The Source Of Our Life

By virtue of our union in Christ, Christians have one source of life: Christ. The same person and power that called forth raising Lazarus from the dead is the very same person and power that calls His elect forth from being dead in trespasses and sin (Ephesians 2:1-10). Just as Jesus' friend Lazarus could do nothing to get up and walk out of his place of death and obey Christ's command to “come forth,” neither could we “come forth” to Christ's call when we were also dead and unresponsive to God's message of salvation.

Think of it for a moment: How could a dead man in his grave clothes and tomb have heard the call to “come forth” from the grave much less get up and walk to the opening of the tomb as Jesus bid him? Dead men do not hear anything nor obey a command to get up and come forth! He had to be first and foremost raised from the dead. He had to be made alive from his dead state. Then and only then could Lazarus rise from the tomb and obey the words of Jesus. That same person and power raised us from being dead in our sins so that we could (and risk nothing other than) obey the command to come to Christ in saving faith.

And, in coming to Christ in faith we are joined in union with Him in the likeness of His death and resurrection.

Because of this union, Christ is now the source of our life on this earth. It is in and through His life that we find reason for existing. He is the Person to whom we take all thoughts and actions captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). In doing so, we proclaim that nothing in this sin-filled world of God haters, of those who reject all that God is, can offer us nothing to satisfy our spiritual thirst and hunger.

Why because of our union with, in, and by Christ would we point to any other source to comfort us in times of sorrow and trials, for consolation, for eternal sustenance, or for all things in heaven and on earth? Why would we turn to the things of the world emanating from the vain efforts of men for meaning and help when it is Christ Who is our life?

Charles H. Spurgeon said this:

“Where there is the same life within, there will be, there must be, to a great extent, the same developments without; and if we live in near fellowship with the Lord Jesus we shall grow like Him. We shall set him before us as our Divine copy, and we shall seek to tread in His footsteps, until He shall become the crown of our life in glory.”

For the Christian, our sole source and example for life is in and through Christ. “For me to live is Christ.”

“Christ who is our life.” Colossians 3:4

Being The Friend of God

Jesus called his disciples in John 15:14-15, "my friends." He expounded what this meant in just a few short phrases: "You are my friends if you do what I command." "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (John 15:14 NIV)

In the Gospel of John chapters 13-15, there can be seen a development of an intimate relationship between our Lord and His disciples. In John 13, Christ refers to the disciples as "servants" while in the John 15 text he calls them something closer, "friends." (The John 13 text does not use the word "servant" but shows a servant-master reference and relationship.) In John 15, the text clears up the point: "from now on," or "henceforth," Jesus says He no longer calls them servants but, instead, friends. And how has this qualitative difference in the Lord and servants, now friends, relationship occurred? "…if you do what I command you," says Jesus in 15:14.

Abraham is used as an example of this in the Old Testament. "My friend" is used as a descriptive of God's relationship with Abraham (Isaiah 41:8: 2 Chronicles. 20:7). The reason Abraham was called "the friend of God" was the same reason for which Jesus called His disciples His friends. The disciples and Abraham obeyed the Word of the Living God. Jesus told His disciples that they were His friends if they obeyed Him; Abraham was called God's friend because he acted on faith (Heb. 11:8; Romans 4:18-21; Heb. 11:17-19). God calls those friends who act in obedience without reservation. Related passages bearing on the same idea are: 1 John 2:1-6: 1 John 5:1-3.

A thought not to be missed in the John 15:14 text is what can be discerned from the Greek text: "You are my friends if you do what I command you." The phrase, if you do, in the present active subjunctive carries the idea of "if you keep at it," "if you keep on doing the action" and not just for a moment in time or as an impulsive action (Robinson). It is obedience and a constant obeying of God's commandments over and over again. Those are the friends of God.

Also note in verse 15 of John 15: "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." (ESV) The phrase, I have called you friends, is a perfect active indicative phrase indicating a "permanent state of new dignity." What an amazing life-changing idea!

Self-Evaluation

I spend a great deal of time self-evaluating. This can be a good thing if done with the Bible open to the pages of Scripture and praying thoughtfully through them. It was in February 2010 that I began to sense a need in my life to begin a new re-acquaintance with God. I had fallen into a kind of habitual despairing of my physical illness-laden life. I suffer from a disease called Fibromyalgia Syndrome that afflicts me with unrelenting pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. I've had this illness for twenty years and had fallen into a defeatist attitude about it. The symptoms were ruling me and once I realized this had been going on for years, I sought God's wisdom and guidance.

The first thing I did was begin a new study program with a Bible Institute in Australia. It is a correspondence school, of sorts, via the Internet. As I cruised through the Certificate program in Biblical Studies, I was constantly reminded that my relationship with God was not meant to be one of despair. That even in the midst of valleys, and I was in some valleys, I could be on top emotionally. Where and how the devil would hit me, and hit me hard, was in my emotional reaction to severe pain from my illness. The more and more I dwelt on the things of God, the less and less, it seemed to me, I was wallowing in the despair over my disabilities.

I believe that each time I obey God's Word to rejoice in all things, to give thanks, to count it joy, to be anxious for nothing in the specific trials and tribulations in my life, I am counted more and more in a progressive sense a "friend of God." It begins, I believe, in never leaving the Word of God. This is the medium in which the Spirit bends your will to an inclination to obey Him. When you see that it is not only possible to "put the death" the deeds of the flesh, but also that the Word reveals that God works in us both the willing and doing of His good pleasure, then you are spurred on in a kind of Spirit excitement to do just that.

Addressing Obstacles

A pattern in my life has been that when I begin to become lazy about immersing myself in the Word of God, the habitual sin of despair seems to creep back into my life in an insidious intrusion. What keeps despair at bay is a constant, daily saturation in the Scripture and a prayerful mediation on specific Bible verses and passages.

What I am prayerfully considering is returning to school via the Internet in Biblical Studies. I would like to earn a degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Biblical Languages. It is not that I think this is something everyone should do, but it is something I should do. It would keep me busy for a number of years, which would keep my mind off my illness. And, it would keep me in an environment devoted to eternal things rather than earthly things. And so, what happens when the degree is finished? Hopefully, I will have earned some more developed skills in Bible Study and teaching. I would teach through the medium of writing.

The point of being God's friend is obedience; doing what He says. This is a calling I wanted to answer a long time ago.

It is never too late.

WHY PEOPLE FALL FOR THE CHARISMATIC HERESY…Part Two

People are drawn to the charismatic error because error is easier to believe than the truth.

I ended part one of this series with an explanation of the Biblical doctrine of holiness. The "holiness" which draws the charismatic initiate is not the holiness of the Bible. The so-called "holiness" to which the charismatic erroneously clings is an emotional high that is not Biblical and ends up being an up-and-down roller coaster, addictive emotional experience.

In the issue of sanctification that I covered at the end of part one, the error of the charismatic movement is that you need something more than just Christ's death on a Cross. You need the "power which is from on high." They call this "the baptism of the Holy Spirit." (This phrase and its accompanying idea are not found in the pages of Scripture.) And, this emotional experience comes to you over and over and over again. This is their doctrine of holiness. The draw is a hyped-up emotional experience.

The means to the Biblical doctrine is harder. It involves death on a cross.

As I said in part one, a true test of whether or not someone has sincerely come to faith and trust in Christ as Lord and Savior is whether or not he or she wants most earnestly to walk as Jesus walked. This desire to walk like Christ, in the Spirit, is not found in the seeking and eventual finding in a "second blessing" or "a second work of grace" or "in something more than Christ's death, burial, and resurrection on the cross." You want to follow Christ?

"When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."" (Mark 8:34-35 NKJV)

The truth of what it means to walk in holiness in Christ is to take up your cross daily. It is to "put to death the deeds of the flesh." (Colossians 3: 1-11)

You "put to death the deeds of the flesh" by engaging in a vigorous "walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out the lusts of the flesh" (Galatians 5: 16-18).

Walking in the Spirit is antithetical to walking in the flesh.

One walks in the Spirit by letting the Word of Christ dwell in you.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." (Colossians 3:16 NKJV)

Notice in Ephesians 5:18-20, the command to be filled (controlled or empowered) with the Spirit results in the same thing as "letting the word of Christ dwell in you."

"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 5:18-20 NIV)

The reason for this is the Colossian text tells you exactly what it means to be filled with the Spirit (or to walk in the Spirit so you don't fulfill the desires of the flesh.) Those things, which equal the same things, equal each other. To be filled with the Spirit is to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.

To let the Word of Christ dwell in your richly is to obey what the Word tells you. For example, if the Word tells you to confess your sins (1 John 1:9), each time the Spirit convicts you of sinning and you consequently confess your sin, you have yielded to the Spirit of God using His Word to control and empower you.

To expound this further, when you feel the temptation to tell a lie, how do you know this is sin? Because the living Word, Christ, tells you so in the 9th commandment, among other verses, that to lie is sin. You cry out to God in your heart, "Establish my footsteps in thy Word and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me," (Psalms 119:133) and you yield in faith to what the Word tells you to do. Or, you cry out in desperation, "Have mercy upon me, Oh God, a sinner and take this temptation from me."

Many people are drawn to the charismatic error out of desperation.

There are those desperate for an emotional spiritual or religious experience.

There are those desperate from some sort of intense emotional problem or crisis and seek relief with a religious label on it that relief.

There are those desperate to find something "more" than what their traditional mainstream denomination has to offer.

There are those desperate to find something that meets their psychological need to walk by sight and not faith. They have to have something "concrete" in their lives.


Many people are drawn to the charismatic error out of a desire to put their personal experience above truth.

I can remember the endless talks, some lasting well into the next day, with charismatic roommates who could not get past, "But I had the experience of speaking in tongues and therefore it is true." If you try to reason with charismatics, they will insist that the basis upon which they know speaking in tongues is valid and true is because they experienced it.

They elevate human experience as on par with Biblical truth. Because they experienced it, therefore it is true and this lies at the heart of the charismatic heresy. But, the epistemology of the Bible goes from Truth to Experience. This is how God deals with us. It is Biblical Truth we believe and that results in an experience. God never moves in our life based on an experience. He does not deal with us from Experience to Truth but from Truth to Experience.

"It is not an experience, no matter how unusual or miraculous it appears, that determines whether or not a doctrine is true. There is only ONE thing which determines if something is true, and that is the Bible rightly divided!" - http://wayoflife.org/database/deludedbycharismatic.html

Someone claims to have spoken in tongues as the result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit - WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Don't be deceived. Everything we need to live the Christian life is found in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What Christ bought for us on the Cross is complete, sufficient, and without anything lacking.

We are complete in Christ

"For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." (Colossians 2:9-10 NKJV)

We need nothing more.

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New Testament Worship and Today’s Church

From top to bottom the veil was rent, ushering in the fulfillment of the Old Testament's legal code of ordinances. No longer would Levitical priests enter into the holiest of the places within the Tabernacle to perform worship unto God. It is now Christ who has entered into the true and permanent Holy of Holies to sit at the right hand of the throne of God, not only as our Atonement but also as our Great High Priest. The mere types have yielded to the real thing: The Great High Priest. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ changed everything.

The Resurrected Christ brought a change in Priesthoods. The Levitical priesthood was no longer needed in light of Christ's eternal one. With the Old Testament Tabernacle worship ceremonies having been fulfilled, what was left in terms of a public worship service? A continuity of certain components of worship did carry over from the Old Testament to the New Testament dispensation that would form the church. I would suggest that though not a complete list, the following were the main components of the formation and continuation of the New Testament's worship.

READING SCRIPTURE

From ancient times, Moses, in the Old Testament Scriptures, had been preached and read in Old Testament worship services. Similarly, the Apostles' letters were read to the church as part of Scripture.

"Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea."

And,

"I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren."

TEACHING - PREACHING SCRIPTURE

The New Testament church taught and preached scripture through the venue of public address. Jesus was Himself an example of this in that He went into the public venues for Jewish worship, the Synagogues, preaching the Word of God. His disciples, after His ascension, mimicked this practice by going into people's homes and into their temples in the cities and villages.

FELLOWSHIP

Where people came to faith and trust in their Savior, the Lord Christ, assemblies or churches were formed. No longer was worship relegated to a city, Jerusalem, but to wherever there were Saints to form corporate worship. In Acts 2:42, there were four things to which the New Testament was devoted: 1) teaching, 2) fellowship, 3) breaking of bread, and 4) prayer.
These assemblies also were composed of gifted men and women who exercised these gifts given by the Holy Spirit of God unto the edification of the Assembly of the Saints. Some of these fellowships, as in the case of the church at Corinth, had fallen into the misuse of the gifts (among other atrocities) and had to be re-instructed in their proper and orderly uses.

BREAKING OF BREAD - BAPTISM

The New Testament church also observed two sacraments, Breaking of Bread (the Lord's Supper) and Baptism. The New Testament was to exercise two outward signs of the New Covenant. Christ commanded the observance of the Lord's Supper and Paul expounded its meaning, "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." This sign of the New Covenant was to be an ongoing observance within the New Testament church as was baptism.
Christ commanded this outward sign of the New Creation relationship the believer has with his identification in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection to be practiced.

"Though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity, and less outward glory" than the old ordinances, the New Testament sacraments hold forth Christ "in more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles."

PRAYER

The New Testament church was an assembly of prayer warriors. In the Old Testament, prayer was not solely Temple-bound. There were numerous venues in which prayer was made. Within the New Testament setting, there was congregational prayer. The doctrine or teaching of the Apostles to which the word says the Saints were devoted made much emphasis on prayer.

CHURCH GOVERNMENT

Another aspect of the New Testament Church was that its polity, or its operational and governing structure, was that of a plurality of leadership. There was no paid, professional clergy versus laity structure. Elders and deacons ruled the local assemblies. The word elder, or overseer, and its application to the leadership of the church are mentioned over 25 times in the New Testament.

The foundation for an elder-ruled church, how an elder is selected, the responsibilities within this church office, the moral and behavioral qualifications for elder are specifically spelled out in scripture, offering more insight into this New Testament church component that almost any other.

Today's worship within Evangelicalism tends to fall within three umbrellas of church order: 1) The Regulative Principle, 2) The Normative Principle, and 3) The Informed Principle.

The Regulative Principle idea of the order of church worship came into being sometime in the 20th century. Its basic meaning, when applied to the order of church worship, is "that only those elements that are instituted or appointed by command, precept or example in or by good and necessary consequence from the Bible are permissible in worship, or in other words, that God institutes in the Scriptures everything he requires for worship in the Church and that everything else is prohibited."

In other words, since those components mentioned above appeared in the New Testament church, they should also be the components of today's Christian church worship. Controversy exists in churches today in exactly how to apply the Regulative principle with special application to the use of musical instruments during congregational singing. The criteria for the rejecting or accepting of musical instruments used for the accompaniment of the singing seems to hinge on whether or not something mechanically-made by man is some sort of evil thing that should be ousted from the church's worship service.

I find the position by those who would oust the use of musical instruments an argument from silence and specious. Most of the "Regulative principle" adherents I know do not have a church polity in which Elders and deacons rule. Rather, they have a professionally paid clergy, a pastor, and he or "she" is usually the one who runs the church program from start to finish. I find this inconsistent that they would not apply the Regulative principle to church government but would chuck a fit over the use of musical instruments in the church.

The Normative Principle is a theological position, which posits that anything not specifically and directly forbidden in Scripture, like the use of musical instruments, can be incorporated as a part of a modern worship service. Moderation and common sense would be a ruling factor.

The Informed Principle is the idea of trying to strike a balance between the Regulative and the Normative Principles. This idea says that what is commanded in Scripture is required and what is forbidden in the Bible is prohibited in a worship service. Again, moderation, common sense, and logic can be ruling factors in what to allow and not to allow in those things to which Scripture does not speak.

Most of the Plymouth Brethren churches I have attended come close to applying the Regulative principle of worship. The worship service begins with a "call to worship," then there is a period of quiet in which the congregation is silently meditating on the Lord's Table, which is celebrated weekly. Men within the assembly may get up and share scripture or have a five- to ten-minute exposition of the Word. Songs encompassing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are sung. The song choice is impromptu and is suggested from the congregation.

At some unplanned point, a man will ask God's blessing upon the bread and cup. After partaking of the bread and cup, a period of fellowship ensues. Then come a period of corporate prayer and, afterwards, a longer, planned period of exposition of the Word.

Because these churches or assemblies are traditionally cessionists, there would not be speaking in tongues in these gatherings. There can be, however, the laying on of hands by the Elders for healing of the sick. I have never seen this in the Mexican Plymouth Brethren I attend, but, in theory, it is supposed to be permissible.