CHAPTER
EIGHT
SPIRITUAL POLLUTIONS AND OBTAINING PURITY
ANOTHER GOSPEL, ANOTHER JESUS AND
ANOTHER SPIRIT
THE
THREEFOLD POLLUTIONS DECLARED BY THE APOSTLE PAUL
AND
FULFILLED IN TYPE ACCORDING TO THE PROPHECY OF CHRIST
In II Corinthians 11, we find Paul exposing some impostors who, without the works and words, the authenticity and demonstration of power in Paul, the integrity with the Old Testament or the apostles, were simply staging a take-over bid, with insufficient (moral, logical and spiritual) funds, for the Corinthian church.
The process has been
repeated almost innumerable times with other impostors, deceiving and often
themselves deceived with the due fruit of resisting the truth (as in II
Thessalonians 2:8-12), and according to the divinely divulged program attested
by Christ (Matthew 24:11,24), and extended by Paul and Peter in His name (II
Peter 2-3, II Timothy 3, I Timothy 4, Acts 20:28-29), in detail, it has
culminated in this present 'end of Age' party which apostasy is staging, as
predicted.
BEGINNINGS OF THE POLLUTION
THE CLASSIC CASE
Before we note more of this, let us get the plot straight on quality. The disease in II Corinthians 11 was threefold in type:
1) another
gospel
2) another Jesus
3) another Spirit.
This was the intrusion program, the commando landing barge array. It is found in II Cor. 11:4 -
"For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a different gospel which you have not accepted - you may well put up with it!"
A little later (
"For
such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
apostles of Christ.
And no wonder!
For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of
light.
"Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works".
It is wind without land, spray without sea, petrol without engine, surrealism without reality, visionary mouthings without either evidence or ballast, fresh from the seas of philosophy and desire, barren of any good thing. It is, in fact, says Paul, the work of the arch-deceiver and perpetual antagonist, the Satan.
It is what Peter predicted
in terms of "great
swelling words of vanity" (II Peter
That was END
OF DELAY time, near the end (doctor or worse); THIS is end of AGE time, near
His return for wheat, or chaff (Matthew 24:31, 3;12,
As noted earlier, there are and have long been, some bizarre enterprises in the black arts of mixing
1) the historical reality of Jesus Christ, with
2) some psychological, political or even territorial desire to create someone or something useful ...
3) so
making some hybrid, weak, imaginary, exploitative, a mere manipulative
obsession. Certainly, it is paying Christ the compliment of using His fortune
of deeds and reputation, then robbing it, as Bond is reputed to have done with
some billions of a company he took over in this country, to support some quite
different work! We shall in a moment give a little more conspectus over time,
but this is the method, and the results are always the same.
- However, the point remains, that minus the works and words of Christ personally, these efforts are as vacant as open land not built on, and have no more logical standing than theories that do not even meet the keen test of the teeth of scientific method, far less the testimony of being the offering of the almighty word of God.
- No single person at any time in history has even commenced in power, purity and performance, prediction and fulfilment of the same, to match Jesus Christ. There are many ideas; no performances in this field. It is a vacant lot, like the field of blood, of Judas.
One lot is vacant; the other was vacated: it was the Cross
of Calvary. In vacating it, however, Christ occupied the place for ever, unique,
able to overcome anything.
OLD TIME ASSAULTS ON RELIGION
AS WE MOVE TOWARDS THE
MEDIEVAL ERA
AND NEW BASTIONS OF EARTHLY
POWER
As to another gospel, a use
of some kind of the kudos, creative power and name of Jesus Christ, for ulterior
purposes, other intents, contrary to His reality and truth as written, as
exhibited in deed, as justly famed (cf. SMR Ch. 6,
Repent or Perish Chs. 2, 7),
we have seen in Ch. 7 above, some modern movements of
inadequacy, violating this prohibition, as likewise, reason and reality. But
this phenomenon, both prophesied and accelerating now according to stated plan,
is one of ancient depth - intimately and ultimately, as ancient as Satan.
A - THE PLAN
In the beginning, as to Satan, his ‘head’ was to be crushed by the foot of the seed (progeny, descendant) of woman. This was what is called the protevangelium, or prototype or commencement or initial indication of the form and force of the gospel. It was by this means this that the redemption which one, though born of woman, would carry out by virtue of a total power over sin, which failure had deprived man of having, but did not exclude God from deploying.
This protevangelion is found in Genesis 3:15, interestingly near to the exact arithmetic parallel of John 3:16, which went one further, attesting not merely that HE would come, but that NOW He HAD come! Only God could quash the crushing indictments of Satan, since sin is a fact in mankind, and only the sinless which was NOT mere mankind, could thus attack it, remove it, without being subject to it (as in Psalm 49:7,15, Hosea 13:14). God as man was the answer as abundantly attested throughout such prophecies as in Ezekiel 34, Zechariah 12:10, Isaiah 40, Psalm 45 and so on (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, concerning the Eternal Gospel in history - Revelation 14:6).
Thus ‘Jehovah’ or rather
(avoiding the mixture of vowel points and consonants) the LORD came as Jesus.
You see this for example, in Philippians 2, to which may be compared Isaiah
45:18-25 with Philippians 2:11-12, where the clearly enunciated divine prerogatives,
exclusive to God Himself in reality and principle - Isaiah 42:8, are conferred
effortlessly upon Jesus Christ. The same is found in John 8:58 with Exodus
3:14, and in John 5:19ff, where the WAY God does things is the WAY Christ does
them, and equal honour is specified as the case -
(cf. SMR pp. 96ff.).
B. EFFORTS TO SCUTTLE THE PLAN (cf. Revelation 11)
It is fascinating, as one watches the various aggregations and forces used in the way of countermanding this plan of salvation, directed towards its failure, that this gospel announced in this way from the very beginning - neither stalled nor was diverted, neither was modified nor amended, diluted nor distended. It was exact (Romans 3:25-4:25), and being true, required not truth to adjust it; being divine, allowed no error to distort, disturb or arrest it (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, That Magnificent Rock Ch.3).
Such
a plan appeared to be necessary in view of the divine hatred of sin, and
permission of the world to continue to exist, in terms of consistency; for if
God allowed in freedom the one phase, He was in nothing obliged to allow to the
other, over any time, its results. Freedom to display one’s nature is one
thing, in the creation; but continuation in such searing evil is another.
Freedom to be is a divine choice; permission to abort and even caricature
goodness, this is another.
Therefore
the remedy would need to be in view from the first, man by no means being a
permissible miscreant because of the divine oversight which He accords to His
own principles and purity! Evil to strut
and structure in this world ? Why ?
Only that it should be exposed, overthrown and goodness vindicated. But how ? By having things carry on in a polluted system, each
as it would ? Far from it.
That is no remedy, but a sunken sovereignty, captured by events. Needed was a
COVER for the situation, to make it pure. Achieved by sacrifice, this makes up
the gap. Applied by God, this secures the fruit. The world can continue to
exist WHILE and only while remedy - being adequate to cover the failed
principles, and to secure the fouled inhabitants of this earth, who need
cleansing and pardon - is declared, and is applicable.
God
being Himself, however, He went even further. Not only was remedy in view, it
was planned; not only planned, but prophesied, written, verbalised,
expressed - from the very first. It was adequate, timely and both a rebuke to
evil and a cover for goodness. God would not LIVE with a world merely embracive
of evil, nor suffer its filth to have favour.
At
once required was the GROUND of continuance of what molested truth,
righteousness and justice, as a system. It was this: that REMEDY being planned,
announced and to cover all who received it, SELECTION continued as a ground for
existence. Intolerable trifling with truth was not suffered as a cost to a
troubled God, but as an arena for outage in judgment, where redemption was not
received. The system was covered; its nature maintained: liberty BEFORE a
criterion of God’s own choosing, a remedy which rectified, this
continued, until the remedy’s effects were achieved in full.
In
this, as in the misplaced use of force in the arena of faith, and the lack of
remedy, alike, with mere aggregations of good and bad in view for reaching
‘heaven’, the Moslem efforts fail utterly, in principle as in
power.
Nevertheless
directed force against the divine plan of salvation has walked heavily across
the world’s stage. Hatred of the truth has been pandemic in this world.
Such force, we note it first - ISLAM.
In fact, they made a far
greater effort in power towards that fatal battle of
This total conflict in the last half century has been fascinating, but predictable: in fact, predicted in that the wars of victory by the Jews were phenomenal, against all probability, against staggering odds and … just as Zechariah 12 indicated (in the prophecy which at once goes to the topic of the repentance of a whole host of Jewish people, for having pierced the LORD in human form - v.10). Certainly that prophecy was made about 2500 years ago, before Christ came, let alone was killed; but with God, time is no object. He has it all. It is a usable commodity, not a lord over His mind! HE MADE IT! (Romans 8:33ff.). THIS is the SORT of verification which, in principle one would expect: WHOLLY out of the class of all competition, as if a racing car raced against a bicycle.
This situation arose because the Jewish nation (the political, not the racial is the point here, Jewish people contributing the APOSTLES!), again as predicted (Isaaih 49:7), did not accept the remedy, Jesus Christ the Redeemer, when He came; and has been remedy-less ever since, though not without divine protection on their return, as further predicted precisely, for all that (cf. Zechariah 12-14, and SMR Ch.9)!
Thus we find Judaism (as in Romans 10 for example) produced, and the ground for the time of predicted national repentance (as in Romans 11, cf. The Biblical Workman Ch.3, End-note 1, Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 19).
You get it in Rome likewise, where ONE was to rise RIGHT above his brethren, in total rejection of the resident power of the ONLY MASTER, Jesus Christ (cf. I John 2:27, Matthew 23:8-10), as we soon shall note briefly. That is Roman Catholicism (virtually a contradiction in terms) or Romanism.
Thus you have the intriguing fact that there are three PLACES, three geographical locations, which crystallise the rebellion, the manufacture of a novel Christ and two which have used force to further it.
These
of course are
FORCE VERSUS FAITH,
ARMS VERSUS LOGIC, EFFORT
VERSUS GRACE
That is the further point. It is not of course always clear to participants in any fight, precisely what the fight is about; but irrespective of motive, this is the simple reality. On force and faith, you may wish to pursue SMR pp. 50ff., 977-986, 1186Aff.. As Christ Himself made abundantly clear, force is irrelevant in the realm of faith, as its criterion (John 18, in discussions with Pilate!)
In these christ-manufacturing enterprises (without any implications about what is unknown, the actual intentions of those engaged), the Roman variety produced a CHRIST MINUS SINGULARITY, the papal powers arising to a strange zenith. (You see it in profane and almost ludicrous solemnity, using the name of Christ to usurp His prerogatives: the papal utterance, is called the ‘voice of eternity’ - SMR p. 1058; or elsewhere, "the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas … the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of all, being judged by no on, God himself on earth" - New York Catechism.)
With the Moslem religion, it became CHRIST MINUS IDENTITY, Muhammad, ex-works and prophecy, but according to Christ’s own predictions, becoming a major false prophet, if not indeed, false christ, depending on your definition of the latter.
With Judaism with
headquarters Jerusalem, there was earlier still, CHRIST MINUS PROPHETIC
PRECISION, His fulfilments being overlooked, His
power undesired and His healing in the way of national survival, religious
establishment or some combination. In some way or other, He had to be detached
from His obvious and intimate fulfilment of the
prophecies, but since (SMR pp. 886
ff.) the Messianic death HAD to occur around A.D. 30, or else their Old
Testament was wrong, they were in a pincers position. If they denied Him, then
there was no other; if they accepted Him, there might be pain from
IRONIC ? More than that! just
as Germany’s nearly half century division after
Hitler despatched half the world’s
Jews, was more than ironic. But that is the way with sin; it is exacting,
in the end… As Hosea puts it, Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Spiritual
meteorology is toyed with at vast peril! Of course their Christ, for Judaism,
also was CHRIST MINUS IDENTITY.
Thus we get an interesting
arithmetic.
THE THREE THREES WHICH DO NOT MAKE NINE
What then do we have ? There are the three of force, the three of manufacture and there are the three prohibitions of Paul, which are equally those of logic and reality (cf. SMR Chs.1-3,6). These three threes do not make nine. They make six plus multiplication by ZERO, the impasse of logic and Paul. They meet, in other words, the eternity of the gospel, the precision of prophecy, the power of divine proclamation, the laboratory experiment, if you will, of Christ actually being there, doing it and being able to be stopped in His impact and exhibition of truth, only by death, a death however, planned and specified as to its date and purpose, for SUCH A ONE AS HE, hundreds of years in advance.
Thus you have three threes equalling zero.
God does not use
force to settle faith. If He wished to do so, it would constitute a
terminological monstrosity; and it would substitute for truth, mere insurgency.
It would violate and indeed annul human responsibility and liberty and
accountability, such as humans uniformly attribute to each other, whether
logically or psychologically or morally, always erecting standards, even when
they attack standards, on the ground that they are not … right! (Cf. Predestination and Freewill,
and A
Spiritual Potpourri 16 with
SMR pp. 348ff.).
Since God, being
self-sufficient (SMR Ch. 1), does not do
this, He uses the gospel, a remedy for evil without violence as its criterion,
except for that used by plan, on
Christ (Isaiah 53:4-5,10), a violence which He Himself bore. To make violence
relevant in this field, as if God would use it to secure ‘faith’,
would barrenly make God evil, for nevertheless suffering evil to be and
continue; rather than good for providing redemption from its powers. An evil
God, however, as shown in SMR pp. 25ff.,
580ff. etc., and Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6, is only a logical impossibility, someone imagined,
exploiting what He freely creates, for the sake of powers that He already has
and a composure already possessed! It is, to say no more, someone ELSE’S
religion!
A FURTHER LOOK AT THE FRIEZE
WHICH
REPLACES THE FAITH
You get it in ancient times, or earlier ones, in Roman Catholicism, or ROMANISM where both a world rule forbidden by Christ as to METHOD and AIM for His servants (Matthew 26:52ff., John 18:34-37, John 14:30, Matthew 4), is adopted, together with a Church rule equally forbidden by Him (Matthew 23:8-10); while the Christ Himself is represented by an even more forbidden "God Almighty on Earth" pope (self-styled, New York Catechism), who is rather more therefore than being in a position under Christ, who as ONE "is your Master", with all the rest being “all brethren” by CONTRAST with the ONE Master! That is the way it is. God Almighty is not so simply disposed of. (Cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088H.)
You got it, this new gospel, Jesus and different spirit, similarly, and interestingly, while the changes leading to the Roman heresy were getting under way, though not fully developed, in the 7th century when the MOSLEM heresy arose. In this case, again the offering of physical violence enters in as shown in SMR, even in areas of faith, another Jesus is manufactured, a sort of imaginative biography of 6th century old history. This ‘other Jesus’, like the one of Rome and for that matter of Jerusalem, is not of any danger because He is made, and made as required. He is in this Moslem case NOT even verbally made not the definitive incarnation of God, but a righteous prophet whose death seems uncertain to Muhammad, giving two accounts of the matter*1, and whose atonement is utterly rejected. (Cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30 - Highway to Hell).
Muhammad, apart from rich and powerful raids and wars, did nothing whatever to enable him to compete with Christ as messiah, prophet or power from the Lord, but used Jewish fables, and visions to present a new christ and a new God, called Allah, whose place was to be almighty {Cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms (BAB) Appendix III; Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30; Repent or Perish (ROP) 1, p. 18, ROP Ch. 3, Repent or Perish Ch. 5, p. 99 , The Biblical Workman (TBW) Appendix 3, pp. 194-196; Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium (REF) Ch. 4, excursion *2; REF Ch. 8; Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 69, 82; SMR pp. 50ff., 829ff., 986-994, 1080-1082, 1186Aff..}.
Again the wars of the twentieth century - in which the word of God versus the power of 'Allah' has been seen experimentally - since 1948 in fact, have shown that the word of God as in Zechariah 12-14 predictions, has stood, while the all- might of Allah, with magnificent opportunities to show that he, and not the Bible, has got what it takes in strength and precision of utterance, has failed for decades. There have been efforts enough to force the Jews, divinely protected as predicted on their return (SMR ), as expressed by the Egyptian Colonel Nasser, where ? Why into the sea; and perhaps elsewhere with Saddam Hussein, cherishing the state of war with Israel as late as in the 1991 explosion. The Jews ? they would be forced Into the sea, or elsewhere, or anyway, OUT as in the 1991 Teheran Conference for the PAN-ISLAM move against Israel. The only thing pushed out, however, has been the anti-Israel intention of the Islamic body.
Unevidenced, unattested, unverified, making a new christ after 600 years without history, Muhammad has merely added to the list of those for whom the Bible appears as a rock, and they the dust. After all, this is in harmony with what Christ Himself indicated of inveterate rebellion (Matthew 21:44): “And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomsoever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Which stone ? The one “which the builders rejected” (Matthew 21:42, Psalm 118:22ff., cf. Psalm 2, 22, Isaiah 49:7, 52-53, Zechariah 11-13).
And who was that ? and who were the builders ? The builders were the priestly Jewish establishment, allied to Pilate (of sad end), and the stone rejected is Him rejected by men (Isaiah 53). Alas, Jerusalem was to become little more, very soon after the murder of the Son of God. Murdering your Maker, even if it is only the human format, is not an everyday occurrence! It was in fact predicted for a thousand years! The murder was predicted and proceeded as planned; it had to come, but so does the judgment. Thus you got JUDAISM, pending the predicted repentance.
What then do we find ?
· You have got these movements of old; but they are ever new in their endeavours, though the methods are not new.
You get again the same sort of thing in the rapidly spreading 19th-21st century bodies called:
SECTS
1)
These bodies are without
exception to be found with a new Christ who is not the infinite, infallible,
all-knowing, unchanging deity.
2)
Nor is the gospel one in which
the love of God is conjoined with His divine sovereignty so that sin is purged
by ransom in a substitutionary offering of divine status. Nor is there one case
where the salvation is dependent on ONLY ONE SAVIOUR, man in some way or other,
having to do it or make it happen, himself. Hence it is never sure, and man has
a fine old time helping people get wherever it is they are thus to go! It gives
man power, and man uses that power with money and manipulation, or direction and
despotism, overlording or appeal that ends in suggestion. There is nothing
objective.
3)
There is no real Christ, only
inventions of the mind, that reject in admitted or hidden ways, the gospel, the
Christ of the record. Now when you make GOD you are by definition an idolater;
hence these
a)
make idols, by allowing Christ as divine, and then altering ‘Him’; or else
b) they do not deal with the Christ of God, as God, and so worship God in some
alien form
(cf. John 8:42, 8:19,24,58).
4)
But God has declared who He is in
Christ. Diversity from this touchstone, who has “led Him forth” or declared Him,
(John 1:18) is a would-be creation of God. That of course is simply a
contradiction in terms. It is really creation of ‘god’, a mental construct, or
the wrong spirit!
5)
Either way, it is idolatry in
this, that in the second case b), they are worshipping they know not what, for
nothing is given after the Son of God, to surpass Him, whether by man or angel,
nor is any Gospel permitted after the preaching of Paul, to differ at all from
what he had preached (Galatians 1-5). And as different, it is not God. Since
they change Him, they change ‘God’. In fact you cannot, so they worship what is
not God (as in Deuteronomy 32:21, precisely). In the first case a) , they deal
with the ‘Son of God’ as deity, and change Him, so making their imagination the
criterion, not the incarnation. This worshipped, become idolatry just the same
as before.
6)
Thus in practice, they do not
take God as He is, Christ as He is, whom having seen, one has seen the Father
(John 8:19, 14:9); and hence the idolatry is by making a God who is not
revealed, a combination or syncretism of the One sent to declare God and … other
declarations, like that of Mormonism, which would have Christ ‘one of us’, a
mere god-in-the making type such as they invent for all, and hence reject His
deity, as in John 8:58. NONE of us is self-existent!
7)
Mormonism’s god-in-the-making is
a conception so gross and defiled as to defy the most elementary logic, as noted
in SMR Chs. 1-3,10; to reject the very basics of the Biblical picture of the
God, the absolute and immovable, immutable Creator (Isaiah 45:18,12, 40:26ff.),
who has no God, before or after Him (Isaiah 43:10-11). He is alone, and as such
created (Isaiah 45:24).
There
presented is He who alone made man, having created him: He who IS the beginning
and the end, the first and the last (Isaiah 44:6), who does not change, from
everlasting to everlasting being GOD. Fast-track gods are not at all in the
picture, neither the el nor elohim varieties (Isaiah 45:15ff. ).
· In Christ, God has made Himself known, and Mormonism has rejected Him, and led Him off to the slaughter conceptually, as surely as the Jewish nation did physically.
· One is God, and one category is man, and any thought of moving from one to the other is as captious a collision of infinite with finite as it is possible to make;
· while the degradation of Christ to creature is as blasphemous as the proposed elevation of man to godhood. Moreover the mythical evolutionary concept of moving upwards,
· as distinct from the categorical "new creation" of man
· when converted to Christ (II Cor. 5:17ff.) when "all things are become new",
· back to the image of the God who made him (Colossians 3:10, Eph. 4:24),
· to the "new man which after God has been created in righteousness",
· a restoration of the run-off in His image:
· this is as alien to the 'kinds' terms of reference for creation from Genesis forward, as it could possibly be.
In mode of creation, manner of salvation, in
matter of doctrine and matrix of thought, in rejection of the Lord's Christ 9
(Luke 2:36) and the invention of their own, unrealism and irrationality,
Mormonism moves from the flights of fancy, to the overflights of the Bible,
dropping the bombs of imagination on the terrain of reality, and since the
latter is not hurt, destroying only their own place of landing.
"Is there a God
besides Me ? Indeed here is no other Rock, I know not one"
- Isaiah 44:8. To be wiser than God is an invidious distinction, and to be the
educator of the divine is too human a failure!
"Who has directed the Spirit of
the Lord, or being His
counsellor, has taught Him!"
(Isaiah 40:13). The infinite can never be equalled by the finite, in quality,
essence or eternity without change. What is not infinite, is not God. What is
not God can never become it. Man's lot is to turn and to return to God, in
humility, ready for instruction, apt for reconstruction, which once done, is
categorical.
When God is
heeded, and reason is attended to, Mormonism collapses like a flower trying to
act as foundation for a skyscraper: The time sequence approach is deleted, the
quality status is deleted, the becoming is deleted, the concept of all being one
brand of being is deleted. One is the Creator, the rest are creations. Only in
the most explosive irony is man called a 'god' and only then, in order to remind
him, that most ungodlike, he will DIE for his presumption (Psalm 82).
8)
Christian Science likewise fails to have the
supreme creator and deity, departure from whom, on the part of His creation,
man, there created objective sin.
9)
Jehovah’s witnesses like Mormons and
Christadelphians reject the deity of Christ, and so are in manufacturing mode in
the Pauline sense. Freemasonry makes a religion of Moslem and Biblical
conjointness (for example) to one Architect, which is the same as saying 2+2=4
and also = 10000, and is simply irrational, since the one ‘God’ has no Son and
the other has One who is His equal, expressed in flesh. And so on.
10)
NONE has grace only, from a total sovereign who is
also LOVE (I John 4), Christ as eternal deity and that spirit of repose in which
Christ has GIVEN REST, the Seventh Day Adventists being most strenuous on the
non-availability of such assurances, of certainty of heaven for the children of
the Lord, and KNOWING you are such a child (as in Romans 8:16), despite talk of
grace and that sort of thing, for the insistence on laws in the midst of
salvation does not cease to appear.
11)
Nor does their departure from all the indications
of the Bible on the day of worship help their works insistences, and assurance
denials. It is a gross insult to God to make the death of His Son, equally
deity, in human form, not the greatest of the works, from which GOD THEN RESTED
in the resurrection, so that the day of rest had to come in a commemorative way
because of that. Thus it was not the case that Christ was there to worship on
the Saturday, and the record shows that after the resurrection He was there, and
was worshipped, as indeed by Thomas also on the next Sunday; and of course,
Pentecost likewise was on Sunday, as was the indication of collection time for
the church at Corinth, and so on. But these are mere additives to the renovation
program, a different Christ with different powers. In one way, it is not
entirely surprising that His day is so reduced!
12)
All have a new Jesus, a new Gospel, and a
resistance to revelation or an addition, or subtraction, or both; and often
appear as a spirited undertaking, which deceives many.
13)
However, since this profusion of false prophets
and false christs is PREDICTED by Christ, and this in the CONTEXT of the
rumblings of historical change preceding and in a sense, almost PRODUCING His
return, in that UNLESS THOSE DAYS WERE SHORTENED, NO FLESH COULD BE SPARED, they
merely illustrate the beautiful sovereignty and procedures of the God. It is He
who knows it all, plans it all and tells His plans to the point those are
ashamed, or should be, who fulfil them, since they are already warned! (Matthew
24:11,23 - esp. true of Rome, 24-28).
14)
Thus one could imagine being told that the Allied
Forces on D-day would land in Normandy beaches; but if, after 1000 years of
warning, the Germans did not react by protecting them, you would … wonder.
Again, we might consider further aspects here.
Sects produce a ‘Christ’:
 |
minus His identity (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians) |
|
|
or minus Biblical saving power (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Mormonism, Christian Science, 7th Day Adventists) |
|
|
or minus glory of grace (7th Day Adventist, Rome and all others) |
|
|
or minus singularity (Bahai and New Age allies, Rome, Mormons). |
The pluses of philosophy such as noted in part above, rush in like air to a vacuum. You have a ‘God’ who can be carried, or who needs your help in salvation to secure it, or who is there only if you realise it, or who does not like really to pay at all, so does not redeem, and merely sits on all the evil and is thus irrationally of its character; or One who is not felt actually to fuss too much about creating the universe; or you have a universe greater than god or a system in which everything happens, which is a sort of home for gods, until we reach a kind of polytheism worthy of the East, based on nothing*2 to talk about, a sort of removal of all features and every focus by a mathematical style exercise, resulting in nothing left at the deity level. The problem of course is this: nothing is NOT the result we have, and nothing does not account for it!
None of the sects have in their teaching of Christ, all of the components noted in red above: His glorious identity, power, grace, prophetic precision and deity. In the final logical analysis, since all these things cohere in Christ, the loss in simple teaching is abysmal.
Another Jesus in view of His words and works, leads to another gospel - as in the grace-shrinking point aspect noted above (versus Ephesians 2:1-10).
Another spirit - it is highlighted in such things as in the moment of universal consciousness in New Age types of outlook (cf. SMR pp. 866ff.); and it is one which works to establish righteousness for acceptance before God (as in Romans 10:1ff.), which is the work of Christ (Ephesians 1:1-11). Indeed, these ‘other Jesus’ types, are they which do not, in terms of Biblical teaching, in whole or in part, have any salvation producing power whatsoever (Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians 2). There is NO OTHER NAME (Acts 4:11-12), so changing the content and keeping the label, is mere subterfuge. The Christ concerned is that recorded, and any other cannot be God, since building God is mere idolatry. If not God, then it is mere rejection, and the worship of the substitute, idolatry.
Moreover the church as Saviour eccentricity, as in Rome, which insists that it is “altogether necessary to salvation to be subject to the Roman pontiff” apparently misreading Acts 4:11-12 and I John 2:27 and Matthew 23:8-10, and Galatians 6:14, is not far off in essence, from what happens in many other types of movements where the ‘authorities’ invent new doctrines. Then, as in Mormonism, then may condemn the attribution of old ones to themselves, while still boasting the same INSPIRITED founders. Who knows who knows what, when so much is said by so many about such things, without evidence, with assured words pronouncing various dooms on say-so. In the case of Rome as noted in SMR p. 981, one Pope, Leo II, declared heretical the doctrine of a predecessor (Honorius) as did Church Councils and Pope for 800 years (see refs. loc.cit.).
It becomes soon a mere confounded confusion of illusion and allusion, signifying nothing to the point. Wherever it is in practice, CHRIST PLUS ME THE SAVIOUR there is bound to be confusion; for alas, the human race is not pure enough or profound, or authorised, to take any part in the actual status change which provides eternal life (Romans 6:23, Galatians 1-3).
¨ The fruits follow; they attest; but they do not INVEST themselves to produce a place in the family of God at all. THAT IS ALLOCATED, and it is received BY FAITH (Titus 3:4ff.). You do not become anyone’s child by works. Those who try to get in by some other way than by the Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep and who confers eternal life so that they cannot perish, when once they enter by Him (John 10:9,27-28), these find never a crack in the door, and when using windows and climbing techniques, protestations of their own morals and so on, for acceptance, merely become classified by Christ with robbers (John 10:1).
THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL OF GRACE AND
THE DIVINE SAVIOUR WHOSE FACE
WAS MARRED BEYOND ANY MAN, TO MAKE IT SO
THUS YOU CANNOT ENTER THE HOUSE OF GOD IN THAT WAY, and those who try are so termed by Christ - robbers. That is the category. The alarm sounds, and it is no use trying to avoid the policing of the truth, the savour of which is known afar off … (cf. Matthew 22:13-14).
If you are justified by His blood (as in Romans 3:23ff.), then HOW MUCH MORE will He save you from wrath, says Paul (Romans 5:9). It is super certainty! It is a fortiori…If you are not, there is no use trying anything else. It is mere junk. Comparisons with deity are blasphemous as well. HE is the Saviour and there is NO OTHER (Isaiah 43:11) in fact or in name (Acts 4:11-12). Hence it is necessary to avoid the contrivances, the innovations, the other Jesus, other Gospel, other spirit than that which was received syndrome, and come by the door! You do not have to pay for the door; the payment for its availability is made already. You ? you enter (John 10:9).
That, it is simple. It is so simple little children can so come; and often do.
The actual Christ does not change, His words stand; they can never be touched; history touches them and simply salutes.
Reality is very simple IN THE USER INTERFACE, by courtesy of the superb and supreme God ‘who is there’, as Francis Schaeffer liked to put it.
The world goes its multi-polar way, on its comparative religion track, excited by anti-Biblical sects, ancient fallacies in rich dress, radical and liberal denudations of once sound churches, the World Council of Churches, with its inclusivist position in stark contrast with the requirements of the Bible (cf. SMR pp. 743ff.), false christs, false prophets, another Jesus here, another one there, as foretold, so attesting the thrust which it rejects:
“THIS JESUS, WHO WAS TAKEN UP FROM YOU INTO HEAVEN,
WILL SO COME IN LIKE MANNER
AS YOU SAW HIM GO INTO HEAVEN” (bold added).
He will not come as a god in process, or a mere guide helpful in heart, or as a participant in someone else’s universe, but as JUDGE, the first and the last (Revelation 2:8), first taking His own who being saved by grace, are as distinct as sheep from goats (Matthew 25 tells the tale, the good attributed to the saints by grace, the evil held against the recalcitrant because they WILL NOT HAVE mercy, and so receive none from the only place where it may be found - cf. Acts 13:46).
All sorts of substitutionary programs, people, passions and pastimes will be and are being tried, as predicted. They fail predictably. But as to Him, His presence, power, works, grace and place (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, Appendix IV, Repent or Perish Chs. 2, 7, Biblical Blessings Ch. 9): they are unduplicable, inimitable, illimitable and delimited by Himself alone. God is not available for copying! The sublime focus does not change. The sublime simplicity of the Gospel and singularity of the SAME JESUS, is immutable, as it is beautiful, uniquely valid (SMR Chs. 3, 6, That Magnificent Rock Ch. 5) and powerful. What it says, happens. That is all.
Many who reject it make a large noise, so that if it were possible the very elect might be deceived (Matthew 24:24). But it is not possible. God knows PRECISELY what He is doing (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29ff.), but “quietness and confidence” (Isaiah 30:15-17), indeed the quietness of truth, the precision of prophetic perspective, the entirely gracious plan of salvation (Eph.2:8), the inimitable blessedness of the presence of Christ (Colossians 1:27, Romans 8:9) and the certain realities of Christian destiny remain, as untouched in perfection as the Bible always has shown them, from Christ, to be:
Impenetrable,impermeable
Imperial, immutable
and marvellous.
As to God, He is not to be formulated and fashioned by angels (as with the Mormons, cf. Colossians 2:8,18), but
¨ sought (as in Psalm 107, on His own terms)! with all the heart (Isaiah 55); and
¨ heeded (Proverbs 1!, Jeremiah 7) not kneaded (Jeremiah 43:5ff., with 44:17!)
¨ loved not licensed (John 14:21-23, Matthew 23:8-10, Isaiah 40:13-26)
¨ followed, not led (John 10:27-28, Jeremiah 44:17).
The one to become His, needs to come -
to the Christ who is THE SAME in continuance, being God, in whatever format, for God does not change (Philippians 2, Malachi 3:6); and deity in status;
to the blood which is shed, as His propitiation provision and redemption payment (Romans 3:23ff.)
for the Bible allows no other Jesus, no other way, no other salvation, no other grace, no componential, quasi-salvation, in which you put your oar to build the boat which safely carries you there. You do not build that boat, but ride in it, and row for obedience, not naval construction!
To change the imagery: It is not fruit but root which matters, and the planting must be divine. Then the fruit comes naturally to just such trees, as Christ directly stated (Matthew 7:15-19, 15:7, Isaiah 61:3).
Sartorially, again: The robes of salvation are put on by CHRIST (Isaiah 61:10), and their absence is fatal (Galatians 3,5).
While the reason for the faith allows no other to have so much as logical validity as this site has repeatedly shown (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 7, SMR Ch.3, That Magnificent Rock Ch. 5 and so on), it is FAITH
· which works by love (Galatians 5:6), and it is FAITH
· which indispensable, pleases God (Hebrews 11;6), and it is FAITH
· which must be placed in His mercy, and it is FAITH
· which grants you to believe you have eternal life by virtue of Christ (I John 5:12-13);
·
for
you must believe in HIM (Ephesians 2:1-10) without alloy or other name
whatsoever.
It is not in you and Him, that you believe if a Christian; but in HIM; and not in church and you, but in HIM; and not in society or works and Him, but in Him. For He who believes in HIM has eternal life (John 6:47). Indeed He who SEES Him and believes in Him is to have eternal life (cf. Isaiah 45:22). It is in the cross of CHRIST that you must glory, and what does it say: “GOD FORBID THAT IS SHOULD GLORY EXCEPT IN THE CROSS OF CHRIST BY WHOM THE WORLD IS CRUCIFIED OT ME AND I TO THE WORLD” (Galatians 6:14).
IF you have come to this same Jesus, and this same Gospel therefore, and have
received this same Spirit accordingly (Romans 8:16, 8:9) so that you find that
because “Christ is in you, the body is dead because of
sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” so that He
“who raised up Christ form the dead will
also give life to your mortal bodies, through His
Spirit who dwells in you”: all these RESULTS, then well. If not, then the
simplicity is in the starkest possible contrast to the whole pack of howling
sects and secessions. In such, you merely immerse yourself in quackeries,
however self-deceived you and they may be, and turn from the pure mountain
streams of truth, delivered at enormous cost, and personally by THIS SAME JESUS
(Jeremiah 2:2-13). The Lord expresses it sublimely:
“Be astonished, O heavens, at
this,
And be horribly afraid:
Be very desolate, says the LORD,
For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns - broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
These contra-Biblical, alter-gospel, neo-Christ monstrosities of misused human invention, not only DO not hold water, but as the word of God pronounces on all such alienations of truth, CANNOT do so!
NEW TIME MOVEMENTS ALLIED IN PRINCIPLE,
TO WHAT PAUL DEFINED
Thus as noted earlier, in terms of this painful conformity to the THREEFOLD PROHIBITION OF PAUL in II Cor. 11:4 - new GOSPEL, new CHRIST, DIFFERENT SPIRIT, what is happening ? The Corinthians phenomenon, the invasion of which Paul warned them so strenuously, in such dire terms, is surging to its predicted culmination of profusion and confusion. But do not let the Christian be surprised; for the notice of events, the progam as announced, is two millenia old! Do not be weakened by this wooliness, for the cleaned fleece in the hands of THIS SAME JESUS is clean indeed, and not merely verbally processed! (Isaiah 1, esp. 1:18).
You get it, this syndrome, in ancient heresies, those distressing Israel of old, in modern sects, in modern movements away, now to be found in many formerly sound denominations, in dramatically increasing numbers. (Reported earlier on this site, are recent moves BOTH in the Lutheran and Anglican bodies, which are so large that this in itself is a vast transformation in the situation! - cf. The Frantic Millenium and the Peace of Faith Ch. 1, Stepping Out for Christ Ch.4, and Ch. 7 above in this volume).
You get it with the reported statements of the new Anglican Primate, the Archbishop. Here in just such a way as this, you have the name, authenticity, fame and drawing power of Christ turned into something which MUST conform to CURRENT philosophical and sociological, and indeed very possibly psychological trends.
But what are these forces in the case of reconstructed Christs ?
IT MUST NOT BE TRUTH; IT MUST NOT BE THE ONLY ONE; OR IT CANNOT BE ABSOLUTE. (Cf. Lead Us not into Education Temptation! where this is quite explicit. This indeed provides an excellent modern example of the creation of gods for social purposes, within social constraints, a mere plaything, philosophy’s intrusion into religion). Thus even GOD MUST BE MANIPULABLE. MAN CANNOT LEARN, HE CAN ONLY CREATE. He must NOT be told by DEITY! Or if he is to be told, he must be able to invent the telling, or to put it beyond any test, and to depart from the Bible, whether or not this is frankly acknowledged. Uncreatable gods are passing out of fashion. This appears to be the cry, just as the supernatural passed out of fashion, according to the tenor of contemporary report, in the mind of Principal Geering in New Zealand.
Christ DID indeed
speak not a little on inheritance - spiritual inheritance.