The Rest of the Old Old Story

My last post, unfortunately, is going to stand at the top of the list for only a few minutes, while I write this one. If you have not seen the post I wrote just minutes before this on Martin Luther’s “new wine,” you should read that one first, then come back to this one.

Frank Viola commented in Pagan Christianity that Martin Luther was ignorant that new wine could not be repackaged in old wineskins. We discussed in the last post whether Martin Luther really had any new wine to put in old wineskins. If the Lutheran church is an old wineskin, as Frank Viola asserts and as I believe as well, then Luther’s gospel is not new wine, because it has not burst the wineskin or been lost in the bursting. Luther’s gospel is still around and still well-contained in the Lutheran church. In fact, it’s been passed merrily around into virtually every other old wineskin in existence.

The real Gospel of Paul, which I spoke about in my last post, is, however, new wine, and it can only be contained in a new wineskin. It will go bursting out of old wineskins in mere moments. Those who embrace it will never thrive in institutional churches. Longing for the will of God, believing truly in Christ and in all Christ commanded them to do, their hearts are filled to overflowing with the love of God, and they must be with other disciples. They experience no satisfaction sitting in a pew on Sunday morning. The first few times may excite them as they listen to discussions of the Scriptures, but eventually they will cry out, “I can’t just sit here! I have to BE with my brothers and sisters!”

One day a week, or even two or three, will never be enough for them. That love, shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, will send them pursuing the unity that they are commanded to give all diligence to maintain (Eph. 4:3). Going often into their neighbor’s house, they will soon be a nuisance to any that do not possess the same overflowing love of God in their hearts. Typically in America, such saints soon give up, become disappointed, or are simply cold-shouldered out of the fellowship of those whose sainthood is merely imputed and not imparted.

Friends, know that you can never preach the Gospel of utter commitment to Christ in the old wineskin of institutional churches. House churches are not much better, though they do more easily burst to allow the flow of the new wine. And if house churches manage to gather real saints, the wine may be caught when it bursts even out of house church restraints.

The new wineskin is not a system or method of meeting. The new wineskin can contain a traditional Sunday morning church service as easily as it can contain a house church meeting. It can contain a preaching session as easily as it can contain an all-member participation church meeting. The new wineskin is people, bound together by Christ, having become a true family in Christ, sharing in all things, and they can easily endure a Sunday morning service, because they know they will walk out of it into one another’s arms, one another’s fellowship, and one another’s life.

Have you experienced house churches that become dead or fail? Most of us who had to leave the institutional church have experienced that. Why do so many house churches stop growing? Why do they seem to become as old and stale as the institutional churches we came out of? It is because they are still serving Luther’s old wine! Friends, it’s not just the wineskin that has to change. The wine must change as well. Nothing you found in the old wineskin was new wine! Remember, that old wineskin was unable to contain it!

Today I read, “Tragically, [Martin] Luther did not realize that new wine cannot be repackaged into old wineskins.”

Let me add, even more tragically, Luther did not have any new wine.

A simple glance at history will confirm that Luther’s “wine” (his gospel) was packaged quite nicely into the Lutheran wineskin. The wineskin did not burst, and there was no loss of Luther’s wine. While I agree with the author (of Pagan Christianity, the book from which came the quote above) that Luther’s weekly services were simply a reworking of Roman Catholic rituals of pagan origin, I cannot agree that Luther had any new wine to put into that old wineskin.

Tertullian, a famous Christian of the 2nd century, said, “Custom without truth is simply error grown old.” Somehow, the aging of Luther’s errors have turned them into custom, but they have not become truth.

Luther believed that there was no way to reconcile Romans and James. He scoffed at his friend, Philip Malencthon, for trying. He called James an epistle of straw. (Defenders of Luther have regularly told me I’m misquoting him, because he really said “a right strawy epistle.” Sigh…)  His introduction to the NT suggests that neither Hebrews nor James are really worth reading, because they won’t teach you the Gospel, which is found best in Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians.

Not surprisingly, this “gospel,” based on only portions of the NT, was extremely ineffective. Menno Symons, founder of the Mennonites, observed that the Lutherans were lived more godless lives than the invading, pagan Turks. Christian History magazine noted once that if a man didn’t cuss, drink, or kick his dog, he could be persecuted as an Anabaptist, obviously suggesting that it was typical for Reformation Protestants to do all those things.

To this day, young converts struggle with what to do with Luther’s partial gospel. Even if they stick to Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and the Gospel of John, as Luther suggests, many questions arise. If works have nothing to do with salvation, why does Paul say (in Galatians and Ephesians) that those who practice immorality won’t inherit God’s kingdom? If works have nothing to do with salvation, then why does Paul say (in Romans) that those who live according to the flesh will die? If works have nothing to do with salvation, then why does Jesus say (in John) that only those who do good will be raised to a resurrection of life?

One does not need to go to James 2:24 (the only occurrence of “faith only” in the Bible) in order to find a contradiction–not of Paul–but of Luther’s message.  Rom. 2:6,7 says that eternal life can be obtained by “patient continuance in doing good.” Gal. 6:9 says the same, “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap [eternal life], if we do not faint.”

All these things may seem to contradict Paul’s words against justification by works. That’s not because they do contradict him; it’s because Luther’s error grown old has become custom, though not truth.  Paul’s justification by faith was a description of our entrance into Christ, our deliverance from our past sins, and, through grace, experiencing the breaking of sin’s power over us. Paul never says that eternal life or entering God’s kingdom is by faith. Jesus did not die to change God. God’s judgment was always just and good, and God was always merciful. Jesus died to change us. We were not good, and we had no way of repenting and living in the righteousness that God required in order to experience his mercy (Ez. 33). Jesus’ death, however, provided that means (Rom. 8:3,4). Delivered from our unrighteousness by faith, we are able to experience the mercies of God that were new every morning long before Christ died. Again, Jesus didn’t die to change God; he died to change us.

Never let anyone tell you that God requires perfection to pass his judgment. It’s not true, and he has never been unmerciful. Nor let anyone tell you that God requires nothing to pass his judgment if you are a follower of Christ. There is no partiality with God, and thus you, like all others, will be judged by your works by a merciful and kind God (2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Pet. 1:17), who offers the power of his grace and his Spirit to deliver you from the evil works that used to hold you in bondage.

This is a letter to a friend in Mexico. It talks about evolution. If you come to Rose Creek Village, it is entirely possible that you will hear us talk about evolution. Not everyone here believes in evolution, but many do. What we most definitely teach are the things stated below about how to find God’s will. It is important to follow God. If you have any questions or want any clarifications on the things below, please feel free to email us from the main page of our web site. You’ll see the link near the bottom of the left column.

 I looked at the web site on community of goods (http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/4th/papers/Taylor99.html). It was very complicated. Our approach to following God is a bit more simple than the approach of that page. I suppose if they found something conclusive and clear and offered it to us, I’d be a lot more interested. However, it doesn’t take that approach. It just sort of gives us information to work with.

We are not becoming theology students, however; we’re learning to live life. We have to make choices about how we are going to do things. We have settled on our current method of community of goods by watching what God blesses and what he doesn’t bless. Even now we are in the midst of making changes, because God spoke some things to us about teaching people responsibility over the last few months.

As far as the two articles on evolution and perpetual motion (http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/27-12-2007/103189-races-0 and http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/11-01-2008/103363-perpetual_engine-0), if I may be blunt, they’re simply not very scientific, neither of them. For example, the car being described in the perpetual motion article is not a perpetual motion machine. A perpetual motion machine doesn’t need fuel, even if the fuel is air. This is an air-powered car, which is theoretically possible, whether or not this young man has succeeded in making one. Even if it refills its own air tank, it’s still running off air, and it’s still pulling air in. That’s not perpetual motion, that’s air-fueling.

It also says that scientists are open to questioning the laws of physics that say perpetual motion is impossible. I don’t believe that for a second. They’re going to have to produce one real scientist who really is open to that before I believe it. I occasionally discuss things with scientists on a message board, and I can assure you that they would blow off anyone who suggested that a perpetual motion machine might be possible. It violates laws on the conservation of energy, and those are not at question.

The evolution article makes a number of assertions that it doesn’t back up and that there’s no reason to believe. For example, it states that the only evolution that occurs in nature is microevolution. Oh, really? Says who? Evolutionists repeatedly ask anti-evolutionists what prevents microevolution from becoming macroevolution. For example, there are very good reasons to believe that  lungs evolved from fishes’ swim bladders. The steps from swim bladder to lung are almost all still found in nature. Charles Darwin talked about doves, all bred from Rock Pigeons a couple thousand years ago, that have been bred with differing number of vertebrae and numerous other very different characteristics that would cause him to classify them as not only a different species but as a different genus, if he had not known they all came from rock pigeons. It is this sort of thing that made him say, “Where does it stop?” and come up with his theory of natural selection (descent with modification).

The evolution article says, “The genetic ability for microevolution exists in Nature but not the ability for macroevolution.” Unfortunately, it then goes on to describe the very mechanism that allows macroevolution to be possible. It even describes it somewhat accurately. Since a pine tree’s cells and our cells use the very same genetic coding, what is to prevent positive mutations–something most anti-evolutionists deny, but this article admits–from accumulating over millions of years enough to turn a pine tree into an animal? There is no known mechanism that would prevent this. In fact, we are regularly in the habit of inserting mammal insulin-making genes into bacteria so that they will make insulin for injection into humans. Viruses are dangerous because they are able to hijack the whole protein-producing mechanism of a cell and use it to reproduce their own DNA rather than the cell following its own DNA instructions. The DNA code is consistent across all species of all kingdoms, whether plant, animal, or single-celled organisms.

Sorry, but science is a fascination of mine. I love it almost as much as I love theology. I am careful–or at least I think I am–to stick to theology and science that has a practical purpose. Science and evolution are tools I use to obtain a specific response from people. I am wanting to teach them to trust God, and to know the Scriptures for what they are, not the superstitious magic book that so many fundamentalists believe them to be. The Scriptures are God-breathed, but they are not a science book. The current, popular method of Bible-believing among fundamentalists causes people to look at it like some sort of book of spells or something. God wants us to see a collection of writings by apostles, prophets, poets, and historians, each of whom we should know something about so we can understand them better. John doesn’t write like Paul, and Paul doesn’t write like Peter. James and Paul are made to contradict by everyone since Martin Luther because they understand justification to mean the same thing when written by each, because they think they are reading a magic book. No, they are reading inspired writings by Paul and James, who use different wording just like any two modern prophets, raised in two different cities and cultures, would use different wording. Paul has a carefully designed theology, the product of Greek influence and much arguing with Judaizers. James was not so specialized. Thus, one can say a man is justified by faith apart from works, because he means one specific issue and time, while the other can say a man is justified by works and not faith only, because he is speaking more generally.

However, no one can see such things while they believe in their magic book. Thus, they honor, speak well of, and practically worship the Bible, while they neither believe it nor follow its teachings. You don’t get much more deceived than that.

Let me add, John and Paul use eternal life completely differently. John speaks of it as a present possession, but Paul never does. The early church tells us as well that John’s Greek was impeccable (maybe he used a good scribe?), while Paul’s was terrible (amazing, huh?). We need to trust them, because they were Greek speakers. All of these things are hidden from those who think God wrote the book all by himself. God has never wanted to do such a thing, and he has never wanted us to follow a book! He wants us to trust him, and fundamentalists do not. They trust their own minds by trusting their own interpretations of Scripture. When God shows up and tries to lead them, they do not follow, just like the Pharisees who did not follow Christ, because they thought they knew the Scriptures. Thus, Y’shua said to them, “You search the Scriptures because you think you have life in them, but these are they which testify of me; yet your refuse to come to me that you might have life” (Jn. 5:38).

Amen, it is still so today. Why can’t churches be built? Because once they get started, no one will follow God! They trust their interpretations of the Bible, but they do not trust what God says to them and leads them in. They don’t even hear it or pay attention to it, because it’s outside their box. Yet the Scriptures tell us, “As many as are led by the Spirit, these are the sons of God.” Too many seek to be led by the Bible, ignoring God’s Spirit and trusting their own minds instead.

They will perish.

Grace be with you, my friend,

Shammah