the next life will be like?

It certainly does. And it is unfortunate that, in many Christian Churches, tradition has for the most part hidden the truth about the future God reveals in the Bible. Knowing about the future is supposed to motivate people to want to be saved, and motivate the saved to want to obey God. Most Christians believe that the saved will spend forever in "heaven", a place somewhere up in the air. This contradicts the clear teaching of Jesus and the Bible. In one of the best known Bible verses, Jesus taught that "...the meek...will inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5).

God made the earth for people to live on and enjoy. The Bible says that in the future there will be a new earth that will replace this earth that has been corrupted. It would not make sense for God to create a "new earth" if all the saved people were going to live in heaven. God has to make a new earth in the future because the one we live on now will be destroyed. Some of the things that the Bible says about life on the future earth are:

The Messiah will rule over an eternal kingdom (Dan. 2:44, 7:13 and 14; Rev. 22:3-5).

The Messiah will rule from Jerusalem, from David's throne (Isa. 9:7).

The wicked will be destroyed, but the meek will inherit the earth (Ps. 37:9-11; Ezek. 37:11 and 12; Dan. 12:2 and 3; Zeph. 3:8-12; Mal. 4:1).

The saved will know God (Isa. 11:9; Jer. 31:33 and 34; Ezek. 11:18-20; 1 Cor. 13:12).

There will be justice on earth (Isa. 2:4, 9:6 and 7, 11:1-5, 32:1,2,5,16 and 17; Jer. 23:5 and 6, 33:15).

There will be no war (Isa. 2:4, 9:4-7; Hosea 2:18; Mic. 4:3 and 4; Zech. 9:9-11).

People will be healed of sickness and disease (Isa. 29:18, 32:3 and 4, 33:24, 35:5 and 6; Jer. 33:6; Mal. 4:2).

The people will live safely (Isa. 11:6-9, 32:18, 54:14-17, 60:15-18, 65:17-25; Jer. 23:4-6, 33:6; Ezek. 28:26, 34:25-31; Mic. 5:4 and 5; Zeph. 3:13-17).

The land will be healed and the deserts will bloom (Isa. 32:15, 35:1,2,7, 41:18-20, 44:3, 51:3).

There will be an abundance of food (Isa. 25:6, 30:23-26; Jer. 31:5, 11-14; Ezek. 47:1-12; Hosea 2:21 and 22; Joel 2:19-26, 3:18; Amos 9:13).

The future life God offers is one of food, fun, and fellowship. It is hard to imagine a life with no sickness, no war or fighting, no injustice, more food than we can eat and all the time in the world to enjoy each other and purposeful activity, but Christians will get to enjoy that life—forever.

God is offering you everything you have always wanted in this life but just can't seem to get, and all you have to do to get it is to accept His free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Don't let God's offer pass you by, and don't miss out on everything you've always wanted, but won't get in this life. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord—say it out loud—and believe the testimony of the Bible that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

What happens to me if I do not accept God's gift of eternal life?

The Bible says that "...the wages of sin is death..." (Rom. 6:23). Jesus Christ will judge every person who has ever lived. Those who have accepted his free gift of salvation will receive everlasting life. Nevertheless, they will be judged to determine exactly what they will get in the next life, being rewarded or disciplined according to what their deeds in this life deserve (2 Cor. 5:10; Col. 3:23-25; 1 Thess. 4:6; 2 Tim. 2:12; 1 John 2:28). Those who have not accepted Christ because they have not heard of him or his work will be judged righteously according to his wisdom and their works. Those who have rejected him and die in their sins will be thrown into the lake of fire and be burned up (Rev. 20:15). So the choice you have is either to receive the promise of everlasting life in Christ or be judged by your works instead of Christ's work. You risk having to pay the wages of your sin, which is everlasting death.

Gambling and lotteries are common in today's world, and people know when the odds are against them. God has stated how to make eternal life a "sure thing." There are people who are gambling that ignorance will protect them at the Judgment, but that is a bad bet. God makes it plain that if you seek, you will find, so the person who hears a little but then makes the decision to go his own way will not fare well at the Judgment. You must decide to accept or reject the person and work of Jesus Christ. There is every reason to accept Jesus Christ and no good reason to reject him. Why would anyone knowingly choose death over life?

It is a common teaching in Christianity that the unsaved will burn forever, but that cannot be true, for then everyone would have everlasting life (albeit of poor quality). The Bible is clear that only the saved have eternal life. The wicked will receive the wages of their sin—death. There are many verses that say the wicked will be destroyed, and the way they will be destroyed is that they will be burned up. Although there are a few verses that seem to say that wicked people will burn forever, in the original text these actually mean that some people will take a long time to burn up. It was common in the biblical culture to make a point by exaggeration. For example, Christ said, "...if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out..." (Matt. 18:9). Of course, he would be horrified if someone actually did it. Christ just meant to take seriously putting an end to your sinning. There will be a time of burning before some very wicked people are completely consumed, and it may seem like an eternity to them. [For further study read Is There Death After Life?]

The Bible is God's Word and does not contradict itself. The few verses that some people interpret to say that people will burn forever must be understood in light of the dozens of clear verses that say that the unsaved will be destroyed. Malachi 4:1 is one example of a clear passage teaching that the wicked will be brought to ashes. But there is no reason to be destroyed in the flames. On the new earth you can live the life you have always dreamed about—so why not accept Christ as your Lord and Savior?

The idea that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and the concept that the Bible is "the truth" are hard for me to believe. What do I do now?

Keep seeking. God promises that if you ask, He will answer. This is a small booklet, and so obviously it cannot cover everything. We have material on Jesus Christ, the resurrection, the infallibility and believability of the Bible, and much more. Don't be afraid of your doubt—God isn't. Doubt and uncertainty are not the same as arrogance and hardheartedness. Thomas doubted the resurrection, but Christ did not reject Thomas. Instead Christ revealed himself in such a way that Thomas could believe. If you honestly and diligently seek Him, God will make sure you find Him.

Some of the things I have just read in this booklet are things I have never seen before.

Truth is truth whether or not you have heard it before. Go to the Lord in prayer and to the Word of God with intellectual rigor and honesty and search out what it really says. The Word of God shows you the way to be saved, what you have when you are saved and where you will spend eternity. We at Spirit & Truth Fellowship International ® /Chrisitian Educational Services will be happy to assist you in your search of the Scriptures if you desire help.

Righteousness - Every Christian's Gift from God

An Overview of the Sacred Secret

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Righteousness - Every Christian’s Gift from God
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Righteousness is being "right" with God

Every person likes to feel accepted and loved. Knowing that others love and accept us is important for our health and well-being. Yet many Christians are so aware of their faults and shortcomings that they do not feel that God accepts them. Also, the fact that many do not feel accepted by their family or others contributes to their doubting that God could accept them. The purpose of this short study is to show from Scripture that every Christian is righteous before God. Biblically, righteousness is being "right" with God. When a person is "righteous," he or she is "innocent," "faultless," or "not guilty" before God. The righteous person is "right" with God.

One word, two distinct uses

There is a lot of confusion among Christians about righteousness. Some say that we are righteous because of our good works, and others say our righteousness comes by faith apart from our works. Why the confusion? One reason is that the word "righteous" is used in two different ways in the New Testament. Christians must see and understand the difference between the two usages.

1. There are times in the New Testament when the word "righteous" refers to right or "righteous" acts, which is how it is used in the Old Testament. For example:

2 Timothy 2:22
Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness [i.e., pursue doing righteous works].

2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness [i.e., in doing righteous works].

Titus 3:5
He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

These three scriptures, and some others, use "righteousness" to mean, "doing what is right before God." We should do our best to live in a righteous manner before God because this honors God and Christ. However, even when we do our best, we still fall short of God's perfection, and this can cause us to feel unworthy before Him.

2. The second way "righteousness" is used in the New Testament is to describe the position that Christians have before God because of our faith in Jesus Christ. This righteousness is a spiritual reality and is completely separate from the works we do. It is this second usage of "righteous" that is the focus of this study.

"Righteousness" is the position of being totally acceptable to, and accepted by, God. Each Christian became acceptable to God when the sin that stood between him and God was washed away by the blood of Christ. Thus, "righteousness" is our standing in the sight of God as people who are "right" and "accepted" in spite of our sins, failures, and shortcomings. This "righteousness by faith" was not available before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and therefore it is not mentioned in the Old Testament or the Four Gospels. It is first revealed in the Church Epistles, which are specifically written to Christians.

The gift of righteousness

No human being is "good enough" to earn righteousness in God's sight. The Bible confirms what honest people already know: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). Because we all sin, it is impossible to be "right" with God based on our own merits. Our lives are so full of sins, shortcomings, and failures that the Bible says: "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isa. 64:6). We sin far too often to be righteous before God on our own, but we can be righteous in His sight through our faith in Jesus Christ.

God knew that no one would ever be able to earn a righteous standing in His sight, so in His grace and mercy God gave us righteousness as a gift. The book of Romans tells us that death came by Adam, but we have God's gift of righteousness through Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:17
For if, by the trespass of the one man [Adam], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Praise God for His wonderful gift of righteousness! Praise the Lord Jesus Christ who died to pay for our sins so that they would not be counted against us. It is our sins that make us "unrighteous" before God, but Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins, allowing us to stand righteous in God's presence.

Scripture declares our righteousness

God wants us to be certain that we are righteous in His sight, so it is stated very clearly in Scripture.

Romans 3:20-25a
(20) Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
(21) But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
(22) This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
(23) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
(24) and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
(25a) God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice...

This section of Scripture is so important that we need to study it verse by verse.

Verse 20: "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."

This verse states that we cannot be righteous before God by works, i.e., by trying to keep the Mosaic Law with all its commandments. On the contrary, the verse says that knowing what God requires of us only makes us more aware of where we fall short. The Bible very clearly states that if we could become righteous by our own works, then Christ did not need to die: "If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" (Gal. 2:21b).

I believe that verse twenty contains the essence of the problem that most Christians deal with when it comes to righteousness before God. We were all raised in a world where, to be accepted, we had to do things right and keep the rules, i.e., "observe the law." To be accepted by our parents we had to keep the rules, to be accepted in school we had to keep the rules, to be accepted where we work we have to keep the rules, to be accepted by our friends we have to keep the rules (although they are usually unspoken rules, they are there).

It is imbedded in the core of our being that in order to be accepted we must live up to a certain standard. But God's rules are so pure, so holy, and so righteous, and we are so weakened by our sin nature, fleshly desires, and human weaknesses, that we cannot keep them. We fall short constantly. Consequently, our instinct takes over and says we are not acceptable, and then that is how we feel—unloved and unaccepted. However, God is telling us as loudly as He can that we will neither become righteous nor feel righteous by keeping the rules: "No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law." We need to make up our minds right here and now that the fact that we sin and fall short of God's perfection does not make us unrighteous.

Verse 21: "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify."

Thank God! We are not able to keep all of God's rules and regulations, and, thankfully, we do not have to in order to be righteous before Him. Righteousness apart from works has been made known. The Law of Moses taught that a person could be righteous if he obeyed all the Law (Deut. 6:25). The problem was, no one could do it. Jews could not keep all the Law during Old Testament times, and Christians cannot keep all of God's rules now. Why not? Because, as Romans 8:3 says, our efforts are "weakened" by our "sinful nature." Although we cannot be right with God by our own works, righteousness from God has been made available to us. How do we acquire it? Verse 22 tells us.

Verse 22: "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference."

This verse tells us exactly how to receive God's gift of righteousness—it comes through faith in Jesus Christ. As sinners, we all deserve the penalty of death from a just God, because the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death>death>" (Rom. 6:23a). If we deserve death, how can we obtain eternal life and righteousness? Romans 6:23 concludes by saying, "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." When we have faith in Jesus Christ, we receive a gift from God—our sin is paid for and we receive everlasting life and a righteous standing before God. Until our sin was paid for, we had an "outstanding debt" with God, but once Jesus Christ paid for our sin, we have a clean slate with God, and we are "right" with Him.

We become righteous before God by faith, so it is important that we understand exactly what "faith" is. Biblically, "faith" means "trust." When we trust that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that God raised him from the dead, we are saved and receive God's gift of righteousness. God wants all men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), and so He has made salvation easy to obtain and given clear instructions as to how to be saved. One clear verse that tells how is Romans 10:9.

Romans 10:9
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Jesus paid for the sins of everyone, but only those people who accept the payment are made righteous. Anyone can refuse a gift, and people can refuse the free gift of salvation and righteousness that God has for them by refusing to have faith in Christ. When a person believes that Jesus is his living Lord, he gets both God's gift of salvation and His gift of righteousness.

Verse 23: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

This verse is short and honest. We have all sinned, and we all fall short of God's standards. We will never become so good that we will earn righteousness by our works. No, it must be a gift from God.

Verse 24: "And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

This verse is loaded with important truths. Every Christian is "justified" in the sight of God. In the New Testament, the words "righteous" and "justified" come from the same Greek root word. Justification and righteousness are related concepts. "Justification" (dikaioo) is the legal process that leads to the state of being "righteous" (dikaios). A person is justified (found to be not guilty) inside the courtroom and then, after the trial, stands outside on the courthouse steps righteous (free of blame) in the sight of the law.

In God's court of law we should receive what we deserve, the death penalty. However, at the trial we find out that the penalty was already paid by someone else—Jesus Christ. Thus we are justified in God's court, and stand righteous before Him. The Amplified Bible expounds on the meaning of the word "justified" in this verse, and says that we are "justified and made upright and in right standing with God." The righteousness that we could not earn, God gave us.

Verse 24 also says we were "freely" given this gift of righteousness. How can this wonderful gift be free? Simple. It is free to us because it was paid for by someone else—Jesus Christ. Salvation and righteousness are free to us because they were "bought" with the blood of Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28).

God gives us the gift of salvation and the gift of righteousness because of His grace. "Grace" is a concept that every Christian needs to understand. "Grace" means granting undeserved favor or giving an undeserved gift. As Christians, we are to show grace to others, that is, we are to give good words and deeds to people who do not deserve them. The Bible says that Christians should have grace in their hearts and in what they say (Col. 3:16; 4:6). Just as we give gracious words and gifts to people who do not deserve them, God gives His grace to us.

We do not deserve God's grace—which is exactly why it is "grace." If you feel like you do not deserve God's grace, you are correct. We were sinners and "enemies" of God (Rom. 5:10), but that did not keep Him from loving us, and so, without our deserving anything but wrath, God gave us His undeserved favor—His grace. God's gracious gift includes both righteousness in His sight and eternal life with Him.

Verse 24 also mentions "redemption," which is "a release that is obtained when a ransom is paid." The Christian has been released from the penalty of sin. Prior to becoming a Christian, we were in bondage to sin and its consequences and could not get free on our own. In order for us to be released from that bondage, a payment had to be made, and Jesus Christ made it.

If we were to get rid of the "biblical vocabulary" and summarize verse 24 in common English, it would read something like this: "[We Christians] are made right with God by a free gift. Even though we do not deserve it, Jesus Christ paid the ransom that released us from the consequences of our sin."

Verse 25a: "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice…."

God is just, and even though He loves people, He cannot simply "wish away" the consequences of sin. A payment must be made. Parents understand this. If your child steals a cookie and then lies about it, even though the child is the joy of your heart, justice requires some payment. It may be as simple as a "lecture" or a "time out," but justice demands judgment and a penalty. It is not justice to let sin go unpunished, and God, by His nature, must be just. Since "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23), death must be meted out as the punishment. And it was! Jesus Christ died, and in His grace, God allowed Jesus' death to be the substitute for the death we all deserve. Jesus was the sacrifice of atonement for us.

The Jews in the Old Testament understood sacrifices of atonement, which were an important part of Jewish life. An Israelite who was guilty of sin brought an animal as a sacrifice, and that sacrifice made atonement for the sinner. "Atonement" is a word every Christian needs to understand. It is built from the two words "at" and "one." In the Old Testament, the death of the animal brought the sinner and God back together "at-one." Jesus Christ was the "at-one-ment" for our sin. He was the sacrifice that brought God and us together "at-one." Every Christian is now "at-one" with God. It is a spiritual reality that is true even when we do not feel "at-one" with God. The greatness of the work of Christ is that even if we feel apart from God, he is not apart from us. He is at-one with us and will never leave us or forsake us.

Our righteousness before God is a very important concept, and so there are many verses in the New Testament that speak of it. A few of them are:

Romans 10:4
Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

1 Corinthians 1:30
It is because of him [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin [a sin offering] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We do not deserve the righteousness that God has given us, but we must believe that we have it and accept our righteous position before God.

Righteousness is not a feeling

The Bible clearly declares that Christians are righteousness before God, so why do so many people have trouble accepting that they are righteous? The primary reason is that most Christians believe their feelings instead of what the Word of God says. We all sin, so it is natural to "feel" unrighteous in God's sight. Our sin and shortcomings produce feelings of guilt and shame, and it is good that they do, because our guilt often prompts us to quit sinning. Unfortunately, those same feelings of guilt make us feel unaccepted by God. Nevertheless, even when we sin, we are righteous in God's sight because of the work of Jesus Christ. Our sin and feelings of guilt are real, but so is the righteousness God has given us.

Some Christians teach that our righteousness is the ability to stand before God without any sense of guilt, sin or shortcoming. In other words, those Christians teach that a truly righteous person should not have feelings of sin and shame in his life. That is not correct, and misses the point that our righteousness is a gift from God. Certainly it is true that if we do righteous acts we will not feel guilty about them. The problem is that we all sin, and do unrighteous things. Thankfully, the book of Romans is very clear: we are not righteous because we do what God says (no one will be righteous in God's sight by keeping all the rules; Rom. 3:20), but rather we are righteous "apart from" keeping all the rules (Rom. 3:21). Our righteousness comes, not by what we do, but because we have faith in Christ. [1] We all fall short of God's standards, and it is natural that our sin and shortcomings produce feelings of being unrighteousness and unaccepted by God.

We must realize that "feelings" and our God given righteousness are not necessarily connected. Christians are righteous even when we do not "feel" righteous. On the other hand, we may "feel good" about something when it is not good or godly. The Bible (and experience) teaches us that we all sin, and the only way a person can sin against God and not have feelings of guilt, shame, or wrongdoing is if he sins in ignorance, or if he has what the Bible calls a conscience that has "been seared as with a hot iron" (1 Tim. 4:2). Unfortunately, that is the case with many people. Hardened criminals are well known for their seared consciences, and they can do very evil and hurtful things without feeling any shame or remorse.

Sadly, there are Christians who have seared consciences in certain areas, and no longer feel any sense of guilt or shame when they sin in those areas. However, they certainly are not righteous simply because they do not "feel unrighteous." Thankfully, it is almost always the case that one's conscience is seared only toward certain behaviors. For example, a Christian who has become so wrapped up in pornography that he no longer feels any guilt or shame about it, may feel very guilty if he steals something. God is a God of grace and mercy, and many people with seared consciences have been restored to wholeness and tenderness by obedience and prayer. The lesson each Christian needs to learn is that our God-given righteousness is not necessarily connected to our feelings. We sometimes feel unrighteous even though we are righteous before God, and we may feel good about ourselves while doing things that are not godly.

It seems paradoxical that even when we sin in the flesh, we are still righteous in God's sight. That is because righteousness is such a wonderful gift of God's grace, and a spiritual reality. You may not feel at-one with God, but if you are a Christian, you are. The Bible says Christians are to live by faith and not by "sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). That means we are to live by trusting what God says and not by what we see or feel. We have to trust that what God says is true, and that any feelings to the contrary are lying to us. Remember the record of Adam and Eve? Eve "felt" that it would be okay to eat the fruit God had said not to eat, and so she ignored what God had said about it. Disaster resulted. We all need to learn from Adam's and Eve's mistake, and realize that no matter how we feel, what God says is the Truth. We may feel that Christ will never return, but he will. We may feel like the evil on this earth will never be removed, but it will. We Christians must learn to think about ourselves the way God thinks about us.

If you are feeling unrighteous, go back to the Word of God, study what it says, and pray to clearly understand the gift of righteousness that has been freely given to you. Then take captive your thoughts of unrighteousness (2 Cor. 10:5), and tell yourself you are not going to be tricked by what you feel, but that you are going to believe the Word of God. Say, "I am righteous before God" over and over, hundreds of times if you have to. Say it out loud if you have to. Your feelings of unrighteousness come from deep within you and from your earliest experiences. It may take a lot to change those feelings, but God will help you. Remember: all things are possible with God.

Although we fall short of God's goal of perfection for us, God has given us grace (undeserved favor) and sent Jesus Christ to die in order to pay for the penalty of our sin. Now, "bought and paid for," each of us stands before God as a righteous person, at-one with Him.

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Monday, February 25, 2008

What does the Bible say about war?
Category: Religion and Philosophy

FAQ: I know some Christians who say they are "pacifists," and that war is always wrong. Some go so far as to say they would not defend themselves even if someone tried to kill them. One called me a "militant" Christian because I said I would. What does the Bible say about war?

While there are verses that some have interpreted in a pacifist way, we assert that the belief that a person should not defend himself, his family, his society, or his nation comes from a misinterpretation of the Bible. Even a cursory reading of Scripture will show that if one were to put a sub-title on Genesis 3:7 – Revelation 20:10, it would be "GOD AT WAR." With whom is He at war? And what are they fighting about?

God is at war with the spirit being we know as the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer, who rebelled against Him, and then twisted the hearts of Adam and Eve to get them to disobey Him. Satan is the same one who has since wreaked havoc on mankind, stealing, killing, and destroying everything and everyone he can (John 10:10). As the antithesis of God, who is love, Satan is pure hate.

What God and the Devil are fighting over is people. Knowing that his doom is certain because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Devil's goal is to hurt God as badly as he can. He does so by trying to keep people from hearing the truth of God's Word about Jesus Christ and thus getting saved. If people get saved, he still does all he can to make their lives miserable and to kill them. This relentlessly cruel being, who disguises himself as an angel of light, is in reality a liar, a deceiver, a murderer, and the personification of evil. If you give him a millimeter, he will take a light year.

God and the Lord Jesus are the epitome of love, and they will one day bring peace on earth, but they know that the wicked stand in the way of peace, and must be dealt with. When it comes to the pure evil that Satan embodies, the only way to have peace is by war, including eventually destroying him and all his allies. In the battle between good and evil, on the side of good there is God and his armies, both angels and human. On the side of evil is the Devil, his demons, and the people who knowingly or unknowingly side with him. Although it will not always be this way, the background of the spiritual and physical universe we are living in today is conflict. That is why the Bible says that God is a warrior. "The LORD is a man of war" (Exod. 15:3, KJV).

If the pacifist position were correct, it would seem logical that throughout history God would either prevent war, or at least not take sides in human conflicts, but that is not the case. God is certainly no pacifist, and the acts of our warrior-God fighting on behalf of His people, often via his angels, are seen all through the Bible. Some pertinent examples are: God removed the wheels of Egypt's chariots as they pursued Israel, and drowned them in the sea (Ex. 14:25, 28); He threw hailstones down on the Canaanite army (Josh. 10:11); He rained down fire from heaven and burned up the enemy soldiers who came to get Elijah (2 King 1:9-15); He killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers who were attacking Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:35); He blinded the false prophet Bar-Jesus, who stood against the teaching of Paul (Acts 13:9-11). In the future, He will throw huge hailstones, weighing about 100 pounds each, upon his enemies (Rev. 16:21).

God's angels are warriors also, and are in His army. In fact, God is called, "LORD of hosts" more than 200 times in the Bible (cp. 1 Chron. 11:9; Ps. 46:7-11; Isa. 13:4; Jer. 11:22; 51:33; Nahum 2:13; Haggai 2:6). Unfortunately, the average Christian does not know what the phrase means, and it has even been translated out of some versions, such as the NIV, which uses the phrase "LORD Almighty" instead of "LORD of hosts." This change greatly dilutes our understanding of the spiritual battle. The Hebrew word translated "hosts" means "armies" (as does the Greek word in Luke 2:13). The angels are a major part of the army of God, and the Bible reveals that angels join God in His fight against evil, as the following verse shows:

Revelation 12:7
And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon [the Devil], and the dragon and his angels fought back.

If God is a warrior, and His angels are also warriors and fight with Him, what about Jesus Christ? Scripture reveals that he also is a warrior. The warfare he waged while completing his earthly ministry was spiritual and mental. He cast out evil spirits, stood against the evil rulers of his day, and helped people in every way he could. His ministry was short, and its purpose did not involve going to war on earth to defend God's people. However, when Jesus comes back, he will show himself to be the consummate warrior, something that is foretold in the Old Testament and portrayed in Revelation. Consider the following prophetic verses from Isaiah about the Lord's return to conquer the earth from the grip of evil, and how he is pictured with his robes spattered with blood.

Isaiah 63:1-4, and 6
(1) Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? "It is I [the Messiah], speaking in righteousness, mighty to save."
(2) Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress?
(3) "I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing.
(4) For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redemption has come.
(6) I trampled the nations in my anger; in my wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground."

The book of Revelation, which is still future, also shows Jesus coming from heaven and fighting against evil.

Revelation 19:11, 13-15a
(11) I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider [Jesus Christ] is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war.
(13) He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
(14) The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.
(15) Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations."

After Jesus defeats the enemies that now threaten the earth and sets up his 1000 year kingdom (Rev. 20:4-6), he will not rely on the "good nature" of people to keep order in society. Scripture is clear that he will keep order by wielding a "rod of iron" (Rev. 2:27; 12:5; 19:15 KJV). Although this may seem cruel and harsh, it is not, because no one has to be a criminal, and being harsh on criminals protects the innocent. Christians and civil authorities should take note: if Jesus will rule his kingdom with a rod of iron to keep order and protect the innocent, why would we think our society should be ruled differently? Our lenient laws have caused our unsafe society, and we and our children will not be safe until we decide to be as harsh on the guilty as Jesus will be. [For further study read, The Death Penalty: Godly or Ungodly?.]

Jesus is clearly a warrior, and the fact that there is no verse in the Gospels showing him protecting his family or society does not mean that he would not have done so. Likewise, nothing in the Word says that Jesus did not support the punishments prescribed by the Mosaic Law, including the execution of criminals. We saw that he will certainly execute his enemies in the future.

We have seen that God is a warrior, so are His angels and so is Jesus. But what about Christians? First, we must remember that throughout the Old Testament, the people of God were, like God, warriors. Moses, Joshua, the Judges, David, and the kings of Judah all led armies, and God helped them win their battles when they stood with Him. Examples of God helping His people win battles include His telling Joshua how to conquer Jericho (Josh. 6:2-5); telling him that an ambush was the way to destroy Ai (Josh. 8:1,2); telling David how to attack the Philistines (2 Sam. 5:22-25; 1 Chron. 14:14-16); and telling Israel how to attack the Syrian army (1 Kings 20:13,14). The faithful of the Old Testament understood that there were occasions when fighting and war were necessary, and they relied upon God, their weapons, and their training during those times.

Psalm 18:34 and 35
(34) He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
(35) You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great.

Psalm 144:1 and 2
(1) Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
(2) He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.

Did all that change when Jesus came to earth? Did God stop asking His people to fight evil, and did He stop helping them in battle? We assert that God still wants people to fight evil, and still helps them win. To understand Scripture, we must realize that unless God clearly changes a commandment He has given, it is still to be believed and obeyed. And we see no revision of God's commands to protect oneself, participate in the protection of society, or go to war to protect one's nation.

Some people may disagree, saying that Jesus taught us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39), and warned us that, "all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matt. 26:52). But these verses do not refer to protecting one's life, family, or nation. Jesus loved his enemies too, but he loved them by giving them every conceivable chance to turn from evil; he did not "love" them by letting them harm the innocent, for that would not be love. We saw above that when evil people refuse to take advantage of the loving opportunities they are given to turn from their wicked ways, Jesus will one day kill them to protect society. God loves His enemies too, and even gives them blessings, knowing that it is His kindness that might lead them to repentance (Rom. 2:4. But when the wicked do not respond to His love, and are a danger to the innocent, God will fight against them just as He has in the past, and the final end of the wicked and unrepentant will be His throwing them into the fires of Gehenna (Rev. 21:8).

It is important to remember that just a few hours before Jesus was arrested, he said to all his apostles, "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" (Luke 22:36), but then told Peter while he was being arrested, "all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matt. 26:52). Jesus would never tell his followers to buy swords and then say it was wrong to use them. Why did Jesus make that statement to Peter? The answer is that although the priests and soldiers who arrested Jesus were immoral, what they did was not illegal, because they had the governmental right to arrest Jesus. Thus, Peter, although he thought he was doing the right thing in defending Jesus with his sword, was actually breaking the law. Had Jesus' trial been fair and unbiased, he would have been released soon after his arrest. Many innocent people are falsely accused, arrested and jailed, but then released at trial. By using his sword, Peter was breaking the law, and neither God nor Jesus give us the right to do that.

On the other hand, we do have the legal right to defend ourselves and our society against evil, and Jesus knew that, so he told his followers to buy swords. Evil people are a danger to those around them, which is why self protection, and the outgrowths thereof, (such as the protection of one's family, society, and nation) is vital to survival. Since Jesus told his followers to buy swords the night of his arrest, and never modified that command after his resurrection, there is no reason to believe that things should be different today. We need to be willing and able to protect ourselves and our society.

More evidence that God expects us to fight for what is right in today's world is that, both in Philippians 2:25 and Philemon 2, Paul refers to another Christian as a "fellow soldier." He also writes to Timothy, his young protégé in the faith:

2 Timothy 2:3 and 4
(3) Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
(4) No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.

We assert that the term "soldier" goes beyond just spiritual warfare, and, if necessary, also includes the physical warfare that all too often is a part of life.

There is still more biblical evidence that a person in the military is not out of favor with God due to his chosen profession. The first Gentiles recorded as becoming Christians were a Roman soldier, Cornelius, and his family and friends. Cornelius was guided by an angel to hear the Good News from Peter himself (Acts 10). With so many non-military people in Palestine, the fact that God chose a soldier as the first Gentile to get born again speaks volumes about His acceptance of the military.

Still another, though non-biblical, reason for believing that God supports Christians in war are the firsthand accounts of God helping Christians in battles. While early records are understandably scarce, thousands of accounts from the Revolutionary War to this present day clearly show that God still supports godly troops.

Along with the physical battles that we fight against evil, the spiritual battle continues to rage around us. It started in Genesis and will not end until Revelation, so every Christian must be a spiritual warrior. Ephesians 6:12 tells us that in this administration of the Sacred Secret we fight against spiritual forces, demons, that work in people to obstruct God's purposes.

If and when the spiritual battle escalates in the physical realm to the point that an evil person (or a nation of them) is going to harm us, the message of Scripture is clear: With God's help, fight back and prevail! We know that when Noah came off the Ark after the Flood, God instituted civil government as the means to keep order on earth. This meant that mankind was responsible to execute people who murdered others (Gen. 9:5 and 6). Wicked people may not fear God, but they do fear other people (government officials) who have the power to execute them. God has made it our responsibility to keep evil at bay.

As a point of interest pertinent to this topic, Exodus 20:13, properly translated, reads: "You shall not murder." All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. Throughout Scripture God defines and encourages three kinds of killing that are justified and often necessary: 1) self-defense; 2) society-defense (execution of criminals); 3) national self-defense, which we call war.

Some Christians say that it is not their place to determine who lives or dies, so they would not defend themselves if someone tried to kill them. Not only is that contrary to God's command to dispense out justice in our society, it lets the murderer decide who lives and who dies. What sense does that make? It is easy to see why Satan promotes the lie that war, either individually or nationally, is always wrong—it's a good way to get some of God's people to give up their lives.

Certainly, no government is the ultimate standard for when war is godly. As per Acts 5:29, we must obey God rather than man, so if or when a government edict contradicts what God tells us to do, we obey Him. We may not always know which wars precipitated by governments are the right thing to do, but the Bible makes it very clear that for the sake of God and the purposes He desires to accomplish by way of us, we must take up arms if we are threatened with destruction. Thus, in God's view, there is a time for war.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 8
(1) There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…
(8) …a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

As Christians, we are guaranteed the everlasting victory, but until the Lord Jesus comes for us, we must trust and obey God in order to stand against our mortal enemy, Satan, and against those wicked people in whom he works. If and when evil threatens us, we are foolish and irresponsible if we do not defend ourselves to whatever degree is necessary to stop those who would destroy us. Jesus gave his life—and it provided deliverance from sin for all mankind. If we needlessly or foolishly give up our lives, it does not provide deliverance for anyone, it just means there is one less righteous person to help and bless people. Jesus won by giving his life. We win by fighting for God and His people, defeating evil whenever we can by whatever godly and legal means are available, and staying alive to bless and serve God's people.

The Death Penalty: Godly or Ungodly?

The Bible says to "love your enemies" (Matt. 5:44). How can the death penalty be love?

The Ten Commandments

The Bible and Civil Law

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Monday, February 25, 2008

Guaranteed Salvation
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Through the centuries of the Christian era, there has been a huge debate about whether Christians can lose their salvation. In this article, we hope to show that once a person is born again of God's holy spirit, his salvation is guaranteed, that is, he is not in danger of the "Second Death," which is when everyone who is not allowed into God's Eternal Kingdom will be thrown into the Lake of Fire and burned up (Rev. 20:12-15).

Before we can meaningfully examine verses that refer to our guaranteed salvation, it is imperative to understand that Scripture makes it clear that only in the Church Age, the Administration of Grace, is salvation guaranteed. One of the greatest truths of Scripture is that God has dealt with people differently at various times through history. For the accomplishment of His purposes and the benefit of His people, God has periodically changed the "rules" by which He wants people to live. Theologians call the time period governed by a specific set of rules an "administration" or "dispensation." The systematic theology that recognizes these different administrations or dispensations is referred to as "Dispensationalism."

Examples of God changing the rules from administration to administration are plentiful. In the Garden of Eden, He told Adam and Eve to eat plants only (Gen. 1:29), but after the Flood, God changed the rules and allowed man to eat meat also (Gen. 9:3), and He still allows us to eat meat today. Another example concerns the Sabbath. Before the Mosaic Law, there was no specific law concerning the Sabbath. When God gave the Law to Moses, He changed the rules, and commanded that anyone who worked on the Sabbath should be put to death (Ex. 31:14), and Moses did execute a man who was caught working on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32-36). Today, in the Administration of Grace, God has changed the rules again, and it is not a sin to work on the Sabbath (Rom. 14:5; Col. 2:16, 17), and thus anyone who arrested and executed someone working on the Sabbath would be a murderer. When Christians do not recognize or understand the administrations in the Bible, the Bible abounds with apparent contradictions.

We of Spirit & Truth Fellowship International recognize eight different administrations in the history of mankind: four of them are in the past; we live in the fifth Administration (the Administration of Grace, also referred to as the Administration of the Sacred Secret), and three of them are foretold in the Bible and will be fulfilled in the future.

Knowing the different administrations, when they begin and end, and the rules distinctly associated with each one, is indispensable if one is to explain many of the apparent contradictions in the Bible. It is also indispensable in understanding how we Christians must live in order to obey God. A person who does not understand the Administrations can become very confused if he thinks that all of God's commands should be followed, because they are different in different administrations, and can even contradict one another. Almost 100 years ago, Bible scholar Martin Anstey wrote: "…the golden rule is, 'Distinguish the dispensations and the difficulties will disappear.'" [1] Never is that more true than in regard to the permanence of our salvation. If one does not understand what parts of Scripture are written to whom, he will never grasp the truth of God's Word about salvation, its most vital subject.

Throughout the years, the majority of scholars and commentators have believed that salvation is not guaranteed for Christians. Perhaps the most common reason for that is that they read the Old Testament, the Four Gospels, and the book of Revelation, see that salvation is not guaranteed during those administrations, and therefore think that salvation is not guaranteed for Christians.

We agree that salvation is not guaranteed during the Old Testament, Four Gospels, and the Tribulation period (which comes after Christians are taken to heaven at the Rapture). However, we disagree with them when it comes to Christian salvation. We assert that on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) God started a new administration, one so dominated by an outpouring of God's grace that He refers to it as "the administration of God's grace" (Eph. 3:2).

If we are correct that only in this new, and for us, current, administration is salvation guaranteed for the Christian, we can expect to find verses in the Old Testament, the Four Gospels, and Revelation, stating that one's salvation was not guaranteed, and none stating that it was. That is exactly what we find, because those sections of Scripture are written to and about Israel (and Gentiles), not the Church of the Body of Christ. Furthermore, in the Epistles to the Christian Church, we can expect to find verses indicating that salvation is guaranteed, and we do.

Our study of guaranteed salvation will take us into a cascade of logic that in large part presents the process of salvation in the Age of Grace as akin to giving birth. This brings up a very important point: God expects us to believe what He says and use the reasoning He gave us to arrive at accurate conclusions. That is certainly the case in the study of guaranteed salvation.

When a person acts on Romans 10:9, and confesses that Jesus is Lord and believes that God raised him from the dead, God our Father puts a spiritual seed into that individual. That "seed," like any seed contributed by a Father, grows into a baby, which is then birthed. The epistle of 1 Peter tells us about both the seed and the birth.

1 Peter 1:23
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

God's use of "birth" to communicate what happens in Christian salvation is amazingly clear. Of course, there are some differences between human birth and birth from God. For example, the seed from a human father takes nine months to develop in the mother before the birth, while divine birth is instantaneous. The very second God puts His imperishable, spiritual seed in a person, he is born again.

Now what is unique about this New Birth? First, there is no mention of God's spiritual seed outside the Epistles to the Christian Church. Spiritual "seed" cannot be found in the Old Testament, the Four Gospels, or Revelation. Only Christians have spiritual seed. This should immediately alert us that God is doing something for Christians that He never did before.

Second, God calls the seed He puts inside Christians "imperishable," because it does not die or go away. It stays in us forever, so its effect, our salvation, is "imperishable" too. Third, there is no New Birth outside the Administration of Grace. It began on the Day of Pentecost, and will end with the Rapture of the Church. It is only for the Age of Grace. [2] Because the New Birth is the hallmark of this Administration of Grace and was previously known only to God, it makes sense that He would clearly tell us about it. He does exactly that by using three different words that refer to our new birth, and each of them appears only in epistles to the Church, and nowhere else in the Bible.

Anagennao (Strong's number 313) from the Greek prefix ana, "again" or "up," and gennao, "to give birth." It means to be given birth to again, or to be born again, and it occurs in 1 Peter 1:3, 23, "in his great mercy he has given us new birth…" (1 Pet. 1:3).
Paliggenesia (pronounced pa-lin-ge-ne-sia; the gg is pronounced as an "n g;" Strong's number 3824) from palin, "again" and genesis, "genesis" or "origin." It means to have an origin again, a new genesis, and it occurs in Titus 3:5, "He saved us through the washing of rebirth…."
apokueo (Strong's number 616) from the Greek prefix apo, "away from," and kueo, "to be pregnant." It means "to give birth to," and it occurs in James 1:18, "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth…."

As every parent knows, the predominant truth about a birth is the presence of a baby, who is "permanent." The birth cannot be undone. Surely God would not use three different words for "birth" if there were not an actual birth, or if we could not apply the concepts of birth, such as permanence, to what happens when a Christian is "born again." "Birth" is permanent, both in the flesh and in the spirit. [3]

In birth, the nature of the parent is passed down to the offspring, and so in the new birth the nature of God is passed to believers. The "seed" of God is His nature. God is "holy" and God is "spirit," so we should expect to see something in the Church Epistles about His nature, also called "holy spirit," being in, or part of, the Christian, and we do.

Ephesians 1:13
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,

This verse contains a number of significant truths. First, we received holy spirit at the time we believed. Second, each believer is "sealed" with holy spirit. [4] This is new! No one in the Old Testament, Gospels, or Revelation is said to be "sealed." Quite the opposite! God took His holy spirit from King Saul when he sinned (1 Sam. 16:14). Psalm 51:11 records that after committing adultery with Bathsheba and having Uriah killed, King David asked God not to take holy spirit from him.

Third, the word "sealed" indicates that we are permanently sealed with holy spirit. Someone might say, "Well, if you sin, God breaks the seal and takes holy spirit away." If that were the case, why say we are "sealed" at all? Why not just continue the terminology of the Old Testament and Gospels and say that holy spirit is "upon" us? Logic demands that if God uses a totally different vocabulary that is unique to the Administration of Grace, He must be letting us know that something is new and different. Fourth, the holy spirit we receive is the "promised" holy spirit. It was promised in the Old Testament for the Millennial Kingdom, the 1000-year reign of Christ, but given to us now as a surprise by God's grace. [5] The very fact that it was promised in the Old Testament and Gospels means that the people of those times did not yet have it.

If we have spiritual seed, holy spirit, are born again, and have been sealed by God, then our salvation is guaranteed. Scripture says exactly that.

2 Corinthians 1:22
[God via Christ] set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit [spirit] in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

2 Corinthians 5:5
Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit [spirit] as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Ephesians 1:14
who [the holy spirit, which] is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

Those three verses say that our future is guaranteed. There are none like them in the Old Testament, none in the Four Gospels, none in the book of Revelation. God has done something new and different for the Church. There are versions of the Bible that do not translate Greek word arrhabon as "guarantee," but instead use "earnest," "pledge," "deposit," or something similar. The Greek word arrhabon means a deposit in advance that guarantees the full payment to come. For Christians, that means we are guaranteed being Raptured into heaven and given new, immortal, bodies.

Because the Christian is uniquely born again of God's imperishable spiritual seed, sealed with holy spirit, and therefore guaranteed salvation, the very presence of holy spirit permanently born in us gives us a divine nature, as Scripture verifies:

2 Peter 1:4 (KJV) [6]
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,…"

At the risk of seeming repetitious, no one in the Old Testament, Gospels, or Revelation is ever said to receive, or "partake of," a divine nature, not even the prophets, who had God's gift of holy spirit upon them. By the way, because Christians have both a new, divine nature and an old, sin nature, these antithetical natures struggle against each other within us. Only in Scripture addressed to the Church does the Bible say that the sin nature (or "flesh") and the divine nature (or "spirit") "are in conflict with each other," (Gal. 5:17).

Because we have a divine nature, the Bible refers to all Christians as "saints," although a better translation would be "holy ones" (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:1). A quick study of the Greek and Hebrew words translated "saints" will show that "holy ones," God's holy people, are all through the Bible (cp. Ps. 16:3; Dan. 7:18; Rev. 13:7). However, from what God says about what makes one "holy," believers in the Old Testament, Gospels, and Revelation were holy only if they obeyed God. In contrast, the Church Epistles make it clear that anyone who is a Christian is holy because of the divine nature within him.

God created His nature in us, so we are new creations in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

The phrase "new creations" is literal, and is 100% accurate because the new nature, our holy spirit, was created in us by God. Although some translations say "new creatures," the Greek word is "creations." Our first birth was not a creation, but our new birth is, because when we believed, God "created" new life within us. People in the Old Testament and Gospels believed God, but they were never "created" anew. When Abraham believed, God considered him righteous, but he was never "created" anew and given a divine nature, nor was anyone else before the Church began on the Day of Pentecost. Other verses, such as Colossians 3:10, also indicate we are new creations. [For further study read Righteousness - Every Christian's Gift from God.]

Christians not only become new creations individually, but also collectively, as part of a spiritual body called, "the Body of Christ" (1 Cor. 12:27; cp. Romans 12:4,5; 1 Cor. 10:16; 12:12-20; Eph. 1:23; 3:6; 4:4; Col. 1:18; 3:15). Like our physical body, this spiritual body is comprised of many members, and Jesus Christ is its head (Eph. 5:23).

There are some important things to consider about the Body of Christ. First, it is unique to the Grace Administration, not mentioned before or after it. Second, it is made up of all those who believe, no matter what their gender or nationality. Galatians 3:28 makes it clear that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female in Christ. This is a shift from the Old Testament, Gospels, and Revelation in which the people of God are distinctly counted as being either a Jew or a Gentile. Even after the Church is taken from the earth at the Rapture, God again separates the Jewish believer from the Gentile believer (Rev. 7:1-17).

The truth about the "Body of Christ" is important to the study of our guaranteed salvation because to lose our guarantee of salvation would be tantamount to being dismembered from the Body of Christ, and there is simply no evidence in Scripture that can happen.

Before we were born again and given a new, divine nature, we had only our old sin nature and were destined to the Second Death, so God referred to us as "dead in your transgressions and sins" (Eph. 2:1). When we got born again, we were given spiritual life, but along with that God also promised that He would raise us from physical death.

Our being raised from the dead (or changed from mortal to immortal at the Rapture) is so certain, so secure, that God refers to it with the idiom that linguists refer to as the "prophetic perfect." The prophetic perfect is used to emphasize the certainty of a future event by speaking of it as if it has already happened. [To read an article on the Prophetic Perfect, click here. To watch a video teaching on it, click here.] Thus, even though dead Christians are still physically dead, God says they have already been raised to life (Eph. 2:6). This promise of resurrection to everlasting life is worded without the idiom in Romans 6:5 by using the future tense, will: "…we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection."

If we are new people, newly born again and created, and partakers of the divine nature, we should have a new language, a language unique to the Administration of Grace. We do have such a language, and the Bible refers to it as "speaking in tongues." Speaking in tongues first happened on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4), and it will cease to exist after the Rapture of the Church (1 Cor. 13:8). In the meantime, speaking in tongues is prayer and praise, it edifies the one speaking, and what God says about it is very clear: "I would like every one of you to speak in tongues…." (1 Cor. 14:5).

If a person could lose his guarantee of salvation, he would therefore lose his holy spirit, like king Saul did in the Old Testament. That would mean he could no longer speak in tongues, because holy spirit is what enables him to do so. A good test, then, to see if salvation really is guaranteed, is to ask people who have greatly sinned if they can still speak in tongues. What do we find in Christendom? Some of the most flagrant sinners speak in tongues fluently. Fallen TV evangelists and former Christian "big shots," Christians in prisons around the globe, Christian homosexuals, fornicators, and adulterers, and Christians who are idolaters, sharing the worship of God with superstition or the recognition of other gods, are known to speak in tongues. In fact, many Christians hide their sin very effectively, going to churches and speaking in tongues in the service, while secretly sinning flagrantly. The fact that these sinners, and the rest of us Christians who also sin, can speak in tongues is exactly what we would expect if, as Scripture declares, the holy spirit is sealed in us and the new birth is permanent.

As new creations, we now belong, not to the earthly realm where our physical body resides, but to God's heavenly kingdom, and Scripture makes this clear.

Philippians 3:20
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Once again we see the uniqueness of the Christian Church. Many people in the Old Testament and Gospels believed, but none were referred to as citizens of heaven. In contrast, because our salvation is guaranteed, we can legitimately be called citizens of heaven.

When we got saved, we were guaranteed to be in heaven with Christ from the time of the Rapture to the time of our return to earth with Christ, when he fights the Battle of Armageddon. That guarantee is so sure that God says we are seated in heaven.

Ephesians 2:6
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

We are not literally in heaven now. However, our place in heaven is so secure that God uses the idiom of the prophetic perfect to refer to it. As we have already seen, the prophetic perfect is speaking of something that will occur in the future as if it had already happened in order to give the strongest assurance that it will happen.

The bond that exists between parents and their birth children is universal. Parents usually love and support their own seed, no matter what. No matter how a child behaves, somehow the parent loves him. If each Christian is born of God, we should see a shift in how God expresses His love relationship with Christians, as opposed to what he said about Israel in the Old Testament. That shift is clearly recorded in Romans 8:35-39. Those verses express two facts: first, that nothing "will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:39), and second, that this is a change from the Old Testament (Rom. 8:36, 37).

Quite a few Old Testament verses refer to God's having had enough of "His people," even to the point of saying, "I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them" (Hos. 1:6), and "…you are not my people, and I am not your God" (Hos. 1:9). Isaiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 3:8 speak of God divorcing Israel and sending her away. There is no such threat to the Church. We are God's birth children, and even when we behave despicably, He tells us He will always love us. Believers before Pentecost had no such promise, so if they rebelled against God and died in that condition, they were lost. In stark contrast, the Christian is guaranteed everlasting life.

The Grace Administration, with its guarantee of salvation, is glorious in the extreme. The Law was glorious in that it gave light and justice where there had been confusion and darkness, but consider the following verse from the Church Epistles regarding the glory of the Administration of Grace:

2 Corinthians 3:10
For what was glorious [the Law] has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory.

What God has given the Church is so new and so glorious that in comparison to it, the Law of Moses had "no glory." The Law of Moses was indescribably valuable—it was the very words and laws of God, so for God to say that the Law had "no glory" in comparison to what we now have, we Christians must have something incredibly valuable indeed. We do. After all, what is the worth of a soul? The fact that everyone who gets saved during the Grace Administration is guaranteed everlasting life makes our administration have "surpassing glory."

Ever notice that Romans 10:9 is in one of the epistles to the Christian Church? It contains simple and straightforward instructions on how to be saved.

Romans 10:9
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

This verse agrees with the others in the Church Epistles, such as Romans 3:22, Gal. 2:15, 16, and Eph. 2:8, which specifically states that salvation is by grace through faith, "not by works."Faith has always been the way to salvation, but before the Administration of Grace there was no guarantee of salvation, so a person's works were important to demonstrate his faith, which had to continue throughout his life (Ezek. 33:11-20). That is why Moses said that righteousness came by being careful to obey the Law (Deut. 6:25).

Jesus and the Apostle Paul both taught the way of salvation, and both were asked the basic question, "What must I do to be saved? Jesus answered: "If you want to enter life, obey the commandments" (Matt. 19:17). During the Law of Moses, when Jesus answered the question, there was no guarantee of salvation available, so a person had to maintain his faith and righteousness throughout his life. Thus, Jesus told the man to obey the commandments.

In contrast, Paul answered: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…" (Acts 16:31). Why such a difference? When Paul answered the question, which was after the Administration of Grace had begun, the moment a person believes, he is born again and has a guarantee of everlasting life.

The Administration of Grace began on the Day of Pentecost when Christ poured out the new gift of holy spirit (Acts 2:33) and people were born again. It will end with the Rapture, when dead Christians are raised, living Christians are changed, and both groups are taken to heaven in new bodies that are like Christ's glorious body (Phil. 3:21; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; 1 Cor. 15:51-54). The Rapture is a new concept, occurring only in the Church Epistles. [7] In fact, because the Rapture occurs only in the Church Epistles, many scholars deny that it ever occurs, feeling certain that if it did, it would be spoken of in more than just Corinthians and Thessalonians. That, however, is exactly our point: only Christians are in the Rapture. It is unique to God's children by birth.

The righteous saints of the other administrations will be resurrected in the Resurrection of the Just, also called the "first resurrection" and the "resurrection of life" (Dan. 12:2; Luke 14:14; John 5:29; Acts 24:15; Rev. 20:5). [8] They come out of their graves and live on earth (Ezek. 37:11-14). In contrast, Christians are taken into heaven at the Rapture, and come back down to earth with Christ as part of his army, prepared to fight the Battle of Armageddon (Rev. 19:11-21). The Resurrection of the Just occurs after the Battle of Armageddon, and after the Old Testament believers are raised, both they and Christians will live with Christ in his Millennial Kingdom on earth. [9]

The evidence that Christians are guaranteed everlasting life is overwhelming. Note the things that are unique to the Christian Church: God, our heavenly Father, contributes imperishable spiritual seed by which we are "born again" of God's spirit. That holy spirit is "sealed" within us, and thus we have a new divine nature. Because every birth is permanent, we also have a guarantee of salvation. Because our birth was an act of creation, we are new creations. As new creations who have God's holy spirit, we have new, spiritual life. With our new spiritual life comes a new language: speaking in tongues. As God's children by birth, we are now citizens of His country: heaven. Furthermore, we are already said to be in heaven, an idiomatic promise that we will be there. Since God is now our birth Father, we are told that nothing can separate us from His love. At the Rapture we will be taken with new bodies into heaven. Finally, what we Christians have is so glorious that the administrations before the "Grace Administration" had "no glory" in comparison.

For a Christian to lose his guarantee of salvation, God's imperishable seed would perish; birth would not be permanent; God's seal on us would be broken; it would be clear that our "divine nature" was not part of our nature at all; the "guarantee" we had from God guaranteed absolutely nothing; we would have to become uncreated; the member in particular that we are would have to be amputated from the Body of Christ; our new life spiritual would have to be killed; our new language would have to be taken from us; our heavenly citizenship would have to be revoked; God's promise that we were already with Him in heaven would be shown to be worthless; the "surpassing glory" we are said to have would be shown to be no different from the glory of the Law; and the promise that nothing would separate us from God's love would be shown to be false at the time we were being thrown into the Lake of Fire.

With all the evidence in the Church Epistles for our guarantee of salvation, why would anyone think a Christian's salvation was not secure? First, most Christians do not read the Bible enough to recognize the differences between the Church Epistles and the rest of the Bible. A person must be very familiar with any piece of literature before he starts seeing differences from one part to another, and the Bible is no exception.

Second, most Christians are taught to believe and live by "the whole Bible." They are not taught to discern what applies to Christians and what does not. There are clear verses that salvation is not guaranteed in the Old Testament, Gospels, and Revelation, but these are speaking of Jews and Gentiles, not Christians. Many Christians do realize that there are things in the Old Testament that do not apply to us today, which is why we do not see people sacrificing animals on altars, widows marrying their husband's brothers (even if they are already married), or believers traveling to Jerusalem three times a year. Those examples prove the fact that people do recognize the different administrations in the Bible, even if they have never been taught what those administrations are and what rules apply to each.

Another reason people do not believe that Christian salvation is guaranteed is that, at the expense of the far greater number of clear verses about salvation being permanent, they cling to the few unclear verses in the Church Epistles that might be interpreted otherwise. Every subject has both clear and unclear verses, and secure salvation is one of them. A cardinal rule of Bible study is that the unclear verses must be interpreted in light of the clear verses.

Another reason people believe that Christians can lose their salvation is because they work hard to live a godly life and are scandalized by the thought that someone who confessed Christ when he was a child, but who is now stealing, lying, dealing drugs, and worse is also going to have everlasting life.

If there is one thing we should learn from Scripture, it is not to let our feelings dictate our theology. Adam and Eve did, and look where we are today. The Pharisees did, and they missed the whole point of the Law. Are we really going to grade people's sins and keep them from everlasting life because their sins scandalized us? Scripture says we have all sinned. Paul did not ask the jailor at Philippi what kind of man he was—he just said believe in Jesus to have everlasting life. The Bible does say that on the new earth Christians will be rewarded for only those things they have done that are valuable to God (1 Cor. 3:10-17; 2 Cor. 5:10; Col. 3:23-25; 2 John 8), so there will be a great blessing to those who have decided to serve God in their life.

Scripture is clear: If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, by the grace of God you have the guarantee of salvation and will live forever. Amen.

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Monday, February 25, 2008

What is Easter?
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Many Christians are aware that the word "Easter" does not occur in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. As a matter of fact, the only place it can be found in an English version of the Bible is in the King James Version, which reads:

Acts 12:4 (KJV)
And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

This passage describes Herod's plan to have Peter put to death "after Easter." The Greek word for "Easter" is pascha, which refers to the Jewish Passover festival celebrated from the 14th to the 21st of Nisan (Exod. 12:18). In the case of the KJV, it seems that "the Acts of the Apostles had fallen into the hands of a translator who acted on the principle of choosing, not the most correct, but the most familiar equivalents." [1] In this case, the fact that Easter was familiar to 17th century readers explains how the word got into the KJV, but it does not help us understand that the Passover and Easter are two different things, and that what Acts refers to is the Passover, not "Easter." Modern versions of the Bible all translate pascha as "Passover."

What we know today as the Easter festival developed after the New Testament period. The New Testament does not mention a Christian festival in which the death and resurrection of Christ were celebrated, but what we do see is that some of the earliest Christians continued to hold the Passover feast. As late as Paul's trip to Jerusalem in which he was arrested and jailed, which was in the late 50's AD, or 30 years after the birth of the Christian Church, many Christians in Jerusalem were proud of the fact that they kept the Law.

Acts 21:20 (NIV)
When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.

It was common for these "zealous" Christians to maintain their adherence to the Law by observing the Passover feast, which became a feast of commemoration. It was no longer a time of waiting for future atonement with God, but of remembering that He had provided the payment for the sins of His people through Christ. This was a very sensitive topic for early Christians, because not all Jews who converted to Christianity were comfortable with the idea that Christ had fulfilled the law and they no longer were required to keep it. The Church Epistles later given by the Lord to Paul made clear that participating in the Jewish feasts was no longer necessary (Col. 2:16-17). Paul had ruffled a few feathers by teaching things like "circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything" (Gal. 6:15). The charge that Paul was teaching converts to "turn away from Moses" put the whole city of Jerusalem in an uproar and resulted in his arrest (Acts 21:21).

While many Jews who became Christians retained the custom of keeping the Passover feast, it was less likely that the Gentile converts would be attracted to keeping a festival that was not actually required by God. As Christianity began to spread through the ancient world, Gentile Christians began to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ in a less Jewish way. Unfortunately, as was often the case with Jewish-Gentile disputes, many of the forces guiding Christianity were radically opposite of those desiring to maintain the Jewish roots of Christianity. Eventually, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ was infused with elements that have little to do with the Jewish feasts or the actual events of Christ's death.

Date Controversies

For centuries, the date for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ was hotly disputed. The earliest Jewish Christians, primarily those in Israel, Syria, and the East, naturally wanted to celebrate on the 14th of Nisan, the date of the Passover. "Churches in Asia Minor (following the Johannine tradition that the death of Jesus occurred at the time of the slaying of the Passover lambs) celebrated the Christian Pascha on 14/15 Nisan, regardless of the day of the week on which this date might fall." [2] This practice presented an interesting situation for the Church. Those Christians who maintained the Jewish date looked to the Jews to determine it. "In Judaism, the calendar is lunar. Each month, Nisan included, includes the phases of the moon, and the Passover falls on the 14th day of the month, that is, the full moon.

The determination of this date was a secret process jealously guarded in the Jewish Temple and later, synagogues, and it was according to this calculation that Christ observed the feast." [3] In order to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ on the actual Passover date for a given year, the Church would have to rely on the Jews, something they were not willing to do. Not only would the Church have to acquire the date from the Jews, but the fact that the 14th of Nisan could be on any day of the week did not appeal to them either.

"The Hebrew Passover falls on any day of the week, and this did not suit the Christians. They wanted a Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday, proceeding to Good Friday and ending on Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection." [4] Those Christians who fought to celebrate Easter on the 14th of Nisan were known as "Quarto-decimanians," most of whom lived in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. "The Western Christians observed Easter on a Sunday, the Eastern in many cases were Quartodecimanians and preferred the 14th day of the lunar month. It was a foretaste of the schism that was to split the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic." [5] The date for celebrating the resurrection was thus included amidst the great Christological controversies at the Council of Nicaea in 325. When Jesus Became God, by Richard Rubenstein, describes the atmosphere of the Nicene council.

"One underlying question was this: To what extent were the values and customs of the ancient world still valid guides to thinking and action in a Christian empire? Some Christians, among them were Arius and Eusebius of Nicodemia, had a stronger sense of historical continuity than others…By contrast, the strongest anti-Arians experienced their present as a sharp break with the past. It was they who demanded, in effect, that Christianity be 'updated' by blurring or even obliterating the long-accepted distinction between the Father and the Son." [6]

In the same spirit of breaking with the past, the council unanimously decided that the Resurrection celebration would not be on the Jewish date, but would fall on the Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox. Interestingly, the Sunday celebration actually still allowed for the possibility that the Church would celebrate on the same day as the Jews. Once again, the East and the West handled the situation differently. The West established a rule that if the date matched the Jewish Passover, the Church would wait another week to celebrate. Conversely, the East continued to celebrate even if the day coincided with Passover.

To this day there is still disagreement concerning the date of the Easter celebration. The Protestant and Roman Catholic dates of Easter coincide, but, due to a different method of calculation, the Eastern Orthodox Church's observance can be up to five weeks different than the Western churches. Desire for Christian unity has in recent years brought forth the idea of a universal fixed date for all Christian churches.

Pagan Elements

It is no secret that much of the modern Easter celebration has developed from pagan sources. The word "Easter" itself was essentially adopted by the Church from paganism.

The English word Easter and the German Ostern come from a common origin (Eostur, Eastur, Ostara, Ostar), which to the Norsemen meant the season of the rising (growing) sun, the season of new birth. The word was used by our ancestors to designate the Feast of New Life in the spring. The same root is found in the name for the place where the sun rises (East, Ost). The word Easter, then, originally meant the celebration of the spring sun, which had its birth in the East and brought new life upon earth. This symbolism was transferred to the supernatural meaning of our Easter…" [7]

Another common view taught by Bede, the English historian of the early 8th century, is that the word derives from "Eastre," a Teutonic goddess of Spring who received offerings in the month of April. While both explanations are plausible, it is clear that the word "Easter" is anything but biblical.

The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion states that the custom of Easter eggs may be based upon ancient fertility cults (Indo-European), the Persian association of eggs and spring, or the fact that some early Christians abstained from eggs during Lent. [8] It is not hard to see how Christians could have adopted the egg as a symbol of the tomb of Christ, or even their new life in him. Further, the rabbit is pre-Christian and represents fertility due to its rapid rate of reproduction. The rabbit has not actually been adopted as a part of the "Christian" celebration of Easter, but it has become a common symbol of the day in many cultures. Much like Christmas, the celebration of Easter has diverged greatly from the original remembrance of our Lord's death on the 14th of Nisan.

Balance

As modern Christians, we must decide how to engage a world that has lost interest in the true origins of our faith. Should we condemn modern holidays as pagan abominations? Or should we wholeheartedly accept our culture with an attitude of concession? As with so much in our modern world, we are to find a balance that allows us to exercise true spirituality and yet still engage the culture in which we find ourselves.

Imagine telling your loved ones at Christmas, "I'm sorry, I don't give gifts because I'm a Christian." Or on Easter, "I don't celebrate the resurrection of the Lord on Easter because I'm not a pagan." Clearly, there is some level of absurdity that can be reached by trying to avoid all the non-Christian elements of our culture. For example, in an article published by The Restored Church of God titled "The True Origin of Easter," the author correctly identifies the pagan elements of the modern Easter celebration, but we believe he goes too far in his zeal to avoid them. Concerning sunrise services, he states, "Observing sunrise services is serious to God! He so hates this vile practice that he will ultimately destroy all who persist in it (Ezek. 9)!" [9] Can this be the same God who inspired the following scripture?

1 Corinthians 8:7 and 8 (NIV)
"…Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

God has revealed that it is not an outward demonstration that He requires, but the inward dedication of the heart. We know that God did not raise Jesus from the dead on Sunday morning (it was actually Saturday between 3pm and sunset), but does God not honor the hearts of people who trouble themselves to get up in the dark on Easter Sunday, get dressed, and go to a gathering place to pray, sing, and affirm the resurrection of the Lord? We believe He does.

The Bible uses an interesting word to refer to our ability to relate to things it does not specifically mention—freedom (1 Cor. 8:9)! Remember, with freedom comes responsibility. It is not a sin to have a Christmas tree, or to hide some eggs out in the back yard for the children to find. Please understand, we are not saying that knowing the truth is not valuable, but we feel you can know the truth and still celebrate many modern customs. For example, a Christian can know that Christ was not born in December and that no early Christians had Christmas trees, and still have a Christmas tree of his own. He can know that Christ was crucified on the Jewish Passover but still show his devotion to the Lord in a Sunrise Service. What we as Christians must do is to teach ourselves and others the true freedom that Christ has given us. Many Christians are very blessed to take the opportunity that Easter provides to honor the Lord and his resurrection, and we think that is just fine with God (and the Lord Jesus).

As we consider what honoring the Lord will look like this season, it may be helpful to remember the words of Paul in Romans.

Romans 14:5 and 6 (NIV)
One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord.

God has given us freedom from all kinds of bondage. Do not let the true meaning of this Easter season be lost to you in a secular sea of eggs and rabbits (and chocolate—which early Christians did not have), but remember that much of the true meaning of the death and resurrection of the Lord is about the freedom we now have to celebrate that from our hearts, and pray and sing to bless and honor him, even if we do it on a day that is not actually "Passover." May we praise the Lord every day, forever and ever.

Was Jesus Christ really born on December 25th?

Is it true that some Christian holidays have Pagan roots?

The Last Week of Christ's Life

Did God really forsake Jesus on the Cross?

The Burial of Jesus Christ

6:05 AM

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Faith: A Confident Expectation of God's Promises Coming To Pass

Sunday, February 24, 2008

How Does Faith Work? We build our faith by building our relationship with God
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Once we understand that faith is trust, we are in a position to understand how faith works and to understand the biblical passages that use "faith." To understand how faith works, we will discuss the physical world first, then the spiritual world.

Let's say I meet someone for the first time. Do I have faith (trust) in that person? No, not yet. I may get such a good feeling about the person that I think I can trust him, but there is no real trust yet. Relationships do not start with faith (trust), they start on the basis of risk. For example, I move to a new town and need to take my car to a mechanic. I start with no faith (trust) in the mechanics in town, but I ask around. A few friends give me the name of a mechanic and say he is honest, fair in his prices, and does a good job. The testimony of my friends gives me enough faith (trust) that I will take my car to him, but there is still not a deep level of trust because I have not yet interacted with the mechanic nor tried to drive my car after he works on it. Nevertheless, I need my car fixed, so I take a risk. If the mechanic does what he says, and fixes my car, my faith (trust) builds. Over time, my trust will continue to build until I can say I really trust him. Being in relationship with someone over time is the only way to build genuine faith (trust).

Another thing about faith (trust) is that it is not "general," but is specific to certain areas. For example, I may discover that my mechanic does a great job repairing my car, but overbooks his calendar so much that he never has it back to me when he promises. So if my car breaks down before a trip I planned, although I trust him to fix it, I would not take it to him because I cannot trust him to get it to me on time.

If I do not trust a person, I can ask myself why that is. Is it that I have not gotten to know him well enough, or has he shown himself to be untrustworthy? Or perhaps I do not know him personally, but have heard things about him that have caused me to distrust him. All of these play a part in faith (trust), and also factor into our faith (trust) in God.

So if you feel you do not trust God, ask yourself why. You may find it is because you really do not know God. Remember that getting to know someone takes time. When Jesus was astounded with the disciples for their lack of faith (trust), he said to them, "…Do you still have no faith?" (Mark 4:40b). The word we need to pay attention to is "still." Jesus did not ask people to have faith in him when he first met them, but the disciples had been with him for months, and seen him do miracle after miracle. Jesus marveled that they had not built more trust in him during that time.

We build trust in God by building our relationship with God. Although some people have personal encounters with God, His Son, or an angel, it is more usual to meet God by having Him work in our hearts, by prayer, and by receiving revelation from Him. One of the most meaningful ways we meet God is in His Word. Reading, getting to understand, and applying the Bible is an important key in developing trust in God. Spending time daily with God in prayer and in talking with Him also builds trust. Likewise, obedience plays a huge role. Jesus said, "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (John 7:17).

God wants everyone to have a loving and faith-filled relationship with Him. He knows that if we do our part and enter into a relationship with Him, He will work in us and our faith will build. That is one reason why the Bible says to, "…seek ye first the kingdom of God…" (Matt. 6:33a-KJV). It is wrong to think that we should have great faith (trust) in God without being in a close relationship with Him. Our personal relationships do not work that way, nor will our relationship with God. As our heavenly Father, God is a very personal God. If we obey Him and do the work He has for us to do, spending time with Him in prayer, Bible study, meditation, as well as fellowship with other committed Christians, our faith will grow.

Why it is Impossible to Please God Without Faith

3:05 PM

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