CONVERSION AND BAPTISM

God was speaking here, through the prophet Ezekiel, to His aged wife, Israel. He was recalling the time, nearly eight centuries earlier, when He rescued His beloved out of Egyptian slavery and led her to a desolate mountainous region of the Sinai peninsula, where He entered into a covenant of marriage with the young virgin, Israel. It was an incredibly eloquent proposal of marriage which the Lord had made:

And when Israel accepted His proposal (Ex. 19:8), the date was set for the marriage ceremony:

What follows in the next chapters of Exodus is the account of that sacred ceremony. In this covenant of marriage at Sinai, Israel was joined to God.

When a man and a woman are united in a covenant of marriage, they become "one flesh" (Gen. 2:24), and this "one flesh" bears but one name. For example, when Barbara Myers married me, John Clark, she became Barbara Clark. She took my name.

Similarly, when we enter God's covenant, we become one with Him in spirit (ICor. 6:17). And in entering into God's "family," we take the family name. Paul once wrote:

This is what happened at Mt. Sinai. Israel took God's name, covenanting with Him to be His alone, while He promised that she would be "a peculiar treasure unto me above all people."

Now, there are fundamental conditions to every covenant, whether it is a business agreement among men or a spiritual covenant, as here at Sinai. In a marriage ceremony, these fundamental conditions are called "wedding vows." And the wedding vows of God's covenant with Israel, which are preserved for us in Exodus 20:1-17, are popularly known as the "Ten Commandments." The third of these ten commandments is this:

The primary purpose of the marriage union, especially in the Old Testament, was procreation. Only by having children could the family name be carried on.

This was the purpose of that holy marriage at Sinai. God was to be the head of the family. Israel was to bear Him children. If Israel would be faithful to her husband, His light and love and peace would spread throughout the world as membership in His family grew and grew. If she were unfaithful, there would be no light in the darkness, no instruction for the ignorant, and Israel would have entered into covenant with God to no good end. Being spiritually barren, she would have taken His name fruitlessly, for nothing in vain!

To "take God's name" means to bear His name, to become a part of the family that is called by His name, to enter into covenant with Him. To take His name in vain is to enter into covenant with Him and then fail to live up to the terms of the covenant, resulting in fruitlessness.

The third commandment itself does not specifically forbid verbal misuse of the word "God." There are scriptures which do forbid that (e.g. Lev. 19:12a; 24:10-11). The wise man in Proverbs 30:9 said that he could take God's name in vain by becoming a thief. We could as well say that a child of God who had become a glutton, or a liar, or an adulterer, or who lives in any way that is contrary to God's will, has taken God's name upon himself in vain.

The third commandment charges God's people for all time to bear His name faithfully in holiness, for the way to God's throne is lighted by the lives of His people. And if God's own are in the darkness of confusion and disobedience, how much greater is the darkness which is already in the world! Therefore, God plainly warned Israel that "the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."

The young bride Israel was to do just that. Rather than bear God's law and light to the nations, she partook of the idolatry, child sacrifices, and immorality of those nations. She prostituted herself and God's gifts to her by disobeying His commandments and following, instead, the ways of pagans. In yielding herself to foreign Gods, Israel became a spiritual adultress, bringing a reproach upon the holy name of Jehovah, the holy name she bore. Israel had taken the name of the Lord in vain.

Returning now to the scripture with which we started, let's continue reading Ezekiel's powerful message from God to aged Israel concerning His care for her in her impoverished youth:

HISTORY OF INFIDELITY

Prophet after prophet was sent to Israel, pleading, warning, delivering to her the great Husband's commandments for His household. And prophet after prophet was scorned, beaten, and even killed for his effort. When the Lord Jesus neared the time for his death, he grieved aloud:

So Israel was left alone, but only after mercy upon mercy had been shown upon her sins, and chastisement upon chastisement had been delivered until both lost their effectiveness.

God had kept her alive in the desolate wasteland of Sinai 40 years because He had promised her father, Abraham, that his children would live, even though keeping her alive meant keeping her alive to dirty His name in pagan worship and disobedience. He won battles for her and established her in the land He had promised, and watched as she compromised the honor of His name for the savagery of godless living. And when, through her own disobedience, the nations humbled and enslaved her, He still cared for her and caused deliverers to rise up and break the yokes of foreign domination.

And Israel could not answer God's haunting question, "Why have ye done this?" (Jud. 2:2).

After several centuries of living among heathen who were led by kings of their own rather than by God, Israel approached Samuel, whom God had raised up at that time to lead Israel, and told him, "now make us a king to judge us like all the nations" (I Sam. 8:5b).

The Lord then warned Israel, through Samuel, that the kings over them would be severe rulers, and He pleaded with them to be content with His own merciful kingship, but they replied:

And when God's word came to pass, and the harshness of kingly rule divided the nation in half (IKings 12:1-20), He still cared for her and sent His messengers to the northern half of the kingdom (called Israel) and to the southern half (called Judah), preaching love and forgiveness, pleading with Israel to turn from following the nations and to be reconciled to God.

He sent Jeremiah:

He sent Ezekiel:

He sent Hosea:

He sent Joel:

He sent Micah:

He sent Zechariah:

He sent Amos, Elijah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and many others less known to us, but not to God. And when He sent His last prophetic voice in the Old Testament crying, "I have loved you, saith the Lord" (Mal. 1:2), Israel was no longer His bride, but was married to vain paganism (Mal. 2:11) and could only respond in utter blindness and callousness, "Wherein hast thou loved us?" (Mal. 1:2).

And through the next four centuries,4 one of the blackest prophecies ever spoken to Israel was a living reality. No more prophets were sent to guide her in the paths of God.

And it was so.

Those four silent centuries saw the land of the Jews wracked with war and treachery and confusion and fear. The very sacredness of Israel's faith grew stale. The temple was defiled by heathen intruders. The High Priesthood became a political prize. The Law was surrounded by fences of uninspired tradition.

This religious harshness and emptiness resulted in a slow rise of sects within the Jewish religion. There arose the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Zealotes, Herodians, Essenes, and other faiths within Israel itself. Each had its own particular doctrine and standards, and each claimed to be right. Israel could no longer offer deliverance to a confused world; she was herself confused.

And as the end of this dark era neared, the religious situation in Israel grew desperate. The covenant of God was distorted, twisted by men of great mind and empty soul. The original intention of the covenant was now so foreign to what was taught by Israel's pastors that those who were persuaded to become Jews were no longer being converted to God's faith. Jesus described the situation in blunt terms:

This means that Israel's pastors converted people, not to God's covenant, but to their interpretation of God's covenant. It means that the religion then taught and observed by the Jews was not the religion with which they had begun. It meant that throughout the synagogues of Israel, pastors were telling the congregations that they were prepared to meet God when they were not prepared, that God was their God when He was not, and that they could expect rich blessings and great favor, when only disaster and ruin lay ahead. The people were being taught to long for the day of the Lord (for surely he would greatly reward them!), but did anyone consider the words of Amos?

During these long centuries, when the word of the Lord was not heard in God's vineyard, many vain traditions budded and grew and were added, by Israel's pastors, to her religious diet. They appeared authoritative, but they all were wild, poisonous, bitter fruit, and everyone who ate of this fruit partook of its degenerate nature. Years before, Isaiah had sung this sad song of his well-beloved God and His vineyard:

But amid all the frightening words of doom, and the ugly pictures of destruction found in the ancient scrolls of the prophets, was one last bright hope. In enigmatic terms, the prophets spoke of one who would come to restore and reconcile the people to God; and the hope which these promises sparked kept the future for God's vineyard from seeming so utterly dark, for out of its dried and broken stumps and roots would rise God's great Apostle. Isaiah again:

Said Zechariah:

The purpose of God's choosing of Israel was for the blessing of others; it was to make people a vehicle of His great care and healing and peace. When God's people humbled themselves before Him in obedient holiness, godly fruit was produced. When pride, compromise, and greed worked in His people and, so, hindered His working through them, what good fruit could have been produced? And finally, The Kingdom of God was taken from Israel and given to others who would be more faithful in "bringing forth the fruits thereof" (cp. Mt. 21:33-46).

And have we done so? Has the Church been the light of the world, the salt of the earth? Have we kept ourselves from errors of Israel? Have we escaped the snares of divisions among ourselves and our leaders? Are our steeplehouses filled with converts to a certain brand of God's new covenant rather than converts to God? Are our pastors telling congregations who are strangers to the grace of God that they may look with joy to what lies ahead? And if God so fiercely punished a guilty Israel, will he excuse a guilty Church? Some of the last words spoken by Jesus on this earth warn us not to think so. Gathered with his disciples on the night before he was crucified, the man call the Branch carefully labored in words that they might understand:

No, God has not changed His standard nor His purpose for His people. For the sake of all men, the Church lives, that in showing to all men God's lifestyle, some of them might desire His life.

The Church needs to examine its faith, its traditions, its methods, and its goals. If division in Old Testament Israel was an indication of confusion and error, can denominations within the body of Christ indicate anything else? Will we point the finger at Israel and wonder why she chose to die, not heeding the scriptures, when our own scriptures tell us that as long as there are divisions among us we are carnally minded (I Cor. 3:3) and to be carnally minded is death (Rom. 8:6)!

And when we cross land and sea to make a convert, whose convert is he? God is ours? Have we established traditions which the Church would be more fruitful without, that are contrary to God's truth?

If an unschooled, unheard-of, wandering preacher proclaimed that the most revered and respected pastors among us were blind guides, would we be so religiously offended that we would no even consider it? And what would you do pastor?

Israel compromised holiness, increased her membership roll, and God cut her off. Will He look at our congregations and see less compromise? It is imperative that the Church be taught to know that Israel's fate is not unrepeatable, that any people who bear God's name must bear that name in holiness or be destroyed!

The Church must hear her own prophets! And we must understand that the things which happened to Israel

By Israel's fate the Church is warned,

We must come to know, fully know, and take to heart that, first, there is such a thing as taking the Lord's name in vain, and second, that the only people who can take His name in vain are those who have taken His name at all: the Church. We must (we must!) grow to understand the fear of God and the fierceness of His wrath upon His own people who bear His name, yet live ungodly lives. The way is simple; the requirements clear:

It is not true that we are counted good in God's sight for Jesus' sake, even when we do evil. It wearies God to even hear such nonsense:

We need to be without doctrines and showy theologies that eventually call good, evil and evil, good. The gospel is so simple. It is when we are lifted up in pride to formulate complicated, sophisticated, dogmas that we become confused, divided, carnal.

Jesus gives us wisdom and power to live good lives, so that at the judgement we will be clean. Those who do righteousness are those who are righteous (I Jn. 3:7-10). Those who do evil are evil. The righteous will be saved; the unrighteous will be cast into the lake of fire. That's the gospel.

If we hope to enjoy the promises of eternal life which God has set before us, we must learn the lesson which Israel's failure can teach us (cp. I Cor. 10:1-12). To wit, that being the people of God, bearing His holy and blessed name, carries with it the responsibility of holiness to our God, and that, without holiness, no man will see God. Whether he has been converted or not.

BEFORE WE CONTINUE

Refusal to consider seriously and humbly the possibility of spiritual error was a hallmark of Israel's pastors. They could have revered their traditions, yet been willing to consider the prophets' words, and thereby helped. But their unwillingness to hear, their readiness to condemn and reject any suggestions that they had misunderstood, ultimately destroyed them and their people. A willingness to hear is a mark of righteous people; only the guilty are hardhearted.

Because the truths in this beginning chapter help quicken our minds to realize the real possibility, and the awful consequences, of developing (even unintentionally) spiritual hardness to truth, I consider it to be but the introduction to what this book has to say. For much of what is being taught to and practiced in God's Church today is not true, in fact contrary to Christ, and as a matter of course hardens the people against the clearest, simplest truths of living a truly godly life. And it is only in remembering with what steadfast assurance of righteousness that Israel slaughtered the prophets, that we can be warned to listen for the chastening word. In His fear, we must all be continually examining ourselves and our faith; for truly, much of the responsibility to be led rightly lies squarely upon the shoulders of each follower. If I stand before God "poor, blind, and naked," yes, my shepherd will answer for it, but neither will I be guiltless. Every one of us shall give account of himself to God (Rom. 14:12).

It is certainly nothing new to your ears to hear that the Church is "off the track." We all sense that something is amiss. The presence and vastness of denominations itself is an indication to every conscience of some pervasive, yet hard to define, error which has crept into the mind and spirit of God's people. Differences in doctrines, ordinances, standards, and governments are so obviously ungodly that at times they are even defended on the basis that God would not allow such developments in the Church if indeed they were so ungodly. But at heart, we all know fully well that it is not as it should be.

The chapters which follow will, for many of you, initiate a difficult task of re- examination. They will require all of your faith, your attention, your prayers. Truthfully, you will not be judging their contents; they will be judging you.

The move of the Spirit now being felt throughout the world will, I pray, eventuate the uniting of the faithful into the one faith, one government, and one mind of Christ. However, much depends on us. There are many beliefs to be abandoned, many traditions to be discarded, many confessions to be made, and much chastening and pruning to be received. And if God's recording of Israel's failure to do these things, and His recording of the results, do not make us willing (yea, eager!) to examine, in earnest, our own beliefs and to be willing to hear words not easy on our souls, then will be fulfilled the words of Solomon:

The messages which now follow are only a small part of our God's call of peace to a divided and confused Church. But they are a part. They will not all be easy to accept. But they are all true. And we all need them. They will stand the tests of scriptural examination and endorsement of the Spirit.

There is nothing to be gained by contention and strife and faultfinding. You will find none of those spirits in this work. There is, however, everything to be gained by instruction in righteousness. And the Spirit of truth has given me these messages for this time for the Church.

YOM KIPPUR AND CHRIST: LIGHT ON PENTECOST

Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. (Heb. 9:1)

For Christ has not entered into the sanctuary make by human hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. (Heb. 9:24 AT)

Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) was the most holy day on the Old Testament calendar. It was the day when the High Priest of Israel entered into the very presence of God to offer the blood of sacrifice for the sins of all the people.

This ceremony took place at the tabernacle, and to grasp fully the significance of the event of Yom Kippur, we must understand the significance of the tabernacle itself. The Old Testament tabernacle was built by men, but it was designed by God. God showed Moses the blueprint of the tabernacle when Moses was with him on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 24:18; 25:9, 40; etc.). And when the time came for the Jerusalem temple6 to be built, we are told that its pattern, very similar to Moses' tabernacle, was given to King David "by the Spirit" (I Chron. 28:11-12). Seeing then that the tabernacle was not of men's design, we needn't be surprised to learn that the tabernacle was more than just a tabernacle, that it represented a spiritual reality. And the spiritual reality it represented was heaven itself, God's true tabernacle (Ps. 102:19; 104:2; Isa. 40:22).

In the tabernacle's front room was the candlestick with its seven lamps, or candles (Ex. 25:37). And in his vision of heaven, John saw that "there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God" (Rev. 4:5). In the Most Holy room, on either side of the mercyseat (God's earthly throne), stood two huge cherubim, carved from olive tree wood and covered with gold (I Kgs. 6:23, 28). Zechariah was told by the angel that these two olive trees represented "the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth" (Zech. 4:14).

Throughout the whole tabernacle, carved on the doors and walls, sewn onto the curtains and veils, and chisled onto the furniture, were, among other things, little angelic creatures (I Kgs. 6:32, 35; 7:36, etc). When the priest entered the temple, he felt surrounded by that "innumberable company of angels," that "multitude of the heavenly host" living beings in heaven, dead figures in its earthly replica.

Leaving the many other impressive heavenly correlations of the tabernacle for your personal study, let's look now at the tabernacle as a whole.7 The bible speaks of three heavens. The first is the place of clouds and birds and winds. The second heaven is the place of stars, moons, and planets. Into these two heavens, as the invention of airplanes and rockets have proved, men may freely go. But into the third heaven no man in a fleshly body has ever gone, or will ever go. Correspondingly, the tabernacle was divided, by a veil, into two rooms: the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place (Ex. 26:33). The Holy Place, where priests were constantly present, was exactly twice the length of the Most Holy (I Kgs. 6:2, 20). And, though the priests had free access to this Holy Place (first two heavens), they were not allowed into the Most Holy (third heaven). The privilege of passing through the veil into the Most Holy Place of God's personal presence was reserved for the High Priest, and he was allowed there but once each year on Yom Kippur.

The veil, and what it represents, is most significant for an understanding of the work of Christ. What did it represent? Isaiah gave us a clue when he said that God would someday do away with "the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations" (25:7). This veil, spread over all people, is flesh, as Hebrews 10:20 explains. Men may go, and have gone, into the first two heavens in their fleshly, physical bodies; but in order to enter into the very presence of God, we must pass through the veil; we must be changed in order to see God. This is "passing through the veil," and is called in the New Testament "glorification," as you'll soon see.

As I have said, Yom Kippur was the one day in the year in which the High Priest passed through the veil into the very presence of God. There he offered the blood of sacrifice for the sins of the whole nation. But in order to have blood to offer, the victim must have already been slain.

Think about that.

The sacrificial victim was slain outside the tabernacle. Afterwards, the High Priest entered with the blood into the tabernacle, then through the veil into the presence of God to make the atoning sacrifice. The slaying of the animal outside the earthly tabernacle was the pattern for the slaying of Jesus outside God's true tabernacle. The entrance of the High Priest into that earthly tabernacle, to offer the sacrifice of atonement, foreshadowed Jesus' ascension into heaven,

For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth the holy place every year with the blood of others; for then must he often have suffered from the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared [before God in heaven] to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Heb. 9:24-26

AN IMPORTANT DETAIL

Over long periods of time, words often undergo a metamorphosis. Their meanings change. An example of this is the word "offend". In the era when the King James scriptures were written, its meaning was usually "to cause sin". Jesus said, "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out" (Mt. 5:29). But now "offend" most often means "to insult" or "hurt the feelings of." Among other such examples is "to sacrifice." I asked my students to give me a synonym for "to sacrifice." I gave them this sentence:

Next, I removed "sacrifice" from the sentence and asked them to replace it with a synonym. You do it. Fill in the blank with another word for "sacrifice."

What word did you think of? To kill? To give up? To slaughter? If so, you are correct in modern usage but incorrect biblically speaking. "To sacrifice," never means, in the Bible, simply to kill. Killing the victim always precedes the sacrifice; the sacrifice itself is the offering of the slain animal to God. "To sacrifice," then, is the offering of something already prepared to be offered. In the case of an animal, the killing was only part of the preparation for sacrifice.

Christ, therefore, was no more sacrificed on the cross of Calvary than the Old Testament animal was sacrificed where it was killed. His crucifixion was only preparation for the sacrifice which followed. Had the Old Testament High Priest killed the animal and then not entered into the tabernacle to offer it to God, there would have been no sacrifice. And had Jesus not risen and ascended into heaven (the true tabernacle) to offer himself to God, there would have been no sacrifice. In both cases, the sacrifice was made possible by, and followed, the death of the victim. The earthly High Priest entered into the earthly tabernacle with the blood of goats and calves, but Jesus, the High Priest of heaven, entered into the

...greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with human hands, that is to say, not of this world; neither with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered in once for all into the holy place Heb. 9:11b-12 AT

Jesus did not ascend into heaven because the sacrifice was completed. Rather, he ascended into heaven to complete the sacrifice. Unorthodox as it sounds, the Spirit and the scriptures are teaching us that Jesus had to die before he could offer himself to God as a sacrifice for sin. Before his death, he had nothing to offer.

PASSING THROUGH THE VEIL

It is interesting to focus for a moment on the specific time that Jesus was glorified, or "passing through the veil." Since the veil was inside the tabernacle, the "passing through" must have taken place inside the tabernacle; therefore, Jesus' glorification could not have occurred before he ascended into the tabernacle. This ascension followed three days in the heart of the earth (Mt. 12:40), then 40 days on earth (Act. 1:3). And 7 days of consecration are accounted for after his ascension (Lev. 8:33-36). This total of fifty days agrees with the fifty day period between Passover and Pentecost, but there is some confusion among Bible students as to exactly when we should start counting those fifty days. So, though we may not be able at this time to pinpoint the precise day or hour when Jesus passed through the veil to offer himself to God on our behalf, it was certainly not before his ascension in the first chapter of Acts and probably at least 7 days later than that.

Whenever the precise moment Jesus' glorification occurred, that glorification was our deliverance. For when God, as Peter preached in Acts 3:13, "glorified his Son Jesus" with the glory which was his with God "before the world was" (Jn. 17:5), the Spirit of God was made available to men and was received by 120 of Jesus' disciples on Pentecost morning. It was John (Jn. 7:37-39) who told us that the Spirit would be given only after Jesus' glorification (not his crucifixion or resurrection!).

"Glorification" simply means a passing from a fleshly body to a spiritual body, from mortality to immortality, from a body subject to damage to an incorruptible body. It is synonymous with "inheriting the kingdom of God." Those born of the Spirit are heirs with Christ, but as long as we are yet in these fleshly, non-glorified bodies, the inheritance can not yet be received. As Paul says in I Cor. 15:50-53:

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

We shall all be changed! We shall all pass through the veil, for Christ "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious [glorified] body" (Phip. 3:21). In these bodies of flesh we cannot see God as He is; it would consume us. And although "it doth not yet appear what we shall be we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be [made] like him; for we shall see him as he is" (I Jn. 3:2). This is glorification, "passing through the veil," the inheritance of sons.

If you are a faithful child of God and die blind or lame, it does not mean you will spend eternity in a blind or lame spiritual body. A glorified body will not have our physical inadequacies, our tatoos, our scars. Those "mansions" Christ is preparing for us are perfectly glorious, eternal and whole. John did not see any blemish on the glorified Jesus in Rev. 1:13-14:

And in the midst of the seven candlesticks [was] one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were like a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

There are no blood stains on the robes Jesus is now wearing, no thorn pricks in his forehead, no lash marks on his back. He has passed through the veil which was subject to those things.

But when Jesus came out of the tomb, he was not glorified. He was not in a glorious, spiritual body, but in the same body that had been nailed to the tree. The nail prints were still in it; the spear wound was still there. He even had to tell his disciples, before they would believe it, that he was not (yet) a spiritual being. He said in Lk. 24:39b:

handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

So, if he was yet in a body of flesh and bones, he was not yet glorified. And if not yet glorified, then the Spirit was not yet available, the sacrifice not yet made.

The book of Hebrews adds this instructive note to our study:

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth [waiting] till his enemies be made his footstool. Heb. 10:12-13

The fact that Jesus sat down at God's right hand after offering himself as our atoning sacrifice is important, for it means that he did not (as many are beginning to teach) afterwards return to earth and will not do so until "his enemies be made his footstool." Of course, in Spirit, both Jesus' personal presence, let it suffice to remind the reader that we are looking for his second coming, not his third or fourth. After his first visit, he sat down.

Not all that these truths implicate concerning the doctrine and experience of the Church is immediately evident. Some elaboration is, therefore, in order.

When Jesus ascended (Acts 1:9), he ascended out of the range of human sight and hearing. And in the heavenly temple into which he ascended, there were no microphones, tape recorders, cameras, or newsmen to record and report what occurred. Jesus, being glorified, sat down at God's right hand and has not returned to earth since. No angels were dispatched to report the accomplishment of the sacrifice. How, then, did the 120 faithful followers of Jesus find out that the sacrifice had been accepted and that Jesus had been glorified with God? John gave us the simple answer:

it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. I Jn. 5:6b

While with his disciples, Jesus had foretold of the Spirit's coming and the purpose for it:

But when the comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. Jn. 15:26

The followers of Jesus could tell of his miracles, his suffering, his resurrection, and his ascension. They saw these things for themselves. They did not need the Holy Ghost to bear witness to them that these events occurred. But as to what happened beyond those clouds into which Jesus disappeared, they were completely ignorant until the Spirit was sent from heaven into their hearts, testifying that God had accepted Jesus' sacrifice and that "God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name" (Phip. 2:9).

The Spirit of life given at Pentecost was, and is, God's own immutable testimony of His Son. We could even say that the Spirit is God's Word concerning His Son (cp. Eph. 6:17). And to receive God's Spirit demonstrates one's faith in His Word concerning His Son (cp. Jn. 3:33). But the one who rejects God's Spirit "has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which God has given concerning His Son" (I Jn. 5:10b).

The scriptures, then, leave us no alternatives. Either we receive God's Spirit and, so, declare His Word true, or we reject God's Spirit, His personal testimony that Jesus is Lord, and thus imply that God has lied.

The second major implication of this chapter is that when the Spirit came at Pentecost, it came for the first time. The disciples received the Holy Ghost when they were baptized with it, and not before.

Jesus' ascension in the first chapter of Acts preceded his sacrifice and glorification. When the sacrifice was accomplished he sat down (Heb. 10:12-13); he did not return to earth. If then, Christ's sacrifice and subsequent glorification were not accomplished until Acts, it is clear that the Spirit was not available until Acts, for the Spirit came as a result of the sacrifice (cp. Jn. 7:37-39), and as witness to the glorification.

The disciples, therefore, received the Spirit at Pentecost, when they were baptized with it. And just a little study will show that baptism with the Spirit and receiving of the Spirit happened simultaniously in every other case: the Samaritans (Acts 8:14-17), Paul (Acts 9:17-18), Cornelius (Acts 10:44-45), the 12 Ephesian disciples (Acts 19:1-6), and, in truth, every other person who has ever received the Spirit of God. But we will deal more with that point in another chapter.

ACTS 2:4

The sobering thought to consider now, though, is that since the receiving of God's Spirit happens at conversion, this means the disciples were not converted until Pentecost! Despite what our traditions and teachers have held, there is nothing in the gospels which even suggests that the disciples were born-again before Acts 2:4.

While it is true that they were chosen (Jn. 15:16-19), separate from and hated by the world (Jn.17:14), loved by the Father (Jn. 16:27), and even ordained to spread the word of the kingdom with power (Mt. 10:1-8), they still were not sanctified (Jn. 17:17), nor did they have the Spirit (Jn. 14:15-17; cp. Jn. 7:37-39).

Jesus' passionate desire was to have the disciples to be one with him in the Father (Jn. 17:20-23). He exhorted them to be converted (Mt. 18:1-3), and specifically told Peter what to do after he experienced conversion (Lk. 22:31-32). And , as much as Jesus would have savored having fellowship in the Spirit with his disciples while he walked on earth, he knew that it could never be. His death was to be the precondition for their regeneration. The utter aloneness of Christ in this sense is an often overlooked point of his suffering which must have been among his heaviest burdens.

During his last supper discourse, Jesus compared the spiritual condition of his disciples to a woman in labor. Conceived by the word of life, they had continued with Jesus until, at the end of his earthly ministry, they were near the hour of birth (Pentecost). Jesus said:

The current doctrinal separation of conversion and baptism is one of the most puzzling and indefensible developments in the history of Church doctrine. Paul plainly and repeatedly emphasized that baptism of the Spirit was the means into the body of Christ (Rom. 6:1-4; I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27; Col. 2:12). Peter just as plainly taught that the resurrection of Christ brought about the baptism which saves us (I Pet. 3:20-21).

Yet, somehow, despite these scriptures, and Jesus' own teaching, and the accounts of conversions in Acts, the belief that conversion occurs before receiving the Holy Ghost baptism is practically ubiquitous in the Church. And with the abundance of such clear, contradictory evidence, it is mystifying staggering that such a doctrine should ever have gained such widespread acceptance.

Let's take a closer look at conversion and baptism right now.

CONVERSION AND BAPTISM

From the above scriptures we can see that salvation is possible only for those who have been baptized. But the question which must be answered is, "Is the baptism which counts for salvation a baptism with water or the baptism of the Holy Ghost?" The earliest Church practiced two baptisms. They baptized the penitent with water, with instructions to expect the Holy Ghost baptism to follow. Peter's message to the Jewish multitude at Pentecost was, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:38). But the Apostle Paul taught a doctrine which was revealed to him personally by Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11-12) which excluded the need for water baptism. He taught that, as far as salvation was concerned there was only one baptism (Eph. 4:5), and that the "one baptism" was the baptism of the Spirit (cp. I Cor. 12:13). The few water baptisms Paul did administer bothered him ("for Christ sent me not to baptize"), and he regretted ever having been involved with them (I Cor. 1:14-17).

The apparent contradiction of Peter's message with Paul's is only that. Apparent. Neither Peter nor Paul was wrong at the times and in the places he ministered. The key was the people to whom Peter and Paul were sent.

Paul wrote in Galatians 2:7, " the gospel of the uncircumcision (Gentiles) was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision (Jews) was unto Peter." Peter's message of the need for water baptism was for the Jews only.9 In fact, the entire faith of Jesus was withheld from non-Jews by the earliest church. God had to repeat a shocking vision to Peter three times before Peter would have considered travelling to a Gentile's house to preach (Acts 10).

The doctrine of conversion for Gentiles was a complicated one in the earliest Church. In order to receive the Spirit they were expected, first, to become Jews by circumcision, submitting to the Law, and, in a spirit of repentance, be water-baptized in Jesus' name. Only then were they to receive the Spirit baptism. The border line, however, was circumcision. Gentiles, being outside the genealogical line of Abraham (which was distinguished by circumcision), were disqualified from the availability of Christ. The promise was to Abraham's seed. But, the earliest Church believed, if the Gentiles would become Jews by receiving circumcision, then they were candidates for the message of salvation and could eventually receive the Spirit when they had submitted to water baptism. Gentiles were simply considered too unclean to have Christ preached to them. Only Jews were ordained to hear the gospel. And, at that time in Church history, that was the truth (cp. Acts 3:25-26; 13:44-46; Rom. 2:9-10).

But, without a revelation from God, the Church could not possibly have believed anything else concerning Gentiles. After all, even Jesus himself said that he was sent only to the house of Israel (Mt. 15:24; Rom. 15:8). When a Gentile woman came, begging for help, the disciples heard him call her a dog (Mt. 15:25-26). Moreover, when he sent the disciples out, he strictly commanded them not to go to the Gentiles (Mt. 10:5). The disciples, without any doubt, understood his later command to go to "the uttermost part of the earth" to mean that they should preach Christ to the Jews and Jewish proselytes scattered throughout the nations.

So, in the earliest era, the Church's doctrine concerning Gentiles was firmly fixed. It was at this time that Peter had his visions from God and was led by the Spirit to preach Christ to a household of Gentiles. And when the Spirit descended on those Gentiles, the six companions of Peter, all Jews, were utterly dumbfounded:

Not only had God by-passed the heretofore required water baptism, he had by-passed as well the entirety of earthly Jewishness the patriarchal lineage, circumcision, Moses Law! God had given his precious Holy Spirit to dogs! Up to that moment, the Church was exclusively Jewish. Every person who had received the baptism of Christ had either been born Jewish or been converted to Judaism; but at Cornelius' house God was showing Peter and the Church a new thing.

Peter, James, John and the other leaders in the Church were spiritually discerning enough to recognize the meaning of Cornelius' baptism (cp. Acts 15:1-11). Their previous message had not been in error. Christ had to be preached first to the Jews (cp. Acts 3:25-26; 13:44-46; Rom. 2:9-10); therefore, if Gentiles were to receive Christ, it had been necessary, in the earliest Church period, for them to have become Jews. But when more and more Jews refused to obey the gospel, God by-passed them altogether to reach the Gentiles, baptizing them into the body of believers without requiring them to be converted to Judaism or submit to the Jewish law.

But the recognition, on the part of these few Church leaders, that God would baptize Gentiles by the Holy Ghost into the Church did not resolve two crucial issues. First, it did not change the fact that Peter, James, John and the other leaders were sent only to the Jews. By acknowledging the work of God with the Gentiles, they were not thereby sent to the Gentiles. Second, their recognition of God's work did not settle the question for others in the Church. A sizable portion of the Church either could not or would not fellowship a Spirit-baptized Gentile unless he submitted to the Law (cp. Acts 15). Clearly, God needed another man. And the man He chose was Paul.

For three years after his Damascus Road encounter with Christ and subsequent spiritual baptism, Paul spent his time in deep prayer and study in the Arabian Desert region (Gal. 1:15-18). Having discovered himself warring against the truth of God because of the understanding he had received from human instructors, he refused to seek the counsel of men, be they Rabbis, Apostles, or whatever. He had learned, as possibly no one else had, the vanity of dependence on tradition, however revered, or wise men, however devoted and sincere. He knew that he had to receive his instruction from God or run the risk of discovering himself again opposing, in devotion to God, God's own truth. And when Paul did begin to preach, his message not only challenged sinners; it challenged the spiritual fibre of the (Jewish) Church itself. And he uttered a curse upon any creature in heaven or earth who would dare teach anything contrary to his doctrine. (Gal. 1:6-12).

The Church had from the beginning realized that only those Jews who believed in Jesus were to be saved. The end result of an unbelieving Jew would be the same as the uncircumcised Gentiles. But they stedfastly affirmed the distinction, as the scriptures and Jesus himself did, between the Gentiles and the lawful people of God (to whom, alone, the promise of the Messiah was given). They would draw a picture like the diagram at right:

But Paul emphatically denied the existence of any continued spiritual distinction, in God's sight, among all peoples of the earth, except the distinction of faith in Christ Jesus. Outside the Church, all were Gentiles; the only Jews which now existed were those who had been baptized by the Holy Ghost into the body of Christ. Paul's diagram would have been like thhe one on the right:

And Paul, inspired by the love and authority of God, commanded us never to be led away from this simplicity of Christ (II Cor. 11:2-3).

The Church could well receive Paul's teaching, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," but much of the Church staggered at what followed:

Add to this doctrine the fact that Paul taught the end of the Law and its every ceremony, and you can imagine the opposition Paul faced from within the ranks of the Jewish Church, besides the usual hazards of a missionary evangelist. In practically every one of Paul's letters, this issue is mentioned. In some of them, it is Paul's major concern.0 The following excerpt from the letter to the Gentile Church at Ephesus is an excellent example of Paul's declaration of the Gentiles' privilege to receive Christ; and as it is often true, what Paul does not say (in brackets) is as instructive as what he does say:

Try to imagine the radical nature of Paul's doctrine to the orthodox ear of his time. To the Church, almost entirely Jewish, the Gentiles were "dogs" (in Jesus' words), considered to be so unclean that they were unfit even to eat with or visit. Yet Paul was declaring, contrary to everything he or other Jews had ever been taught, that spiritually "there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek" (Rom. 10:12a). For Paul to say that these uncircumcised foreigners were now one with the saints of Christ, fellow citizens, and partakers of Abraham's blessing, was the purest hersy to much of the Jewish Church. They considered it demeaning to their heritage, and contrary both to the scriptures (as they understood them) and to the example of Jesus which they beheld while he walked among them.

The promise of Christ was to Abraham and his children, and for Paul to claim to be sent to the heathen to preach Christ seemed utter folly. But Paul had come to understand that Abraham's children were not those that came from his loins, but those that demonstrated the same faith that Abraham had. And if those who had faith happened to be uncircumcised, what of it? Abraham demonstrated his faith before he was circumcised (Rom. 4:9-10), Paul further explained to the Roman Church that Abraham:

As far as Paul was concerned, the only children Abraham truly had were those who had faith in Christ. Some of his physical descendants did have faith, but those who did not were not the children of Abraham (cp. Rom. 9:6-8). Jesus hinted at this truth during a heated exchange with certain Pharisees:

The Jew of this period considered any uncircumcised man to be separated from the blessings of Abraham and prided themselves as being his children and inheritors of the promise. The Church, exclusively Jewish in the beginning, assumed this to be true on the basis of their understanding of Jesus' ministry, certain Old Testament scriptures, their traditions, and the fact that God, up to that time, had given the promise of the Holy Ghost to no one except Jews.

But when God justified Cornelius' household, baptizing them with His Spirit, and Paul began to declare that Abraham's heirs were those everywhere who showed his kind of faith (Gal. 3:6-9), a new light began to shine in the world.

Heretofore Gentiles had been taught that, if they would receive the baptism of the Spirit, they must need to be circumcised (i.e., become a Jew) and submit to the Law, including John the Baptist's water baptism in Jesus' name. God's revelation to Paul, and to Peter at Cornelius' house, was that all God required of Gentiles in order for them to receive the promise was obedient faith in Jesus. It was a gnat at which many a Jew gagged for Paul to say that Cornelius and other redeemed Gentiles were Abraham's children, while many Jews were not.

In the light of all things, consider the traditional doctrine of the Church today concerning the baptism of the Holy Ghost. As a whole, the Church is adamant that sinners must be converted before the baptism may be received. Some Pentecostals insist not only on conversion preceding the baptism, but on an experience called, "sanctification" between conversion and baptism. Still others insist, as the earliest Church did, on water baptism before receiving the Holy Ghost.

So, the message which sinners receive from the Church today is practically the same message that Paul spent his life opposing. And that message is that sinners must become God's people in order to be candidates for the Holy Ghost baptism. Accepted doctrine today concerning the baptism is that it is only for God's people. But the revelation that burned within Paul's soul was that the Holy Ghost baptism was not for saints, that this baptism cannot possibly be for the people in the Church, for it is by the Holy Ghost baptism that people ever become Church members. Baptism with the Spirit can not follow conversion it is conversion! It can only be for people outside the Church for no one inside the Church is without it.

At present, after so long a time, the Church is still drawing circles around the baptism of the Spirit, which God has not drawn, leading sinners through all sorts of admissions, confessions, and initiations before instructing them to seek the baptism. And God is still surprising those who cling to such things, as he surprised Peter's companions at Cornelius' house, by baptizing people into his body simply because they are hungry for righteousness and seek his face.

The only prerequisite for receiving the Holy Ghost is repentance in the name of Jesus. Anything else is added by anyone is godless tradition. Conversion neither precedes nor post- dates spiritual baptism, for it is spiritual baptism which converts. There is not one example in the New Testament of anyone being converted before being baptized by the Spirit.11 And though there be many thousands testifying today of being born again before receiving the Holy Ghost baptism, not one of them is with understanding. We may have a change of mind and heart, be touched by God's love, or be delivered of many things and, yet, be unconverted. There are many genuine, thrilling, and healing experiences with Jesus which we may have without being born again! But there is only one genuine experience of new birth: pentecostal baptism.

There is no such thing as a non-Spirit-baptized believer. We are made a child of God by baptism of the Spirit. This was the major doctrinal battle of Paul's time and in these final moments of history will be one of the great doctrinal battles of our time.

The fundamental problem with requiring circumcision, water baptisms, and other ceremonies of the Law was that the use of these works implied that Christ alone is not sufficient. Works of the Law had been made, simply by the exceeding greatness of Christ's power and glory, of no effect for obtaining salvation. And if of none effect, then they had become empty, vain ritual. To require any other religious work other than the receiving and obeying of Christ was, and is, to imply, to the extent of the works required, an insufficiency in Christ. The chapter following, which deals with the relationship of salvation and works, will examine this aspect of the gospel.

SALVATION AND WORKS

There are indeed some things difficult to understand in Paul's letters. And the meaning of Ephesians 2:8-10 has been twisted, by "ignorant and unstable" men to the destruction of many a soul, as much as any verse Paul ever wrote. Let's take now a careful and prayerful look at these and similar scriptures which will, I'm sure, open to you a new world of spiritual understanding of yourself, the Savior, and God's will for His Church.

STATING THE QUESTION

In saying that our salvation is "not of works," is Paul saying that, at the judgement, works will be meaningless as to whether believers are given eternal life or not? Is he saying that whether believers do good or evil, they will receive eternal life with God? Does he mean that how the Church lives in this world has nothing to do with the Church's hope for salvation? Paul himself wrote in Rom. 2:5-10:

If eternal life will be given only to those who continually work good and eternal damnation to "every soul of man that doeth evil," how then could Paul write that our salvation will not depend on works? And if our works do not determine whether we will be saved or be damned, how could Jesus speak of the dead being raised, "they that have done good, unto the resurrection of damnation" (Jn. 5:29; cp. Mt. 25:31-46)?

Was Peter giving empty warning to the Church when he wrote:

In John's great vision called Revelation, Jesus told him that only those who obeyed his commandments would have the privilege of eating from the tree of life and entering into the city of God (Rev. 22:12-14). Besides this, how many of the prophets and apostles warned God's people, so many times, that judgement was due to all men and that judgement would be based on works! David (Ps. 62:12), Solomon (Prov. 24:11-12; Eccl. 12:14), Jesus (Mt. 16:27), John (Rev. 20:12-13), and every other writer in the Bible, including the apostle Paul, taught us that our works will determine our eternal destiny.

How then could Paul say that salvation was "not of works"?

The answer to this question is easily seen once the word, "salvation" itself is properly defined. There is at present a general misunderstanding in much of the Church concerning salvation. Basically, what the Church is being taught is that when a sinner repents and is converted, he "gets saved" at that moment. Therefore, as the current persuasion holds, everyone who believes has received salvation, so that the Church is comprised of "saved" people. But in the scriptures we see a radically different attitude toward salvation. For example, Paul wrote:

This scripture obviously conflicts with the present popular understanding of salvation as being synonymous with conversion. Paul understood conversion to be the first step toward salvation, which would be given exclusively to those converts who were faithful to God to the end of their earthly lives.

Old Testament Israel again provides the prime example of this truth. Beginning in Egyptian bondage, the people were led by Moses through the Red Sea into the Sinai Wilderness. There they grieved God with idolatry, fornication, and complaint until God refused to allow them to enter the promised land of Canaan. Every Israelite male 20 years old and older was condemned to die in the wilderness.12 And forty years later, when they all had died, god led the remaining Israelites, by the hand of Joshua, across the River Jordan into Canaan.

This journey from bondage to the land of promise had six major steps:

         
• 1 Egypt          
• 2 Red Sea          
• 3 Mt. Sinai          
• 4 Wilderness          
• 5 Jordan River          
• 6 Promised Land

In a spiritual sense these six steps exist, with different titles, in the New Testament:

         
• 1 Sin          
• 2 Repentence          
• 3 Conversion          
• 4 Life as a Church member          
• 5 Death          
• 6 Salvation

Salvation is something we turn from sin to obtain, but we can not say that we have received salvation simply by turning from sin. That would be the Old Testament equivalent of the Israelites claiming to have entered the promised land simply by crossing the Red Sea! The land of peace and rest is promised to those who have been delivered from bondage; still, the desert must be crossed in order to reach it.

HEBREWS

So few of my students enjoy or appreciate the book of Hebrew that I have called it "the Leviticus of the New Testament." I have concluded, however, that a major part of the difficulty in understanding it is caused by the disparity between the present misunderstanding of salvation and the scriptual truth. If someone were to say to the author of Hebrews, "I got saved last night," the author of Hebrews would probably wonder why that person was still here on earth. For most clearly and unequivocally in Hebrews is it taught that the only "saved" people are the saints who have faithfully served Christ all their days and are now with him. The rest of us are still in the wilderness, on our way there. Beginning now in Hebrews, chapter three, listen to this God-given exhortation to the Church in the wilderness:

Therefore, just as the Holy Ghost says,

Consider it, brothers, that there be not in any of you an evil heart of unfaithfulness, in departing from the living God. Rather, exhort one another each day, while it is called "today," in order that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we firmly maintain our confident beginning until the end. This is the reason it is said

Not all those delivered from Egypt were allowed to enter the land of rest, and not all who have been converted to Christ will be saved. It is only those who are faithful to their Deliverer and do not harden their hearts to Him after He brings them out of bondage, who will receive the promised inheritance.

This is the importance of "today" for the Church. Having yesterday obeyed God's commandment to repent and be born anew, are we still "today" yielding to his command? Or has the deceitfulness of sin subtly dulled our ears and hardened our hearts to what He would yet have us to do? In this sense, "today" is the day of salvation, for it is our present spiritual condition that counts before the Lord.

But not only in Hebrews or with Paul, it is the constant theme of every biblical teacher that each Church member must be faithful unto death in order to be counted worthy of salvation. This was Jesus' message to all seven of the Churches in Revelation (2:7, 11, 17, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21). And those exhortations were consistent with the message he gave while he was still among us:

HOPE

If believers are not yet saved, one might ask, what then is the difference between saints and sinners? The answer is hope. To be without Christ is to be without any hope of being saved (cp. Eph. 2:12). But for Christ to dwell in us is to have hope of eternal life (Tit. 1:2; 3:7) is our source of joy (Rom. 5:2) and boldness (Heb. 6:17-20) and is a primary motivation for keeping ourselves from worldliness (cp. I Jn. 3:2-3). And because having such hope of receiving salvation compels us to live so that we might receive it, Paul could write:

Because Paul so much wanted to see his converts saved, he continually warned them to be separate from the world, thus to escape the wrath of God toward which the world is rushing. And the surest way to accomplish this separation was, and is, to be filled with the Spirit and power of God, for it is only God's power by which the saints may overcome the unbelief, lusts, and fears which are in our world. Outside the keeping power of God's Spirit, we all are susceptible to the deception of Satan, the errors of foolish men, and perhaps most dangerously of all, our own opinions and desires. Peter wrote:

When Paul wrote to the Church at Rome that the gospel of Christ was "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1:16), he was presenting to the Roman Church the same message we just read by Peter: salvation will be given to every believer who trusts in God's power until salvation comes. Paul insisted that the Church learn to rely on nothing but the power and wisdom of God's Spirit. For men may sound theologically correct and may have impressive personalities, but God, and God only, was worthy of utter trust. He told the Corinthians:

Salvation will be given only to believers who, by walking in the power of the Spirit, are living perfectly in love and peace and holiness. Obviously, in order to be able to live that way, we must let Christ live in us; we are incapable of godliness without God. But with God, we may have power over our own baser desires, power to humble ourselves to do His will, and have this power in every situation we may face.

Salvation, then, has always been the goal of the true follower of Christ, the great hope of every saint. So, how did we develop such an odd understanding of salvation as to confuse salvation with conversion? That is hard to answer. It may be in part because conversion is such a wondrous gift of God that it is a kind of salvation, if we define salvation in this case as "rescue." And indeed, the New Testament writers, in rare instances, use "salvation" in this manner (e.g. II Tim. 1:8-9; Tit. 3:5; Jude 5). And fairly common as well are references to a present state of "being saved," with the understanding that in these cases the definition of "saved" is "kept from committing sin by the power of the Spirit" (cp. I Cor. 1:18). No one would ever have been considered "being saved" if he were practicing sin. A believer practicing sin is being lost, not saved.

Beyond all contradiction, however, the major use of "saved" or "salvation" was in reference to being glorified with Christ. The primary interest and emphasis of the biblical writers was the preparation of the Church to receive the promised inheritance: the salvation of their souls. The apostles were not in a habit of boasting of the Church or themselves as being already "saved," although they humbly expressed their confidence that they would be saved (cp. Acts 15:7-11).

Understandably, this light on salvation will seem, for many, to contradict the two most quoted passages of scripture concerning salvation. Romans 10:9-10 and Acts 16:29-31 on any given day may be heard several times on religious programming. Used to induce sinners to "get saved" and teach God's children that salvation is already possessed, these scriptures provide us with two classic examples of misapplication of scriptures by the influences of tradition and neglect of context.

First, let's consider Rom. 10:9-10, in its context of Rom. 10:5-14:

      5. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
      6. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into the heaven (that is, to bring Christ down from above)
      7. Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
      8. But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in they mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
      9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
      10. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
      11. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
      12. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
      13. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
      14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

THE CONTEXT

After Moses had spoken to Israel the commandments of God at Sinai (Ex. 20 Num. 10:11-13), he led them in their forty years of wilderness wanderings until they approached the edge of the promised land. There, within sight of "Canaan's fair and happy land," Moses was to die, but not before delivering a final, lengthy sermon to his people. The entire book of Deuteronomy is comprised of little else besides his extremely long sermon. This sermon not only reviewed and restated basic elements of the law (hence the name "Deuteronomy" meaning "second law"), it contained summaries of Israel's wilderness experiences and many new commandments and exhortations to righteousness and obedience when they crossed Jordan to possess Canaan. And when Moses had reminded them of all they had learned and experienced, he took a few moments more to make clear to Israel that he had given them, and so they now knew, all they needed to know in order to perform the will of God. God's word was now in their hearts, not hidden in some distant place; therefore, they could do God's will and had no claims on ignorance. In Moses' words:

The heathen nations around them would have to hear the commandments and study them if they were ever to know God's will for their lives. But Israel had lived with those commandments forty years now and knew them and had no need to search for God's will.

This was, as well, the spiritual condition of the Romans to whom Paul was writing. Just as Moses was speaking to people who had received and learned the Law, Paul was speaking to people who had received and learned Christ (cp. Rom. 1:7-12). Thus when he (quoting Moses) told the Romans, "Say not in thine heart, 'Who shall ascend into heaven?'" it was because Christ was alrady in their hearts that they needed not send to heaven. These Roman believers, like the Israelites in Deuteronomy, already knew what God had commanded them to do, already knew what was required of them.

The "word of faith" was already living in the hearts of the people whom Paul was speaking. They already knew the will of God for their lives. It was not something hidden or distant. The word was simple and clear to their minds. The word which God had spoken to the heart of each of these saints was:

Paul was not explaining to sinners how to be converted; he was reminding the Church of what they must do to be saved! Sinners, indeed, cannot confess Christ. The very act of sin denies him (cp. Tit. 1:15-16). The only confession possible for the sinner is the confession (which includes the forsaking) of sin! No one except those in whose heart the Lord dwells can confess the Lord and, so, hope to be saved.

Consider another similar statement in verses 13-14a:

In other words, how can an unbeliever call upon the name of the Lord? "Calling upon the name of the Lord," as a New Testament phrase, is used exclusively of the Spirit-baptized believer's communication with God (e.g. Acts 9:14; I Cor. 1:2; II Tim. 2:22; I Pet. 1:17; see also Zeph. 3:9). What Paul is saying is that born again saints, and no one else, will be saved, for saints alone (by reason of God's Spirit; Rom. 8:15) are able to call upon the name of the Lord.

The confusion of "saved" with "converted" has led to an eerie misuse of Rom. 10:9- 10 unequalled by any scriptural error anywhere. For it is used by mose of the Church, not, as was intended by Paul, as exhortation to the Church to be courageous and faithful unto salvation; rather, it is used by the Church to prompt sinners to do something they cannot do (confess Christ and believe in their hearts) in order to receive what sinners cannot receive (salvation).

SINNERS AND SALVATION

It is not impossible for sinners to repent and be converted; it is impossible for them to be saved unless they first repent and are converted. When Paul wrote that "Christ came into the world to save sinners" (I Tim. 1:15), he quickly adds "of whom I am chief." He had in his mind the mighty love and mercy of God in Christ's coming and dying for sinners that they might find rest in his forgiveness and, at the end, be saved from the destruction of the world and the wicked. Paul was not saying that he was still practicing sin or that sinners could expect to be saved at the end of the world. Instead, he was recalling the kind of person he had been and the blasphemous acts against God he had committed before Jesus stopped him. No sinners will be saved at the final judgement. Peter points this out with a question:

ACTS 16

Having said these things concerning Rom. 10:9-10, Acts 16:30-31 should need but scant attention. The context (vv. 16-34) clearly shows that the jailor's question, "What must I do to be saved?" is not to be taken to mean "What must I do to be converted?" For seeing the tremendous force of the earthquake, he thought his city and himself were being destroyed by God's wrath for their mistreatment of Paul and Silas. Consequently, he was pleading with Paul for instruction on how to escape utter destruction at the hands of God. Paul's response was complete:

No doubt the jailor was at that moment willing to do just that, but he needed to know who Jesus was. Verses 32-34 tell us that Paul went to the jailor's house and "spake unto him the word of the Lord" and, subsequently, he and his family were baptized (with the Spirit).14 Thus the jailor began "believing on God with all his house" (v. 34). And, having begun to believe, the promise that he should be saved was his.

PAUL AND TIMOTHY

But perhaps the very best way to demonstrate the differing attitudes of the early Church and the modern Church concerning salvation is in this manner. Paul wrote to his beloved fellow-laborer Timothy:

Had Timothy been a typical modern evangelist, he might well have written Paul this response:

Dear Paul,

I'll have you know I'm already saved, and you can't make me doubt it! Don't you know salvation is not of works (Eph 2:8- 9)?
Love,
Timothy

Forgive the harsh tone of Timothy's note, but the difference is well seen isn't it?

We are saved through faith; therefore, faith is a very valuable possession. But faith may be weakened or lost through disobedience, neglect, or deception. And with its loss is lost as well the hope of salvation.

Another word for "faith" is "confidence." And, as with faith, confidence is not something we may decide we are going to have; it is something that naturally arises from a clean heart. Guilt replaces this faith when disobedience occurs, for guilt itself naturally arises from an unclean heart. Saving confidence, or saving faith, is, therefore, a quality that exists only in the hearts of the children of God who live clean, obedient lives.

As a young boy, my father was commanded by his father to have the kindling chopped by the time he returned from work. During the day, he not only chopped the kindling, he also fed the horses. At sunset, he eagerly was waiting for his father to come home to see what he had done. This eagerness is the biblical equivalent of faith, or confidence. His heart was clear. Not only had he obeyed his father's commandment, he had "gone the second mile" to do things he knew would please his father. John wrote:

The opportunities we have to obey God and, then, go the second mile to please Him are precious, fleeting gifts which are carelessly ignored by indolent hearts. To neglect to do good is to throw faith away, for faith is the spiritual result of right conduct. Consider this fatherly, compassionate exhortation found in Hebrews 10:35-39:

This "saving of the soul" is what we hope and believe and live for. It is the reward of righteousness. It is eternal life and rest. Accordingly, it is the one blessing Satan most envies and desires us to come short of. Hence, he connives and argues and tempts and divides and works constantly to turn our souls from the earnest, stedfast holiness we must live in order to be saved. (cp. Heb. 3:6, 14).

Not purposelessly did the leaders of the earliest Church strictly warn us to be diligent in in prayer, faith, goodness, and love, and to be perfect and pure and free from every unholy passion and thought. They knew our salvation depended on it! During and since that time, it has been one of Satan's highest priorities to convince the Church that this is not true. If he can convince the Church that salvation will be given to the Church, without regard to the quality of their lives, then half the battle of drawing them into godless living is won. If he robs our hearts of the understanding that the wages of sin is death, then he has as well robbed our hearts of genuine fear of God. And if the fear of God is not a living part of our lives, evil will not seem as hateful as it is, for the fear of God creates hatred for evil (Prov. 8:13). And if Satan can deceive us into believing that sin is not as filthy as it is, that holiness is not precious as it is, his desire to confuse and moderate our zeal to be separated from the world and obtain salvation will eventually be accomplished.

Your salvation depends upon your deeds in this life. That is the message most hated and dreaded by Satan, for that is the only message which will genuinely stir people to begin to seek a holiness before the Lord that they can know about. If people really believe that the kind of life they live will determine their eternal destiny, they will fear to do evil, learn to despise it, resist it, stand up against it, condemn it, and that is exactly what Satan does not want.

For this reason he persecutes every person whose life and voice speak out against sin. Jesus told his brothers:

Yet, in the face of the hatred of the world and the suffering which will ensue,15 Paul stedfastly commanded the Church (Eph. 5:11):

What the Church may have been lulled into neglecting is that the hatred of evil and the denunciation of it, both by word and deed, is what true holiness is. And there is no holiness without it. And if no holiness, no hope of ever seeing God (Heb. 12:14).

But not all that at first appears evil may be evil, and not all that appears or seems right is always right.16 We must bury ourselves in the love of God and wisdom of His Spirit in order to learn what is truly good (that we might do it) and what is truly evil (that we might hate it). Paul said that Satan disguises himself as "an angel of light" (II Cor. 11:14). In other words, he propagates false understandings in the name of the true Lord. And the sole reason for his disguise is to deceive people into uncleanness, moral impurity and spiritual confusion, so that they might be condemned in their own conscience and be damned with him. Any teaching which leaves room for any work of darkness is of him.

There are many doctrines held as true by the multitudinous sects in the Church. Most of them are not directly from Satan. They are simply misunderstandings and opinions of men's own minds, which are not usually binding on the soul and are often outgrown and eventually forsaken. But there is a spirit of bondage which comes with the present confusion of salvation and conversion which men did not invent, and which bondage men are hardly able to escape.

One brother confessed to me that when he first heard this message, a spirit of fear troubled him. He was afraid the Lord would be angry with him if he admitted that he had not yet received salvation. But it wasn't the Lord's anger he was sensing. And he is today more prepared to receive salvation than he was when he claimed he already had it. And had he not been taught that doctrinal error in the name of the Jesus, it would not have bound him. For it was his love for Christ and desire to please him that was so compelling him to cling to what he thought Christ wanted him to believe and confess.

FULL CIRCLE

Still, all false doctrines, whether of men or of Satan, have one common charactereristic. They all either condone or allow, as excusable before God, at least one spiritual blemish in the lives of their adherents. Sometimes it takes a while for those blemishes to be made manifest, but they will show. As a result, the adherent to any false doctrine is made vulnerable, by that blemish, to the influence of at least one unclean spirit.

In this regard, Jesus said that if we would continue with him, we would come to know the truth, and the truth would set us free (Jn. 8:31-32).17 The truth neither condones nor excuses any sin among the saints, because the truth is that Christ is sufficient for your perfection in this present world (cp. Tit. 2:11-14).18 The truth leaves no room for demonic influence because "God is the light, and in him is no darkness at all" (I Jn. 1:5b), and " as he is, so are we in this world" (I Jn. 4:17b).

As all the scriptures in the New Testament show, the doctrine of the apostles is that the saints are to be God's light to the world, and any saint who will not be what the Father has commanded him to be will not be saved. Jesus warned his disciples:

Obedience or disobedience will be the determining factor in the eternal destiny of every child of God. Salvation or damnation rests in the balance of the quality of each saint's life. And so, we are now come full circle and are returned to our original question: If we must live lives of holiness in obedient faith in Christ in order to receive salvation, how then could Paul say that salvation is "not of works"?

Let us understand what kind of works no longer will help us receive salvation. There are many different kinds of works: works of the flesh, works of the Spirit, works of the devil, good works, and others. Let's allow Paul himself tell us what kind of works, or deeds, are no longer of any use for justification before God:

In saying that salvation is "not of works," Paul was not saying, nor would have dreamed of saying, that good works are not required in order to be counted worthy to receive salvation. Paul's message was that the ceremonial rites prescribed in the Mosaic Law were no longer of any value before God; they were dead works, useless in the soul's preparation to meet God.

In order to be a work of the Law, four criteria must be met:

• 1. It must have been ordained by God for men to do or to make.
• 2. It must have been ordained during the time in which the law was in effect (from Exodus 20 to Acts 2:4, though it may have been practiced before or after).
• 3. It must be ceremonial in nature or purpose.
• 4. It must point to a spiritual reality.

Physical circumcision, for example, is a work of the Law. Though given to Abraham before the Law (e.g. Lev. 12:3), as a ceremonial act to show one's association with Abraham's seed. It represented spiritual circumcision in the heart, as Paul explained to the Church at Rome (2:28-29).

Using the above criteria for works of the Law, try now to determine which of the following are works of the Law and which are not:

• 1. the veil in the temple
• 2. Moses's rod
• 3. the Day of Atonement
• 4. the opening of the Red Sea
• 5. holy water (Num. 5:17f)
• 6. David's sling
• 7. the passing of the wine and bread at the last supper
• 8. manna
• 9. the washing of the disciples' feet (Jn. 13:4-15)
• 10. the golden calf (Ex. 32)
• 11. robes and costumes for worship (Ex. 28:1-4f)
• 12. the cloud of glory (Ex. 40:34-38)
• 13. the Passover
• 14. the rainbow
• 15. water baptism

For reasons which will be made even clearer as we continue, the correct answer is that all the odd numbered items are works of the Law and all the even numbered items are not.

The works of the Law were a kind of prophecy without words, a prophecy acted out rather than spoken. What they symbolically prophesied was the kingdom and glory of Jesus Christ; and as he accomplishes his work, the purpose for having symbolic works is finished. Therefore, to become involved with the works of the Law implicity denies their fulfillment in Christ.

Paul's greatest challenge, and perhaps ours today, was to communicate to the hearts of the Church that Christ alone is sufficient and, thus, wean the Church from the use of dead religious symbols, to living worship in spirit, power, and truth.

Those trying to lead Paul's converts back to the symbols were, as he said, only trying "to make a fair shew in the flesh" (Gal. 6:12). But more than that, those having been spiritually circumcised in the heart, who then submitted to symbolic circumcision of the flesh, were saying in effect that Christ, the fulfillment of the symbol, was insufficient. This is why Paul asked the Galatians " having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (3:3). The entire Galatian letter has to do with this one question. Paul had started this Gentile Church in the liberty of the Spirit, but others came behind him bringing the message Paul battled throughout his ministry: that it was necessary for Gentiles to be circumcised (i.e. become Jews) and obey the Law in order to be saved (cp. Acts 15).

What Paul could not get so many of his sensitive Jewish brothers to understand was that Christ had not destroyed circumcision; he had perfected it. He had not destroyed the sacrificial system; he had rather become the perfect sacrifice. He had not destroyed the High Priesthood; he had simply become the perfect High Priest. And so it was with every other work of the Law. To be in Christ is to go beyond those things. Having gone beyond the works of the Law by the Spirit, then return to them, is to go backward and declare that the Christ you met was insufficient to "fall from grace" (Gal. 5:4).

All those things being understood, let us look at some ways in which the present Church is still clinging to remnants of works of the Law which Christ fulfilled.

First, and most prominent, is water baptism. It was ordained by God during the time of the Law (e.g. Lev. 14:8; Mt. 3:1), a religious ceremony which pointed to the spiritual baptism of Christ.

The earliest Church, composed exclusively of Jews, rightly continued baptizing in water, as well as circumcising, offering sacrifices, and following every other precept of the Law. But Paul's message to the Gentiles was that there was but one baptism (Eph. 4:5), and that the "one baptism" was in the Spirit (I Cor. 12:13). Having received the spiritual baptism of Jesus, the reality to which water baptism pointed, where then is the need for another, fleshly, baptism? Paul's message, for which he was so persecuted both from without and within the Church, was that the hour was coming, an dactually had already begun when the only baptism which would count toward salvation was this baptism of the Holy Ghost (cp. I Pet. 3:20-21). And to tarry in, or be "entangeld with," the symbol was to imply the insufficiency of Christ's fulfillment of that work of the Law.

Another example of works of the Law which we have not outgrown as of yet is costumes for worship. Our robes for worship now are to be the righteousness, holiness, and beauty of Christ. Choir robes, nuns' habits, clerical collars, ministerial drapery, are all extensions of the era of symbols, a step backward from Christ. And whoever is involved in the use of such things simply has not realized the commanding sufficiency of Christ's fulfillment of them.

Christ was the master of communicating heavenly doctrine using earthly motifs. But it is both the blessing and the burden of God's teachers that in communicating to man, earthly words and ideas must be employed. A blessing, because familiar earthly realities may communciate the loftiest eternal truths to the simples folk. A burden, because most of the time most of the people will seize upon the vehicle used rather than the substance intended.

Consider the washing of the Apostles' feet in John 13:4-15. Peter asked, "Lord, dost thou wash my feet?" Jesus responded, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." But Peter obviously knew that Jesus was washing his feet! Jesus was simply using the earthly tool of feet washing to communicate a heavenly message which would be understood by them at a later time. He was not ordaining feet washing ceremonies for the Church; he was trying to communicate a spiritual truth to carnal minds!

Such is exactly the case with what is now called "communion." Jesus never intended for the Church perpetually to continue re-enacting the physical act he performed the night of the last supper. The actual passing and consuming of bread and wine was merely the earthly vehicle he used to communicate a spiritual reality which they would understand only after he was gone and the Spirit had come. The disciples did not know what Jesus was really doing when he told them to eat his flesh and drink his blood any more than they knew what he was doing when he washed their feet.

Using the eartly tool of his own blood and body, Jesus tried to communicate a spiritual truth by saying:

And promptly following these words, he added the explanation:

It is the Spirit which we drink (I Cor. 12:13)! And our fellowship with one another is the broken body of Christ!

The time is passed when we should have understood these things and should have been enjoying the liberty of Christ Jesus. We should have already seen what works of the Law are, should have already been done with them, should have spent the time and money wasted on them in prayer or study or almsgiving or some other work which will count when we face God. The only things worse than having been entangled with those deed symbols all this long time is to continue to be entangled with them.

It is readily and rightfully declared by the Church that Jesus died for us. But how many understand that he also lived for us? Being born under the Law for us, he was circumcised the eighth day for us, was baptized in water for us, kept the holy days and feasts days for us, and fulfilled every other work of the Law for us. And when we are baptized by the Spirit into Christ, God not only considers us to have been crucified with him (Rom. 6:6), buried with him (Rom. 6:4), and risen with him (Col. 2:12), we also are considered to have been circumcised with him (Col. 2:11), and to have fulfilled the Law in every other respect.

We don't have to observe the feast days, be circumcised in the flesh, baptized in water, or observe any other work of the Law, because Jesus did that for us. His doing those things means we need not to do them, just as his dying for us means we don't have to die for our own sins. He is our righteousness. And he is sufficient. To refuse Christ is ti imply that his work was not godly. To come to Christ and then partake of carnal religious symbols is to imply that his work was not godly enough and his power, insufficient for your every spiritual need.

In this message of liberty from works of the Law which wa "twisted," in Peter's words, by "ignorant and unstable" men, into a doctrine completely contrary to everything the scriptures an dthe Spirit teach, a doctrine with an appeal which has not died.

On the basis of scriptures such as Eph. 2:8-9, Paul's message of the worthlessness of works of the Law was misrepresented to mean that works of any kind were worthless, that the reward of salvation will be given to anyone who has been converted, whether he lives a holy life or not. Those "ignorant, unstable men" had their converts from the truth, and the apostles labored constantly to keep this alluring error from spreading, Jude wrote:

Paul warned the Corinthian Church not to listen to attractive speakers who said that one could live an ungodly life and yet inherit God's kingdom:

It was never imagined by Jesus, Paul, Jude, or any biblical writer, that the reward of salvation would be given irrespective of one's works. Certainly, the Church was freed, by the coming of the Spirit, from works of the Law, but the Church is not freed form the obligation to work. The Church is indeed free from the handwritten ordinances of the Law, but that does not mean that we are without standards or that we may formulate our own. That we are delivered from the Mosaic Law does not mean that we are lawless.

By the power of the Spirit, the Church is free to obey God, which no man without a Spirit-filled mind may do:

CONCLUSION

The Church must renounce these two digressions from the truth. First, the Church must divorce itself from the remaining fleshly ordinances which are washing so much of our time and money. Water baptismal services are a waste of time. The baptism of Christ is sufficient. Bread and drink should be consumed at home or given to the poor; when you come together, partake of the Lord's supper: the communion of his blood (his Spirit) and the communion of his body (his saints). Money spent on costumes and uniforms for worship is wasted give it to the poor, and be clothed with the armour of God. Christ alone is sufficient!

We need so desperately to move from shadows to the light of the Son, to stand in liberty of Christ. The world needs to have grace ministered to it; neither ritual or symbol may touch the soul.

Secondly, we must learn, and teach, that the wages of sin is death both for the sinner and the saint. We will be saved or lost depending on our works. If we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, live lives of holiness, we will someday see our God; but if we do not do God's will, we will be damned. The Church must excape doctrines which would have us believe we may live un-full-filled spiritual lives and yet be saved in the end. "For if ye [Church] live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye [Church] through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Rom. 8:13).

And Peter will conclude this message with this inspired exhortation found in I Peter 1:17-18:

SPEAKING IN TONGUES AT SPIRIT BAPTISM

From the general topic of speaking in tongues, I want to focus upon the experience of speaking in tongues in relation to the baptism of the Spirit. The following pages will deal primarily with this aspect of speaking in tongues. Of course, I appreciate the many other functions and services which may be rendered by this phenomenon, such as praying in the Spirit (Rom. 8:23-27; I Cor. 14:13-15; Jude 20) and the gift of diverse tongues (I Cor. 12:10), but our attention for now will be centered upon speaking in tongues at Spirit baptism.

Pentecostal denominations unshakably have held that speaking in tongues is the "initial evidence" of receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Most "Charasmatics," from the observations I have made, disagree, saying that while speaking in tongues may occur when one is baptized, it need not occur in every case in order for the baptism to be genuine. This is no small matter, for as we have seen, the baptism of the Spirit is the new birth, and if every person baptized with the Spirit does speak in tongues, then those people who have not spoken in tongues are not born again.

Despite the awful ramifications of such a statement, however, I am persuaded by many evidences, some of which follow, that the traditional Pentecostal stance on this subject is the true one. I do not feel that Pentecostals, by teaching this, have laid out a path which God must follow. Rather, I think they have recognized the path which God has laid out and which we must follow. I know that God may do whatsoever He pleases to do, howsoever He pleases to do it, but that is not the real issue in relation to this subject. We are not discussing the omnipotence and complete freedom of God; we are simply assaying to comprehend His mysterious ways.

Generally, Pentecostals have failed in their attempts to convince others of their point of view because they have used, almost exclusively, baptismal experiences from the book of Acts as their proofs. In fact, the baptismal experiences in Acts prove little, if anything, concerning speaking in tongues. In some accounts (Acts 2, 10, 19) tongues are mentioned, while in others (Acts 8, 9, 16) they are not. The opponents of the traditional Pentecostal doctrine have had justifiable criticism of it, based on what Pentecostals have traditionally used to defend their doctrine. Using the book of Acts alone, it is impossible to determine whether every person baptized with the Holy Ghost speaks in tongues or not. It just doesn't say.

This is a doctrinal issue, as fundamentally important to the faith as can be. We must approach it, therefore, from a teaching perspective, drawing from the Teacher's words and the teachings of the apostles and prophets.

There are basic truths concerning man himself which first must be reviewed in order for us to be able to see any purpose or wisdom of God in ordaining tongues as evidence of Spirit baptism. A most important biblical fact of human existence is that mankind is estranged from God in spiritual "darkness"; that is, he is ignorant of divine ways of living. Jeremiah described the condition of the human heart this way:

There is not a single unregenerated person excluded from the inspired observation of I John 5:19b:

Most people do not know that this is true. They do not understand that their lives need changing, that there is a holy life which may be lived that is different from, and contrary to, the way they are living. This is difficult for a man to believe because he can so easily deceive himself. Being in the "darkness" of ignorance and pride, he can convince himself that he is right and then refuse to see any contradictory evidence. When a man does not know that his own heart is "deceitful" and "desperately wicked," he has the tendency to trust what his heart tells him.

This is especially the case when it comes to religious matters. The scriptures are replete with examples of persons who were convinced they were holy, when they were evil. Jesus rebuked certain ministers of his time with these words:

And he warned his followers of a time coming when

This then is the state of man. He does not know that he is where he is. He does not know truth, does not understand eternal life, can not discern between good and evil nor appreciate the doctrines and deeds of the Spirit. And he does not know that he does not know! He is bound by his own darkened intellect, his self-esteem, lust, and a wily, perverse heart. His spirit is restless, his work is temporary, and his institutions and desires are animalistic.

If man is in this sad state, how can his "confession of faith" be trusted? There are certainly those who consider themselves to be servants of God, yet are not (cp. II Cor. 11:13- 15; II Pet. 2; I Jn. 2:18-19; 4:1-5; Jude; Rev. 2:9; 3:9). Paul wrote of men who considered themselves to be something they were not and described them as spreading such deception to others (II Tim. 3:13). When men therefore, make claims of faith, it basically means nothing more than that they are making that claim. Whether faith actually abides in their hearts is another matter.

Whatever man concludes and declares about himself, others, or Divinity, is only as dependable as his own spiritual condition. Jesus knew this as no one else ever had. When the multitudes saw the miracles he performed at Jerusalem, they declared that they believed in him. But the scriptures say that Jesus refused to acknowledge their confessions of faith because "he knew what was in man" (Jn. 2:23-25). Before their conversion, the disciples heard, at times, Jesus belittle even their claims of faith (e.g. Jn. 6:68-70; 16:29-32).

Such scriptures as these communicate, from a divine perspective, the worthlessness of carnal man's estimation of his own standing with God. Man needs concrete, trustworthy evidence from God's Spirit to let him know that his confession of sin and repentance truly have been accepted by God and that he is forgiven. It is the witness of the Spirit which should always precede one's personal testimony or self-deception may result. Until God, by the Spirit, declares us to be His child, I can see no scriptural grounds for us to claim such a position. This is what speaking in tongues at Spirit-baptism appears to be: God's witness that He has justified and cleansed the person through whom the Spirit is speaking.

Were it man's responsibility to declare that he has received the Spirit (as many are now taught), we would be in a position (as most now are) of not knowing who to believe and so, not knowing who is a brother and who is not. But if, in every case, the Spirit of Christ declares its entrance into the heart of a believer, we may begin to discern with certainty who truly believes and who does not. If we wait for the Spirit to bear witness, then we are able to tell, without partiality, who has the Spirit and who does not. If we wait for the Lord to declare a man born again, we escape the confusion, judgmental attitudes, and uncertainty which results from having to rely only on man's own estimation and testimony of his spiritual condition.

When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, the power of Jesus' truth concerning eternal life shook him. And as the elderly master of the Law sank in heavy contemplation, Jesus described the new birth with these words:

Without any manipulation whatsoever of the Greek words in this sentence, a simple translation could be

Three fundamental points concerning the new birth are made in this one sentence from Christ. Beginning with the last part of the verse, we learn that what Jesus has said in the preceding parts of the verse applies to every person born of the Spirit. In other words, Jesus has said something about conversion that is true and present in every conversion that has ever occurred in church history. There are no exceptions at anytime, with any one. Secondly, from the middle of the verse we learn that the Spirit moves independently of men's minds. Men do not know where the Spirit will move or what person on this earth was last touched by the Spirit. This reinforces our earlier discussion of man's ignorance of divine life. Man cannot see whose heart is indeed repenting; therefore, he cannot know where, or into whose heart, the Spirit will next breathe life (cp. Isa. 55:8-9).

Thirdly, and most importantly, Jesus described in the opening phrase of John 3:8 the characteristic of spiritual rebirth which is, as he said, present in every case, without exception:

Now, it is not as important to know that, when a person is born again, a voice is heard as it is to notice that the Spirit's voice is heard. It is not the individual being converted, nor the individual's pastor, nor even the Bible, that is ordained to declare one to be born again; it is the Spirit that declares it. A good question to ask yourself is, "Who told me that I was born again?" Jesus said that the Spirit's voice was heard when one was born again, and then added:

Paul's descriptions of the "crying out" of God's Spirit when it enters a believer's heart are reminiscent of the birth-cry of a newborn baby. First from Galatians 4:6 we have these words:

And to the Church at Rome he wrote:

The Greek verb kratzo is the word translated "cry out" in these verses and is to be understood as a fervent verbal expression. Kratzo is used approximately 60 times in the New Testament books, and in every case it is used to denote an actual vocalization, usually the result of a circumstance overwhelming the speaker's being.

For example, demons "cry out" when face to face with Jesus' powerful presence (e.g. Mt. *:29; Mk. 3:11; Lk. 4:41). Jesus' own death scream is called a "crying out" (Mt. 27:50). And desperate individuals, such as Bartimaeus and the Syro-Phoenician woman, "cried out" for deliverance when Jesus passed by.

The readers of Paul's message to the Churches at Rome and Galatia would have never understood his reference to the Spirit's "crying out" as a secret, internal, spiritual occurrence. They knew that Paul was referring to the same spiritual experience of new birth described to Nicodemus by Jesus when he said, "and you hear its voice."

To all this is added the heavy weight of I Jn. 4:1-3:

It is fundamentally important to the understanding of this passage of scripture to note that John is speaking of spirits' actions rather than the actions of men. It is manifestly clear that John is not saying that every person who admits that Jesus came to earth in the flesh is a believer, a true member of the body of Christ. Considering Jesus' own refusal to trust the testimony of men (even that of his disciples) and his warnings to John not to be fooled by what men said or appeared to be (e.g. Mt. 7:15; Lk. 21-8), it is inconceivable that John would in turn teach that whoever professed to believe that Jesus came in the flesh was indeed of God.

But if John is saying here that every time Jesus Christ, by his Spirit, comes into the heart of fleshly men that the Spirit "confesses" it is done, then his teaching begins to bear heavy resemblance to teachings of his master. To wit, "But when the Comforter is come he shall testify of me" (Jn. 15:26) and "so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit" (Jn. 3:8c AT).

When John states later in this chapter, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in "God" (I Jn. 4:15), his readers knew that John was speaking of a confession which was only possible when prompted by the power of the Spirit. In John's own words, " it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth" (I Jn. 5:6c). Again, John would never have believed or taught that any man who mouthed the words, "Jesus is the Son of God," dwelled in God. "Confession," as it is used here by John, is not an act that is humanly possible apart from the animating power of the Spirit. Paul said it this way:

The apostles were certainly wise enough in Christ to know that the spirits of greed (I Pet. 5:2; II Pet. 2:3; Jude 11-19) or pride (III Jn. 9) or deceit (II Cor. 11:13-15) or even the spirits of envy and strife (Phip. 1:15-16) could prompt a man to proclaim the message of the Lordship of Jesus. When Paul wrote that only by the power of the Spirit could on confess "Jesus is Lord," he was teaching in effect what we have already seen in the teachings of Jesus and John: the Spirit is the real confessor of Christ, and men may participate in that confessing of Christ only as they participate in the life of the Spirit.

Can we fail to see that the making of any spiritual judgment apart from the Spirit of truth is folly? For if the Spirit was sent to guide us into all truth (Jn. 16:13), what truth may be gained without the Spirit? Is utter dependence upon the Spirit of God too much to expect, when it was given to us for that very reason? This is the standard which Jesus set and the apostles followed: humble reliance upon, and steady confidence in , the Spirit which God had given them, especially in matters wherein making a judgment was necessary.

Considering, once more, Jesus' categoric refusal to make any judgment based upon man's testimony or man's action (cp. Isa. 11:2-4), it is simply unthinkable that his apostles should have taught differently. The reliance upon the Spirit of truth to distinguish the hearts of those who truly believe, rather than judging for ourselves, is a pillar of the faith as taught and demonstrated by Jesus and his earliest followers.

And now, while we may begirding our hearts against any spirit which would lead us to condemn others in judgment, let us also understand that the breadth of meaning in Jesus' words, "Judge not" (Mt. 7:1), is broad enough to include judging people to be right. At present in the Church, there are as many people being judged and declared by ministers to be right with God (even though the Spirit has not given its witness!) as there are people being judged contrariwise. Yet, it is as perverse to judge someone to be justified by grace as it is to condemn an innocent man (Prov. 17:15)! Let us learn now, for everyone's sake, to wait for God to declare a man to be forgiven before we take it upon ourselves to declare that man so to be.

But if speaking in tongues is the evidence that a person has received the Spirit of God, then for whom is it the evidence? The person who has received the Spirit needs no evidence other than the Spirit itself. God needs no evidence; He knows all things. Who then needs to have proof that the Spirit has been received? Who needs to know which persons have God's Spirit and which do not? Obviously, the unbeliever. Speaking in tongues is God Himself speaking, through the Church, to unbelievers, that He is genuinely involved in an individual's, or a congregation's experience. In Paul's words:

God's Spirit-baptized people declare openly the holiness, purity, and power of God; but then, so do Muslims, Jews and other religions of the world. The attributing of graces and glory to God does not (for the sinner seeking the truth) distinguish true worship from false religions, for they all, in some way, do the same. The God-given mark of the one true religion is the Holy Ghost baptism, with the "sign for unbelievers" of speaking in tongues. This experience comes only in the name of Jesus, and every religion without it is false.

As long as there are unbelievers left on the face of the earth, there will be a need for tongues. It is only when "that which is perfect is come," and no unbelievers remain, that tongues shall cease (cp. I Cor. 13:8-10). No one will at that time need a witness from God to let him know who is a believer, for no one except believers will be there. But as yet, there is still a need for God to help the thirsty to find the waters of life.

In this the love of God begins to appear, that in a world filled with voices of men declaring to have found a way to God, God Himself would condescend to send His word into the hearts of true believers, declaring to every confused and hungry soul, "This is the way, walk ye in it." it is the purest love and wisdom of God that He should begin each believer's spiritual life with a very real testimony, for the sake of those without Christ. Oh, that we all would continue to follow such a heavenly example from the moment of conversion to the moment of death!

Knowing the confusion and darkness of men's minds, would a loving God leave man to his own mind to determine which way is right? In His unfathomable wisdom, God calls from heart to heart, not with reasons but with compassion. And when the presence of His Spirit fills a believer to overflowing, the sinner is called upon for a decision. It is a decision of the heart, not the head.

Early in his ministry, my father dreamed of burying the Lord after his crucifixion. Just as he was about to lower him into the grave, Jesus opened both his hands and said to my father, "Here, this cannot be buried with me."

My father then saw in one hand twenty-eight dollars and eleven cents and in the other, eleven dollars and twenty-eight cents. He reached and took the money, as Jesus had instructed him, and as he looked at the money, it changed into two books of the Bible. The twenty-eight dollars and eleven cents became Matthew. Here are those scriptures from Isa. 28:11 (&12):

And Matt. 11:28:

Friend, what you've been reading about in these last few pages is the wonderful answer, God's answer, to a confused, hurting world. It's what every person has been looking for, who has been looking for real peace, real joy, real hope that life has a purpose. I invite you now to respond to the love of the gospel of Christ Jesus and turn from your own way to God, who created you to be happy. Even now, though we have made ourselves base, He has provided in His Son Jesus the way to lift us up again. Answer now, with your life, the exhortation of the wise man James, who said:

God has made the way to escape forever the discord and loneliness every man on this globe faces from birth. And to every man, in the tenderest tones of love, His impassioned message has echoed through the centuries:

Answer the call today.

This is the most accurate and consistent understanding I can find for speaking in tongues as the "initial evidence" of being born of the Spirit. This understanding of the new birth alters radically the commonly accepted pictures of the Church, repentance, faith; in fact, every area of life in the Spirit is given a new and, I think, clearer perspective. And it is a perspective which I predict will very shortly shake the Church as it has never been shaken before.

What all Pentecostals and Charismatics may soon realize is that they are neither the spiritually elite nor the spiritually mature of the Church, nor are they an off-beat, odd-ball part of the Church, but that they alone are the Church, that when they entered in to the Spirit- baptized life, they entered into the body of Christ. On the other hand, non-Spirit-baptized people must be warned that it is never so much as suggested anywhere in the New Testament that we are to "take it by faith" that we have received the Spirit of God. That borders on superstition. Rather, we are to "receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Being baptized by the Holy Ghost is not something we are to believe has happened; it is an experience we receive because we truly believe. And God is still calling.

We are now entering an era of tremendous religious storms. Already the winds of doctrine are causing many unsettled souls to seek safe harbor. Clouds without water, riding those winds, are gathering in ever-darkening huddles across the sky, as the lightning of Satan's fall is about to strike the earth with full force. Is is the time of "seducting spirits" and "itching ears," the time when "the way of truth shall be evil spoken of" (I Pet. 2:2). It is the time when " if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect" (Mt. 24:24b).

But he who stilled the storm with his word is still speaking peace today. Let us all be thankful that his voice may still be heard:

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