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If the conclusions I will
express in this thesis are accurate, then truly, there is even
greater reason to suspect that Christian orthodoxy's claim to
being the repository of doctrinal correctness is emptier than we
have thus far suspected. Judge, if you will, the following
summation, in very general terms, of whatever agreement there is
among evangelicals regarding the meaning of forgiveness of sins
and how, particularly, it affects our view of the nature of God:
Self-proclaimed orthodoxy's
view begins with supposing that in order for forgiveness of sins
to occur, a change within the heart of God had to occur first.
Then, and only then, it is asserted, could absolution become a
possibility. It is theorized that the shedding of the blood of
Christ accomplished this necessary change of heart in God so
that He could legally offer to mankind freedom from guilt before
the divine tribunal. One might wonder, according to this
convoluted theology, why Paul's statement regarding
reconciliation does not read thus: "God was in Christ
making it possible for Him to be reconciled to the world."
It becomes quite obvious when
one pauses to really reflect on what the institutional church
has to say about forgiveness, that its mentality, rather than
offering a cure for the mindset that has resulted from eating of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, actually reinforces
that disease-infected and infecting consciousness. While
declaring that Christ delivered us from the curse of the law, it
presents God as responsible to give the law and its indictment
of us a proper hearing in determining His relationship to us.
God is presented as a god of
petulant perfection who---being offended by our failures to
measure up to his expectations---confronts us with the standard
of the law, as representative of His holiness, and goes to great
lengths to shove our grievous shortcomings in respect to said
law in our face. This god is seen as being between a rock and a
hard place; on one hand desiring to remit mankind's sins, but on
the other hand forced to acknowledge how offensive we are to him
according to the law. Thus legitimacy is granted to him casting
us from his presence forever and, in the name of righteousness,
consigning us to eternal agony.
The God who initially forbade
us from eating (living by) good and evil knowledge (the law),
has now become the god who, himself, is law-obsessed and
law-driven; a god who refuses to consider changing his mind
until he is given his pound of flesh via the sacrifice of his
son. But it becomes really complicated at that point because it
is he doing the reconciling work in his son, thus he becomes a
masochistic deity who insists on reckoning our sins against us
until he has sufficiently beat upon himself to answer the claims
of the law against us. It seems to me that this god is a
candidate for the psychiatrist's couch.
Be sure that, the real God did
in fact, in union with His Son, incur great suffering even to
death in order to bring us to a state of unashamedness in His
presence, but it was not a suffering that solved a problem
within God; it was not a reconciling of conflicting divine
emotions each demanding to be heard----the law crying out for
the right to inflict pain on the offenders in retaliation for
their infamy, and grace weeping on our behalf, saying,
"Don't do it, find a way to let them off the hook."
The conciliating work of God
in Christ addresses conflicted humanity - not conflicted Deity.
We are, in and of ourselves, angry, hostile, alienated,
antagonistic and adversarial toward God and ourselves, and
ashamed of being so. Though we need, more than anything else, to
be at peace with God, ourselves and others, we struggle with
feelings and thoughts, rooted in the deepest depths of our
subconscious, that God has done us wrong, and not being able to
support such thoughts with a clear conscience, we turn our anger
against ourselves and others to mask our anger toward God.
This is the form that sin
takes in our hearts, becoming a cacophony of maddening internal
voices that we deal with by constructing a hopefully soundproof
wall of self-righteousness, but the wall only muffles the
noisome pestilence, and/or by the self-preserving mechanism of
suppression kicking in to keep us from going insane, and/or
giving into insanity rather than enduring the struggle any
longer. And, I'm sure that others, more knowledgeable than I in
regard to the human psyche, could point out still other
subconscious contortions with their various individual nuances
that we suffer before we hear the voice of the Son of God
saying, "Your sins are forgiven you."
To go back to the root meaning
of the Greek words translated, "forgive" or
"remit," etc, we find the idea of sending away or
divorcing; to put (send) away. There is nothing in God that
needs to be sent away, nothing from which He needs to be
divorced. Forgiveness is a subjective change in man deriving
from an eternally subjective steady state within God that
refuses to disqualify us from His love and purpose which is
communicated to us by the shed blood of Christ through the Holy
Spirit. We need the sprinkling of the blood of Christ on our
hearts. God needs no such sprinkling. We need to have the
satanic accusation sent away as we are confronted by love that
will not retaliate against us even in the face of our crucifying
hatred of God.
I believe I've stumbled across
a marvelous way by which this truth has come down to us from the
primitive roots of our English language. The word,
"forgive" with its several variations, comes to us
from the Old English word, "forgifan," a simple
compound word that combines the intensive prefix,
"for," with the body of the word, "gifan,"
to convey the thought of intensified giving; thus theologically,
of the particular intensification of God's givingness in the
face of our sin.
The prefix is not used in the
sense of "fore," that is having occurred before hand
(as one might properly conclude from the truth that the Lamb of
God was slain before the foundation of the world), nor is it
essentially used in the sense of being in support of something
(as in, "I am for it"), though that thought is
included, but the prefix, "for," in this case, as an
intensive prefix, intensifies the "gifan" heart of the
word, from which we get "give," "giving,"
etc., or as I coined above, "givingness."
Here in the roots of our
language has been hidden the truth expressed by Paul, when he
wrote that "where sin abounds, grace doth much more
abound." Here, we might say, God sends away from our
hearts the notion that He distances Himself from us according
to, and proportionate to our sinfulness. The word conveys the
truth that sin has the effect of intensifying the givingness of
God toward us, so that, in the face of our sin, God, as it were,
searches out and draws forth from Himself a greater, more
energized determination to free us from all that separates us
from Him.
Note, I said what separates us
from Him, not what separates Him from us. From us toward Him, we
are separated by the blindness of our hearts in regard to His
refusal to ever be disconnected from us. From Him toward us
there is the unbreakable love-union that we should expect from
our perfectly loving Father. The prophet is very precise when he
declares, "But your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God and your sins have hidden His face from
you, so that He does not hear." (Isa.59:2. NAS) The
separation is from our side, not His. He continues to hold us in
His love, but we are numb to the embrace while we are blind to
the undisturbed-by-sin look of love on the face of our God. He
does n ot hear [He is unresponsive to] us because we are
addressing a god that He is not.
This sending away of sin from
man fully occurred in the conciliating death of Christ and each
of us is made aware of freedom from guilt in our due time, in
order that we, in union with Him, may put (send) away, divorce
sins from others. Jesus declared this to be directly connected
to the receiving of the Spirit. "Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been
forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been
retained." (Jn.20:23, NAS). I add Jonathan Mitchell's
translation of the passage with its marvelous clarification:
"If
you men should send away (dismiss; allow to depart; forgive;
pardon; divorce) the mistakes (sins; errors; failures) of
certain ones, they have been sent away for them (have been and
remain pardoned in them; have been dismissed or divorced by
them). If you should continue holding fast (keep on seizing and
grasping) those of certain ones, they have been and continue
being held fast (seized; grasped)." Contrary to
the commonly accepted interpretation, the remitting of sins and
the retaining of sins, is not to be understood as standing in
contrast, but as being complementary.
To retain sins does not mean
to keep holding men's sins against them, but that we retain
under God as a retaining wall retains. The idea is to seize and
hold so as to bring under control. I believe that the saints
shall become more and more aware of their commission to forgive
and also to seize/hold fast sins by the authority that they
share with Christ. This, as in all things, must be done under
the direction and supervision of the Spirit who will cause us to
speak words of forgiveness to those whom He has prepared and, in
certain situations, to stop sins in their track.
We do have the ground upon
which to forgive sins and that ground or basis is not man's
correct response to God, but the shed blood of Christ. Christ
has died for all, thus forgiveness can be declared to be true to
and for any and all men. Accordingly, I believe that man's faith
is a response to the already accomplished reconciliation that
has occurred in Christ, rather than being the prerequisite for
forgiveness, whether or not there is a clear doctrinal
understanding, conceptually.
Reconciliation and its
accompanying forgiveness produce faith, and by faith, we are
made whole since the essential fragmentation of the human
personality is traceable ultimately to unresolved guilt. To
concisely summarize: The reconciling action of God in Christ
does not change God; it changes man. It does not deliver God
from a conflicting dilemma in His relationship to us; it frees
us from inner conflict as to our relationship to Him.
Forgiveness is a subjective
human experience granted to us and communicated to us by God,
not as a legal edict, but from His Father-heart. The indwelling
Spirit of God throbs with this truth. In the measure that we
become intimate with the indwelling Spirit, we shall be forgiven
and forgiving people.
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WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
by Ken Eckerty
Christians unceasingly speak of it. Pastors preach it with
undying passion. Men have given their very lives for the sake
of it. What am I speaking of? It is, of course, the message
of the “good news” or “gospel” of Jesus Christ. This gospel,
or more accurately in the Greek, “glad tidings,” is the very
heart and soul of Christianity. It is the message of hope
Christians are to bring to a lost and dying world, and its
focus is centered on the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is the good news that God’s only begotten Son came
into the world and took upon Himself the sin of the world, was
nailed to a cross for our sins, and was raised from the dead
thus completing the victory over death and the grave. It is,
without a doubt, the greatest news that one could ever hear.
Sadly, the very ones who
are entrusted to take this gospel to the whole world do not
fully understand the power that is found in its message, so
instead of proclaiming the complete victory of the Cross,
orthodox Christianity instead emphasizes the consequences of
sin and the vengeance of God. That Christ is being preached,
there can be no doubt; that His death and resurrection is
being proclaimed throughout the world, we find little fault;
but that the “orthodox” understanding of the scope of
Christ’s work is being accurately presented to the world, here
we find grave error, and in finding thus, we are forced to
expose and confront it with the same passion that comes from
those who preach the false notion that most men will never
experience the benefits of the good news.
The
“full” gospel message is this:
Jesus
Christ came to do the will of the Father (Jn. 5:30), and the
will of the Father is that “…all men be saved and come to the
knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:4) To accomplish that
will, Christ made Himself of no reputation, took upon Himself
the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of sinful
men. (Phil. 2:7; Rom. 8:3) He humbled Himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, (Phil. 2:8)
and by dying in the same manner as men, He tasted death for
EVERY man. (Heb. 2:9) Jesus is really and actually the Savior
of ALL men, (1 Tim. 4:10), has taken away the sin of the world
(Jn. 1:29; Rom. 5:18), and is the propitiation (covering) for
the sins of the world (1 Jn. 2:2). Through the power of His
resurrection, He has taken away the sting of death and the
grave (1 Cor. 15:55), takes away the fear of death (Heb.
2:14), and gives men assurance that they will one day be
raised from the dead and be judged (Acts 17:31). What man
could not do for himself (deliver himself from sin and death),
God did by sending His only Son. (Rom. 8:3) The good news for
all men (Lk. 2:10) is that God’s will to save them has
already been accomplished by Christ in heaven (Jn. 19:30), and
will become a living reality on earth—in God’s timetable, not
man’s. (1 Cor. 15:22; 1 Tim. 2:6)
That is the “full”
gospel (the good news) in a nutshell. Yes, in order for men
to experience the benefit of what Christ has done, each must
confess with his mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe (by faith)
in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead (Rom.
10:9), but the good news is that because of what Christ has
done, both the confession and belief have been secured, the
salvation to be received either in this age or in the ages to
come—the resurrection of Christ ensures that none will be lost
(Mt. 18:12-14; 1 Cor. 15:22). The whole idea that “if a man
doesn’t confess Christ in this life he is forever
cursed” is not taught in the Holy Scriptures. Jesus took the
curse (Gal. 3:13) and paid the penalty for the consequences of
man’s sin. The false doctrine that says that most will suffer
endless punishment makes God’s ability to perform His will
impotent because of the “free will” of man or the schemes of
the evil one, and even worst, makes Christ’s death a miserable
failure in that only a few will be able to take advantage of
this grace. In either case, Jesus isn’t really the savior of
all men, but simply “wants” to be. In other words, Christ is
only the Savior of men IF men receive the gift. This is
unscriptural and puts man in the driver’s seat, not God.
The love of God and His
judgments work harmoniously together to effect His will (Eph.
1:11) in order that He might sum up all things in Christ (Eph.
1:10), reconcile all to Himself (Col. 1:20), and make all
things new (Rev. 21:4, 5).
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WHAT
HAPPENS TO ONE HAPPENS TO ALL
by Ken Eckerty
And he (Adam) said, I heard thy voice in
the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked;
and I hid
myself. (Gen 3:10)
Unto Adam
also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and
clothed
them.
(Gen. 3:21)
For as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
(1 Cor. 15:22)
If you look at the above scriptures very
carefully, you will see both the beginning and the end of the
plan of God for man. Most of us can see the beginning of this
plan, but we do not have the “eyes to see” the end. While I
have no doubt that Adam was a unique individual created for
God’s glory, I also believe that he is the “type” (or
representative) for all humanity.
Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered
into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them
that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's
transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
(Rom. 5:12, 14)
According to the Word of God, it was through Adam that sin and
death entered the world. To help us see this, Paul tells us
something very important in the first part of 1 Cor. 15:22,
and that is that all men are “IN” Adam. Consequently, because
we are “IN” him, we are in a state of dying—not just the one
man, but ALL men. Adam’s sin not only affected himself, but
also mankind in general. The Bible is clear: what happened to
Adam, happens to us; Adam sinned, we sin; Adam dies, we die.
No Christian will argue this fact. As a result of the
disobedience of one individual (Adam), all of humanity has
suffered a curse of death and sin ever since. (Rom. 5:18a)
What
does being “IN” someone really mean? As simply as I can put
it, it means that what happens to one person MUST happen to
another. Let me try to give you both a practical and biblical
example of this.
My last
name is “Eckerty.” When my wife and I were married almost 22
years ago, she also changed her name to “Eckerty.” In this
respect, she came INTO my name—good or bad. When good things
happen to me, they happen to her; when bad things happen to
me, they do to her as well. When I was struggling with the
death of my best friend and thought I had lost my faith in
God, my wife suffered right alongside me, and when the “joy of
my salvation” returned over a year later, she also rejoiced
with me. You cannot separate what happens to me and what
happens to my wife. We are one. When I die, any unpaid bills
will be the responsibility of my wife. Why?—because she is
“IN” my name.
The biblical example can be found in the seventh chapter of
Hebrews. Here, the writer is trying to prove that the
Melchisedec priesthood (Christ) is greater than the Levitical
priesthood (Moses).
And
verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the
office of the priesthood, have
a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the
law, that is, of their brethren,
though they come out of the loins of Abraham: For he was
yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
(Heb. 7:5, 10)
In order
to prove the point that the priesthood of Christ is greater
than that of Levi, the writer tells us that because the
sons of Levi were in the loins of Abraham, everything he
did, they had to do as well. In other words, just as Abraham
bowed to Melchisedec, so the Levitical priesthood had to also
bow to the greater (Christ) because it was “IN” Abraham even
though it came later. What he (Abraham) did, they (Levi) also
must do. Just as Abraham became subordinate to Melchisedec,
so the Levitical priesthood must also be subordinate to
Christ. This is confirmed for us in chapter 10, verses 11-12:
And
indeed every priest stands day by day ministering, and often
offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But He, offering but one sacrifice for sins, “sat down” in
perpetuity “at the right hand” of God,
The
writer of Hebrews is telling us of the inferiority of the
Levitical priesthood and how the ministry of Christ is much
more glorious in that it can (and does) take away sins. So
even though the reality could not be seen until after Christ,
the type and shadow of this truth was actually presented to us
thousands of years earlier with the story of Abraham bowing to
Melchisedec.
Paul
speaks of the same general principle in Gal. 3:17 when he
says:
And this
I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in
Christ, the law,
which
was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that
it should make
the
promise of none effect.
In
essence, Paul is telling us that because the promise came
first, the law must be subservient to grace. In other words,
because the law was—in essence—“in the loins” of the promise,
the law (judgment) could never disannul the promise of God
(the gospel).
And so just as Levi had to bow to Christ because it was in the
loins of Abraham, and the Mosaic code had to bow to the
promise because grace came first, so also Adam’s sin was
passed onto us because we were in his loins at the time of his
disobedience. As a matter of fact, none of us had any choice
in the matter. All of us were born with a mortal body that
sins which consequently brings forth death. We didn't have to
be in the garden in order to receive the same penalty as Adam
because we were “IN” his very loins when he sinned. He was
the representative for all of mankind. Yes, he had to
personally suffer the consequences of his own sin.
Immediately, his fellowship with God suffered and eventually,
he died. However, the “mystery of iniquity” is not that Adam
sinned and then died, but the mystery lies in the fact that
what was “IN” Adam is now “IN” us. Paul reiterates this in
Rom. 5:14 when he says that even those who didn't sin in the
same manner of Adam are still cursed.
Just like Adam, the sinner’s response
to his own sin is exactly identical to that of the “first”
man. Adam sinned and so he immediately tried to cover his own
nakedness and hide from God. (Gen. 3:7, 10) Throughout the
centuries, man has been running from God trying to cover his
nakedness with his own good works. This is just as true in
you and I as it is in others. This is why in order for us to
be accepted by the Father, we must be clothed with the
righteousness of Christ. This is the only basis of our
acceptance with God.
Thus
far, no one reading this short essay will disagree with what
I’ve said, but as I stated earlier, most of us can see the
beginning of God’s plan (“in Adam”), but we cannot see the end
of God’s plan (“in Christ”)—at least not in its fullest and
grandest sense.
Now comes the exciting part! Notice
what God does to Adam after he sins.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the
Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed
them.
(Gen. 3:21)
Prior to God clothing Adam, he tried to
do it himself with leaves. This, of course, would never do,
and so the Lord Himself made skins (no doubt from a blood
sacrifice) to cover Adam. (Notice that it was God who clothed
Adam with the appropriate attire—Adam had nothing to do with
it.) Since everything in the Old Testament was written in
types and was for our example (1 Cor. 10:11), this covering
was a type of “Christ” and was God’s promise to all those who
were “in Adam” that they would be clothed with the
righteousness of Christ.
While
Christians have no problem seeing themselves “in Adam” when he
sinned, many cannot receive the wonderful truth that we were
also “in Adam” when he was clothed. But this is exactly what
Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 15:22 when he says,
For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive.
The
first part of Paul’s statement,
(For as
in
Adam all die....),
is
almost universally agreed to by Christians. To deny the
scriptures on this point is to deny the darkness that is
clearly evident all around us. However,
when it comes to the second part of
Paul’s statement,
(...so
in Christ shall all be made alive),
we refuse to see Adam as man’s representative, but instead see
him only as an individual who could have either chosen or
rejected God’s loving provision. In the former case (his
sin), we see Adam as the representative for all of humanity,
and yet in the latter case (his clothing), we see him as a
lone man, solely responsible for his “eternal” destiny. This,
my dear brothers and sisters, is a great travesty and has
caused us to weaken the finality of God’s great plan.
When Jesus Christ took upon Himself the
“sin of the world,” this was not just a cliché. Christ once
and for all struck a deathblow to the sin that was passed onto
humanity because of Adam’s disobedience. This is what the
Bible terms as “the sin of the world.” Paul defines this sin
in Romans, chapter five.
Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men
to condemnation…
(Rom. 5:18a)
Adam’s sin cursed all of humanity.
However, Paul completes the thought by adding,
…even
so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men
unto justification of life.
(Rom.
5:18b)
What exactly does this mean? It means
that the sin (and the subsequent death) that has caused
mankind to be alienated from God has been rendered
ineffective. This is so wonderfully stated by Paul when he
declares to us, “Jesus is the Savior of all men.” (1
Tim. 4:10) Notice the present tense (“is”) that Paul uses
here. Even though most men are not yet experiencing the
benefits of that salvation, nevertheless, “Jesus is the
Savior of all men.”
God calls those things that are not as though they
were.
(Rom.
4:17)
God does not see things as we see them.
Even though man continues to sin and reject his or her Savior,
God has considered (and declared) the “sin of the world” to be
completely and finally dealt with FOR ALL MEN. The sin
(singular) was taken away so that the power of faith in Christ
would result in the forgiveness of sins (plural). Unrepentant
sins must be dealt with (and will) in the “ages to come”
through God’s judgment. (See
http://www.savior-of-all.com/perfect.html
for more information on this.)
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died
for the ungodly.
(Rom.
5:6)
The good news of the gospel is that even
when Adam hid himself from God, it was God who went after
Adam, and when He found him, He clothed him with clothing only
acceptable to Himself.
This act by God was not only a prophecy foretelling the coming
of One who would bruise the serpent’s head, but a guarantee to
all those of Adam’s race that they, too, would experience this
bruising of sin in their own lives—“to be testified in due
season.” (1 Tim. 2:4, 6) All of mankind was in Adam when he
sinned; all of mankind was also in Adam when God clothed him.
Why is it so easy for us to accept the
first part of Paul’s statement but not the second? It’s
because the first part (in Adam all die) is past and
present, and the second part (in Christ shall all be made
alive) is future and has yet to be fulfilled. The first
part is something we can see with our eyes and have
experienced firsthand; the second part is something that can
only be seen with the eyes of faith, and only has been
experienced by a few. It is easy to see that all men are
sinners, but it much more difficult to see all men “in
Christ.” No, it is not something that we see right now, but
nevertheless, it is finished as far as God is concerned, and
one day the glorious plan of God’s salvation will be fulfilled
so that God can truly be “all in all.” (1 Cor. 15:28)
Thus we have both the beginning and the
ending of God’s plan for mankind. Genesis 3:21, seen through
the eyes of faith, is God’s guarantee that one day all men
will realize and rejoice in the truth of being “IN” Christ—for
“every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord….” (Phil. 2:10-11) Because we are in the
loins of Adam, we receive the same curse AND the same blessing
that he also received. Adam’s curse was death, but his
blessing was the skins of a dead animal (Christ in the
flesh). None of us had any choice to be “in Adam,” therefore,
none of us will have a choice to be “in Christ!” This is the
“glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people.”
So we have both the Alpha and
the Omega in God’s plan. The beginning is “as in Adam
all die,” the ending is “so in Christ shall all be made
alive,” and everything in between is God’s record of how that
is to be accomplished. The fact that this salvation MUST be
received by each man, through faith, in no way affects the
final result of God’s purpose to “fill all things with
Christ.” (Eph. 4:10) Faith is a gift of God and will be given
to all men exactly when God deems it to be given—no sooner, no
later. For some it is given now; for others, in the ages to
come. Nevertheless, God’s promise to humanity can never be
revoked. The Alpha tells us what is in the past, the
Omega is the prophetic and tells us what is future, and
everything in between is how God is presently working it out.
...who
works all things after the counsel of his own will
(Eph.
3:11)
God has a definitive plan that He is
working out and neither the “will of man” or the schemes of
the “evil one” can prevent Him from carrying it out precisely
as He planned it out “before the foundation of the world.”
Just as Adam had nothing to do with being clothed with the
skins of an animal, so all of humanity will have nothing to do
with being clothed with the righteous covering of Christ.
This is God’s great work. All of God’s judgments, though
severe, are for the purpose of bringing about His glorious and
unfathomable plan. (Rom. 11:33) Salvation is God’s work all
the way, and He will not fail! Will you have the faith to
believe it?
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