Posted on 08/13/2011 10:57:44 PM PDT by bibletruth
Lets study the parallels that God uses in connection with sin and its effect in comparison with LEAVEN. Leaven is a corrupting agent. Leaven is never used in the Bible to mean a good thing expanding of a Christian ministry. Any such claim is a complete miss understanding of the connection with sin and its effect, such as what leaven causes to the body.
Romans 6:10 “For in that he died, he died unto sin once:” is that what Christ did when He died unto sin once was completely successful in making it so that sin could have no claim on His body.
- That is, when physical death took place and the Lord’s body went into the tomb, no corruption took place.
- Christ’s body would only corrupt IF sin, when it had been laid upon Him as the sin-bearer on the cross, was able to work its way in to His body to take possession of it in connection with what sin is able to do with a human being as a natural son of Adam.
- The capacity of sin (as it is legally resident in the bodies of all of the sons of Adam - see Romans 5:12) is to produce corruption and death because sin has taken up residence in our body.
- The corruption effect of sin produces physical death. But Christ didn’t die physically because of sin’s corruption effect:
John 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
- Sin’s power to take up residence in the body and produce death was not able to do that with the body of Christ! And if it did do that, He could not be resurrected in newness of life! But sin couldn’t do it!!!
- And because of this corruption effect of sin—and that’s what sin is in its effect upon whatever it is in residence in—its effect is to produce corruption—it produces a breakdown and a disintegration, and a dissolving and a corruption .... and in light of this corruption effect of sin, when sin was placed on the Lord Jesus Christ as the ‘sin-bearer,’ it was naturally given the right to do, and the right to endeavor to do, the very thing it does in connection with men: and that is identify them as a sinner, work its way to take up residence in their bodies, and start producing the corruption of their body.
- And this is the reason why the perfect parallel object that God uses in connection with sin and its effect is LEAVEN. Leaven is a corrupting agent.
- And when you put leaven in a lump of dough, a little Galatians 5:9 "leaven leaventh the whole lump"; i.e., it corrupts it, leaven causes a chemical breakdown of the compounds in the dough of the sugars & starches, and causes a reaction of chemicals and gasses to be released, and a transformation to take place, etc., etc., and that process of leavening effect or corruption effect takes place.
- And it is a perfect parallel that God uses for sin and its effects to corrupt a body.
- And sin had that right to try to claim Christ’s body as its own when sin was laid on Him as the sin-bearer; and to therefore produce all of the effects of its corruption upon Him.
- And the issue is that when He successfully dealt with it on the cross in connection with endeavoring to make Him a sinner, and constitute Him a sinner, and along with being on the receiving end of God’s wrath, being ‘made sin for us’ (in that sense), when He survived that and propitiated God’s justice, and took it all, and bore it all, and satisfied God’s justice...
In the New Testament, leaven is also used as indicating the pervasive effect that sin has on the church, which is the spiritual body of Christ. "A little leaven leavens the whole loaf" is a reminder that, just as it only takes a few grains of yeast to spread throughout the rest of the dough used to make bread, allowing even a little sin unconfessed and unrepented spreads throughout the rest of the members of the congregation and affects them all.
Paul used this example in his first letter to the Corinthian Church. They had not corrected someone among them who had committed a terrible sin, in fact, some had even boasted about it. In I Cor. 5:6-7, Paul said: Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
He reminded them that through Christ's sacrifice on the cross, all their (our) sin has been purged. We are spotless and blameless before God because we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We must live our lives with that in mind and not ever allow sin to ferment and grow and take hold of us again, but to live in newness of life in Christ.
And yet it is amazing how the church today tolerates sin or at least shrug our shoulders and try to look the other way.
That is inaccurate. "He told them another parable. The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened." (Mt. 13:33)
When Jesus spoke and taught about the Kingdom of Heaven to the Jews - the parables did only speak of good things of the Kingdom of Heaven. But the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees ruined those correct doctrines of the Bible regarding the Kingdom of Heaven.
Firstly, I was primarily referring to the New Testament epistle teachings on the usage and meaning leaven and what it means TODAY; not back in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Secondly, the Kingdom of Heaven is not preached today as the primary ministry for today's believers; but rather the following:
1) ministry of reconciliation;
2) the grace of God;
3) the fact that all believers of faith are "in Christ";
4) the destination of all believers in this age of grace is heavenly bound, not earthly bound.
In similar fashion today, when an organization of today's "Pharisees" practice Jewish oriented christian teachings like works for salvation, make images of idols, required water baptism for salvation, reject Christ as the head of the Church, reject the Body of Christ for all believer-saints, reject the once for all time offering of the body of Jesus Christ on the cross for salvation...
In today's grace of God, anyone is saved and declared a "believer-saint" based solely on faith in Christ. When Jesus spoke and taught about the Kingdom of Heaven to the Jews - the parables he did speak to were only regarding the good things of the Kingdom of Heaven. But today, the leaven of today's "Pharisees" have corrupted the correct doctrines of the Bible. That is why in the Bible epistles, when you "Pharisees" put leaven in a lump of dough, a little "leaven leaventh the whole lump" [Galatians 5:9]. And that LEAVEN effect is a corrupting agent.
Now that you are armed with that knowledge of leaven, please explain to all of us how were are to live today and follow Matthew 13:33 and perform the leaven of the woman in Matthew 13:33. And don't tell me that that women was Mary!
LOL! That woman was Mary! Christ Jesus, Risen Son of Almighty God, saw His Holy Mother use leaven, in His home, as a child.
You think, the Kingdom of Heaven is something "back" in Jewish History and apparently your community of fauith does not preach anything about it?
That is fascinating. So why did you leave all this stuff out and instead made an ignorant statement "Leaven is never used in the Bible to mean a good thing expanding of a Christian ministry"? Then decided to insult the Catholic Church when a Catholic corrected you?
The psychology of a Protestant is often beyond comprehension.
A fact statement was made: that the image of leaven is never used in a positive way. An example was provided of the image of leaven used in a positive way. You seem to be saying that “Parables of the Kingdom” which Jesus addressed to His disciples are not meaningful to Christian believers. However, I don’t find that this interpretation makes the slightest bit of sense.
End of discussion, as far as I’m concerned.
Cultic nonsense.
Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; 17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. -- Romans 14:16-17
Let me disagree with you for a moment. :-)
I think what we see are churches that embrace sin and claim it to be alright are in decline. The more they deviate from Scripture the greater their decline. At the same time, we are seeing growth in non-denominational churches. Granted some of these non-denoms are way off track, but most are Bible centered and any of us would feel comfortable at them.
This parable illustrates how the kingdom of heaven teachings and the program of God in the Kingdom Age would become CORRUPTED by false doctrines and unscriptural programs until the whole is corrupted. All false teachings religious programs, and professed Christian lives seek to HIDE behind the Word of God.
Christian ministry? Hardly. False teachings and doctrines hiding behind the name "Christianity" until the whole is leavened? Absolutely.
Not a role model if a person is seeking God's truth.
In a way I don't disagree with you. However, I believe that what we're seeing today in the church is a corruption of doctrine which can't be a good thing. Without a right understanding of doctrine, we cannot have a right understanding of God. And without a right understanding of God, we cannot understand our sinful natures.
One has to wonder why we don't burn heretics at the stake anymore? At first that seems like a crass question, but it is something that should give us pause. Is it because we've become more "tolerate" of heretical doctrine at the expense of God? Or is it our hearts are growing cold? Would we be willing to drive the money-changers out of the temple with whips?
Wow! This is so spot on. The churches that seek to be "of the world" are the ones that refuse to recognize sin for what it is. The best example is homosexuality. How can a homosexual come to know the sin they are in if everyone is telling them it's not a sin. If we don't recognize the sin in us why need a Savior?
One has to wonder why we don't burn heretics at the stake anymore? At first that seems like a crass question, but it is something that should give us pause. Is it because we've become more "tolerate" of heretical doctrine at the expense of God?
No, it's because those who killed "in the name of God" were the worst heretics. They almost destroyed Biblical Christianity except for the timely invention of the printing press.
I think we are not as critical of bad doctrine because the prevailing culture is marginalizing Born Again Christians. Our schools, media, laws all work towards "tolerance".
At the start of the twentieth century, most of what was held as "normal" and "moral" is today considered far-right, extremism. Not even main-stream denominations that were considered modernistic permitted what we find running rampant in them today. Who would have thought that homosexual pastors or lesbian pastors would be accepted? Who would have even imagined that churches would authorize same-sex marriages? Or condone abortion, or even doubts about the Deity of Jesus Christ and his bodily resurrection? That little bit of "leaven" - like the proverbial camel's nose in the tent - proves exactly what Paul meant concerning what is happening in both our society and in our churches today.
I think as disconcerting as this trend is there is some comfort in knowing it's not new. From the beginning we see churches that seek to politicize Christianity and make their churches "of the world" and the response has been to try and reform them, or to leave and form new assemblies. I think we are seeing this play out again. We are in a spiritual war that won't end until the return of our Savior.
On a positive note, I had dinner with some friends this weekend. I got to know them when my older son played baseball with their two sons. One young man has spent his evenings this summer witnessing to gangbangers in his neighborhood. The other young man was in the mission field in Mexico and upon graduation from college is planning on a life in missions. Both of these young men grew up in the inner city, attended public schools and were initially members of one of these declining denominations we are discussing. My point is if we look we find examples of God maintaining a remnant.
I'm not so sure. Would one consider Elijah worst than the priests of Baal?
Mind you I'm not advocating going around chopping up unbelievers in some religious jihad. In fact, I can't think of any New Testament example which would advocate doing so, so you may have a good point. However, I can't help but think of the example of Gideon whose heart was corrupted leading others astray because of his failing to understand God's word.
That I think is a most excellent point. While we may and should discuss sinfulness in the church, we must never lose sight that God is still perserving a remnant for Himself. It's hard not to sound discouraging, especially in this forum. But it really is more academic.
Of course not, but was his action inspired by him to support his view or was it from God?
However, I can't help but think of the example of Gideon whose heart was corrupted leading others astray because of his failing to understand God's word.
Do Christians fall into error? Sure, but don't forget we have been given a counselor to guide us.
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