Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P510 (02-07-20)
Synopsis
Many times callers call into the Classic Christianity radio to get answers to common questions, get clarifications or Bob’s thoughts on things they have heard from others, things that just does not sound right or the practical application of living in the new life you have in Christ Jesus. Many times, when you have a basic foundation in truth, these questions can easily be answered. If you know that you are under a New Covenant system of grace and not under the Old Covenant or law, and you know what salvation is, and what Jesus accomplished for you by his death, burial and resurrection, most of these questions can be answered.
Bob made it a point to say that if you put a few basic foundation truths together, such as what salvation is, salvation is by life not death (Romans 5:10), that righteousness is imputed to you (Romans 4:22-25), you do not have any righteousness of your own (Romans 3:10) and Jesus taught under an Old Covenant while proclaiming the New Covenant (Hebrews 7:27; Hebrews 10:14-18), you are under grace and not law (Romans 6:14), then all the findings that you are looking for begin to come together like putting together a puzzle of life. If a premise if off, then the correct teaching is not taught.
Some people have claimed that Jesus was raised spiritually but not bodily. This is not true. If Jesus did not identify with us in his death, and then was not raised to new life, then we are the most pitied of all men. If the life that raised him from the dead then we could not be raised up from the dead either. There are so many scriptures that clearly identify Jesus as always being Spirit. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. Jesus even said “before Abraham I am”. He took upon himself our flesh and blood and found himself in appearance as a man and then became obedient to death on a cross. He became sin for us so that we can become the righteousness of God in Him.
Many times people have asked, after losing a loved one, if they will know them when they get to heaven or will they remember anything down here on earth when they are up in heaven. We do know from the scriptures, from the prophet Isaiah, that God will create a new heaven and a new earth after the millennial reign. So certainly by then we will not have any remembrance of former things, those things of sorrow or pain. You will only know joy and gladness then.
In heaven, you will be changed, and be given a new spiritual body, for the body we have down here is flesh and blood, with indwelling sin. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and as it says elsewhere in scripture, that it is not designed for heaven. Now, if we had memories in heaven about all the evil going on down here, the rapes and murders and all the filth down here, then heaven would no longer be heaven. Now, we do know people will know each other in heaven, those who have become born again, but it will be in the new way of the Spirit.
Even a larger number of people have wondered about the issue of forgiveness of sins. Many do not properly understand what salvation is or the New Covenant we are under today, so they do not properly understand how or even if all their sins are forgiven or the motivation for forgiving one another. Did you know your sins were already forgiven before you were even born? Most people do not know that, but it is true. When Jesus said in the gospels, while he himself was still in the Old Covenant, having not yet gone to the cross, he had said that if you do not forgive your brother when he sins, neither shall my Father in heaven forgive you. Why did he say that? He is saying that to those under the law who thought they were righteous by observing the law. Jesus was telling them so they would be buried by the law in order to seek a Savior.
But when you understand that Jesus died to take away the sins of the entire world, then all this makes sense, what Jesus is saying in the gospels, and the doctrine so clearly explained in Romans and the New Covenant in Hebrews. At the death of Christ is when the Old Covenant was set aside, being useless to save anyone, and so was necessary that it be replaced by a New Covenant of grace in Christ Jesus. If Jesus had not died on the cross, a sacrifice of such eternal value, to take away the sins of the entire world, then he could not offer eternal life to mankind. Why? For if man should sin again, then he would die again. For under the law, there is a penalty called death. So until man is to be moved out from under that law of sin and death, he has no hope. So, death for sin has been paid in full for all men, by the shed blood of Christ Jesus on a cross. We had nothing to do with paying for sin or helping Christ in any way. Jesus then rose again in order to offer new life, eternal life, to all men. To those who come to Him for life, those are the ones who have the right to become children of God. You are not saved by the death of Christ, although that was necessary for life to be given, but you are saved by the life of Christ.
So then under a New Covenant of grace, we love because He first loved us. We never had the ability to love, in this agape love. That is a fruit of the Spirit, and it is produced by the Spirit and displayed in and through us as we abide in Christ. We forgive because He forgave us. In Him we have the forgiveness of sins. What was provided then, at the death of Christ, is received in Him. There is now a new motivation for forgiving one another. There is an excellent article written that explains more fully this application of forgiving someone else, and that is not to be confused with trusting someone. Jesus himself said he did not entrust himself to any man for he knew what was in a man.
So often false teachings comes from a premise that is off, such as believing salvation is getting your sins forgiven. That leads to this false Calvinistic teaching. Under Calvinism, because of a false premise, their finding is to explain the reason why there is no universal salvation, by saying God chooses certain people for hell and others for heaven. That is utter nonsense! Their false premise is that salvation is getting sins forgiven. Then there are those who know the truth, but would rather rely on their own understanding, so as to keep their position or authority, as law teachers. There are those who teach you can lose your salvation when scripture teaches you cannot. How can you lose something that is eternal, whom God sealed in you the Holy Spirit of promise, guaranteeing your redemption? You cannot lose something that is eternal or it would no longer be eternal. And others teach that you are robbing God if you do not tithe, putting people right back under the law. Scripture clearly indicates that tithing is for those under the law, for the Jews in an Old Covenant system that was only to last until the time of Christ. Are you a descendant of Jacob, as it says in Malachi, in regards to this topic of tithing? No. So it is not talking to you today. The proper way to live is what Jesus taught us in John 15, relying on the Holy Spirit to lead us internally. Paul explained in 2 Corinthians this new way of living, in regard to giving. You do not give under compulsion, but cheerfully, and in accordance with what you do have, and not with what you do not have, and by being led by the Lord as to what He would have you give or not give (2 Corinthians 9:7). Christ is the head of the church, and not the pastor, whose ministry is simply to help people trust Jesus.
Then there are many of those who truly love the Lord, and want to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The callers who call largely fall into this category, and are so grateful for the wisdom Bob shares from the foundation truth he has learned over the many years of knowing the Lord, relying on the Lord to reveal truth to him. So many callers find that the way he explains the scriptures helps them to grab a hold of truth, that they too can affirm as truth by the Lord, who is the one who reveals truth to them. One caller had such a heart for reaching her family, as a fairly young believer, and asks for Bob’s advice. Listen as he guides her in this and tells her of an incident of when the apostle Paul reached out to those in Athens, beginning with an inscription to an unknown God, and from there, explained to them this God, the one true God, that they knew nothing about.
Transcript
Kevin from Indianapolis, Indiana
Kevin: Good to talk to you guys again. I have not talked to you for a long time.
Bob: It is good to hear from you, pal.
Kevin: The reason I called. I have been talking to these people. They claim they are associated bible students. One of the things we have been talking about. They believe when Jesus was raised from the dead, he was raised as a Spirit being instead of bodily raised. The scripture used for their argument is 1 Corinthians 15:40-44. I know that is crazy. Can you give your insight on that?
1 Corinthians 15:40-44
40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
Bob: It is not talking about Jesus. It is talking about us. It said, “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead”. That is not Jesus, that is us. When it says, “The body that is sown is perishable”, then that cannot be the body of Jesus. Jesus body was not sewn imperishable.
1 Corinthians 15:43-44
The body that is sown is perishable,it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
Bob: There is a natural body. There is also a spiritual body. Was Jesus raised with a body? Of course he was. He ate fish with the people (Luke 24:36-43; John 21:1-14; ). He met them on the shore (John 21:4). He talked to people. He was seen by people (John 20:11-29; Luke 24:13-33; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8). He was identified with people. He came back in his glorified body (John 20:24-29). That is what his is called, a glorified body. As far as we are concerned, we have a natural body. And, He says, there is also a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:45-46
45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[Genesis 2:7]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
Bob: That shows that no one was alive spiritually before we were alive naturally. The only person that is true of is Christ Jesus, who as God, is Spirit, so He was always alive spiritually. But he took upon himself our flesh and blood and found himself in appearance as a man and then became obedient to death on a cross.
Philippians 2:7-9
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death –
even death on a cross!9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
1 Corinthians 15:45-46
47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.
Bob: That showed He was alive spiritually before He came here physically.
1 Corinthians 15:45-46
48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man [Adam], so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,
Bob: Our body is not going to inherit the kingdom of God. It is going to be sewn a perishable body. It is going to return to the dust. Or if we died in the ocean, it will go into the ocean and be consumed by the ocean or the fish in the ocean. It is raised imperishable. It is sewn in dishonor. As we get older, our bodies, in my opinion, at least my body, is dishonorable.
Kevin: Mine too.
Bob: But it is going to be raised in glory. It is sewn in weakness. We realize how weak these bodies really are. But it is raised in power. It is sewn a natural body. That is going to go, where it came from, into the earth. And it is raised a spiritual body. So flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 15:51-54
nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[Isaiah 25:8]
Bob: Wherever those people are coming from, it is basically they are out in left field some place on that interpretation.
Kevin: They were saying. I told them about Jesus with his disciples, with the hand on his side. They were saying he took on the body.
Bob: That is not what scripture says. They are making up nonsense and grabbing a hold of theology that is simply not true. His body did not go into the ground. His body went into a cave and came out of that same cave, and never experienced any kind of destruction.
Kevin: Correct me if I am wrong. Is the belief in bodily resurrection of Christ essential to salvation?
Bob: Absolutely. If he was not raised bodily, then how are we ever going to be raised. In essence they are basically not saved, when they are denying about Christ Jesus. If you are denying Deity you cannot be saved. If you are denying humanity as Gnostic’s did, you cannot be saved. If you do not believe he was raised bodily, how can you be saved because that sin is the rejection of Jesus of the bible. If you do not believe he died on a cross, how can you be saved? That is not Jesus. If you do not believe in the virgin birth, you cannot be saved. That is not Jesus. You are worshiping a Jesus of your own making rather than the Jesus as He was.
Kevin: Sounds like these people are followers of Russell.
Bob: It could very well be.
Kevin: Alright. Thanks a lot, Bob. Thanks for your help.
Bob: You are sure welcome, my friend. God bless you. Bye bye now.
James from Beeville, Texas
James: How are you doing?
Bob: Doing good, brother.
James: That is good. I just wanted to give you a call to let you know that mom is doing okay. She is still in the hospital. They got a pacemaker put in. She is doing a lot better. She is eating and sitting up. She recognizes everybody. I just want to let you know everybody at the conference with me was concerned. Mom is doing a lot better. I appreciate your prayers and every thing.
Bob: I appreciate you informing me on that. I am sorry you had to leave a little bit early. You missed a wonderful evening. You are where you needed to be at mom’s side. I appreciate you filling us in brother.
James: I missed highlights of conference. I was going to just meet people and then to hear those truths all over again. It just solidifies again what you know to be truth and what you understand. It was exciting to me the second time, as it was the first time. I really enjoyed myself. I wanted to let you know then, last night, when you had a caller asking about Judeo-Christian belief. I was reading in Hebrews in chapter 12 and a verse just jumped off the page at me. The church of the firstborn. That is exactly what you are saying, that we are born of Jesus Christ. It is not so much that we are out of the Jewish heritage. That verse jumped of the page, Hebrews 12:22-24
Hebrews 12:22-24
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
James: It mentioned the New Covenant. When people hear that, and see that, it just solidifies everything that Jesus brought in, about the finality of the cross. I wanted to thank you for that and let you know that I ran across that passage in Hebrews. I did not even know that it was there. I never heard the question phrased like that, the guy that asked you. We are of the firstborn and firstborn is Jesus Christ. Thank you on elaborating on that because I never seen that before in scripture.
Bob: You are sure welcome, James. Tell mom to get well quickly. You call any time. You have a good evening. Good to hear from you. Bye. Bye.
Mike from El Paso, Texas
Mike: Hello Bob. How are you?
Bob: Real good, Mike.
Mike: I have a question. I heard from a well known bible teacher that I respect. He was talking about that once we go into heaven some of the activities we are going to do. One of the things that raised a question for me was this. He said that we are going to remember some of the things we did here on earth. I cannot find that in scripture. Can you elaborate on that?
Bob: Well, Mike, the reason you cannot find it is because it is not there. Neither would that be heaven if I remember what took place down here on earth. If we had any recollection of earthly things at all in heaven it would cease to be heaven. When you stop to think about this trash can we live down here that we made out of God’s creation, people killing each other, children being molested, and war and rumors of war, I certainly would not want to be thinking about that in heaven. I do not think we have any recollection at all as to what is going on down here. That, quite frankly, is what makes it heaven.
Isaiah 65:17-18
17 “See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
Bob: Okay, Mike?
Mike: Yes sir. I appreciate it.
Bob: Does that help?
Mike: Could you lift me in prayer? I am infected with tinnitus, ringing in my ears. It is annoying.
Bob: Well, Mike. Thank you. I just thought everybody had that.
Mike: I appreciate your answer. God bless you.
Bob: Mike, thank you so much. We will remember you in prayer. Again, if that continues, well pray for God’s will to be done. You will serve the Lord, wringing or not. God bless you.
Arthur from Detroit, Michigan
Arthur: Hello, Bob. How are you doing, my brother?
Bob: Doing fine. Thank you.
Arthur: I am the vice president of our congregation. I was sitting in that council and I find myself fighting everybody who wants to run the church like a business. We do have to be good stewards and all of that. But we do things, and I keep saying, “No, we have to trust in the Holy Spirit on this thing”. I see, so many times, that when we start a big project, and the projections of the people who want to do things on the basis of a business model, and say it will take five years, but in about a year, it is all fine. The motivation is that we have to make the church a welcoming place so people can come in to hear the word. That has got to be a fact. Your program is just amazing. I tell you that right now. I taught religion a lot while in high school, and bible studies. It seems like you just strike the right note and it all came together in a big hurry.
Romans 4:22-25 (KJV)
22 And therefore it was imputed to him [Abraham’s faith] for righteousness.23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;
24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
Romans 5:10
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Romans 6:14
14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Bob: It is amazing how you put a few basic foundation truths together. I learned in school. I learned formulas when I was studying, unfortunately psychology, that I took. The findings of experimentation are no more accurate than the original premise. If your premise is off, your findings will be off. What happens is we establish some proper premises. For example, salvation is by life not death (Romans 5:10). That is a premise that is not taught. But once that premise gets right, and you realize you are no longer under the law (Romans 6:14), then once that premise gets established, righteousness is imputed to you (Romans 4:22-25). You do not have any of your own. All the findings that you are looking for begin to come together in the puzzle. Otherwise, they never come together for you.
Arthur: When I introduce this in bible study, you should see the look on people’s faces, this idea that you do not have to keep seeking forgiveness.
Bob: Thanking Him for what you have.
Arthur: Yeah. It is okay to come to the cross to feel sorry for your sins, but you come with a certain knowledge that you are forgiven. Incidentally, on psychology, all those findings depend on rats and undergraduates.
Bob: Well, my Father’s definition is them that need help.
Arthur: I am glad to talk to you.
Bob: Thank you so much, my brother.
Arthur: God bless.
Bob: God bless you, too.
Mary from Atlanta, Georgia
Mary: Can you help me please? Can you give me some ideas for talking about salvation with my friends and family and co-workers. It seems like I wimp out or I cannot seem to get the conversation going. Any advice, please?
Bob: True witnessing is that you are listening to people and you are talking to people. What I think is a good policy, is you listen to someone until they have violated the truth of scripture one way or another. In other words, he said something that is not correct. Then you step in to tell them the truth as to what literally the scriptures says on those things. Quite frankly, talking to a person who is not interested in salvation, then you might as well talk to a tree stump. You have to talk with people long enough to discern if these people have interest in spiritual things. Like Paul in Athens. He saw these statues to all these different gods and all that heathenistic worship. Then there was the statue to an unknown God. Paul thinks, “There is my opening”. “I see you people are religious. You really follow a lot of gods. I would like to tell you about this one God you do not talk about. I want to talk to you about who He is”. That was a brilliant opening Paul used there.
Acts 17:22-24
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship – and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.
Bob: Ask God to give you discernment. I would not fight that thing. If you witness naturally, it is a part of your life. Witnessing is not something you do. It is something you do as you go. I do not worry about witnessing any more. I used to when I was in that bondage to it. I am just who I am, and who I am, is a child of God, and it is hard not to talk about that. I just share in natural ways, in natural conversation.
Mary: Okay. I have only been saved for about four years. Maybe I am a little insecure about it. I am happy and I do have peace. I just want my friends and family to have that too.
Bob: In the final analysis, what you are talking about is the gospel that saves us. He named the gospel that saved us. God is talking about Jesus’ death. We need to understand the fact that is when Jesus went to cross, there, he knew no sin and became sin for us, so we could become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
2 Corinthians 5:18-21
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 John 2:2
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Bob: A great opening is this. Did you know Jesus death on the cross took away the sins of the entire world (1 John 2:2)? You were born into this world as a forgiven person. Did you know that ninety percent of people you talk to do not have a clue of that? You were born a forgiven person. Did you know that? The answer would be “No. Tell me more.” Then you can talk about how Jesus had to do that to clear the deck for the divine action to solve the problem of spiritual death by his resurrected life (Colossians 1:20). That is the simplicity of the gospel. He took away your sins so that when he was raised from the dead he could give you life eternal (Ephesians 1:7, 1 John 5:11-12). The reason you have eternal life is because of the eternal consequence of the cross.
Colossians 1:20 (TLB)
20 It was through what his Son did that God cleared a path for everything to come to him – all things in heaven and on earth – for Christ’s death on the cross has made peace with God for all by his blood.
Ephesians 1:7
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
1 John 5:11-12
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Mary: Okay. Sounds very good. I love it.
Bob: Okay?
Mary: Yes. Thanks so much. Thank you.
Marilyn from Atlanta, Georgia
Marilyn: This should be quick. I cannot find the scripture in the bible where it talks about the end of animal sacrifice. Can you show me something that shows the end of sacrifice, please?
Hebrews 7:27
27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
Hebrews 10:14-18
14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16 “This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”[Jeremiah 31:33]17 Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”[Jeremiah 31:34]18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
Bob: As far as God is concerned, the animal sacrifices ended at the death of Christ Jesus. That is why it says there is no more sacrifice for sin in the book of Hebrews (Hebrews 10:18). As far as when it ended in Jerusalem, it ended in 70 A.D., when the temple was totally destroyed and there was no more sacrifice from that day forth in Judaism. So you have two different things you are dealing with there. When Jesus sacrificed for sins once and for all and their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more and where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins. That was the end of the sacrificial system as far as God was concerned.
Marilyn: Okay. True. I think that explained it. It just occurred to me they do not talk about animal sacrifices in any, that I know of, in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, when Jesus was at the tabernacle teaching, and different things. So I thought to myself, when did it end? Before Christ was born? I did not think so.
Bob: No. They had the day of atonement, and all those things taking place, while Jesus was there.
Marilyn: I see.
Bob: At his death, that is when the New Covenant was ushered in. That you will read in Hebrews 9:16.
Hebrews 9:16-18
16 In the case of a will, [will or covenant or testament] it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood.
Bob: That new covenant, new will, new testament went into effect at the death of Christ Jesus. When Jesus was here on this earth, he talked under the old covenant and buried us under it. That was his purpose for being there to prepare us for the cross. No man is prepared for the cross until he sees his condition of death and sees he is a sinner, and sees he is in need of salvation. That is the whole purpose of Jesus teaching while here on earth. You are a sinner. You cannot live up to it. He showed us what pure righteousness is in Himself, and by so doing, shows us we had no righteousness. If I do not see that I do not have any righteousness then what would I want with His righteousness? So his whole ministry while he was here on earth was pointing to his provision of salvation in the cross and the resurrection. In order to do that, He had to show man his hypocrisy and evil in his own heart for man to be willing to accept the cross and the resurrection.
Marilyn: That is great. Yes. Praise Jesus!
Bob: I’ll say!
Marilyn: Thank you so very much. Bye. Bye.
Bob: You are so welcome, Marilyn. God bless. Bye bye now.
Chad from Alexandria, Virginia
Chad: Hi, Bob.
Bob: Hi, Chad.
Chad: I was wondering what you thought of groups like Alcoholic Anonymous (AA), that teach the restitution. How do they factor that in to Christ teaching about being forgiven by God?
Bob: I do not know, Chad. Again, AA is not a church. It is not a religion. It started that way but it has been perverted through the ages, where you turn your life to God, whoever that may be: “If it is an apple tree, that is fine. If is a refrigerator, that is fine”. It has certainly been watered down. You cannot really go to AA to look for biblical doctrine or biblical truth. You might occasionally find some truth that is there. But as far as the total teaching, it is certainly not so. You do not pull yourself up by your boot strap. You turn to God in total surrender that “I can’t but God can”.
Bob: As long as a person is going to see himself as an alcoholic and being able to get up every meeting and say, “I am Bob. I am an alcoholic.”, then you are going to struggle against being who you have already identified yourself as. There comes a time, and a point, where a person truly comes to Christ Jesus, and that is not coming to an apple tree or a refrigerator, for that is not going to do this for you. You come to understand that He made you, to those that received Him and believed in His name, to them He gave the right to become a child of God.
John 1:12
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
Bob: That is your new identity. I am a child of God, not an alcoholic. As a child of God, I have a brand new identity. As a child of God, now my thinking process, has to be, Chad, “Is it beneficial to me to go out and get drunk as a child of God?” If I am an alcoholic, that is the most natural thing to do. For me not to do that, I am going to be struggling against what is natural. If I am a child of God, then going out and getting drunk is not natural. It is not even in your eyes really. It is the fact that I do not belong in bars or with a bottle of whiskey in my mouth as a child of God. Until we get the new identity cleared, nothing permanent is going to change. That is why so many people who get started, and as long as going to the meetings every thing seems fine. But as soon as the meeting stops, they get right back into the bottle. Why? It is the most natural thing to do.
Chad: As far as step 8, where everybody has to go back and make restitution, is that biblical?
Bob: To go back and make restitution for everything? No. If the Lord leads somebody to make restitution for something, that is fine. If He is not leading you, then you have to listen to the voice of the Lord and not listening to some law that man came up with.
Chad: I was just wondering if there was some New Testament thing for that kind of behavior?
Titus 2:9-10
9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 10 and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
Ephesians 4:28
28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
Luke 17:3
3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.”
Galatians 6:1
1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.
Colossians 3:13
13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
No. You did see in the scripture, if somebody stole something from somebody, to go back and return it. If you insulted your brother, and you can do that, then go and confess your sins to him. If you have been acting like a jerk to somebody, go say to him you are sorry: “I am a new child of God now and that is not a part of my life.” Those things are evident. But if you have to make a list, and go back to everyone you ever insulted in your life, then you have to be older than me to take care of all of that.
Chad: Alright.
Bob: Okay, brother?
Chad: God bless.
Bob: You too, Chad. Bye bye now.
