Posted on 10/19/2015 5:52:10 PM PDT by metmom
WE ARE UNDER CONSTANT TEMPTATION these days to substitute another Christ for the Christ of the New Testament. The whole drift of modern religion is toward such a substitution.
To avoid this we must hold steadfastly to the concept of Christ as set forth so clearly and plainly in the Scriptures of truth. Though an angel from heaven should preach anything less than the Christ of the apostles let him be forthrightly and fearlessly rejected.
The mighty, revolutionary message of the Early Church was that a man named Jesus who had been crucified was now raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God. "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."
Less than three hundred years after Pentecost the hard-pressed defenders of the faith drew up a manifesto condensing those teachings of the New Testament having to do with the nature of Christ. This manifesto declares that Christ is "God of the substance of His Father, begotten before all ages: Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world: perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting: Equal to His Father, as touching His Godhead: less than the Father, as touching His manhood. Who, although He be God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into God. One altogether, not by the confusion of substance, but by the unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ."
Even among those who acknowledge the deity of Christ there is often a failure to recognize His manhood. We are quick to assert that when He walked the earth He was God with men, but we overlook a truth equally as important, that where He sits now on His mediatorial throne He is Man with God.
The teaching of the New Testament is that now, at this very moment, there is a man in heaven appearing in the presence of God for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul. He is a man glorified, but His glorification did not dehumanize Him. Today He is a real man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible and audible man whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us.
But more than this, He is heir of all things, Lord of all worlds, head of the church and the first-born of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the believer, the hope of Israel and the high priest of every true worshiper. He holds the keys of death and hell and stands as advocate and surety for everyone who believes on Him in truth.
This is not all that can be said about Him, for were all said that might be said I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. But this in brief is the Christ we preach to sinners as their only escape from the wrath to come. With Him rest the noblest hopes and dreams of men. All the longings for immortality that rise and swell in the human breast will be fulfilled in Him or they will never know fulfillment. There is no other way (John 14:6).
Salvation comes not by "accepting the finished work" or "deciding for Christ." It comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our fight and won it, accepted our debt as His own and paid it, took our sins and died under them and rose again to set us free. This is the true Christ, and nothing less will do.
But something less is among us, nevertheless, and we do well to identify it so that we may repudiate it. That something is a poetic fiction, a product of the romantic imagination and maudlin religious fancy. It is a Jesus, gentle, dreamy, shy, sweet, almost effeminate, and marvelously adaptable to whatever society He may find Himself in. He is cooed over by women disappointed in love, patronized by pro tem celebrities and recommended by psychiatrists as a model of a well-integrated personality. He is used as a means to almost any carnal end, but He is never acknowledged as Lord. These quasi Christians follow a quasi Christ. They want His help but not His interference. They will flatter Him but never obey Him.
The argument of the apostles is that the Man Jesus has been made higher than angels, higher than Moses and Aaron, higher than any creature in earth or heaven. And this exalted position He attained as a man. As God He already stood infinitely above all other beings. No argument was needed to prove the transcendence of the Godhead. The apostles were not declaring the preeminence of God, which would have been superfluous, but of a man, which was necessary.
Those first Christians believed that Jesus of Nazareth, a man they knew, had been raised to a position of Lordship over the universe. He was still their friend, still one of them, but had left them for a while to appear in the presence of God on their behalf. And the proof of this was the presence of the Holy Spirit among them.
One cause of our moral weakness today is an inadequate Christology. We think of Christ as God but fail to conceive of Him as a man glorified. To recapture the power of the Early Church we must believe what they believed. And they believed they had a God-approved man representing them in heaven.
I have lived through this and I went very strongly the “pride” direction at my first “delight in discovered truth.” And it made me alternately despairing and numb, bereft of hope. It was a bias I had to learn my way out of for literally decades. And what taught me out of it was love; I must be very adamant about that because everything else it could be has been eliminated. I am “humbly” upholding the way the Lord does things, but in the strength of love.
We will never stop sinning this side of Heaven. If we are not pursuing holiness and obedience we better test ourselves to see if we are in the faith because the evidence says otherwise.
Obedience is not legalism. Legalism is a display of outward religiosity and rules while having no inner transformation.
Beware of holding your righteousness up before men to be seen by them. Beware of setting different standards for others than for yourself. Beware of caring about outward religiosity while having a heart full of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life and worldliness. Beware of false teachers and wolves in sheep’s clothing.
I am not charismatic. That is funny.
The suffering Savior speaks when you know you have done something wrong. This is where the love attitude is crucial to taking it the right way. Love tells you that the Lord bore the burden, now don’t worry about how it made you look, rather be very thankful for the undeserved help and crave better things to be expressed through your life. Pride tells you that you had better try to independently think your way past the issue, and so you might go study the bible without coming within a mile of the Lord.
The attitude is not more important that the concept. Do you not believe they go together?
Beware of the fallacy that unless you can have all of something, none of it is necessary. Feelings and attitudes will not save. Faith requires an object. The object must be true. If it is false, then faith is dangerous.
You reference children, so let me link to a great teaching on that subject: http://www.gty.org/resources/distinctives/dd05/evangelizing-children
Many a fraudulent faith has been seeded in the heart of child. We mean well, but we better be careful. I experienced this myself. I was baptized the first time when I was four. I knew the words and believed them. But I did not believe them with a saving faith. It is an entirely different thing. I am not saying children cannot be converted. I am saying they can quite easily be led into a false profession and then not know they are still lost souls.
surly = surely
The attitude has to come first. The heart will pull the mind into the right place. Hearts are stubborn in the face of intellectualizing. They will answer to love.
I submit that evangelizing children is a red herring here. Jesus’ actual witness to children was most fundamentally with attitude. Children read attitudes very well, in spite of parents’ and even preachers’ best efforts to express “do as I say not as I do.” It sounds as if you may have been addressed by such a preacher. You didn’t see Christ and His love; you saw a religion and the fickle love of people.
I think you mean well, but I think you are wrong.
It is hard for me to think how to persuade you when you lead with emotion over truth. We can agree to set aside the issue of children. You brought it up so I wanted to answer that. As for my own experience, there was no force or coercion, really. Kids want to please. But that is a distraction.
Let’s change your term away from being about emotion and see if we can find a more biblical term.
The parable of the sower. The word of God goes out and falls on different soil. In that sense you have a very biblical principle. Most of the soils/ground were ill prepared for various reasons, but they were unable to receive the truth — except for the good soil. So change your terminology and you have something — sort of.
Still, attitude does not trump truth. All the soils received the truth. Certainly error would not have converted even the person of good soil. The truth is still paramount. Even in the heart ready to receive it, the truth is the SEED. It is essential.
Let me also point out that we can only analyze the truth or error of what is important through the light of Scripture. Otherwise we have to depend on our feelings which can so easily lead us astray.
I can’t tell what you are, your previous post just comes across as very legalistic and adhering to “Lordship Salvation”.
My righteousness (LOL) is nothing but filthy rags. I’m saved by grace thru faith alone, not on my own. As is everybody else. I will continue to sin in this horrid flesh and continue to be Sanctified by the Lord until He calls me home. I sin daily and so does everybody else.
If I read your post wrong, I apologize.
Romans 10:9-10
John 6:29
John 11:25
Ephesians 2:8-9
Romans 3:28
Titus 3:5
Without the attitude to receive, the good seed is pointless. Nothing happens.
As for your denigration of what you call mere emotion, notice that a bad state identified by the bible is to be “without feeling.” And that this is also the state modern science recognizes in sociopaths.
I see you are apparently blaspheming a very good thing of God.
Note that the bible talks about absence of feeling as bad... loop of logic has been closed here and it did not require a sterile Mr. Spock to do it either.
Often, Lordship salvation gets implemented as “Trumpet in the flesh that Jesus is my Lord”-ship salvation.
It makes God sad. (Argh I have just used a heretical feeling word.)
Jesus’ next to greatest miracle was preceded by what? Jesus wept. Shortest verse in the bible; one of the most poignant. I despise the claims of those who claim that their sterile logic is the only side of truth.
You also really seem to be flying in the face of Jesus when you start hemming and hawing about the evangelism of children as a response to my citation of something He characterized as unequivocally good. All I can say is you seem to be talking about it from a fundamentally wrong perspective.
Even the “feelingless” have feeling going behind the scenes, but it is feeling of pride, of self congratulation. I challenge you to identify this in yourself.
“People aren’t coming to Christ because we aren’t holding up a Christ worth coming to.”
POST OF THE MONTH!
There is no “Lordship Salvation.” There is only real salvation and a counterfeit version peddled by the great Deceiver.
As for my quote about not practicing your “righteousness” before men, that is a quote from the Bible. Laugh if you want. I wouldn’t. Try and make it mean something it doesn’t, but know you are mocking the words of Jesus, not my words.
God the Father made Jesus Lord of All. That is just a Scriptural fact. It is who He is. He is Lord of all that is, including all humans. One of the differences in those with saving faith and those without it is that those with acknowledge this Lordship. He is the object of saving faith and He is Lord. Those without true faith do not. Our faith does not make Him Lord, so it is not an act of our earning anything. It is HIS merit, and He is Savior AND Lord.
You mention sanctification. If you are being sanctified then you are evidencing submission to His lordship. If you are not being sanctified then you have reason to worry that your faith is of the deceptive variety and that you have been deceived.
“If any man wishes to come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me...”
Consider the parable of the sower. The word of God went out to all. Only the one in whom it took root, grew and produced fruit was the true believer. Some had a form of faith, but time proved it to be false.
“Examine yourself....” Again, from Scripture, not me.
Obedience is not legalism. Obedience is what those who love God do. It is the fruit of the seed of saving faith and it is His work in us, not our earning our own salvation. “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” “The one who loves Me, obeys Me.” You might restudy what legalism means as far as it is used in Scripture.
I agree this is the case... I disagree to some particulars about WHY this is the case.
American Christendom has forgotten how to unite mind and soul in the Lord. The result is two groups that go for one extreme or the other, and the occupants of each extreme are constantly taking pot shots at the other (and at those in between, for good measure).
Has not one God created all parts. The lack of unity is pitiful.
It is love that produces the fruits of salvation.
Trying to produce them with your own private intellectualizations is just plain futile. Won’t work, guaranteed to go wrong.
It is God who produces the fruits of salvation. Studying Scripture would teach you that. Trusting your feelings won’t work and will lead you astray. Lots of people feel love who are greatly deceived and headed for hell. Lots of evil is done with great emotion and passion and its own version of “love.” Whose faith is more passionate than that of ISIS? Does anyone love their faith more? Only God’s truth can show you what is godly love and what is not. Only God can transform the heart.
John 17:17 (Jesus’ prayer) ““Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”
Correcting my post 35:
Obedience is the fruit of the Word of God planted in the soil of true saving faith. The faith is not the seed but the soil. Love, like obedience, is the fruit.
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