Don’t let this post stop you from reading the previous one I just wrote, which is better and more important.

Not that this one isn’t important, so …

Blessing and Cursing

I remember my surprise the first time I really noticed Proverbs 26:2 as I was reading …

Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight. (NKJV)

A curse without cause shall not alight?

Doesn’t that suggest that a curse with cause shall alight?

Real Blessing and Real Cursing

Remember the story of Balaam? Balak of Moab hired Balaam to curse the Israelites.

Balak was scared of Israel. He hired Balaam because he believed that Balaam’s curse would really happen. It would hinder the Israelites.

In other words, Balak—and Balaam who accepted his employ—believed that a curse would cause real world damage.

Remember Jacob and Esau?

Jacob sneaked into Isaac’s tent to steal Esau’s blessing, which was his by right because Esau sold it to him for a bowl of lentils.

When Esau came later, seeking a blessing, Jacob said …

Behold, I have made him your ruler, and I have given him all his relatives as servants. I have sustained him with corn and wine. What shall I do for you now, my son? (Gen. 27:37)

It’s apparent, isn’t it, that Isaac believed his blessing had power. He did not talk about wishing something were so. He talked about "making him" and "giving him" and "sustaining him."

No wonder the Scripture says death and life are in the power of the tongue (Prov. 18:21).

Dealing with Curses

I believe the Bible is correct. I believe blessing and cursing carry power, though that power varies from person to person depending on their faith and sincerity.

However, the Scriptures do not only talk about the power of blessing and cursing. They talk also of the power of those who follow God …

A great example is Balaam, whom we have mentioned.

Balaam obviously knew the power of cursing, or he would never have accepted Balak’s offer. Yet, when it came time to curse Israel, he was unable to. He excused himself to Balak with, "How shall I curse those whom God has not cursed?" (Numbers 23:8)

Also, as we saw in the verse that begins this post, Proverbs claims that a curse without cause shall not alight.

Finally, the Scriptures say repeatedly to those who inherit the promises of Abraham, "I will curse those who curse you."

Cursing Versus Cussing

In modern times we have turned do not curse into do not cuss.

Have you ever wondered why damn and hell are cuss words?

They are cuss words because they were originally curse words. People would tell other people, "God damn you," as in, "May God condemn you."

Similarly, "Go to hell" was a curse that at one time people meant.

Cursing someone to be condemned by God and to go to hell are things the Bible forbids to Christians. We are told to bless and not curse by Paul and to bless even those who curse us by Jesus himself?

Why should we worry? If we are under God’s blessing, how can a mere man curse us? If we give no cause, then a curse should not alight.

Worse, those who curse us face being cursed by God. Thus, it is a matter of kindness to bless in return so that they are not damned by God.

Of course, we have added a lot of other cuss words that are not curse words since cursing became cussing. I won’t print any of them on my blog, of course.

Cussing

This section is completely and aside. It adds nothing to what’s above, but it’s related, and I thought you’d be interested in this.

The Scriptures say nothing about cussing because cussing wasn’t invented back when the Scriptures were written. They still knew about cursing. They didn’t know there were words you shouldn’t say just because they have 4 letters in them.

That doesn’t mean we should cuss.

The Scriptures do forbid us "filthiness, silly talk, and jesting" (Eph. 5:3).

I don’t believe that means never telling a joke. If it does, then you might as well curse me with going to hell because I’m definitely on my way straight there.

I think that verse is talking about being crude and silly. Christians are told to be sensible and responsible (my interpretation of sober and grave, which I think can be justified by the Greek words).

No one wants to lean upon or trust a crude or silly person.

Cussing is a sign of a weak intellect. By that I don’t mean people who cuss aren’t smart. I mean they’re lazy, indifferent to the feelings of others, uncontrolled, and offensive. In other words, they’re wimpy about putting effort into their lives and relationships.

Most cussing can be replaced by very effective adjectives, and overcoming a bit of laziness will allow us to communicate our feelings more fully, more accurately, and with respect.

One of these days I’m going to have time to do justice to the series I was doing on the appearance of Paul from 1 Thessalonians 2. There’s one post on exhortation I really want to get to, but I have to have a good amount of time to write it.

I got another email from the Eastern Orthodox fellow I wrote to a couple days ago. It made me realize there’s some very un-Protestant ideas I hold to.

What I’m about to write is not going to be very popular because most Protestants prefer to trust their intellect than to trust God.

There’s 2 reasons for this:

• Protestants greatly overestimate their ability to understand something as spiritual as the Scriptures.
• Protestants greatly underestimate God’s ability to reveal his will to men.

1. Having an official canon of Scripture is bad

It’s not historical.

Even as late as A.D. 399, Augustine wrote …

Among the canonical Scriptures [the skillful interpreter] will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. (On Christian Doctrine II:8:12)

While most of the books we have in our Bible were accepted by all churches, some were in dispute. Other books that didn’t make our canon, like The Shepherd of Hermas and First Clement, were accepted by some churches.

The Apocrypha, subject of much dispute between Catholics and Protestants, were in dispute until modern times. Even Martin Luther quotes the Wisdom of Solomon as though it were Scripture.

It leads to a "magic book" mentality.

Protestants today honor the Bible almost to the point of idolatry. They won’t set another book on top of it, and they’d certainly never toss one or set a coffee cup on it.

Protestants would never allow anyone to say that the Bible has contradictions or scientific errors in it, nor would they ever acknowledge disbelieving anything in the Bible.

Nonetheless, a majority have never read the whole thing. There are dozens of verses no self-respecting Protestant would ever repeat. It’s okay if the Bible says it, but we shouldn’t!

We use the Bible like a magic book. We proclaim verses in defense of our traditions as though they were incantations from a spell book, driving away evil beliefs. Other verses—the ones that directly contradict the things we believe—we ignore. They are true, we acknowledge, but we can give no practical way in which they are true, nor can we ever say them ourselves.

Not having a closed canon of Scripture means that the faith has to be handed down, as it was meant to be. It means that we have to find our own answers to many problems of life, guided by the Holy Spirit, as one of the undisputed books of Scripture commands:

I have written these things to you about those that are trying to seduce you. The anointing you have received from the Holy One remains in you, and you don’t need anyone to teach you. As that same anointing teaches you everything, and is true and not a lie, so you will remain in him, just as it has taught you. (1 Jn. 2:26-27)

Paul agrees:

… the house of God, which is the church of God, the pillar and support of the truth. (1 Tim. 3:15)

Oh, wait. I’m not supposed to say that. That’s one of the verses we don’t believe. It’s only true when Paul says it. We’re not allowed to repeat it.

Protestants Overestimate Their Ability To Understand Something as Spiritual as the Scriptures

This should follow from what I’ve written above.

The very fact that we have Scriptures we don’t believe, don’t agree with, and can’t repeat, all the while saying we do believe them, should be enough to prove that our intellectual approach is failing badly at understanding the Scriptures.

Our incredible, widespread division ought to be proof enough that we are not able to understand the Scriptures.

But we don’t get it.

The Scriptures were not meant to fuel our debate. The Scriptures were meant to equip us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16). They were meant to get us to obey Christ.

Not perform religious rituals … obey Christ.

Have you ever paid attention to what you’ll be judged for?

Look at those Scriptures you claim to believe (but mostly don’t; you believe your traditions instead). They say you’ll be judged by whether you fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned. Other verses say "good works," leaving things kind of general. 2 Peter 1 adds things like virtue, knowledge, goodness, patience, kindness, and love. (And I highly suspect that "knowledge" is a knowledge of what’s good, not a knowledge of systematic theology.)

You search the Scriptures because you think that you have eternal life in them, but these are they which testify of me, and you refuse to come to me so that you may have life. (Jn. 5:39-40)

What’s my point? Some new doctrine different from Protestant doctrine.

No, my point is that Christianity is all about exalting and obeying Christ. That’s what the Scriptures teach; they don’t teach something else.

In fact, they don’t teach anything else.

Protestants Greatly Underestimate God’s Ability To Reveal His Will to Men

Protestants—in general, I’m not speaking of all of them—don’t trust God.

Protestants really prefer to trust their interpretation of the Bible. They figure that if you start following the Spirit, being led by God, as the Scripture commands, then you’ll go astray.

Figure that one out.

The Scriptures—that set of 66 books you say you believe—say that if you follow the Anointing, it will be true and not a lie.

God is able to make his will known.

If we gave any indication—an honest indication—that we cared what God had to say, rather than saying the Scriptures are wrong wherever they disagree with our infallible Protestant traditions, then we’d find God has myriads of ways of getting our attention.

In the 1st century, back when John was on the Isle of Patmos, he actually appeared to John and sent letters to seven local churches.

Wouldn’t you like to get a letter from Jesus?

No, I don’t mean the Scriptures. Those are written to everyone. I mean a letter just for your church and its situation.

We might see things like that if we gave any indication we cared.

But as long as someone can read us a Bible verse telling us that the church is the pillar and support of the truth and we can reject that Bible verse because we believe the Bible is the pillar and support of the truth, then why will God speak to us? If we reject 1 Tim. 3:15, which we claim is the Word of God, and warn people against Rom. 8:14 because they might go astray, then why would God bother speaking through a human by letter or by prophecy? If we reject 1 Timothy 3:15 and Romans 8:14, then we’re certainly going to reject the letter or the prophecy.

Final Note

Well, that’s an abrupt ending. This post isn’t very organized. The paragraphs in each section don’t all fit the section they’re in.

What I wrote is true, though. I hope you’ll look at it without being offended by my generalizations about Protestants. Obviously, those things are not true of all Protestants, nor even all denominations of Protestants.

The magic book mentality, though, is pretty pervasive in conservative Protestant circles.

I don’t want to write posts like the one I just wrote without telling you what I’m about to tell you. That post discussed true and false Christians—or disciples vs. mere believers—and I don’t want you to misunderstand what I mean by disciple.

I’m not going to explain it to you; I’m going to give you an example, which is a much better explanation anyway.

As we were coming back from helping some friends in California come together as a church, my wife told me, "Most people aren’t willing to say the things you say."

I’ve been told that before.

Let me instantly pull you up to freedom of speech the way I was pulled up to freedom of speech.

Someone once wrote, "I am going to preach God’s Word unchanged and completely, even if the truth of his Word condemns me."

I believe that.

The Truth Because It’s True

I don’t preach the truth because I’m living it. I preach the truth because because it’s true

Does that make me a hypocrite?

I don’t believe so, and I have the testimony of the church—friends who know me intimately—that I’m no hypocrite.

But let’s look at this because like me, you have to say what’s true even if it condemns you. You can’t change or ignore the truth just because you find yourself unable to live it.

The Greek word translated—or, rather, left untranslated—hypocrite is hypokritos. It doesn’t mean hypocrite, or at least it didn’t in the 1st century. It means actor.

I like to translate it pretender.

I am not a pretender. I do not lie about who I am. When I teach about something that I am finding myself unable to live (at the moment), I say so.

If I’m not living it, all the more reason to teach it!

Why? Because then my brothers and sisters can help me live it. As I said in that last post, there some sins that you cannot be delivered from without the help of the church.

Being a Real Christian

There’s a terrific example of a real Christian, and what a real Christian needs, in one of the men I went to visit in California.

Bill (not his real name) has some problems. That’s not a surprise. We all have problems. His are particularly difficult to confess because they would be easy for him to hide.

He’s older, and he’s already had very high and very low experiences as a Christian. Recently, though, he was ready to give up. He had reached a state of hopelessness.

When we came along, the hardest thing for Bill to do was to hope again. Hoping means gathering up strength, devotion, and diligence one more time, and it means confessing his faults and taking a risk that we’ll really come along side to help him.

He did it.

That’s a real Christian.

I don’t look down on such a man for his problems. I look up to such a man for his faith.

We need to be people who can be trusted. I don’t have to be perfect. I have to confess my faults.

We will not succeed, we will not be saved, unless we are willing to encourage one another every day, while it is called today, so that we are not hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). We will not succeed unless we confess our faults to one another and pray for one another that we may be healed (Jam. 5:16).

That’s real Christianity.

Real Christianity is not perfection. Real Christianity is going all the way.

Real Christianity is choosing not to change the commands of Christ, even if they condemn us. Real Christianity is giving ourselves wholeheartedly to the Spirit of God so that God can deal with us and change us even—no, not "even"; especially—when it hurts.

Real Christianity is confessing our faults to one another and praying for one another so that we can be healed.

Don’t think you can have real righteousness otherwise. Sin is too deceitful, and humans, even saved humans, are too easily deceived.

For those of you that read my blog, but not Christian History for Everyman, I’m just letting you know I made a page on water baptism for that site.

It’s pretty comprehensive, even though it only touches on the mode of baptism by accident and that only one time.

I started this series yesterday with an introduction to the early Christian writings.

This is Ignatius’ epistle to the Ephesians, written in A.D. 107 or 116, about 50 or 60 years after Paul wrote his epistle to the Ephesians and only about 30 years after the letter to the Ephesians found in Revelation ch. two.

This is chapter 1 of 21, but the chapters are way shorter than Paul’s six chapters.

I have become familiar with your name, much beloved in God, which you have acquired by the habit of righteousness, according to the faith and love in Jesus Christ our Savior. Because you are the followers of God and because you stir yourselves up by the blood of God, you have perfectly accomplished the work which was appropriate for you.
     [You hurried to see me] when you heard that I had arrived from Syria, in chains for our common Name and Hope. With the help of your prayers, I am trusting that I will be allowed to fight with the beasts at Rome so that by martyrdom I may truly become the disciple of the One who have himself for us as an offering and sacrifice to God.
     Therefore I received the whole multitude of you in the name of God by the person of Onesimus, a man of inexpressible love, your bishop in the flesh. I ask you by Jesus Christ to love him and that you would all try to be like him. Blessed is the One who has given him to you, who has considered you worthy to be given such an excellent bishop.

Repentance of the Ephesians

We discussed this when we discussed Ignatius’ introduction yesterday. The start of chapter one is another indication that Ephesus repented after they received Christ’s letter (Rev. 2). The Ephesians had a "habit of righteousness," based in faith and love for Jesus Christ. Because they stirred themselves up by the blood of God, they perfectly accomplished the work God had for them.

I’d say they had returned to their first love.

The Blood of God, Part One: The Trinity

This is fascinating terminology. Yesterday, we discussed the fact that when the Father and Jesus are mentioned together, the Father is called "God," while Jesus is called "Lord." We all know this.

All of us know that Jesus sat down at the right hand of God. We would never read that the Father sat down at the left hand of God.

Yet here Ignatius talks about the blood of God. It is not typical to reference Jesus as God without naming him. If the Scripture mentions "God" without reference to one of the persons of the Trinity, it almost always means the Father. Yet here is Ignatius clearly referring to the Son with a general reference to God.

Acts 20:28 uses very similar terminology …

Feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.

This is unusual terminology, but not inappropriate, from a Scriptural and early Christian view of the Trinity. It is inexplicable from the Arian or Jehovah’s Witness view of the Trinity.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have actually put out a small booklet on the early Christian view of the Trinity, in which they take the nonsensical position that the early church was Arian—in other words, that they believed with Arius and the Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Son was a creation of God rather than born of him.

The position is nonsensical because the very reason Arius was condemned as a heretic was because he was against the church. You don’t get rejected for heresy when you agree with the church.

The reason the Jehovah’s Witnesses get away with it is because we’ve forgotten the early Christian view of the Trinity. We’ve replaced it with a doctrine that says that all three persons are coequal and coeternal.

This is neither Scriptural nor historical (sorry). It doesn’t agree with the Nicene Creed. Despite the fact that numerous Catholic and Protestant churches recite it weekly, it expressly disagrees with our view of the Trinity.

According to the Nicene Creed (and Scripture, and the early church), we have one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. The Son, Jesus Christ, is begotten of the Father. The Father is not begotten of the Son. The Son is divinity from divinity, light from light, true divinity from true divinity, but the Father is the true divinity and light from which the Son comes.

All the early Christians believed that Jesus meant it when he said the Father was greater than himself (Jn. 14:28). They did not believe it was a temporary thing while he was on the earth. The Father has times that he has set, and some of those are unknown to the Son (Mk. 13:32).

Those last couple paragraphs may be news to you, but they were not news to the early Christians.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have jumped on this bit of information in order to promulgate their disinformation. They quote the early Christians extensively because the early Christians said a lot about the Father being the one God.

But the JW’s neglect to quote passages like this one in the first chapter of Ignatius’ letter to the Ephesians. They neglect to give you the context of early Christian explanations of the Trinity. They don’t let you know that the early churches expressly rejected the idea that Jesus Christ was created from nothing. If Jesus was not formed from the eternal substance of God—if he was not eternally the Logos, or instinctive thought, of God—then he was not really divine.

It’s for this reason that Arius was wrong, and it’s for this reason that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are wrong.

Does this mean that JW’s can’t be saved?

No. It doesn’t. Chances are, you’ve got the Trinity wrong, and God saved you.

What stops JW’s from being saved is their lack of belief in Jesus Christ. They follow men and the teachings of men. They don’t know that Jesus wants to live inside of them by his Spirit because they believe the Spirit of God is an impersonal force.

Thus, they miss out on the whole central message of the Christian faith: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The Blood of God, Part Two: The Blood

More important than the doctrine of the Trinity …

Yes, more important than the doctrine of the Trinity is the reference here to being stirred up by the blood of God.

Listen, God will be fine if you don’t understand him. In fact, even if you can perfectly explain the Biblical and early Christian view of the Trinity, you still don’t understand God.

Never forget. God is saving us; we are not saving him.

And that’s the point I want to make about stirring ourselves up by the blood of God.

This whole ticket into heaven things is not what God is after. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The Bible never says that Jesus "paid the penalty" for our sins, and the whole paid-penalty theory is disgusting and immoral.

Are we really willing to suggest that God is under bondage to some cosmic law that forces him to torture people in fire eternally if they commit one sin?

That’s horrifying, and it has nothing to do with the God of the Bible who is praised repeatedly because "his mercy endures forever," a phrase found 41 times in Scripture.

The blood of God was not shed to change God. God was already merciful, which is why Jesus shed his blood. God already forgave sin to the repentant. He did not torture them eternally when they repented; he forgave them when they repented from the very beginning.

As David says, "Sacrifice and offering you do not desire … You do not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart …" (Ps. 51:16-17).

Jesus shed his blood so that you would live a life of repentance and righteousness.

Life was already offered to the repentant even under the Old Covenant …

In repentance and rest you shall be saved … but you would have none of it.

But under the New Covenant, Jesus died for us and not for God.

God didn’t need to change. He was offering salvation to those who would repent. We needed to change. We would have none of it. So Jesus, by his death, enabled us to repent and live for God …

For what the Law could not do … God did. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, he condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:3-4)

What’s our response?

Being enabled, we repent and perform righteous works that God has made for us to do …

If you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, then you will live. (Rom. 8:12-13)

The apostles knew that, so that is what they preached.

• The first Gospel sermon: "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
• Jewish description of the Gospel: "So, then, God has also given the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life" (Acts 11:18).
• Paul’s description of what he preached: "… that they should repent, turn to God, and do works appropriate to repentance" (Acts 26:20).

It remains true to this day that without holiness—a holiness that must be pursued, not one that is simply granted from God—you cannot see the Lord (Heb. 12:14).

It is the blood of Christ that enables us to do this. It is the blood of Christ that breaks the power of sin in us. It is the blood of Christ that cleanses us so that the Spirit of God may dwell in us.

He died for all so that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again. (2 Cor. 5:15)

In other words, my friend, you are not going to reap eternal life unless you continue doing good without growing weary (Gal. 6:8-9; 2 Pet. 1:5-11; 1 Jn. 2:3-4; Rom. 2:6-7). (I put Romans 2 at the end of that list because we Protestants don’t believe that verse. However, once you’ve made your way through those verses I listed in Galatians, 2 Peter, and 1 John, maybe Romans 2:6-7 won’t seem so unbelievable to you.)

A Little More on the Blood of God

Isn’t this ridiculous? I’ve spent 1750 words talking about 62 words that Ignatius wrote.

That’s only about 1/3 of that first chapter, and there’s more to say!

For example, he ends that first third—just the part we looked at, not the rest of the chapter—by saying that they have perfectly accomplished the work God had for them. That happened because they stirred themselves up in the blood of God. They did not congratulate themselves on their ticket to heaven and live how they pleased. They stirred themselves up, knowing that the one who says he knows God but doesn’t obey him is a liar (1 Jn. 2:3-4), and they perfectly accomplished the work God had for them.

How? By the blood of Christ.

There’s power in the blood. The blood cleanses us. It gives us fellowship with one another … if we walk in the light (1 Jn. 1:7). That blood is precious.

That blood is precious not only because it saved us, but because it purchased us. Yes, we’ve been bought by the blood of the Lamb of God, slain since the foundation of the world (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; Eph. 1:14; 1 Pet. 1:18-19).

Moving On

Okay, we’re hitting 2,000 words again. Let’s move on.

We’ll have plenty to do tomorrow: martyrdom as an entrance to heaven; how close Ignatius comes to bishop-worship and why.

It’ll be fun.

Roman Catholics are constantly telling me that Matthew 16:18—"The gates of hell shall not prevail against [the church]"—is proof that the church did not fall in the 4th century, like I say it did.

The church fell, whether the Roman Catholic Church likes it or not. Facts are facts, and asserting that something is impossible when it clearly happened is irrational.

So what in the world did Jesus mean?

Gates as Offensive Weapons

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of gates being used as weapons.

Even Samson, when he tore the gates off the city of Gaza (Judges 16:1-3), just ran away with them. He didn’t kill any Philistines with them, nor use them as weapons in any other way.

Gates are defensive structures.

Surely if the gates of hell are not going to prevail against the church, it’s because the church is assailing them. Seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it?

So the idea of Matthew 16:18 is not that the church won’t fall. The idea is that when and where the church exists, she will assail the gates of Hades and bring back the dead.

The Greek there is Hades. There’s several NT words for hell, and Hades is a reference to the place where the dead are. It’s very general, so it can mean the grave as well as the place where the rich man, Lazarus, and Abraham were (Luke 16:19-31).

One of our jobs as Christians is, of course, to rescue those who are dead in their trespasses and sins. Thus, we need to destroy the gates that keep them in Hades.

If we’ll join forces, giving up our divisions—that we like to more pleasantly call denominations, since our imperfect English translations neglect to tell us those will send us to hell like divisions will—then we’ll be able to tear those gates down.

If we don’t … well, then, we’ll just be more proof I can use to unwisely try to convince Roman Catholics of the obvious.

Below is an email I sent to a dear friend this morning concerning "parsimony" in Scripture interpretation. I believe all of it is true, but rather than explain why, I thought I’d initiate a little discussion.

My friend had written:

I’m starting to find that there’s a lot to the whole parsimony thing. I had been raised with complex answers to so many questions about the scriptures, but the simplest, (and often hardest to swallow and walk in faith in) is usually the right interpretation. ie: Jesus, Paul, James, John… they simply meant what they said.

My Response

I was thinking about that this morning.

The “born-again” crowd is given a few teachings that are not to be questioned. Then they read the Bible and the very books that supposedly produced those teachings–Romans, Galatians, Ephesians–are confusing, almost incomprehensible from a fundamentalist interpretation. Christians then just get used to the cognitive dissonance. “I believe the Bible. The Bible has all sorts of verses that I really don’t believe. Here’s the verses I use to ignore those verses. I believe the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God.”

Parsimony destroys the entire fundamentalist system. It rips their most important doctrines to shreds.

On the other hand, after some years of reading the Bible parsimoniously and getting your beliefs bulldozed, all the Scriptures begin to fall right into place so beautifully that it’s breathtaking.

It’s a lot like having a scratch-off game card. As you scratch more and more off, you begin to see the prize.

I love the Psalms.

Sometimes I’m scared to start reading them because I can get so caught up in the message of just one Psalm. It’s amazing the truths that are laying there, just under the surface, for the person willing to dig for them and to get used to interpreting the Psalms.

It’s not just general truths about God you’ll find there. I wonder if the whole message of the New Testament couldn’t be reproduced from prophecies and spiritual statements in the Psalms.

I did another commentary on a Psalm yesterday, Psalm 73.

I wanted to share it with you. Just follow the link.

I also did a shorter one on Isaiah 35:8-10.

There are two subjects that are taught by Evangelicals without ever consulting the verses on those subjects: the Judgment and baptism.

For both these subjects we do not consult verses about judgment or baptism; we consult verses about faith. We then extrapolate from those verses on faith to arrive at a conclusion completely different than what the verses on the Judgment and baptism actually say.

And then we call ourselves Bible believers.

I’d like to just address one of those subjects today. That subject is the Judgment. Then maybe in the next post we can discuss why those verses so badly contradict what we Evangelicals teach about faith.

The verses on the Judgment:

Matt. 25:31-46: Here Jesus says he will be on the throne, and the nations will be judged based on whether they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, and visited the imprisoned and sick. The sheep at his right hand did those things and inherit the kingdom. The goats on his left didn’t, and they are sent into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

As Keith Green pointed out at the end of his song, “The Sheep and the Goats,” the only difference between the sheep and the goats, according to the Scripture, is what they did and didn’t do.

John 5:28-29: Those that are in the graves will resurrect to life or condemnation based on whether they have done evil or good.

Romans 2:2-7: The judgment of God is “against those who do such things.” A hard and unrepentant heart stores up wrath for the day of judgment, when God will “repay every man according to his deeds.” He will reward eternal life, says Paul, to those who seek immortality by “patient continuance in doing good.”

Romans 14:10: “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” The verses on the Judgment apply to Christians as well as non-Christians.

2 Cor. 5:10-11: Again, we’ll all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, where we will “receive the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad.” Because of the fear inspired by this judgment, Paul persuades men.

Hebrews 10:26-31: This is the most horrifying of passages on the judgment. It is said to those who “have received the knowledge of the truth,” but continue sinning willfully. They should fearfully look for “judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversaries.” This is just because if Israelites were put to death mercilessly for violating the Law of Moses, how much worse punishment is deserved by those who tread the Son of God underfoot, count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and despise the Spirit.

James 2:13: The person who shows no mercy shall be judged without mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Thus we see that it is not believing in Christ that causes judgment to cease, but showing mercy, which is again something you do.

The very next verse says, ” What will it profit you, my brothers, if you say you have faith, but you have no works?” Apparently, James knew what Jesus and Paul said, which is that it’s only what you’ve done that will matter at the judgment.

1 Peter 1:17: This one speaks for itself very well: “If you address as Father the one who impartially judges according to each one’s work, then conduct yourself throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear.

There are not many of Evangelicals who believe the Bible, even though we say we do, so I get a lot of objections to these verses. A common objection is that if this were true, then it would cause Christians to fear.

Great! That’s what we’re commanded to do in 1 Peter 1:17!

Inheriting the Kingdom

Those are all the verses on the Judgment in the NT that actually give a description of the judgment. You may notice a consistent pattern. They all mention works, and none of them distinguishes at all between those who have faith and those who don’t.

There are other verses that warn us that this might be so.

Eph. 5:5: For this you know, that no immoral, unclean or covetous person—who is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Actually, many Evangelicals don’t know this.

The Scriptures foresaw this as well. Look at the next verse.

Eph. 5:6: Let no one deceive you with empty words …

We really should have listened to that better!

Eph. 5:6 (cont.): … for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

I’ve been told many times that people don’t go to hell for sin—because, after all, those are paid for on the cross—they go to hell for not believing in Christ.

Fortunately, I did not let them deceive me with those empty words.

Eph. 5:7: Therefore do not be partakers with them.

Now why would he say that in this context?

We should all know the answer now that we’ve seen the Scriptures on the Judgment. You’re not judged any differently than they are, except that you may be judged more strictly because “to whom much is given, much will be required.”

So don’t act like them, or you, too, will experience the wrath of God.

Revelation 3:4-5

You have a few names, even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments. They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before my Father and his angels.

It doesn’t get much more straightforward than this. There were only a few in Sardis who had not defiled their garments. They will walk in white, and their names will remain in the Book of Life.

The problem was their works. Jesus says so back in verse 2. Apparently their sins weren’t blotted out by Jesus’ death because their sins had defiled their garments.

Some Evangelicals—some of the many who don’t believe the Bible among us—like to argue that while Jesus said that he wouldn’t blot out the names of the worthy, that does not mean he will blot out the names of the unworthy.

That’s too silly to answer. If you want to disbelieve the Bible that badly, go ahead. You can work it out with God at the Judgment.

One more thing to note in these verses. I’ve been told quite often that we can’t be worthy. Apparently, Jesus didn’t know that!

Concluding Thoughts

We can look in a future post at how these verses relate to the verses on faith. However, these verses say what they say, and they say it clearly. There are no verses contradicting these verses. All the verses on the Judgment say the same thing …

The Judgment will be according to works, not faith, and it will apply to Christians.

As I said, in the next post, we can straighten our ideas on faith so that we can go ahead and believe what these verses plainly say.

Recently I wrote a web page on Bible interpretation.

I talked about a symbolic form of interpretation described by Origen, the great 3rd century theologian from Alexandria, Egypt. But what I talked about, Britt Mooney recently put into practice.

I loved the picture he painted with the prophet/sorcerer Balaam’s words.

Since that’s the middle of a 3-part post, you probably should read the 1st and 3rd, too, but that 2nd one stands all on its own as well.