Posted on 10/25/2009 1:24:33 PM PDT by Daniel Gregg
Does the Church teach two Gospels? Daniel Gregg
When the preacher says Christ died for our sin, what does it make you think? Does it make you think that he paid the penalty for sin so that the repentant might be forgiven? Or does it make you think one only needs to believe to be perfectly righteous in God's sight, and then one is saved on the basis of God's vision of righteousness?
Believe it or not, the Church teaches two gospels. One is a gospel of repentance and pardon, by which a man may be saved. The other is a gospel of acquittal and divine blindness to sin, which if swallowed whole leads to Hell. The good news of the pardon is Messiah's payment of the penalty, which is valid for those who repent. The false gospel is a gospel of legal philosophy that rejects the necessity of repentance at its very foundation.
Many Christians have taken the true gospel to heart. Many more, however, have taken the false gospel to heart. And most of those believing the true gospel are ignorant of the false Quisling Gospel (Quisling was a traitor and Nazi sympathizer) that has taken their Christian brothers to the Spiritual Death Camps.
What is an acquittal? An acquittal is when a judge finds the accused innocent of all crimes. The case of the defendant is dismissed for lack of incriminating evidence, and the accused is free to go. A pardon happens when the accused is found guilty, admits their guilt, and then the judge finds a merciful reason to let them go without punishment. It is expected that the pardoned will no longer commit the crimes of their former life.
If a judge acquits a guilty person, we call it a miscarriage of justice, or if the judge knows he is acquitting the guilty, a travesty of justice. If a judge pardons someone who repents, we say the judge is merciful and wise. If the judge pardons someone who he knows will keep committing crimes and has no intention to repent then we call it an abuse of leniency.
What I am saying is that the Church has suffered a spiritual holocaust or genocide ten times greater than that of the Nazi murder of the Jews. The gospel of acquittal has led most to believe that they have a righteous status in God's eyes, and that the meaning of the good news has to do with God dismissing his case against them on the discovery of righteousness in them or in their account. All they have to do is "believe" the message. When they understand the gospel this way, then they don't see the need for repentance. Therefore they have no true conversion.
It does not matter whether one is Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Messianic, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, Seventh Day Baptist, or any other denomination. The same malady has infected them all. More Christians are going to perish in the lake of fire because they believed the false gospel which did not lead them to repentance than there are Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
So I will throw out a few barbs for discussion to illustrate the false gospel vs. the real one. It is said the cross teaches "justification by faith" which means being made righteous in God's sight or declared righteous. It doesn't really matter here whether one subscribes to the Catholic facet of the false gospel or the Lutheran/Calvinist nuance. Either way it teaches that "justified by faith" means becoming righteous in God's sight. Sounds like the magic wand of acquittal doesn't it? Well it is. God has no reason to consider anyone perfectly righteous when they are not actually perfectly righteous unless the reason for being of the doctrine is to issue an acquittal and declare the "believer" innocent!
It is time to stop this murder by legal lies that don't make any sense. In the Hellenistic/Koine Greek of Paul's day, the word "justified" from the Greek δικαιοω simply meant "justiced", in the sense of having justice done, or doing justice for someone, or pleading the case of justice. Alister McGrath admits this in Iustitia Dei. We also find the proper definition in Thayer at the end of the entry, and in BDAG (def. #1, though obscured). It is used in the sense of a penalty or punishment. Though a rarely used English word, the sense is "justiced". They hanged the crook and he was justiced. So then when Paul uses the word δικαιοω, he merely means that we are "justiced" in Messiah, i.e. he paid the penalty in our place. Therefore, it has nothing to do with the nonsense of "declared righteous" as the legal outcome of forgiveness of sins. We still have to repent in order to BE RIGHTEOUS, and in fact repentance is expected.
Second point, in Paul's conception "believe" meant "faithfulness/commitment". See the afore mentioned BDAG Lexicon (c. 2000, 3rd edition) on πιστις and πιστευω, def. #1 and #2 respectively. So the phrase "justified by faith" means "justiced by faithfulness" (cf. Rom. 5:1). Now before you get all het up and think I'm saying we are justiced by our faithfulness, listen a minute. Paul did not mean our faithfulness. He meant Messiah's faithfulness. We are "justiced by [Messiah's] faithfulness" to do the work of paying the penalty on the cross. This concept is no longer foreign to scholars as texts like Rom. 3:22 and Gal 2:16 have already been recognized as referring to the "faithfulness of Jesus Christ" and not to "faith in Jesus" Christ. So you see, Paul already defined it as Messiah's faithfulness by which we are justiced. How do you receive this? Make a commitment to be faithful to him, and you will be justiced in Messiah.
If you understand this, then you will know why Christianity is such a mess and is no longer the salt of the earth.
I quoted this text because it supports the point in the opening article that salvation is not a matter of acquittal. To justify the sinner amounts to acquittal. Here is another text that makes virtually the same point
KJV Exodus 23:7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
I'm leaving a few loose ends so that the opposition will feel sucessful for a while.
So was that thief hanging beside Christ saved?
Who is it that performs the act of saving? Is it Christ, or is it the sinner. It is very, very simple. The sinner cannot save - but Christ can and does!
Which one? There were two and granted the bad one put the Lord to the test, not the best thing to do break a commandment as your last act on earth. But even for the bad thief isn't being crucified repentance enough for his sins? Does he really burn in hell for eternity because he did not fully understand the Gospel and Christ's standing as Messiah?
And yes the good thief is saved Christ says "this very day you shall walk with me in paradise."
Ah, judaizing works-righteousness is still alive somewhere in the world.
May this false teaching be cursed by the triune God.
The thief I was referring to was the one who 'believed'.
I cannot find anyplace that anyone burns in hell for eternity. To burn in hell is to be disposed of not ever to be remembered that point forward. Now personally speaking I do not get off on the notion that the Heavenly Father is a torturer through eternity.
Further it is not the physical flesh body that ends up in the 'lake of fire' but that soul/spirit. And it is Written that the soul/spirit that the Maker sent returns back to Him when this flesh body returns to dust. Some return as believers and the rest are in heaven in their spirit body waiting Christ's own personal boot camp to begin. And if they still reject Christ at the end of boot camp they choose to be destroyed, and then the trouble makers will be no more.
Personally I believe there is going to be some shock and awe when some return to heaven and they find out who else is there.
Inconceivable Luck is truly required for an acquittal. What a pity you think you have one and that it leads you to despise the Law of the Holy One. What a pain that you aim for one when simple confession of guilt and pardon will do.
KJV Mark 2:17 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
KJV Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
It was necessary not to pull up the weeds of the false gospel so soon that the wheat might be pulled up with it, but now the kindgom comes, and the harvest is due, and so all will be made plain
I would that every church in the world were arguing about it by noon tomorrow. Then perhaps some of them would repent and be saved.
It is helpful to bait the fishhook.
The paramount text for what 'believe' means is Genesis 15:6, where the Hebrew word is האמין. This word means to "support". Literally, "Abraham made his support with YHWH". So you see it means more than just to support facts, or make someone your support. It also means to support the someone. Similarly, the English word "commit" which is in the Lexicons and is used in the KJV for πιστευω means to commit one's support to a person as well as to be committed to that persons care. Now of course one will believe what God says if one is committed to him, but belief is not even half the story.
The false Church is simply the modern version of the ancient pharisees, self-righteous in thinking that their standing with God is based on him acquitting them of sin.
2) to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins
Clearly that means one will turn away from sin, and keep turning way from sin that comes up in life
Why do you doubt it?
Galatians Chapter 1:
6: I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8: But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9: As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
10: For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
11: But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12: For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
YOU are no mind reader. There is NO doubt hinted, suggested or intimated in asking you a question.
Heretics and apostates always like such names.
Fact is that judaizing works-righteousness is the religion of the pharisees, my FRiend. It was thoroughly refuted and anathematized by Paul and the ancient Church.
In every context, that should be preceeded by the question, "Saved from what?". If from the penalty of sin, I will agree with you. If from sinfulness, God requires human cooperation this side of the last day. If one is willing to cooperate with God in the later, then the former is done for you without penances or works to pay the debt.
So then that is the false gospel that Paul was talking about. With the true gospel we have a pardon by the death of Messiah, and not a declaration of innocence.
the Greek word has meta as its first syllable which means change. You can argue all you wish but that does not change (meta0 anything. When you are talking about what Jesus said in the NT you must use koine Greek. There is nowhere in the NT that says Repent of your sins it is not there. It is quite true I did not define what the word Repent is but Jesus did. So allow that change of heart and mind that leads to a change of direction so you can trust in rely on Jesus because he is the only way.
Clearly, if one reads the book of Galations, the false, and accursed Gospel is the one that ADDS man's works, efforts or merits to the GIFT of salvation by grace through faith.
Gal 2:16
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
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