Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P543 (06-11-20)
Synopsis
What advice would you share with a new believer? Would you tell him to get busy, and be sure to tithe, and make sure you pray, and to go to a prayer meeting and visitation, and to do this and do that? Or, would you point him to Jesus, the head of the body, of whom he is now a part, and allow him to learn how to receive instruction from Christ Jesus? Would it not be wise to encourage a new believer to read the word so that he has tools necessary so that no man will deceive him, and to know the nature and heart of God, to know what God has done for him and what he has in Christ?
Listen as Bob provides wise counsel to various believers who have called because they are confused about what they hear from various denominations. They ask questions about if a believer should be asking God for forgiveness when they sin, and what about 1 John 1:9, and what about speaking in tongues and about baptism of the Holy Spirit. Bob gently, but firmly, guides several callers on questions they had on various passages of scripture, explaining its meaning in its context.
An example of this is when Bob explains the most misunderstood passage of scripture, 1 John 1:9. Go to 1 John 1:8 and then 2 John, for example. As you read, you will see more clearly that a pastor is calling upon the only living apostle, apostle John, at the time, for help in confronting the heretical teaching of the Gnostics, who believe Jesus is not God in the flesh and that they have no sin. So, the pastor reads the letter to a mixed congregation of saved and lost people, but starts out first by addressing those who are lost, the lost Gnostics. So in 1 John 1:9, he is confronting the Gnostics with truth they need to hear. He is not writing to the saints at that point. What makes this very clear is when he says that the truth is not in you. If the truth is not in you, and Jesus is the truth, then the Spirit is not in you. If the Spirit is not in you, then you do not belong to Christ. It is also important to realize that the English language does not translate as clearly as what the real meaning of something is intended. The word, “if” has several meanings even in English depending on its construct and usage. In 1 John 1:9, the original Geek word for this would render 1 John 1:9 as saying, “if you ever come to your senses, and I doubt you ever will, but if you do, then you will realize that He is faithful and just to have forgiven your sins and to have cleansed you of all unrighteousness”. The reason this is true is because Jesus died on a cross over 2000 years ago and took away the sins of the entire world. So come to Christ to receive life, so that in Him, you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Later, John writes to the saints, in 1 John 2, and calls them little children. He tells them when you do sin, you have a defense advocate with the Father through Jesus Christ. It is as if Jesus tells the Father that your sins have already been paid in full. Although in reality, he has no need to do so for the Father has promised to remember your sins no more. So as a child of God, you are no longer dealt with as someone under the law of sin and death, as if God is mad at you. No, God loves you unconditionally and forever, not because of anything you have done, but because of what Jesus has already done for you. Your life is hidden in Christ. You have a new heart with new desires to please the Lord, so when you do sin, your attitude is one of simple faith and in gratitude, saying “thank you” and God disciplines, or trains you, by the renewing of your mind, reminding you to put aside the flesh and to lay hold of the grace that is yours in Christ, to remind you that you have everything you need for life and godliness and to go boldly to the throne of grace for help in time of need.
Transcript
John from Platt, SD
John: I have a question about confessing sin as a believer. I had received your tapes on forgiveness. In 1 John 1:9, where it was written to believers.
Bob: That is where you are off. With that premise being off, everything is off. It was written to a believing pastor who has been bogged down with Gnostics. Gnosticism had entered into the groups by then, probably the church in Ephesus, and driving believers crazy. A pastor would have written to the only living apostle, who was John, and asked for help on confronting the doctrine in Gnosticism. The Gnostics do not believe Jesus was in the flesh. They did not believe he came in the flesh. They thought that Jesus was just an illusion. They also believed man did not have a sin nature. They thought that whatever man did in the flesh did not matter because the only that he did in the spirit mattered. Those were heretical doctrines.
Bob: That is what he started 1 John with, great descriptions of Jesus in the flesh.
1 John 1:1-4
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
Bob: We have seen him and he has appeared. Why did he write that? To correct the heretical teachings of the Gnostics. In order to correct that heretical teaching, you have 1 John 1:8-9.
1 John 1:8-9
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Bob: If we claim to be without sin, which is what they were doing, they deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Then you go into what we have used as a Christian bar of soap and a hobby horse for all these years, which absolutely prohibits a believer from resting in his forgiveness. We come up with 1 John 1:9. 1 John 1:9 is an answer to 1 John 1:8. Here is one of the reasons I want to show you here, John, as to why this is not written to a believer. In 1 John 1:8, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Who is the truth? Jesus.
John: Right
Bob: In other words, Jesus is full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John: Right
Bob: So, you, who are making the claim you are without sin, then the truth, or Jesus, is not in you. To prove that that is what that means, go to 2 John with me.
2 John 1-3
1 The elder,To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth – and not I only, but also all who know the truth – 2 because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:
3 Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.
Bob: What does he say about the truth? If He is in you, He will live in you forever. You go back now to 1 John 1:8-9. If the truth is not in you, it is because it has never been in you, for if the truth was in you, it cannot leave you. That is how we know for sure you are talking to a lost Gnostic.
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John: Okay
Bob: On the other hand, the Greek of that John, the construct on that “if” is no place else to be found in the New Testament. You have an “if” as an example, where Satan was tempting Jesus.
Matthew 4:3
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Bob: So when the tempter is saying, “If you are the Son of God”, it is not that he do not know that he is, but in light of the fact or in as much as you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. There is that kind of an “if”
Bob: There is also another kind of “if”. If it is raining outside and you go outside, you are going to get wet. In other words, there is a result. If you do this then you will get this result.
Bob: This “if” in 1 John 1:9, is an “if” with a question mark. It is like saying, “I do not know if you people are ever going to come to your senses or not, but in the event that you do; today, tomorrow or the next day or the next year, whenever it might be, He is faithful and just” So many people do not translate this properly. He is faithful and just, not to forgive or will forgive, but to have forgiven. It is an aorist tense. It is a past tense with a continual action. It is what they describe in the Greek study as a snapshot. It is not a movie camera. It is once and for all and for ever. Inasmuch as we know that this was written in 95 A.D. and Jesus died on 33 A.D., we do not have to wonder when this occurred. Therefore, there is no other way to intelligently translate that except that He is faithful and just to have forgiven your sins and to have cleansed you of all unrighteousness.
Bob: Repeated claims we have not sinned, then we make him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives. You are not talking to a believer but you are talking to a believing pastor who has a congregation. The letter goes back and the pastor would read that letter and if the shoe fits you wear it. If you are sitting there as a Gnostic and you believe the apostle Paul or the apostle John is the final authority on truth, then you will say I have been believing wrong. If you are an egotistical Gnostic, you will say who cares what John says. The Gnostic believed they had a special type of wisdom, which is where the Gnostic word comes from. They were probably so arrogant that they were not going to listen anyway. But that is what the passage is saying.
Bob: Now, go to chapter 2. Now he is going to talk to the children.
1 John 2:1-2
1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
So, he addresses them as “My dear children”, because now He is going to talk to you and me who are in Christ. He continues to write, “I write this to you, so you will not sin”. We have an advocate who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is the one who turns aside God’s wrath, who took it away from the eyes of God, not only ours but the sins of the entire world.
John: I agree, as I listen to your tape. What Christ did at the cross was final for all sins. I guess I grew up in a denomination that spoke on the confession of sins. We received the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ in us, when we are saved. Does not the Holy Spirit then convict us of sin as believers?
Bob: Think about this for just a minute, John. I too grew up in that same type of thing. I think the average Christian has. The reason we are so hung up on these things, John, is because we were never taught what Jesus did. You come to Christ as a brand new Christian. It is as if someone is saying to you, “You forget for months about what you are supposed to do. We are just going to teach you what Jesus did. Here are your tithing envelopes and go out and sic them for Jesus. There is a meeting you have to go to, then a prayer meeting and visitation, and then church three times on Sunday”. So on the day of rest, you are exhausted. Everyone tells you this is what you have to do. Nobody sits back and thinks about what did God do and what did Jesus do?
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
Bob: If that is true, then every sin that any man has ever committed has been placed upon Christ Jesus, wasn’t it?
2 Corinthians 5:21
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
John 16:9
9 The world’s sin is unbelief in me
Bob: So the only sin attributable to man is the sin of the rejection of Christ Jesus.
John: Right.
Bob: The sins of the world were taken away. If they were not taken away and He were to give you life, the next time you sinned you would die. That is why I know I have eternal life, because of the eternal consequence of the cross. If that is true, then when I sin, my first thought would be to God, what did He do with that sin? He took it away. He suffered and died to take it away. So what should my response be, knowing that to be true? “Thank you. Thank you for your mercy to me”.
Romans 14:23
23 everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Bob: What is the root of all sin? Unbelief. “Lord Jesus, the reason I did what I am doing for a moment, or maybe in my attitude, is because I stopped believing you. I stopped trusting you. So renew my mind. Keep me focused on Jesus Christ and His truth and His grace. Just get up and move on”.
Bob: People envision this black mark created in heaven and I have to get that thing erased some way. We are taught that we are out of relationship or out of fellowship. If I am out of fellowship or out of relationship it means He is mad at me. He is not mad at us. He loves us. He took away our sins to never see them again so I can walk in the newness of life, under grace and not under law. Most churches have us under the law.
John: That makes sense for what the Lord did at the cross. I believe that. I do not know why it is so hard to live it.
Bob: John, I think we all have difficulty at times with that. It talks about the law, that the law is useless to you because no man will ever be declared in the sight of God through obedience to the law.
Romans 3:20
20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
Hebrews 8:13
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
Bob: And so, therefore, if that is true, then it says that the law has to fade away and soon disappear. It is obsolete just like a Victrola. It is obsolete. It can be sold in an antique store and put on your counter to look at it, but please do not play a CD on it. It is aging and should soon disappear. You and I have grown up with a lot of barnacles. All of a sudden we learn the truth. The error that we learned becomes obsolete. But now it has to age and it has to disappear and that takes time.
John: One last comment. On that tape, you were discussing a portion of Hebrews where a lot of people use that passage to say you can lose your salvation. You talked about how they were enlightened but not converted. I think you mentioned the difference was between one who repented and one who has not. How is a person who is enlightened? I do not understand that?
Hebrews 6:4-6
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Bob: Judas Iscariot was enlightened. Being around teaching and being around Jesus, you were certainly enlightened to what truth is but you did not give your heart to it. Same thing as the parable of the soils, where seed is sewn but never takes root (Mark 4:4). Words used there in Hebrews were “tasted”. How many times have you tasted something but did not drink it? When parents tell you to eat this good cauliflower. Well, I do not want to eat it. You taste it but then you say you still do not want to eat it. So words like tasted and shared, and Judas was involved in all of these things.
Bob: It says if you fall away, you cannot be brought back to repentance because you never repented. To your loss you are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. How are you doing that? By proclaiming that he did not die for the sins of the whole world and going back to the sacrificial system, going back to a concession booth, going back to thinking my 1 John 1:9 is going to keep myself forgiven. It makes no difference which one you are doing, they are all a denial of the finality of the cross.
John: That is great. I appreciate your time. I have been blessed by your program and the internet site.
Bob: You are welcome, John. I appreciate your call. Those are good questions. Keep studying the word of God. It keeps getting deeper and, as it does, the more exciting it gets.
Ed from Hoston, TX
Ed: I have a question in reference to your first caller. What do you think about that, the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is that for today? Or is that back then?
Galatians 3:26-28
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Bob: Ed, there is a misconception on that. When you are born again, Ed, the Spirit of God comes to indwell you. That is Christ in you. Then the Holy Spirit baptizes, or places you, into the body of Christ. It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is the baptism by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. That now, is you in Christ. So you got Christ in you and you in Christ. That is how we got made into the body of Christ as through the Holy Spirit coming to live in us and then placing us into the body of Christ Jesus. That is why in Ephesians 4, it says.
Ephesians 4:1-6
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Bob: There is one body. There are not two bodies. There is one Spirit. That all took place when we were born again.
Bob: The problem that you run into, Ed, is people who teach that you are born again today and receive the Spirit tomorrow. That is an impossibility according to scripture. If the Son of God does not live in you, you do not belong to Christ.
Romans 8:8-10
8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.
Bob: If the only way to be born again is to be born again of the Spirit, that is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to come to live in a believer. So can you be born again today and receive the Spirit tomorrow when if the Spirit does not live in you, you do not belong to him? So there is that kind of false teaching out there, that does not allow people to see that when you are in Christ you are complete.
2 Peter 1:3
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Bob: There is no such thing as this was for yesterday and not for today, except for the gifts given to the apostles for the purpose of perpetuation of the Spirit of God and the sign gifts that were given to the apostles in order to verify their message. Today, we have the word of God, and quite frankly do not need a sign to confirm the message of Christ Jesus. Like Jesus said.
Matthew 12:39
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
Bob: So Jesus is saying, “You are an adulterous generation, always looking for a sign. I will show you a sign”, and was referring to His resurrection. If we cannot believe God because of his resurrection then I will not believe him if my leg fell off and God grew it back again. That will not change my belief one iota in comparison to his resurrection.
Ed: What about gifts of Spirit, like healing and praying in tongues? I am a new babe in Christ so I am trying to understand all this.
Bob: I understand that brother. I appreciate your interest in that. Ed, let me just tell you this. You know there is this emphasis on praying. God is not listening to what you are saying anyway. He does not have a United Nations group in heaven translating all the different translations of languages of the world. He looks at our heart. If it was important for us to be verbalizing a prayer in order for God to hear it, then why would you have silent prayer? How can you be thinking in your heart, talking to God but not talking out loud, if he has to hear you? God is looking at our hearts. We make all this emphasis on what we are jabbering in English, German, French or tongues when the fact of the matter is, God is not listening to you anyway. He is listening to your heart.
Bob: How important would that be any way if you did not have a tongue? What if you had Parkinson’s disease and you could not speak? How important would that be? What if you were over in Japan during World War II, where part of the punishment was to cut tongues out of your head. How important would that be if you did not have a tongue? We put so much emphasis on what the body is doing because we do not want to take the time to find out what the head is doing? Which is more important? Your body or your head? Your head is the most important. It controls everything the body does.
Bob: The thing, Ed, you need to understand is that there is no such thing as a subsequent event to be baptized by the Holy Spirit. That is not biblical. All of this happens at one time when you are born again. You are indwelt by Jesus, that is Christ in you, your hope of glory. Then you are placed into the body of Christ and you now become a part of the body of Christ. That is a remarkable thing to know, isn’t it, that God has made you into the body of Christ? You are a part of that.
1 Corinthians 12:12
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.
Bob: It is a remarkable thing to understand the truth of that, that we have been placed into His body and we are His body here on this earth. Jesus said, “It is good for you that I am going away, for when I do, I am going to send my Spirit to live in you, and you are going to be my body”. That is the most amazing thing I could ever imagine. When He went away, He chose to make me a a part of His body.
John 16:7
7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Bob: That is for everybody, Ed. That has nothing to do with gifts. That has to do with what took place at your salvation. Christ Jesus came to invade your life and to place you into His body. That is why you and I are brothers in Christ. We belong to Christ. We belong to one another.
Ed: When I was reading in the bible, it was saying that Jesus intercedes for us in our prayers. When I pray, the Spirit of Jesus is interceding for me in prayer.
Bob: Ed, I can think of times when I was so distressed that I didn ’ t even know what to pray for that the Spirit would intercede. What does that mean? I do not have a clue. The issue is what Jesus said. He did not do anything unless the Father told him to do it and did not say anything unless the Father told him to say it. I have to assume he did not pray anything until the Father told him to pray it. We put so much emphasis on prayer, in my talking to God instead of Him talking to me. God gave us two ears and one mouth and he wants us to use it proportionately.
John 5:19
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
John 8:28
28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”
Bob: What happens to us? We come to Christ and everyone tells you what you should be doing and we never learn what He has done. If I do not know what He has done, then I really do not know what to do so I have to be told what to do. On the other hand, if I know what God has done, I am a responder to God and not an initiator. You kind of know by instinct what to do. If God has taken away my sins, then what do you do? You say, “thank you”. If I came to you and said, “Ed, I got something for you, a brand new Cadillac”, and you did not earn and you did not deserve it. You would not say, “give it to me”. You would say, “thank you”. So many denominations are telling you what you should be doing to get close to God. If you are born again, you cannot get any closer to God if you wanted to. Nothing can separate you from the love of God.
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Bob: So bask in that, brother. Walk by faith in it. Forget about this stuff that people tell you to do, and just walk by faith. Remember one thing. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. That is the only thing that counts. Everything else is superfluous.
Galatians 5:6
6 The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Ed: Thank you, Bob.
Bob: You are welcome. I hope that helps.
Ed: God bless.
Bob: God bless you, too, pal.
