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A 6,300-word document. Print it and study it.
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The Word of Truth Ministries

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The Principles of the
Doctrine of Christ
made Simple
[Heb. 6:1-3]
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Part One

Introduction: How Man got Into Sin
In the creation of this earth and the things therein, God made man and told him that of every tree in the Garden of Eden he could freely eat of except the tree that is in the center, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; man was not to eat of it or touch it, less he dies. But man ate of that very tree after Eve talked to Satan and Satan contradicted God. Satan talked to Eve, saying that she would not surely die if she ate of that tree. He argued, your eyes will become open and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil. Of course, there is much more to being God than knowing good and evil, but that was the half truth Satan gave her and she believed. Furthermore, Satan spoke on a single level of death; God's dimensions are multi-tiered. When he said die, He meant death on many levels. We know is that a half truth is usually a whole lie. And that is what Stan gave to Eve, as well as he directly contradicted God's word.

Eve had never heard anyone contradict what God said, and, no doubt, she was struck by this novelty. But Satan foreshadowed what was to come in the life of humnakind. Today men contradict God's word as if they have credibility in doing so and as if they make sense. They do not!

At hearing Satan's words that brazenly contradicted God's word, she no longer believed God, but believed Satan and therefore touched the tree and ate of its fruit--after talking to Satan the tree seemed pleasant for food and a tree to be desired to make one wise. She ate and gave to Adam and he also ate. They both violated God's command. That act was more profound and devastating to man that they apparently knew. [Gen. 3:6-7]

Do understand the historical significance involved here, when God spoke to Adam, because there were no other people on the earth, and since Adam was the father of mankind and the federal headship of mankind, God spoke to all of mankind--the name Adam simply means man. Therefore, the command he gave to the man/Adam, with all its consequences, was the command he gave to all mankind through our father Adam.

The great Apostle Paul said, by one man/Adam sin entered into the world and death by sin, so that death passed upon all mankind through Adam. [Rom. 5:12-13] The sentence for disobeying God's word was death. But that death was not an immediate death that particular 24-hour day; furthermore that death was both spiritual and natural. Indeed, we are not sure that days were computed as they are today--24-hour days. We are not sure that time was as it is now, days, weeks, years, etc. Peter puts forth the idea that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. Peter's notion reckons time quite differently than it is reckoned today. When God cursed man, that curse threw the foundations of the earth and things therein out/off course. [Psa. 82:5; 2 Pet.3:8]

But what we know about time today is this, as one measures salt by a spoon, length by inches, and weight by pounds, one measures continuity of existence by time. Time, therefore, may only be a measuring rod by which we calculate an entity's beginning, middle, and end. However, our entire system of reasoning is calculated based on a time model now that human beings have an end. Before sin, mankind had no end, therefore, time was not applicable to us. Today, we ask such questions as, "When did this begin; how long has this been going on; is a certain thing on-going; when did it end?" These are systems of reasoning based on the model we get from time. We are now creatures of time, but in Eden we were not creatures of time because death was not a part of our lives. But with the introduction of sin into our paradigm, there also can the introduction of death. And if time is an accounting of the continuity of existence, death also introduced time as a factor of our lexicon and consciousness.

Consider this quandary: Since time measures continuity of existence, and continuity of existence depends upon a beginning, middle, and an ending, time has no applicability for an entity that has no beginning of days nor ending of years. For such an entity exists in another sphere that some call infinity and I call eternity, not in a time paradigm as we know it. Remember, Paul said that ears have not heard, eyes have not seen, neither has it entered into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those who love him. There are many things that God has that we cannot even imagine, but they shall be revealed in the ages to come when He will have subdued the world and put all things under His feet. Time cannot reckon or measure an existence that always was and always shall be. Furthermore, time cannot measure an existence that has no ending. For time to be a measuring rod, it must have a beginning and an ending. God is the Ancient of Days because He is outside the realm of time.

Sentence to Death upon Mankind
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, there were a number of things God did: He made coats of skin to hide their nakedness; He cursed man and the ground on which he walked; He sentenced them to hard labor and death; and that sentence and curse were placed upon all mankind.

The Bible shows us that God cursed man and all that was under mankind. That is, everything that God had given man dominion over. [Gen. 3:15-19] That sentence could not be voided out without some one paying the price for mankind's sins and man's offense against God. God looks over his word to perform it, and it will not return unto him void. [Isa. 55:11] The actions of Adam and Eve (mankind) were an offense against God because those actions virtually declared that God was a liar and Satan was true.

Yet if all mankind paid the price God declared for sin, there would be none of God's human creation left, and since God would not have that, He decreed that one noble and righteous man would be allowed to pay the debt for all of mankind's sins. Paul reasons, if by one man sin enters into the world, and death by sin, then by one-man sin can be abolished and many can be made free. But that one noble man had to be found.

Caiaphas, the High Priest during a time of Jesus, prophesied unaware unto himself, saying, "It's expedient that one man die for the people and that the whole nation perish not." [John 11:49-51; 18:14] This was God's plan that he spoke in types and shadows, allegories and symbols. But God had to find the one man who was worthy and acceptable to Him to die for all the people. Indeed, the Bible says in Psalm 14: 2-3 and in Psalm 53:2-3 that God looked down upon man, searching for a worthy man who could die for all the nation, and saw that there was none among men who were righteous enough to pay the price for all mankind. Indeed, He concluded that all men had become altogether filthy, and that there were none righteous, not even one. That was the state that man had degenerated to as a result of their alienation from God. Consequently, God decided to come himself; the prophet Isaiah said his own arm brought salvation. [Isa. 59:15; Rom. 3:10]

Satan knew when talking to Eve, if he could get mankind to violate God's word, God was bound to his word to fulfill it--man would have to die. But Satan did not see the plan of God to allow one man alone to be the sin sacrifice or propitiation for all mankind.

God had symbolized what he would do: he covered man with coats of skin to cover their nakedness/sin. That symbolized that someone would have to die and cover/substitute for mankind's sins. [Gen. 3:21] On this matter, Satan's reasoning was flawed, but God's was perfect and perfectly obscured so that even the angels who desired to inquire into the matter could not understand what God was doing. God kept his plan close to the vest, as if were. His reasoning was this: if one man can cause all mankind to be thrust into sin and out of harmony with God, [and that is the case] reason and justice would allow one man to bring them back into harmony with God and out of sin.

God showed the world what he would do in types and shadows, symbols and allegories, as well as his spoken word. He took Job, a perfect man, and used him as a type of Christ, suggesting that he would take a perfect man and use him in a peculiar way. [Read the entire Book of Job] Isaiah called this God's strange work. It was strange to us because mankind, the angels, and Satan did not understand what God would do. God spoke cryptically through the prophets and in Isaiah he talked about bruising him and the pleasure that bruising would bring: he was marred more than any man, and it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Throughout scripture God indicated what he would do and how he would do it. But that was typed out, analogized, symbolized, and implied so that it was a mystery, even though the prophets wanted to know, as they prophesied of us. He suggested and even said that He, himself, would come himself and redeem his creation from the curse placed upon it by a God who cannot lie and a God who will perform his word. [Isa. 28:21; 53:1-12]

After many years of telling the world through his chosen people Israel [they were chosen to be God's instrument people by which God revealed himself and spoke to the world--Paul said that unto them were committed the oracles of God] that he would come and redeem mankind from the curse He cursed man with, God stepped out of eternity and came into man's time to redeem mankind.

But God did not come as God, but as God in man as a man. When He came to redeem mankind, John said we beheld God's glory and that glory he had on the earth was as the only begotten Son of God. He did not come as the Very God of Very God, but as he had said he would. He took upon himself the form of a servant. [John 1:10-14]

God went to a virgin, Mary, and overshadowed her with his Spirit and his word fused with her flesh and begot a child. That child was the Christ Jesus. He was both God and of necessity, he had to also be man. For only man could pay the price for man, since by one MAN sin entered into the world and death by sin. And since there was none righteous, no not one, He had to come himself as a man full of grace and truth. As one man brought sin and death in, one man would take it out. Jesus was that man, the son of God as Adam also was the son of God. But Adam was the created son of God; Jesus was the begotten Son of God. The created/made son of God opened the door for sin's entry into the world, and the begotten son of God closed the door on sin in man, as it were. [Mat. 1:18-24; Lk. 1:26-35]

Jesus came into the world to pay the price man could not pay and still live--the sentence of death upon mankind. Like Job, Jesus was approved of God as a perfect man, and as God had shown us/mankind through Job, He would take Jesus and bruise his for our/mankind's transgressions, chastise him for our/mankind's iniquities, and the chastisement of our/mankind's peace was upon him, and by his whipped stripes were we/mankind healed. And it pleased God to bruise Jesus for mankind's sake. [Read all of Isa.53]

Do see this: there was nothing that Jesus had done that merited death--he was perfect and God repeatedly said, "In him I am well pleased." [Mat 3:17; 17:5; Mk. 1:11; 2 Pet. 1:17] The declaration of Jesus' worthiness and upstanding quality was also made by Pilate, who was determined to free him. He adjudged Jesus to have done nothing worthy of death. [Lk. 23:4] So Jesus' death was not for his sake or for his own sins, for there was none--the sentence of death that was placed all mankind was, in fact, paid off by Jesus on Calvary's cross. That is the magic and the mystery of Calvary's cross. On that cross, God used it as an altar to sacrifice Jesus as a sin sacrifice, much as God had shown to the world through the Jewish sacrifices and the Law. On that cross, God extracted the death sentence that He has sentenced mankind to many years ago when we, through our father Adam, violated his word and called him a liar. But it was done vicariously through the death of Jesus. It was not vicarious to him; it was real. Very real. Jesus, that righteous man died that sinners such as all of mankind would not have to die. And God accepted his death as payment in full for all of man's sins. Jesus paid our debt in full, and God accepted his payment.

How to Receive Jesus' Redemptive work
How do we claim that payment in full/that redemption that was paid by Jesus? That was the question in fact that was asked of the Apostles on the first day that the church was established. Notice that on the Day of Pentecost, the church was established and there were men from all parts of the earth assembled in Jerusalem. God had the whole world assembled at the opening of the church, for that was the gateway back to God that had been lost through Adam and Eve. [Acts 2:5] It was that group [the whole world] that heard Peter the day of the establishment of the church. For the Spirit of God was poured out on the disciples, and they began to speak in a new tongue so that each person assembled in Jerusalem from throughout the world heard them speak in the tongues of their birth. [Acts 2:1-14]

These men from all over the world were so astonished that they thought the disciples were drunk with some new type of wine. But Peter stood and assured them that they were not drunk as these men supposed but instead this behavior they were exhibiting was a part of the new birth, which Jesus told Nicodemus he had to have. [John 3:3-8] And as he preached, these men were convicted in their hearts and asked Peter and the other disciples what they had to do to receive what Jesus had done for them through his redemptive work. That question asked by them who were representing the world is the question that should be asked by every person, even today.

Peter's answer was unambiguous and clear: he said for those that day and for us today that they had to repent of their sins and be baptized in Jesus name and God promises to give the Holy Spirit to all that obeyed his words. [Acts 2:37-38] Notice, what Jesus said in Mathew 28:19 is directly understood and carried out by the disciples in Acts 2:38 and throughout other baptisms in Acts of the apostles. [Acts 8:36-39; 10:48; 19:5]

These disciples had been taught directly and personally by Jesus himself on all things that must occur and that pertained to him. They knew that Jesus had told Nicodemus he had to be born again to see the kingdom of God and that he had to be born of water and spirit if he were going to enter the kingdom of God. [John 3:3-5] They knew as Paul said that the kingdom of God was not a physical kingdom but a spiritual one. Paul said that it was righteousness, peace, and joy IN the Holy Spirit of God. [Rom. 14] These men knew what they were doing and how to accept the redemptive work of Christ.

They said to all who would accept God's redemption through Christ that the first step in accepting is to repent--to turn completely, absolutely, and thoroughly away from what you thinks, what you feel, the principles and values you have had, the way of behavior for your life, and radically turn to God and His way of conducting your life. So radical is this change that Jesus said the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force; to repent one must become a spiritually violent person. That is to tear yourself away from a life as you once knew it to another way completely.

When one has repented, that person is ready to be baptized in water in Jesus name; for there is no name that can remove sins but the name of Jesus, and Peter said be baptized for the remission/removal of sins. [Acts 4:12] Let no one deceive you, the baptism is a water baptism by emersion. To think that it is a baptism in a knowledge of the name of Christ is foolish. All scriptures indicate and say that the baptism is water and that by emersion. [Acts 8:36-39; 10:48; 19:5] Peter said baptism does save us; it is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but it is an answer of a good conscious toward God by the resurrection of Christ.

When God called out to Adam in Eden after they had sinned, Adam could not answer God. Instead he hid himself from God because he was naked/sinful. But since Jesus has suffered and died for our sins, and rose again, we through baptism are buried with him in that watery grave of baptism in Jesus name unto his and our deaths and coming out of the water, we answer God's long ago call to man in a good conscience toward him. "Adam, where are you?" [1 Pet. 3:21]

The next step in this command of Peter is to receive the Spirit of the Living God. Not only is one ready, God has promised that you shall receive it, and not only you but He has promised it to your children and those who are afar off. [Acts 2:38-39] This is the new birth that Jesus said you must have!

Because at each man's natural birth, he/she is/was born into sin and has the curse of sin that was a sentence from God on every person from Adam our father unto us and our children; each is born into sin and must be born again out of this sin and sinful state. We are born again into the kingdom of God. That is a requirement and a prerequisite for all mankind if he is going to enjoy the other benefits and good things God has for us.

More on the New Birth as the first step
Jesus told Nicodemus, and by extension, he told all of us, that we must be born again if we are to understand and enter the Kingdom of God. The logical questions that should enter our minds if this proposition is also put to us by extension are these:
1.) What is meant by being born again,
2.) Why must we be born again,
3.) How can a person be born again,
4.) What is the Kingdom of God, and
5.) What are the consequences of not being born again?

1. Born Again Defined
The term born again was a relatively common term when used by Jesus to Nicodemus, but Jesus placed a new meaning to it. For the people during Jesus' time, any significant change of a person's life situation was to be born again: When a man or woman got married, such a one was considered born again.

For Jesus, the term meant a significant change in a person's life situation, but he described that change in more precise terms, and he dictated how to be born again. What Jesus meant by born again was that man had to change his relationship with God. Since we were born into this world in a state of sin, [Psalms 51:5, 58:3/Romans 3:23] and alienated from the life of God, [Isaiah 59:1-4/Psalms 14:2-3] we have to return to God-that is, to be born again. This second birth is the only birth that will return man to a right standing with God.

Jesus said that man must be born of water and the spirit, otherwise he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. [John 3: 5] Human beings who are not born again are outside the Kingdom of God; they do not have a right-standing relationship with God. And Jesus said that the only way they can have a correct relationship with God is by being born again. His method is prescribed: water and spirit. Without that combination, you are not born again his way, and Jesus is the way to God. [John 14:6] Therefore, it is done his way or no way at all. The apostles of Jesus understood what he meant. They commanded all who would have a relationship with God to be baptized in water in Jesus' name, and they said God would give those baptized His spirit. [Acts 2: 38] They understood Jesus' statement of water and spirit to actually mean being baptized in water and having the Holy Spirit of God.

2. Reason we need to be Born Again Because man's original relationship with God was destroyed through disobedience to the will of God (back in the Garden of Eden), mankind received a curse of death and all the aspects that pertain to death-sickness, pain, adversities, etc. [Genesis 3:13-24; Rom. 5:14-19] Furthermore, human beings were alienated from God and a life with God. [Gen. 3:24; Isaiah 59, 64:6-8] To remove the curse that God placed upon man, Jesus Christ had to die a substitute death for us so that God's justice could be met. Jesus Christ was a man approved of God with mighty signs and wonders, [Acts 2]

God used his righteous life and accepted his unmerited death to function as a substitute for the sins of all mankind. Jesus' death atoned for all of mankind's sins. But to benefit from his death, each individual must be born again of water and of the spirit. That individual act places each of us back in right standing with God.

3. How to be Born Again
The actual way to be born again is by being baptized in Jesus' name and being filled with God's Holy Spirit. [Acts 2:38; 8:16, 36-39; 9:17-18; 10:45-48; 19:5-6] Notice that this was the prescription all the apostles of Jesus offered to the world. On the day of Pentecost, the day the New Testament church was established, God had assembled the world at Jerusalem. [Acts 2:5] The entire world heard the same message that we must obey today to be born again. To be born again, therefore, means to be baptized in Jesus' name and to receive the Holy Spirit of God, which the Apostle Peter said was a promise of God to everyone who repented of his/her sins and was baptized in water in Jesus' name. [Acts 2:38-40]. Once this has occurred you have confessed with your mouth and believed with your heart. [Romans 10:8-11; James 2:17]

Kingdom of God
Once you have repented, been baptized, and received the Holy Spirit, you are born into the Kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul defines the Kingdom of God as righteousness, peace, and joy within the Holy Spirit of God. [Rom 14:17] Righteousness is right standing with God, and that right standing with God will give you the peace and joy of God once you recognize that you have a correct relationship with Him.

You will see that living in conformity to God's word and in conformity to God's desire is not a sad or difficult way to live. It is a natural way to live; it is the way God originally intended for human beings to live; it is a joyous way to live!

Being reconciled to God
Now that we have answered the logical questions that you should ask of God, this is the logical question that you should ask yourself: Have you been reconciled to God? That is why Jesus came into the world. Because mankind was out of alignment with God, and we had no way to get back into alignment, God sent his only begotten son to reconcile us back to Himself. [Eph. 2:14-18; Rom 5:11]

This reconciliation can only be achieved one way, and that is through Jesus having atoned for our sins. Atonement means Jesus has been a substitute bearer of our sins, guilt, and shame before God and has stopped the judgment of God upon us.

Indeed, Jesus was the only one who was good enough, moral enough to satisfy the righteous anger of God toward humankind and pay the debt that God pronounced as outstanding. "...For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die." [Genesis 2:16] Hence, it was on Calvary's hill over 2,000 years ago that Jesus paid in full the debt of all mankind that was outstanding before God. Whether you knew it was outstanding or not, it was, and God knew it, and He is the important one in this eternal equation!

Consequences of ignoring what Jesus has done
If we ignore the death of Christ, ignore that he rose from the dead and became the first of those who will rise from the dead through belief in him, your failure to respond appropriately to that fact does not make that fact void or powerless. What Jesus did on Calvary was to give us his right standing with God and take our wrong standing with God upon himself. God took the favor that Jesus had and placed it upon us; He took the disfavor that we had and placed it upon Jesus. That is the reason, Jesus cried out on Calvary, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Our sins separated him from God. [Isa. 59: 1-2; Matt. 27:46]

God forsook Jesus on Calvary that we may have Jesus' right standing, and Jesus was made sin for us that we would be made the righteousness of God in him. [2 Cor. 5:21] That was the magic, mystery, and majesty of Calvary's cross. That cross, crude though it was, became an altar upon which Jesus' body was made a sin sacrifice for all of mankind's sins, and Jesus' righteousness that God was so pleased with was transferred upon us, mankind; those who will individually accept Jesus' righteousness. All those who will accept his sacrifice and the transposition of his righteousness must accept it God's way. God's way, and only God's way, can render a man, boy, girl, or woman free, innocent of sin, free of shame, and reconciled once again to God so that mankind can stand, once again, in the presence of God, his maker!

To reject or ignore what Jesus has done is to ignore the atonement that God has offered and brought about to give man life and peace. It is a dangerous decision--it is a decision that you make and one you must live or die with. For the wages of sin is DEATH, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus who died for our sins. [Rom. 6:23] The only way out of sin is to accept what Jesus did on Calvary and get God's gift. The actual process of faith that is exercised to do claim this gift of God is to repent of your sins and be baptized in water in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins [for there is no other name under heaven among men whereby we MUST be saved, except through the name of Jesus-Acts 4:12] and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of God. You must save yourself by acting upon God's word! [Acts 2:38-40]

What after the New Birth?
Once we are born again, there is another step of salvation that we must go to while on this earth. At the new birth, we are complete in him, even as a child is completely formed and ready to grow into maturity. We are completely delivered from the curse of sin [and if you are Jewish, you are completely delivered from the curse of the law]. But that completion is a completion that gives you the wherewithal to do what God has commanded that we do after the new birth: be perfection even as God is perfect. [Mat. 5:48] To do so, we must leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on unto perfection. [Heb. 6:1-4] Even Peter wrote that we, once born again, are merely new born babes, and we should desire the sincere milk of God's word that we may grow thereby. [1 Pet. 2:1-2]

Perfection: a Command of God
Without the new birth, we can never fulfill this aspect of God's command . The world tells us that "No one is perfect." And, tragically, many believe the world, much like Eve talked with Satan and believed him and not God. Such actions of not believing God is an offense to Him.

God would never tell us to be that which he has not made provisions for us to be. It is illogical for him to tell us to be perfect when he knows we cannot be. And God is not illogical. The world says no one is perfect because they have no understanding of the things of God--they are not born again, and without that new birth they cannot see the peace, joy, righteousness that is inside the Holy Spirit of God. So they, in their unsaved and earthly state of mind proudly, albeit ignorantly, say as if it is their dogma, "Ain't nobody perfect."

God has defined perfection, and his definition has nothing to do with looks or money--that is modern America's fallacy. Man, inspired and influenced by Satan, has bought into Satan's deception that no one is perfect, and many Christians and ministers have likewise accepted the lie of Satan as a way of thinking for Christians. Resultantly, many Christians are never taught that after deliverance from sin, the new birth, the next step on this road to the rapture, the catching away of the church by Christ, is perfection.

And since it is never taught, it is never tried. And since it is never tried, it is never attained, yet Christ is coming back for a church without spot, wrinkle, blemish, or any such thing, but it must be holy, clean and in the image of Christ because as new born babes in Christ, we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Therefore, the servant must be as his master--perfect. [Mat. 10:25; Rom. 8:17; Eph. 5:27]

Since we are the body of Christ, therefore, we must be even as Christ was; we must take on his very identity itself. Remember we are to marry him. That is why Paul says we are to present/give to God our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is little more than a Christian's reasonable service. Furthermore, we are not be conformed to this world--we were born out of this world at the new birth and born into another world--but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Christians must prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God; that cannot be done in a worldly mind. Repentance gets you ready for the transformed mind that is renewed. [Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor12: 27]

A study of Daniel 7 shows what Daniel saw in his night vision. He saw one like unto the Son of Man going to the Ancient of Days, and unto that one was given thrones and a kingdom that is an everlasting kingdom. Daniel later explains, this Son of Man was not Jesus Christ, as it is frequently misinterpreted by Trinitarians, for Jesus is God himself, and there is only one God. [Eph. 4:5-6] Instead, those who have the likeness of Christ are the New Testament saints of the Most High God who have taken on his identity through marriage and grown into his image through going on to perfection. To them are given thrones and kingdoms, etc. [Dan. 7:27]

What Daniel saw was the glorified church, the church that is married to Christ, the spiritual body of Christ without spot, blemish, wrinkle or any such thing that will then be the actual body of Christ--the saints who will have taken on the name and very image of Christ; hence, we will look like Christ, for we are him because we grown into him and we are married to him.

God's definition of perfection has to do with conforming our behavior to that of the behavior Jesus. There is more to salvation than deliverance of our souls and ourselves from sin, but God has more for us still--when we are perfect God can use us perfectly, and oh the adventures of God we will experience.

Many wonder why many churches are so dead, it is because the Christians in that church are not being perfected. Paul assures us that God has given a five-fold ministry for the perfecting of the saints; once the saints are perfected the ministry starts working, thereafter the body is edified and we all will come into the unity of the faith. [Eph. 4:11-15]

A number of brothers have written me in the East and the South of this nation of the USA and told me of their great love for truth and how many of the false brethren who have locked the church doors to God's true ministers so they cannot preach to God's people because they will not comport themselves according to the traditions and precepts of many pastors who were once saved but have long gone pass the word of God. These false brethren have no idea of the great harm and sin they are doing to God's people, and they don't really care.

Understand this: God has set in the church the various ministries for a reason--and be assured, these ministries are not all in one person, viz., the pastor. God has set them in various persons and no one person can bring God's people to perfection--that is the reason these ministries are set in the church. It takes all these ministries operating as they should to start the cycle to operate in the church. What the false brethren, who have a strong delusion from God, are doing is stopping the saints from going on the perfection because they will not allow God's ministers to minister to God's people, and without those ministries functioning in the church, the people cannot be perfected.

Those pastors may not understand it, but this is a serious and grave sin that God will not look lightly upon. But you should understand why most of these church are dead of the ministries that God originally set in the church: they have been locked out, so the saints are not being perfected, the ministries are not at work, and the body of Christ is not being edified. Resultantly, we are not coming to the unity of the faith or of the knowledge of Christ as we should, etc. [Eph. 4:11-15]

We are to grow into Christ because as a part of the new birth we are heirs of God and joint heir with Christ. We are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Notice Jesus said as far back as Mat.5:48, that we are to be perfect even as God is perfect. What that means is that we are to model our total behavior after that of Christ. Jesus said be perfect as God is perfect and Paul tells us that Jesus is the express image of God's person. [Heb. 1:3]

Do notice that Paul [I assume the great Apostle Paul or someone greatly influenced by him wrote this Hebrews] said, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works (sin) and faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. [Heb. 6:1-3] In this scripture, we see that he has staked out some of the basic principles that Christians should know and move on to the next step of perfection. That step is so important after repentance from sin/dead works that God has given a series of ministries to assist saints in accomplishing that goal.

He has given some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints. And that perfecting of the saints is for the work of the ministry, and that is for the edifying of the body of Christ so we all can come into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. There, indeed, is much work for Christians to do after they are born into God's kingdom. [Eph. 4:11-13]

But for too many, perfection is never even discussed, let alone taught in a way that saints of the living God can achieve it. Yet it is the call, the demand, the desire of God that his people be perfect. And all his people, from the old to the new covenant, are demanded to be perfect. It is during these years of the New Testament that he has given us the means and the ability to be perfect. You see, once we are perfect, we will not be carried about with the winds of doctrine that are all over the place today. There are men who seek to deceive other men and make merchandise of God's people. [Eph. 4:14] God wants us to grow up into him in all things. []

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Next installment is: "What are the Bible steps/methods to perfection?"

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