Once again, as in natural birthing, everything is done by God outside of the sinner. The sinner is placed automatically, “baptized,” into Christ (1 Cor. 12:13) and this constitutes membership in the body of Christ (the Lord’s Church), at the same time the sinner, by this placing, is baptized into Christ’s death (Rom. 6:3); and finally, by the spiritual death of the sinner, the new life of Christ takes over automatically. All of this is done on God’s part outside of the believing sinner. This is grace at it’s greatest endowment. Sadly, however modern Christianity has greatly taken its eye off of what God does to a sinner all on His own, requiring no help from the sinner or religion, and they have instead put their emphasis on what is happening inside the believing sinner and what he will do.
If you take a long pole, you can balance it vertically on your finger if you keep your eye focused on the top of the pole. The movement of your finger will follow naturally, almost unconsciously. But if you watch what your finger is doing, the pole will become unbalanced and fall. This is where most religious groups are now. Their interest is looking at what believers do rather than what God does and has done.
Consequently, rather than people hearing Paul’s message of grace, modern religion is preaching what people must do to be good church members.
As any believer looks away from self to Christ in him and rejoices in what has been done for him and what Christ is to him, the Holy Spirit living in his heart and soul will continuously transform his life. But if the believer begins to make his experience the center of his concern, the true balance of his Christian living is lost. This is where great numbers of born again believers are living. They live there not because they choose this, but because the pure gospel of grace brought by Paul is denied them. Instead of receiving the gospel of objectivity, they receive a gospel of subjectivity and this has kept .multi-tudes of believers from ever knowing their position in Christ.
The organizing and legalizing of their doctrines, plus the building of man-made structures caused the loss of the gospel of pure grace. Thus, the tendency of modern religion is to make what man is doing within himself the focal point. This is subjective religion and is what happened to the early church. It lost sight of the great Pauline message,
Christ in the believer, which was a work of God done solely outside of the believer. This work of God was based solely on the finished work of Christ at the Cross.
Paul’s message of Christ in the believer as his hope of glory was soon lost after Paul’s death and held no prominence in the post-apostolic church. More and more, the early church began to focus on the believer’s faith, the believer’s gifts, the believer’s sanctification, the believer’s ministries. Christ in the believer had to give way to man’s abilities. The focus of attention was away from Paul’s gospel to another gospel that made getting blessings from God pre-eminent to who you are in Christ. This holds sway today as never before. It was, and is, a move away from the Christ-experience to some sort of novel Christian experience.
I do not mean to depreciate any
Christian experience when I say it is not the most important thing. Indeed, true Christian experience is attained when believers make God’s work, not their own, the foundation of their hope and the focus of their attention and glorying. But through history, as the church continued to lose the objective truth of the gospel, it became more and more centered in experimentalism.
If you take a long pole, you can balance it vertically on your finger if you keep your eye focused on the top of the pole. The movement of your finger will follow naturally, almost unconsciously. But if you watch what your finger is doing, the pole will become unbalanced and fall. This is where most religious groups are now. Their interest is looking at what believers do rather than what God does and has done.
Consequently, rather than people hearing Paul’s message of grace, modern religion is preaching what people must do to be good church members.
As any believer looks away from self to Christ in him and rejoices in what has been done for him and what Christ is to him, the Holy Spirit living in his heart and soul will continuously transform his life. But if the believer begins to make his experience the center of his concern, the true balance of his Christian living is lost. This is where great numbers of born again believers are living. They live there not because they choose this, but because the pure gospel of grace brought by Paul is denied them. Instead of receiving the gospel of objectivity, they receive a gospel of subjectivity and this has kept .multi-tudes of believers from ever knowing their position in Christ.
The organizing and legalizing of their doctrines, plus the building of man-made structures caused the loss of the gospel of pure grace. Thus, the tendency of modern religion is to make what man is doing within himself the focal point. This is subjective religion and is what happened to the early church. It lost sight of the great Pauline message,
Christ in the believer, which was a work of God done solely outside of the believer. This work of God was based solely on the finished work of Christ at the Cross.
Paul’s message of Christ in the believer as his hope of glory was soon lost after Paul’s death and held no prominence in the post-apostolic church. More and more, the early church began to focus on the believer’s faith, the believer’s gifts, the believer’s sanctification, the believer’s ministries. Christ in the believer had to give way to man’s abilities. The focus of attention was away from Paul’s gospel to another gospel that made getting blessings from God pre-eminent to who you are in Christ. This holds sway today as never before. It was, and is, a move away from the Christ-experience to some sort of novel Christian experience.
I do not mean to depreciate any
Christian experience when I say it is not the most important thing. Indeed, true Christian experience is attained when believers make God’s work, not their own, the foundation of their hope and the focus of their attention and glorying. But through history, as the church continued to lose the objective truth of the gospel, it became more and more centered in experimentalism.