A dispute has arisen among people who appear to be the same in faith but are not.
The mystic
An encounter with God changes your heart. You are given a new heart born into his Kingdom and
can never leave. No matter what you do you are safe.
The ethic is the encounter, and then subsequent encounters which change you, not of your will
but some strange force which is not interlectual, or chosen, or definable.
Righteousness
God is righteous, holy, just, loving, the source of all.
We as sinners who repent of our sins, trust on Christ for the forgiveness of sins, are empowered
through following and love in our hearts to walk righteously. It is a hard battle to transformation
but we come out holy, righteous, redeemed people.
This is the world of choice and will, of repentance and confession, getting yourself right with God.
Biblical detail is best laid out be Ezekiel
But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die.
None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live.
Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?
Ezek 18:21-23
But if a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked person does, will they live?
None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered.
Because of the unfaithfulness they are guilty of and because of the sins they have committed, they will die.
Ezek 18:24
The road is simple. Repent and walk in righteousness to gain life with Christ.
Walk in sin and face judgement.
It is through faith in the forgiveness offered in the Cross that we gain forgiveness so we can
walk in righteousness, consciously, choosing ourselves, not imputed, or adopted, holy living.
There are those who say if you taste of God, you are eternal and will never face judgement.
This is heresy and mysticism and a different faith.
The heretics use hyper-legalism to say all the prophets were lost, the Jews were lost and only after
the cross is the kingdom real. They are forever bounded in invented sin, which they can never
be free from so without imputed righteousness they are dead. Problem is in heaven these same
sins will occur, which is impossible for them to be sins.
So I call you as Jesus did, repent of your sins as God has defined and walk in righteousness,
there is no other way to salvation.
Mysticism can take christian language, but it shows itself when the real differences are talked
about, like repentance, holiness, purity, integrity, honesty, truth. They regard themselves
constant sinners daily, hourly, by the minute. Invented sins, thoughts, intentions, hopes,
fears, passing fancies. Rather than temptations or passing feelings, these are sins.
And they make us to be evil, legalists, rule makers, self justifiers, hyprocrites who live in sin
but ignore it. They alone are truly born again with the mystical new perfect heart dwelling
in a sinful body. Their aspiration is to dwell in their new mystical being and leave the rest
behind.
There are similar tensions in christian life, with emotional impulses, setting order and appropriatness
in ones own heart, but it is accepting our bodies as holy vessels and being the redeemed righteous
bride of Christ, fully acceptable as His loving holy people is what we are today, in the here and now.
This is the word of the Lord.
