The Gospel of Jesus Christ

Introduction

The Gospel, as the most important teaching in the entire Bible, is not something any person can afford to get wrong because this great salvation was the very reason our dear Lord and Savior endured a life of suffering on our behalf to die on a cross so that we could spend eternity with Him. Every believer needs to have the right attitude when approaching the truth to not fall for the many false teachings common within (and outside) the church. The main thrust of this study is to help the reader understand what the gospel is, what is needed for it to occur, and what it entails.

Because of this teaching’s extreme importance, it only makes sense that Satan has concentrated so many of his efforts toward destroying the church, and what better way to do so than to cloud the path that makes one a member. Most of the damage comes when someone distorts the gospel through some dark satanic lie. If a person doesn’t even get saved, then the devil has no reason to worry. But he has a more difficult task for those who have discovered the narrow path (Matthew 7:13-14). Satan often works through false teachers disguised as men and women of God, known as wolves in sheep’s clothing, to exploit the vulnerabilities of weak-minded believers. This barrage of lies has proved highly effective in the church at large, and many counterfeit groups often claim to be the “true church.” Such organizations often assert that they are the only ones who know the way of the gospel, but they are nothing but cults.

Satan has opposed the way of eternal life for as long as man has been on this earth, so it is no surprise that we see so many false gospels in our day and age. The evil one’s goal is to lead as many people astray as he possibly can to somehow “thwart” God’s plan of salvation. Of course, we know that ever since Christ’s death on the cross, Satan’s plan of victory has become an impossibility because our Lord paved the way of salvation for all who would ever desire to take it. Having won the victory over sin and death, all people now have the chance to receive God’s gift of salvation. How one obtains this offer of eternal life is something we will discuss after our introduction.

The gospel is not a complicated thing to understand, nor should it be. If it is so simple that a child could receive it through faith, we can be sure it is not a complicated process. Yet so many have made it out to be something it isn’t, often by adding to or taking away from it. It has become challenging for many people to accept because of its simplicity.

On the other hand, some people take the gospel’s simplicity to mean a person doesn’t need to do much after getting saved. But such people who teach this don’t know what it means to be a Christian. Entering the spiritual battlefield through faith is simple. But fighting the war itself is difficult—all the more reason for the prospective believer to count the cost before deciding to follow Jesus (Luke 14:25-34).

It is very troubling how many lies there are about how one enters the family of God, because something so simple has become so confused. It breaks my heart to see so many people led astray by false teachings, either compromising so much of the eternal reward they could have had or compromising their eternal life altogether. Whether a person is a believer or not, allowing false teaching to enter one’s heart is bound to cause significant harm.

I am not attempting to make sweeping judgments about any groups or individual denominations or organizations. This study aims to present the gospel in its true form and refute many of the false teachings that concern it. Only the Lord knows those who belong to Him, and I am not attempting to judge others’ salvation in any way, just the false teachings themselves. Such lies need to be exposed for what they are to benefit the spiritual growth of other believers and to help unbelievers come to Christ. No matter how long a person has walked with Christ, for those genuinely interested in growing spiritually and pleasing the Lord as they should, questions about the issues brought up in this examination are ones that they will eventually and inevitably cross paths with and have to sort out (unless they have already done so).

The Lord is the judge, and He knows all things. But lies are to be condemned because they threaten the faith of other believers and those wishing to become part of God’s family. We should never take false teaching lightly! This work aims to benefit the growing believer who seeks to deepen their faith in the gospel by which they stand.

Few things will damage a believer more than false teaching about salvation, because the true gospel of Jesus Christ is what saves us. Salvation is the very foundation by which all other things about the Christian life rest. Without being in the realm of life (assuming the teaching opposes salvation by grace through faith alone), a person would not be capable of pleasing the Lord in any way, nor would they ever spend eternity with their Savior in heaven. And few things will hinder a believer’s growth more than fearful doubts, spurred on by the evil one, that lead a person to question the legitimacy of their faith (assuming they are struggling with false lies about the gospel). In other words, Satan loves to attack believers by trying to get them to believe that their salvation is illegitimate, a common tactic he uses to slow the growth of those seeking to follow their Savior wherever He leads. That doesn’t mean there aren’t people who doubt their “salvation” who are unbelievers, for in their case, their doubting is a good thing, perhaps designed by the Lord to get them to see the truth, come to Him, and accept the gospel. After all, many people live in deception, believing they belong to Christ when they do not. But the evil one often targets believers with many of the false lies mentioned in this study to get them to compromise the truth. The Lord knows this, and the best way to counter these attacks is to thrust back against them with the sword of the Word of God, Ephesians 6:17, rightly studied, understood, and applied. If we take care of the Bible, then it will take care of us, and if we seek it with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our strength, then answers and deliverance will come to us.

The most important (and only) source of information in discovering the gospel is the Bible, which tells us everything we need to know in our current evaluation. But accurate interpretation, as well as a good understanding of Scripture, is required to do this. So I have taken the utmost care to achieve the desired goal. This is not a soteriology study (the study of salvation) but a presentation of what the gospel is. We will aim for simplicity, confirming the truth and refuting the lies as simply as possible. And I want the reader to understand that holding to some of the false teachings identified in this study does not necessarily mean they aren’t saved. This would depend largely on the belief in question and the person’s disposition of heart. But if something is false, even if those who believe in that teaching are genuine believers, it is false and needs to be exposed as such for the safety of others. Therefore, with all of this said, let’s examine the gospel of Jesus Christ.

1. The Gospel - What it is

1.1 Faith in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ

A person receives the Lord by believing in Jesus Christ (which is the same as believing in or accepting His person and work). That is the gospel, plain and simple. Our Lord purchased this salvation with His precious blood (His spiritual death on the cross) by taking the penalty of our sins on Himself for us to receive His free gift of eternal life, which cannot be earned or worked for in any way. In doing this, the Lord Jesus rescued us from eternal death. For all who accept this most gracious offer through faith, God will welcome them into His family.

This belief in Jesus Christ is not merely an intellectual appreciation or acceptance of facts but complete trust and commitment in Christ’s atoning work for us on the cross, instead of our own good works accomplished through our own strength (it is to believe that Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient, which is all wrapped into the one simple act of believing in Jesus). As for commitment, true saving faith is both complemented and proven by an obedient life, because true faith will always have something to show for it (and it must endure until physical death).

Salvation is by faith through grace alone, for God’s gift is free and cannot be worked for in any way.

In light of what we’ve said above, we need to remember that it doesn’t take much for a believer to be saved (to enter God’s family), because the gospel is all about faith, not knowledge. All a person has to do is believe in Jesus. In the present dispensation we believers live in today (the church age known as the time of the Gentiles), we have the completed canon of Scripture, which tells us about the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is to say, we believers look back at the sacrificial death of our Lord, whereas the believers under the Old Covenant throughout the Old Testament looked forward to these now past (but future for them) events through animal sacrifices. What we’re getting at is that the believers of old didn’t know all the things we do today (about the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ) but expressed faith in them through the manners and methods God provided for them to accept His solution to sin and death in faith (animal sacrifices expressing faith in the coming Messiah they knew little to nothing about-see Hebrews 11).

Likewise, Adam and Eve (the very first people to ever live) had no knowledge of these future events but accepted them in faith by accepting the coats of skin offered by our Lord, which represented His future sacrificial death on the cross He would undergo to pay for our sins. Adam and Eve did not know this, but they accepted what God provided (salvation has always been by faith through grace alone in Jesus Christ). Hence, the gospel is all about faith and not knowledge.

This event must be contrasted with Adam and Eve’s human attempt to solve the problem of sin and death through their own good works, such as sowing plant leaves together to cover their nakedness (which represents a false religion of trying to work one’s way to Heaven). They had to exchange their own solution to the predicament they now faced for God’s solution to the problem.

It is also worth mentioning that many believers have and continue to get saved at a very young age so that it would be safe to assume they had very little knowledge about many of the details of Christ’s person and work (such as the deity of Christ and the Trinity) because children understand very little of these things (especially those saved at very young ages). Yet, what they all have in common is faith in Jesus Christ! Jesus even told His disciples that whoever does not receive the kingdom with the faith of a child will not enter it.

Finally, since we have mentioned the differences between the information available to those under the Old Covenant and those under the New, it would not be inappropriate to briefly discuss the issue of “dispensations” and “dispensationalism.”

Dispensations and Dispensationalism

First, the Old Testament saints did not have the complete canon of Scripture available to them (meaning they didn’t have all the Scripture to meditate on that we do today). This means they took to heart and obeyed whatever portions of Scripture were accessible (if any), as well as any other information they gained by walking closely with the Lord in faith as He revealed more of Himself to them through their own life experiences. Some did not even have the Law or any written part of Scripture (such as Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Job, etc.). Nevertheless, the Lord still provided all the necessary means for these great people of God to grow spiritually, provisions that these believers took advantage of through faith (look no further than Hebrews 11-the Christian life is all about faith and not knowledge!). This fact tells us that spiritual maturity isn’t based on how much we know (merely head knowledge) but on how much we apply through faith, in proportion to what we know! With that said, if we want to grow more in our faith by applying more of the truth, we need to seek out as much of it as we can (failing to do so will stunt our spiritual growth).

The correct meaning of “dispensationalism” refers to distinct periods in which God has chosen to “dispense” His truth (including the gospel) to the world throughout history. The truth itself has not changed, but the manner in which God has chosen to reveal Himself has differed from period to period. Dr. Luginbill defines and describes this word well when he says-

Today, we have God’s complete, written Word, which is necessary for our spiritual well-being. However, this was not true for many living under the Old Covenant. The Lord chose to reveal Himself and provide all the necessary information needed for spiritual growth through various forms of communication, such as signs, wonders, Christophanies, visions, dreams, and other divine manifestations of Himself and the truth He offered. This truth means that the Lord commonly spoke with some of His chosen servants face to face (as He did with Abraham and Moses, who acted as His witnesses). Please understand that we’ve listed here only a few of the most prominent examples of ways (also known as dispensations) in which the Lord chose to communicate the truth. How He does so depends on the circumstances and where we are in history.

For example, the phrase, “Or any other information they garnered through walking close to the Lord in faith as He revealed more of Himself to them through their own life experiences,” applied to all the Old Testament believers, but especially those before the giving of the Pentateuch (such as Adam and Enoch, as only two out of many examples). Before the giving of the Law, the patriarchs served as God’s witnesses, spreading His truth (using all that God provided them, without the written code, i.e., the Law of Moses). Then came the nation of Israel, the giving of the Law, and the priesthood (another type of dispensation), along with the prophets (and some Old Testament books) who acted in the Lord’s stead to warn the nation and provide them with direct information from Him. Next came Christ’s advent on earth (the incarnate Jesus Christ teaching His people directly), then the apostles (along with the sign gifts), and then the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit along with the written Word of God in completed form (precisely what we have today in the church age, including pastors and missionaries who help “dispense” the truth). Finally, the Millennium (the final period of human history before eternity’s commencement) will see a combination of some of the above manifestations (dispensations) since “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, Habakkuk 2:15, Jeremiah 31:31-34.

So, the conclusion from the above is that believers in Old Testament times set their minds on whatever truth was available to them, regardless of the form it took. They did not know as much as we do today (many truths and details still veiled in mystery) because they did not have the completed Bible. But what they had available was enough to sustain their spiritual growth. The great heroes of the faith (some of the greatest believers of all time), such as Noah, Moses, David, Elijah, Abraham, and the like, were so because of their faith in what they received. The fact that they had less information available to them was not a result of any failure on their part, but rather of how God chose to reveal Himself during those times. Sadly, despite today’s believers having more time, resources, and information, they are doing far less in proportion to what they have than many of those in biblical times who came before them. It is staggering to see just how little faith plays in the lives of so many Christians today.

1.2 What about Repentance?

Faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin, because faith is a commitment that cannot exist unless the believer genuinely desires to turn away from their old self and live a life of obedience. Therefore, repentance is a change of mind/heart/attitude that results in a change of action/behavior/lifestyle. That is what true saving faith produces because faith is evidenced, completed, and perfected through works, not that salvation is by works, of course. The Greek word for repentance in the New Testament is metanoeo (μετανοέω), which means to change one’s mind or attitude. This change results in a person turning to Christ in faith, and genuine faith always has something to show for it.

It was for this very reason that Paul and Silas could tell the Philippian jailer to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation in Acts 16:31 without mentioning repentance (everything that transpired in the prison led him to have a change of heart, leading him to saving faith). That is because no one would have believed in Christ unless they had changed their mind about Him, themselves, and the world. That is why faith and repentance are linked (two sides of the same coin).

Although slightly unrelated, another confusing point we need to clear up is the common misunderstanding of Romans 10:9-10. No believer has to take a separate step of saying “Jesus is Lord” after initially believing in Him to be saved. A person who has believed in Jesus Christ has already acknowledged and submitted to His lordship. All of that is already wrapped into a simple belief (entailing complete trust) in God’s Son. Confession, in this case, is what one does with what one believes, so that all true believers (those who have put their faith in trust in Christ in the past and are still believers in the present) will naturally confess Jesus as Lord if called upon to do so. They will not deny Him before men but will acknowledge Him. True believers do not hide their faith or lie about it.

1.3 The Need for Endurance

Salvation is by faith through grace alone, but faith must stay in the equation for that person to enter God’s kingdom. Only believers are saved; unbelievers are not, because they have rejected the person and work of Christ, regardless of whether they were once true believers (some do fall away).

The three passages below show beyond a shadow of a doubt that all believers are in the process of being saved (present action). This means that although we are saved positionally (being a believer at present means staying in the sphere of “justified”), there is a chance we may deliberately fall from that place by choosing to turn back. Since this is the case, believers are those who must continue to believe, since we are not yet experiencing our eternal life.

A good understanding of Scripture and a little knowledge of God’s character can help us see why the Lord has designed things this way. Before we look at some passages that show that salvation depends on continuous faith, we need to discuss a few things first.

For one thing, God is just, which means He doesn’t force people to do something they don’t want to do. If a believer no longer wishes to continue believing and instead turns back and goes their own way, the Lord will grant that request, but not without pursuing that individual. God doesn’t merely throw His hands in the air and give up on one of his straying sheep immediately. On the contrary, He pursues them through the use of conviction and discipline until they either return or refuse to come back. No matter what they do, the Lord knew what their actions were going to be ahead of time, and even for those who continued to run away, He still ran after them out of great love so that they would return.

Looking at the verse above, we see the phrase “if he finds it,” which suggests that our Lord (the Great Shepherd) may not find the lost sheep. Luke’s version “until he finds it” (ἕως εὕρῃ αὐτό) focuses on a more positive outcome, but in no way suggests by approaching it this way that the shepherd will find every sheep. A believer who stubbornly refuses the Lord’s chastisement and gives up on their faith cannot be brought back because coming back is entirely up to the individual themselves, something they may choose not to do. Our Lord pursues them because He loves them, and it was not His will that they should perish. For that discussion, we look to the passages below. But God never forces anyone to come back, because that would violate their free will. We will discuss this topic in greater depth later in this study, but we need to recognize the fundamental truth that free will is why we are here on this earth: to choose either for or against God.

Some may say that faith is a work because continued belief means relying on one’s own efforts to stay saved. But faith has to have an object, and that object is Jesus Christ. By continuing to believe in Him, the Lord is the One who saves us because He takes our faith and empowers it through His grace. Christ accomplishes the work of justification and sanctification within us, and faith is what makes all of that possible.

Not only this, but Scripture is unequivocal that faith and works are not the same thing. So although Christ is the One who saves us, we still had to do something to receive His offer of salvation: believe. Believing in Jesus Christ is not a work, so neither is holding to that faith to the very end.

The Bible makes it very clear that believers can commit apostasy. We see a prime example of this in the parable of the sower and the four different types of soil.

The seed sown along the path represents those who refuse the gospel. They reject Christ to go and follow Satan, submitting to his power instead. They are unbelievers headed for the lake of fire.

The seed sown on rocky soil speaks of a person who was once a genuine believer but later apostatizes, turning away from God because of significant testing. These people receive the gospel with joy, believe for a while, and abandon their belief in Christ. For faith to be temporary, a true, living faith had to exist, and the context clearly shows that faith was alive and active at one point in the person’s life, meaning they were a believer at that time. But they fall away from the faith because of a difficult trial or tribulation, because their faith (represented by a small, weak root that could not grow in the shallow, rocky soil) was too weak to see them through it. When trials and tribulations come, they are unprepared to endure them. And for those who argue that this rocky soil category isn’t referring to believers, they must explain why trials and tribulations (testing) come their way? God does not test unbelievers because they have no faith to grow. Testing and tribulation come only to believers, not unbelievers. Luke 8:13 describes this group best—

We can sum up this verse with the following points—

1. Someone who receives the Word can only refer to a person who became a believer. Unbelievers, no matter how enthusiastic, have not received the gospel if they are still unbelievers.

2. True believers (Christians) are those who believe. Unbelievers do not. Our context clearly shows that these individuals received the Word in FAITH. They believed!

3. As we have just noted, unbelievers have no faith and therefore nothing to warrant testing, persecution, trial, or tribulation. God allows believers to undergo testing to further refine and strengthen their faith, to prove its quality. This passage cannot refer to unbelievers.

4. In order to fall away from the faith, you had to have faith to begin with. An unbeliever who stays an unbeliever is not capable of falling away from something they never had.

Thus, this category clearly shows the need for endurance in the believer’s life. Those who fall away have believed in vain.

The seed sown on thorny ground refers to believers and unbelievers (apostates). These marginal Christians, who, although saved, live a mostly wasted life. The reason is their greater desire to live as if the world were their home. They allow the worries and distractions of life to become their top priority, putting God in second place.

So what we have in the thorny soil group are lukewarm believers. This category consists of marginal Christians who don’t grow, progress, or produce for Christ as much as they should. This “thorny ground” is where most believers of our day (known as the church era of Laodicea, Revelation 3:14-22) and most during almost all of the 2,000 years of church history would fall. In our modern time, the reason is because of the believer’s lukewarm attitude toward God. Most have put the world before their Savior and are thus wasting and squandering precious time they could be using to grow, progress, and produce for Jesus. The result is spiritual complacency.

The phrase “becomes unfruitful” mentioned in the thorny ground category should not be translated to mean “no production whatsoever." All believers who endure to the end will have something to show for their time on earth, even if most of their lives were wasted. The most accurate way to interpret this phrase is to say that these believers are not producing as they should. Their production rate is low, though they still produce to some degree, nonetheless.

The seed sown on the good soil are believers who live their time on earth as they should, growing, progressing, and producing for the Lord. They grow to basic spiritual maturity, pass the excruciatingly strenuous tests of their faith meant to refine and strengthen them, and come into using their spiritual gifts in the ministries the Lord has called them to carry out. They then reap a bountiful crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty, with the size of the crop depending on how well they served the Lord. The believers in this category know what it means to live the Christian life and to act in accordance with God’s Word in thought, word, and deed. These people understand their purpose on earth and allow God to fulfill it in their lives.

Other Passages that Support the need for Continuous Faith

These passages below do not form a comprehensive list, but they are the most straightforward and forceful in their message.

The “word” preached to Paul’s audience above is the gospel by which all converts come to Christ. Salvation is held fast through faith. If a person doesn’t hold to it, then their past belief will have meant nothing, and their faith was in vain because it did not last.

What else could the “beginning of our assurance” be other than a person’s faith/acceptance in the gospel of Jesus Christ when they initially believed? Believers must hold fast to the gospel. That is their responsibility, not God’s! The Lord empowers their faith, but the individual must choose to exercise it by submitting to Christ.

The words above (whether read in Greek or English), when studied in context, clearly indicate a warning against apostasy. This is further reinforced by verse twenty-three, which says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” and verses thirty-five and thirty-six, which read, “ Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.” Likewise, verses thirty-eight and thirty-nine state, “But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.” Clearly, verses twenty-six to thirty warn believers (Jewish believers in the particular context) against becoming unbelievers (the whole tone and tenor of Paul’s message in this context). Believers are not enemies of God; that description applies only to unbelievers. Paul is speaking to believers (for if we deliberately go on sinning) by warning them about the consequences of allowing sin to lead to a complete, free-will rejection of Jesus Christ. There is also the phrase, “Let us not give up meeting together.” There were some who had left the congregation by abandoning legitimate Christianity through embracing Judaism, which taught a false gospel by works of the Law (instead of by grace through faith alone).

Some believers within the audience to whom Paul addresses these words had fallen back into sacrificing animals as if Christ never came and the old covenant never ended with the new. In other words, they were still saved but headed in a very dangerous direction. To continue sinning in this manner was to refuse Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and could only lead to apostasy (something Paul was attempting to save his believing audience from), resulting in the complete death of faith. Under the old covenant, sacrifices demonstrated the believer’s faith in the coming Messiah (even though they did not take away sins by themselves; Hebrews 10:4). But since He had already come and died for them, the killing of animals was no longer an act of faith but of unbelief.

So our passage involves Paul warning these backsliding believers because of the words, “who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace.” You then have the example of those who set aside the Law of Moses. The Law stated that the punishment for such a crime was physical death. So our Hebrews passage contrasts the physical death of those under the old covenant with the eternal death of those under the new. That is why the context states, “How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?” The point is that eternal death is a far worse punishment than a physical death by stoning or what have you. It is true that some of those who profaned the Mosaic Covenant were apostates. But there is no question that some of them were already unbelievers. And there is no mention about what would occur for those who wished to repent because that is not the passage’s point. It is comparing the more tolerable physical death of those who were under the Law to the unbearable future eternal death that awaits those under the new covenant, which they have come to despise.

Those who set aside the Law of Moses mentioned in verse twenty-eight were those in ancient Israel who rejected Christ’s ways and laws for their own of worshipping idols (you shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3). This sentence is a reference to Deuteronomy 17:2-8, which describes what we said in the last sentence. So some of those who did this and never chose to repent committed apostasy by departing from the living God (that is, to despise the old covenant Law). To do the same under the new was worse because it was made possible by the blood of Jesus Himself! During the Old Covenant, believers looked forward to Christ’s death on the cross through animal sacrifices. To deny Christ then already had its own consequences, but how much more to deny Him after He endured all that He went through to fulfill the promise of eternal life with His own physical and spiritual death on the cross? So, although believers today wouldn’t be able to reject Christ in the same manner these Jewish believers did (sinning by rejecting Jesus Christ in a manner that acted as if He never came and died on the cross through animal sacrifice), the principle of continued belief necessary for salvation and the loss of it if faith dies is clearly there.

To continue, in our non-exhaustive list of passages, John 15:1-8 presents a clear admonition to remain in Christ (stay true to the faith) and a sober warning about the consequences of failing to do so. We would not have warnings and commands in Scripture on this subject if there were no possibility that any believer could later in life stop believing and never return.

The verses above are very clear: neglecting our faith is neglecting our salvation, because we must hold fast to our faith to the very end. The words, “so that we do not drift away,” show that this is indeed a possibility for any believer (otherwise there would be no need for a warning). If we throw our salvation away through apostasy, then there is “no escape” from eternal judgment." Only believers are saved; unbelievers are not.

To continue, there is a conditional responsibility in the verse above. Believers are to “take care,” meaning they are responsible for ensuring they continue to believe. That is their job, not the Lord’s. He does the work of saving us, but we have to keep believing for His grace to benefit us in any way.

Something vital to remember in this discussion is that long before man ever came on the scene, one-third of the angels had rebelled against God and departed from Him; we know them as fallen angels. For human beings, dying in unbelief will bring condemnation. Speaking of the angels that fell, they will spend eternity away from God. So “ how could God be just in allowing angels who committed apostasy to suffer eternal death, but not human beings who do the same?” That would be unfair, and it leaves us with only one option: that only those who stay committed to Christ through faith will see eternal life. If angels had free will to rebel against God, why would humans not have the same choice? The verse below expresses this very clearly.

Just as one-third of angelic kind departed from God, so we shall see a repeat of this during the tribulation, except this time, one-third of believers will fall away. This event is known as the great apostasy, and it will occur in the first half of the tribulation, only to be completed in the second half. The pressures of those horrible days will be too much for the weak in faith to handle, because they will not be prepared to cope with the severe testing ahead. As a result, many will go and serve the antichrist by taking his mark.

The word apostasia, ἀποστασία, is the Greek for the English transliteration of apostasy and means “standing away” or “separation” from something. Believers separate themselves from God by forsaking Christ through reverting from believer to unbeliever status. Having once “stood” in the gospel, they now “stand away” from it.

We see this great apostasy prophesied in Daniel and later in Revelation.

Matthew 24:10-13 and 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 mention the great apostasy as well.

Regarding the end times, there is the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, with the wise representing serious believers who stored up enough faith to get them through the tribulation, and the foolish representing many lukewarm believers who did not prepare in advance as they should have (this represents the one-third who will fall away). They failed to prepare because they did not pursue spiritual growth seriously enough to have enough faith to make it through those dark days. The oil represents faith, the darkness represents the tribulation, the bridegroom represents Christ, and the door represents the entrance into the millennial kingdom. Only those whose “light” of faith does not go out will enter this kingdom.

Sin can play a major role in the process of apostasy, but doesn’t have to be involved for a person to give up on their faith (there can be various reasons for that). However, when it is involved, apostasy does not occur by committing a single sin or even a lot of sins (believers can struggle with chronic sin for a long time before they overcome it) because that would mean that salvation would be by faith and works, not by faith and grace alone; please see discussion further below, “The Lie of no Security Salvation-Works.” Sin is antithetical to faith in that it damages it, but salvation is only lost when a person has turned back and wholly rejected Christ, i.e., they are officially no longer believers. Of course, sin can contribute to this process by hardening the heart and harming faith; think of how fire burns paper. Once a person has reached a certain point (they can only harden their heart so much until they turn away from God altogether), the Lord eventually gets pushed out of their lives to the point where they are no longer believers (a free will decision to reject Him) and thus, following Him (they are forced to make a decision). Sin can’t stay with a person for the rest of their lives without consequences. Continuous, unrepentant, idolatrous sin (as just described) will lead to complete apostasy, resulting in loss of eternal life if said individual puts it above God in their lives. Such people have committed idolatry by worshipping another god (idolatry is the same as rejecting Jesus Christ (unbelief) because idolaters will not inherit God’s kingdom 1 Corinthians 6:9). But idolatry is not limited to sin only, but can be anything we decide to put above the Lord to the death of our faith, including money, people, etc.

Regarding sin, apostasy only occurs when a person gives their life over to it completely with no regrets or remorse, i.e., no intention of returning and changing their ways (idolatry). Believers care about their conduct—unbelievers do not. No person can continue in sin without that type of behavior damaging (and eventually killing) their faith completely.

Again, apostasy (or what leads up to it) does not always involve sin. In such cases, sin may only come once the person begins to turn away from the Lord. As the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:18-23) shows, some believers may turn back because of testing in the form of difficult trials and tribulations meant by our Lord to strengthen their faith. They did not count the cost (Luke 14:28-35) and thus suffered the “shipwreck” of their faith because they ended up facing something that (in their own view) they did not sign up for. But they did sign up for it, but failed because they did not count the cost. Spiritual tests from the Lord and difficult life circumstances can all contribute to apostasy (a believer reverting to an unbeliever). Something difficult may happen in a believer’s life that causes them to become angry or upset with God and later give up on Him. There is then the issue of false teaching and being led astray by a false gospel. Or worldly and secular causes could be involved, such as a believer falling for all the arguments for (for example) evolution or atheism—more satanic lies. There are so many potential causes for apostasy that it would be impossible to come up with all of them. Needless to say, the reader should understand this issue by now and be encouraged never to abandon their faith. Don’t throw away your faith, regardless of what is tempting you to do so!

Other passages which demonstrate the need for perseverance include (but are not limited to) Colossians 1:21-23, Hebrews 3:6, 2 Corinthians 13:5, 1 Corinthians 10:12, John 15:5-6, Galatians 5:19-21, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Ephesians 5:3-7, Hebrews 10:26-31, 1 Timothy 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:18-19, 2 Peter 2:20-22, Hebrews 3:12-19, Romans 6:16, Romans 11:22-23.

James 2:14-24 Explained

Since salvation is by faith through grace alone, and Christ covered all our sins, past, present, and future, how does one interpret James 2:14-24? We will give a brief rundown of it below. For a more in-depth examination of this passage, see the link below.

https://www.bibledriven.org/verse-by-verse-teaching-through-the-epistles-and-other-new-testament-books/james/james-lesson-7/

Vs 14

A lack of obedience or good fruit can reveal someone as an unbeliever, since all true believers will manifest a changed life to some extent. The believer’s faith will be evidenced or manifested by good works (obedience in resisting sin and temptation and in bringing forth fruit through ministry).

The works mentioned here in James are not the works of the Law Paul mentions in Romans. True saving faith naturally expresses itself through obedience and spiritual production (bringing forth fruit, John 15:8).

However, James 2:14-24 applies to both believers and unbelievers (verse fifteen references a brother or sister in Christ to describe believers, while verse nineteen describes demons, which would be analogous to unbelievers). If believers aren’t walking in fellowship with God through faith, then their faith is useless, because no good work can be done. If we aren’t walking in the Spirit through faith, our faith is temporarily dead because it is inactive when it shouldn’t be (as in the man who says, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” but does nothing to help his suffering comrade). On the other side of the coin are unbelievers who claim faith but have nothing to show for it since they do not actually believe in and follow Christ. In their case, the fact that no works are present indicates that they have no saving faith in Christ at all. Our passage from James addresses both believers and unbelievers.

Vs—15-17

Helping others does not earn us salvation because salvation is by faith through grace alone. Instead, works are an indication (evidence) of belonging to Christ (true faith in Him, which backs up the claim of possessing it). However, even believers still fail, so they don’t always walk in faith. So not helping out a brother in need (as is the case in our verse) could indicate a believer not living out their faith as they should or an unbeliever who isn’t saved at all.

Vs-18-20

True saving faith produces (is evidenced by works), whereas a simple belief or appreciation for the existence of God is not sufficient for salvation. Because of this, it will have nothing to show. The demons are a perfect example because they do nothing good for God and even oppose Him! So even though an unbeliever may be a good law-abiding citizen who is kind toward others, nothing he does means a thing to God. No matter how friendly or pleasant they may be, they are still God’s enemies who stand condemned because they have not believed (committed themselves to Jesus Christ by following Him faithfully to the end in true saving faith).

And again, these verses also apply to believers who are not living out their faith as they should (an inactive faith is useless).

Vs—21-24

Abraham’s faith was “declared” by his obedience to the Lord because of what he did. But Abraham was already saved long before he offered his son Isaac on the altar (most likely when he first obeyed the Lord to leave his homeland). Thus, his most incredible act of faith in offering up his son Isaac was a declaration of it in addition to all the other times Abraham had acted in belief toward God. Abraham’s faith would be continuously demonstrated throughout his lifetime as obedient work after obedient work continued to declare his righteous, genuine standing with God (advertising that he was a true believer walking in faith). But Abraham was justified the first moment he believed.

What we have in our James passage is not a moment of Abraham getting saved a second time , but a test that “declared,” and “demonstrated” his belief in action that it was genuine. The passage then goes on to say that his faith was “completed” by his works. When he offered up his son Isaac, Abraham did not have a salvation experience. Instead, this sacrificial act “declared” his faith; think of someone shouting a message from the top of a roof. This act of Abraham offering up his son Isaac shows just how far he had matured in his walk with Christ since his conversion. The whole tenor of this James passage is true versus false faith. Real faith produces! Without faith, no one could be saved. And without works, faith could not be said to be genuine and would, thus, be nonexistent (no unbeliever can be saved). That is why verse twenty-four says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

Think of it this way-works speak for faith. Salvation is not by works. But without them, our faith could not declare itself, and the light of our salvation as believers could not shine (Matthew 5:13-16). A believer’s faith is expressed in what they do. Some level of works will/must be present with a person who is a genuine believer. If we truly believe in and follow Jesus Christ, we will have something to show for it in this life and in eternity.

Foreknowledge, Election, and Predestination - How They Work in Salvation

Predestination and free will cannot exist without each other. However, people still have free will to choose for Christ. In other words, God did not choose some for heaven and some for hell. This teaching is incorrect, for, as we have stated earlier, a person’s destiny depends on whom they choose to serve (God or Satan). God is not the author of sin, and He doesn’t force people to reject Him. To believe this is to completely misunderstand God’s character and His plan and purpose for humanity. After all, free will is the very reason we are on this earth (to replace the fallen angels that willfully rebelled against God). Sin came into the world through a disobedient free will choice made by Adam and Eve, resulting in Christ’s need to sacrifice Himself so that all people could have a way to eternal life.

Free will is the very reason we have commands in the Bible. Adam was “commanded” not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But, of course, it was not God’s will for Adam to disobey because the Lord is not the author of sin and death. Because of Adam’s sin, physical and spiritual death would become the lot of all people. But thanks be to God who provided salvation from eternal death in the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ!

Below are some straightforward passages that show that Christ died for all. All people have free will to choose for the Lord to be saved, and as we shall see later on below, predestination is what makes free will possible by enabling it, not taking it away.

Christ’s blood was the propitiation for the sins of all people who would ever live (John 3:16). Christ died for all men because He loved all men and desires all to be saved, as the verse below shows.

One must ask, how could God send some to the lake of fire if His desire is for all men to come to repentance? The verse makes this clear: God desires the salvation of all people, and those who reject Him do so by choice, not because the Lord made their decision for them —a concept that does not fit the passage above.

Believers are justified by FAITH alone, suggesting a free-will decision to choose for Christ. If God chooses some individuals for heaven and others for hell, then faith is no longer faith. Faith cannot exist without free will! Plus, the Bible contains commands for a reason.

We have already talked about continued faith as the only condition for salvation (Matthew 13:18-23). For more on that, please see that section above. Believers can believe and then fall away, clearly showing that God doesn’t force anyone to continue in Him, just as He doesn’t force anyone into His kingdom.

If God cannot be tempted by evil and cannot tempt anyone to sin, how can He choose for certain people to receive Him, but for others to reject Him? Our Lord told us a kingdom could not be divided against itself, so why would the Lord oppose His kingdom by keeping people from entering it? Why would He work in the devil’s favor in sending some to hell, only to die for the “elect? Or is Christ divided?

A. Foreknowledge, Predestination, Calling, and Election - What They Are

Free will and predestination complement each other, meaning you cannot have one without the other. For this reason, they are both mentioned in Scripture. God knew and planned for all who would come to Him in faith long before human history ever began. That is foreknowledge, God knowing who would get saved throughout the entire span of human history from start to finish. Predestination is God incorporating the free will decisions of those who would come to Him into His plan, making free will a reality. The next thing that happens is God calling an individual to receive His offer of grace. Once a person accepts Christ, they are elected, referring to their status as a member of God’s family and their entrance into it. The passage below demonstrates these concepts we have mentioned.

The verse immediately above means that God calls everyone because God’s free gift of salvation is available to all. However, most reject this gift (God does not refuse them), and thus, few ever constitute the chosen, those whom the Lord foreknew would come to Him in faith. God’s foreknowledge and putting it into action by His will to allow history to run its course mean that free will is a God-given gift to humanity. But it’s only possible if history plays out. All that God foreknew He approved to happen by predestining all human history events into His plan. Calling refers to God’s desire for a person to believe, grow, progress, and produce in and for Him. God calls everyone, but those who are specifically “the called” are those who enter into the family of God through faith. These people are referred to as “the chosen” (Matthew 22:14). They are those whom God foreknew would come to Him, made possible through predestination: God making “choice” possible by decreeing that human history would occur for a specific period.

As seen from this last passage, the elect spoken of in 1 Peter are so according to God’s foreknowledge. This verse clearly shows that election is based on foreknowledge made possible by predestination.

So when we think about what we have seen above, free will did not come about by man’s will. God created man, and it was He alone who granted humanity the ability to choose. God created free will, gave man the ability to exercise it, and made it possible by pressing the “start” button, allowing all of His foreknowledge to become reality over the course of human history.

2. A non-Comprehensive List of some of the Most Prevalent False Teachings

2.1 The Lie of No Security Salvation

The lie of what we call “no security salvation” teaches that all it takes is one sin to be committed, and next thing you know, you’re out of the family of God until you come back and confess. Not only is this untrue, but this teaching is not supported anywhere in Scripture. People who affirm this lie often cite passages such as Galatians 5:19-21 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which state that those who commit the non-exhaustive list of sins mentioned in those verses will not inherit the kingdom of God. The verses above are correct, but they do not mean that a believer can lose their salvation for one sin. Unbelief (rejecting Jesus Christ) is the only sin that Christ could not die for. But all sins we commit (past, present, and future) were paid for by Christ on the cross.

With the above said, what do the passages below mean?

We have already discussed how sin can contribute to apostasy. It is not the direct cause, but rather, often (though not always), a significant contributor, as it hardens the heart. The more an individual sins, the weaker their faith grows until, eventually, a person is forced to choose either to continue believing or to reject Christ; apostasy results from this negative side of the decision (idolatry: giving oneself over to sin to serve this new “god”). But sin need not always be involved (we discussed this above).

For this reason, people who practice gross immorality will not inherit eternal life because they have rejected Christ by deeming Him less important to them than whatever they pursue. And it makes no difference whether those individuals were believers at some point or never saved to begin with, because no unbeliever has a share in God’s kingdom. In the case of apostates, God is not good enough anymore because said individuals have turned away from Him in high-handed rebelliousness without remorse (a free-will decision on their part, which is what causes the breakup). This scenario is different from someone who struggles with sin or falls into it for a while but then overcomes it. God does not throw us out of His family for one or multiple sins, but idolatry (engrossing in whatever worldly pleasures) is the same as unbelief because no servant can serve two masters (a person can only harden their heart so much until they turn away from God altogether, 1 John 5:18. A believer can’t put sin first in their lives and try to serve God. Our passages below apply to more than just money; they apply to anything we put above our Lord, whether it’s sin or anything else in life.

No person is without sin, and whoever claims they have none makes God out to be a liar. Not only that, but when we do wrong, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ, the righteous who intercedes on our behalf. Christ died for all our sins, past, present, and future. There is no such thing as sinless perfection in this world because all men are sinners who fall short of God’s glory, meaning we all stumble in many ways. Believers have the power to rule over sin in their lives thanks to the Holy Spirit, but this does not mean they will ever be perfect in their application.

Some may bring up the challenge that King David lost his salvation when he committed adultery with Bathsheba ("Take not thy Spirit from me" Psalm 51:11). Of course, that is not the case. The Holy Spirit was given differently in Old Testament times than how we receive it today. Ever since the Jewish and Gentile Pentecost, the Spirit has come to indwell the person who has accepted Christ permanently. But the Holy Spirit did not reside in believers in this manner during Old Testament times.

We contrast the above passage with the passages below, which show that the Spirit came upon specific Old Testament believers to empower them for particular tasks the Lord had for them to accomplish. In David’s case, the Spirit came upon him to make him God’s chosen king of Israel and to empower him to carry out the work the Lord had for him to do; in addition, it served as a sign of David’s kingship.

Immediately after this section of the passage in the next verse, we see that the Spirit had departed from Saul, indicating that God gave Saul’s kingship to David. Because of his carnal disobedience, the Spirit no longer empowered the once-king of Israel to carry out his duties, since the Lord had rejected him. As discipline, the Lord sent an evil spirit to torment David’s future foe.

Other passages that show God’s Spirit would come upon believers to empower them for specific purposes and tasks are Numbers 11:24-30, Judges 14:5-6, Judges 6:34, and Judges 3:9-11. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit during Old Testament times was selective and temporary.

2.2 Water Baptism

For a fuller, more thorough, and comprehensive teaching on the subject of water baptism, please see “A Special Treatment on Water Baptism.”

Many people have made the widespread mistake for almost the past 2,000 years of church history that water baptism is necessary for salvation or that it is something we should be continuing today. Many who support its continuation believe it is a declaration, pledge, or sign of faith in Christ, as seen in many Protestant (especially Baptist) denominations. Others see it as an absolute necessity for salvation, either as an act of obedience (faith without works is dead, James 2) or as a ritual with magical saving power (none of these views is true). With that said, we will address this subject.

1. John 3:16 shows us what we have to do to get saved. We see no water baptism mentioned. There are no commands or injunctions in any passage in Scripture relating to salvation where water baptism is required.

2. 1 Corinthians 12:13 shows us what our Lord has to do (or does) to bring us into His family. That is the process. We see no water baptism mentioned.

3. Ephesians 4:4-6 shows us how many baptisms there are. The only baptism that this “one baptism” could be is the baptism of the Spirit. We see no mention of water baptism because it cannot place anyone into Christ (only the Spirit can do that). Just as there is only one Lord and faith, there is only one (instead of a combination of two) baptisms. There is no “duo” of water and spirit baptism here.

4. John 1:31 gives us the purpose of water baptism and why it was used before and in the earliest days of the growing church.

Water baptism was never something the church should have continued to practice, whether those who practice it believe it necessary for salvation or as a memorial or declaration of their faith in Christ. Some do it as a pledge of commitment to the Lord, but this is unnecessary. By itself, there is nothing wrong with this ritual (as long as it occurs without the belief that it is necessary), but it should have died out long ago. Baptism had a particular purpose for a specific time. John used it to reveal the Messiah to Israel and to prepare their hearts for repentance in anticipation of His coming. To believe that water baptism somehow became the new covenant version of circumcision completely misunderstands the whole point and purpose of Christ’s coming. Our Lord and Savior came to fulfill all things, for His blood and the coming Spirit were/are the signs of the new covenant. The new covenant was all about fulfillment, whereas the old looked forward to the coming Messiah in practices and rituals such as animal sacrifice, circumcision, and water baptism. But since Christ has come and died on the cross, no such rituals are needed. As Dr. Luginbill notes—and as I also agree—water baptism was the interim between the two covenants, a shadow of the Law with the sole purpose to prepare the nation of Israel for Christ’s appearance. But that time has come and gone. The book of Acts was historical and transitory, telling us precisely what happened. But water baptism is not seen practiced or advocated in any epistle (or in any book in the New Testament after Acts), and that is for a reason. It is no longer something the church needs to practice, and it died out in the early days of the church.

Those who claim that water baptism is the new covenant sign just as circumcision was for the old have no Scripture to back up their claims. There is no single verse flat on its face that supports this notion. There are recorded instances of it taking place after Christ’s death during the transitory period of Acts, but nowhere in Acts or the rest of Scripture was it commanded as something to continue. It is recorded from the instances mentioned, but nowhere commanded. Nor are there passages that mention any spiritual effects from it (other than that its purpose was to reveal Christ and prepare for the spiritual realities to replace it).

Thus, to argue that water baptism has significant meaning and purpose behind it (to practice it today) is to argue from silence. Scripture tells us what water baptism was for, and we see no clear commands in the New Testament to continue practicing it as a sign of the new covenant.

Baptism did continue after Christ’s death on the cross (as we see in the book of Acts). Many believing Jews and Gentiles received it because they wanted to be a part of what others got to partake of—getting to perform the ritual that announced and revealed the Messiah to Israel. It was now their turn to have Christ’s coming announced and revealed to them in this way, and the apostles utilized this ritual for evangelization purposes (even though it was not necessary). However, even the apostles would take time to learn that this wasn’t something they had to keep doing, because learning the truth is never an overnight process. Again, Acts is a book that tells us about the TRANSITION from the old to the new covenant. It is not an epistle and does not prescribe water baptism as a doctrine to accept or obey. That does not mean there are no legitimate teachings and doctrines in the book; there most certainly are! But there are also things that were only for a certain period (we can include the miraculous sign gifts here).

One of the biggest mistakes those who continue to practice water baptism make is relying too much on church tradition (scholarship and the church fathers) instead of the actual Word of God itself. Many traditionalists will cite that most highly intellectual scholars throughout church history who have studied the Scriptures have concluded that baptism should continue because of their understanding of the text. And yet, we know that tradition does not dictate or come before the truth because they are often (and are, in this case) false and vulnerable to human error. The fact of the matter is, most in the church have gotten it wrong throughout most of her history. But this is not the only thing that the majority of Christians have misinterpreted, and there is little surprise in that, since the church has not been conducting itself very well this whole time. In fact, our Lord rebukes the church era of Ephesus (the first era of the two thousand years of church history) for abandoning their first love, i.e., their original passion and love for the truth (Revelation 2:1-7). It is sad to say that right after its inception, the church (consisting of all born-again believers) already began running into extensive problems because of the misguided attitudes of most of its members. All was well when the apostles still lived, but major trouble had already begun to infiltrate the church when they had all passed from the scene. As the years went by, the truth became less and less of an issue. After the apostle John’s death, it would be easy to see how something like water baptism was revived and continued (at whatever point that began).

People who attempt to put most of the 2,000 years of church history in a good light are misguided because they have studied it through the lens of human beings rather than Scripture itself. What does the Bible have to say? All that we need to hear, and unfortunately, most of it is not good news, despite what many have claimed. Far too many see the church from a human viewpoint, and for this reason, they think they and those before them are/were on good ground doctrinally and theologically. But they are/were not on many points, and our Lord tells us this in His message to the seven church eras mentioned in Revelation (they cover all 2,000 years of the church’s existence). Better to trust in God’s evaluation of our history as written in His Holy Word than in secular and fallible books and writings (and this goes for the works of the “church fathers” as well), written from the eyes of imperfect human beings (not to mention uninspired individuals who were not apostles and, therefore, wrote no part of Scripture). Given a choice between the two, whose point of view should we take, God’s or man’s? Scripture always comes out on top. All authority is in Jesus Christ, meaning His Word reigns supreme.

No, none of this means it is bad and wrong to study church history from a secular book written by a secular or believing author. That is a good and commendable thing, especially for pastor-teachers in training. But these works barely scratch the surface of what the true history of the church looked like (something only fully visible to our Savior and partly/dimly revealed to us through His Word- the seven church eras mentioned in Revelation). Not only do we know very little of who many of the true heroes of the faith were (some are known to us but many were not due to being “under the radar”) but these secular books contain many unbelieving groups who advocated many false and unbiblical teachings. The point (regarding our subject of water baptism) is that we should never believe something solely because the majority of people over the years have accepted it (even though there are many biblical truths that most Christians rightly agree on). Tradition should never be placed on the level of sound doctrine or biblical truth when that tradition doesn’t actually agree with the truth.

Ephesus—The Loveless Church

As seen from the passage above, most believers had forsaken the love and zeal they once had for the truth before the apostles had passed from the scene. So it is easy to see how complacency and false beliefs began to creep into the church from its inception. Although much zeal revived during the era of Smyrna, the church would then begin to plummet to even lower levels of spirituality over the next 1,080 years of its existence. As our Lord also says in our passage above, “If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” The church is a lamp because it is a light to the world, as all believers are supposed to let their light shine (Matthew 5:16). But because of their growing indifference to the truth, our Lord had to take away the witness of the church era of Ephesus by removing it after not even that many years of existence. This event would then usher in the church era of Smyrna, an extended period of persecution that our Lord allowed to shake the believers of that time out of their complacency. The ten days represent the ten evil emperors of the Roman Empire who heavily persecuted believers during their wicked reigns. Our Lord praised this era for their endurance under persecution, for holding fast to their faith.

Smyrna—The Persecuted Church

But this zeal would quickly fade after the era of Smyrna ended. Once the period of Pergamum began, many problems returned to the church, setting off a downward spiral that lasted 1,080 years, until it consisted of almost no genuine believers by the era of Sardis. The church at that point was all but dead, with only a small handful of true believers alive during those 360 years.

Pergamum—The Compromising Church

Thyatira—The Corrupt Church

Sardis—The Dead Church

Throughout the past two thousand years of its history, most of the church has been in a pretty poor state, according to our Lord’s evaluation in Revelation (even though it has had its high or “higher” moments). Even the believers of Philadelphia praised by our Lord were still wrong on many things; baptism included for those who supported its continuation. The main reason our Lord gave that era a good report was that it was filled with believers who began putting the truth first (though they still had a long way to go even after their time). Additionally, Philadelphia was home to many who participated in the Protestant Reformation, which was initiated by Luther and others. These believers came out of the catholic church, risking death and persecution to preach the true gospel of grace through faith alone, not works, as the Roman church had done for years. As a result, the truth began to be taken seriously again. This revival resulted in an explosion of evangelism, teaching, church planting, and other ministries for the next few hundred years until it all ended with the inception of the final era of lukewarm Laodicea, a period we believers currently live in today, and the last time of the church age before the tribulation’s commencement.

Our job as believers in our present time is to continue advancing and perfecting what the believers in the era of Philadelphia began. Although they were courageous and got a few things right, the reformers got a lot wrong. Philadelphia had a lot of unlearning to do despite its commendable and noble deeds. One might expect that future believers, such as those alive today, would have learned from their errors and made corrections. Unfortunately, that is not the case, because our current church era, Laodicea, is in a pathetically lukewarm state and does not prioritize the truth. During the Reformation and beyond, believers had “little strength” (less time and resources to properly study the Word), as our Lord says. Yet they performed better relative to what they had, compared with most believers today, who have more time and resources to advance in biblical study.

Philadelphia—The Faithful Church

Instead of refining the truth and correcting the mistakes of past believers, the church today continues to rely on many false and unbiblical beliefs and traditions passed down to it by its predecessors. By failing to adjust, we have learned very little since Philadelphia’s passing. The reformation should have continued! Poor, sloppy handling of the truth has led most believers to settle into many false doctrinal positions and barely budge to check whether their views align with Scripture. As a result, Laodicea continues to rest on the incomplete work of those before us, when we should have continued to filter and refine the teachings passed down to us. Why is this? The church has gotten many things wrong over the years in its doctrines and practices. Even though the believers of Luther’s time and beyond are still inexcusable for everything they got wrong, they have more of an excuse than we do because of fewer resources, time, venues, and opportunities to study and learn the truth. In addition, they had a lot of pressure and persecution to deal with from the Roman Catholic Church. And yet today, believers continue to fall back on the work of the past, which was far from complete. Is a house that is half-built suitable for habitation? The church should be much further advanced today, yet it has stagnated (excluding a small remnant of believers out there worldwide who are doing what they should be doing- many persecuted believers undoubtedly fall in this category) ever since Philadelphia came to an end.

It is for the above reasons that our Lord told the believers of the church era of Philadelphia that “I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.” Philadelphia is long past and never had to endure the Tribulation. But the church era of Laodicea will have to at some point to shake it out of its lukewarm complacency (the meaning of our Lord’s words, “I will vomit you out of my mouth”). This scenario almost exactly parallels what occurred with Ephesus and Smyrna- trouble and tribulation designed as a gracious act/allowance of discipline to get the believers of that time to wake up and get serious.

Laodicea—The Lukewarm Church

Putting one’s faith and trust in church history (as seen and taught by the eyes of men) as a means to an end when searching for biblical truth is utterly foolish because it puts one’s faith in man instead of God (Psalm 118:8). It is essentially no different from piggyback riding off other people’s beliefs just because they said so. God doesn’t grant truth to the most intelligent but to those who have the biggest hearts toward Him. Even though our minds are still involved in the process, helping us understand what we read, our faith is in Christ (Proverbs 3:5-6). Our mind and heart must therefore be attuned to the power of Christ’s Spirit through faith.

As an additional note on everything we have discussed above, we must remember that Israel had a terrible history of apostasy and moral degeneration long before Jesus came on the scene. We have the period between the Testaments, during the Maccabean and Hasmonean periods, when the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, and other religious parties arose. These were the highly respected individuals before and during Jesus’s time who put on an outward display of righteousness yet were filled with nothing but “dead man’s bones” (Matthew 23:27). They were supposed to be the experts in the Law and yet misunderstood and got so much of it wrong by adding to it their own set of forms, rituals, and traditions. We see in them and in Israel a prime example that we should not place our faith and trust in church history, church fathers, reformers, individuals, or tradition (unless those things actually agree with what the Bible says).

For the above reason, some have asked, “But how could most of the church have been so wrong about water baptism for so many years?” Well, it turns out that most believers have failed to pursue the Lord as they should have over those two thousand years. As a result, most of church history is replete with spiritually poor Christians. The same goes for the sad history of Israel from the period not long after Joshua and David to the time when Christ came to earth. Most people in human history have rejected the Lord, while many (if not most) who have believed in Him have shown very little zeal for God (which will be revealed when Christ returns for His second and final coming). This sad reality has been the case ever since the church began with Adam and Eve.

Things were not well when Christ first came on the scene, and they aren’t good now either. It is for this reason that the church will have to go through the tribulation to rid itself of the apathy it has long held toward the truth (or the Christian life in general). Israel was not ready for their Messiah when He first came to them—will we, the church, be ready for His second coming? The great apostasy will show that many will not be prepared. However, the good news is that most will endure to the end. But Luke 18:8b says what it says for a reason, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?””

For more in-depth information on the seven church eras, please see Part 2A of the Coming Tribulation series on Ichthys.

In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul describes how a believer has entered the family of God. He notes that it was through the Holy Spirit’s baptism, for nowhere in Scripture is water baptism attributed with any of these powers. Paul then goes on to say, “and we were made to drink of one Spirit." He continues to describe how salvation occurs, or what took place and had to happen for a believer to enter into God’s family. If water baptism was needed and crucial in this process, why does Paul not mention it? He would have only been giving a half-truth of the salvation process in this verse because he omitted another critical step. But he didn’t include it (water baptism) because it is not necessary. If being immersed in water had some extraordinary power to save and bring an individual into the body of Christ, Paul would have had NO CHOICE but to include it in his description.

The final part of verse thirteen speaks of the believer receiving the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ after having drunk of Him by accepting Him as Savior, for He has said, “whoever drinks of the water that I shall give Him shall never thirst.” And we know that Jesus described Himself as the water of life, which also explains our Lord’s use of the word “water” (not baptism) when He describes to Nicodemus what must occur for him to be born again (John 3:5). A person is born “of the water” by the Word (the Gospel message) which saves us when we believe it in our hearts (Titus 3:5; Ephesians 5:26; John 13:10). John’s use of the word “water” is a symbol or metaphor to describe a spiritual rebirth.

John the Baptist’s baptism was a temporary rite used to prepare the nation of Israel for the coming Messiah. Therefore, the only baptism a believer needs today is the Holy Spirit’s baptism, which the Spirit automatically bestows on a person after they put their faith and trust in the Lord. That is the Holy Spirit’s baptism, and John anticipates this when he says the following below—

Spirit baptism replaced water baptism. Only the Spirit can place a person into Christ. The Spirit does not need man’s help to accomplish something that only He and He alone can perform.

2.3 Sabbath Keeping

Some believe Christians must keep the traditional Old Testament Sabbath (as well as the Mosaic Law and many of its rituals) to receive salvation (salvation is not by works of any kind). But keeping the Sabbath is the only command from the Ten Commandments not repeated anywhere in the New Testament. It has changed from being a ceremonial one-day event to a seven-day, twenty-four-seven spiritual rest. How can this be? The New Covenant Sabbath (a SPIRITUAL rest) means resting in the power of the Holy Spirit at all times since all believers receive the Spirit permanently. Instead of physical rest, we have a spiritual one in Christ to live a holy life.

So this command in the ten commandments still applies to believers today, but in a different form that Jesus inaugurated through the new covenant with His death on the cross. The Old Testament Sabbath (a physical rest on one day alone) symbolized the spiritual “sabbath rest” (a time of rest on all seven days, 24/7) that was to come with the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The physical looked forward to the spiritual, just as the Jewish animal sacrifices (physical rituals) looked ahead to the spiritual and physical death of Christ on the cross. Christ was the reality and fulfillment of all these things. Like animal sacrifice, the original one day sabbath has been done away with and fulfilled by Christ.

The apostle Paul anticipated the slandering of believers by the legalistic Jews who still held to the Old Covenant way of life by saying that no person should judge another based on celebrated festivals, new moons, and sabbaths. There is no reason Paul would not have included the old covenant sabbath here as well in his general list (etc., etc.).

We conclude that there is no particular day to worship the Lord; we should do this every day, at ALL times (Sunday is not the new Sabbath). Therefore, believers need not celebrate the Sabbath as the nation of Israel did (Saturday) under the Old Covenant. Instead, we keep the “sabbath” by keeping in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). The result is spiritual growth. For no person can live for Christ unless they are living in the Spirit’s power. But trying to please God in our flesh and what we do is to “work” to grow spiritually and earn God’s favor. Not only is this not possible, but it’s downright sinful. Christ is our rest, and He is the vine from which we, the branches, grow and produce.

2.4 Feelings and Emotions

Although feelings of peace and joy (as just two among other examples), which are fruits of the Spirit manifested in the believer’s life, often accompany salvation (and continue on throughout the Christian life), there are dangers that can come from telling someone how they have to feel to be saved the moment they receive Christ (our examples below).

When speaking of living the Christian life in general, our sinful nature and the Devil will attempt to manipulate our behavior by getting us to act according to how we feel by giving our minds nothing but adverse reports about a difficult situation (or telling us all is right just because we are happy and joyful when we shouldn’t be (James 4:8-9). Make no mistake: walking in the Spirit can and will naturally lead to feelings of peace, joy, and the like. But those feelings can (on the other hand) be deceptive and lead us astray if misunderstood and mishandled. The Spirit assures us that we rest safely in our Savior’s arms and that we can overcome any obstacle, no matter how difficult. However, our flesh, feelings, and emotions included will often tell us otherwise. They are very misleading because they will lie to us, which works hand in glove with the goals of the sin nature. We will make bad mistakes and poor decisions if we act based on how we feel instead of what the Spirit tells us.

For this reason, we never lean on our intellect, feelings, or abilities for help in times of need. Instead, we follow (rely on) the Holy Spirit wherever He leads, not our flesh, because to follow it is to follow the path of sin, because failure is guaranteed every time. The Lord will tell us nothing but the truth, and if we listen to His still small voice, heeding it at every turn, we need not fear making any poor decisions at all.

As believers, we have the power to control what we think and how we react to our circumstances. But responding in a godly way requires us to be under the Spirit’s control at all times, for only in His power can we respond to our situations by resisting the flesh and the devil. Having free will means we can choose to obey Christ by surrendering ourselves to Him so that He directs our thoughts and actions. That is what it means to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. It implies surrendering our mind/heart (will, attention, and focus) over to Christ so that He can work within us.

However, we can choose to resist Him, and by doing so, we remain vulnerable to our thoughts, feelings, and emotions backfiring on us. For example, a rider cannot ride a horse if the horse continues to oppose him by bucking and kicking all the time. So too, we must not resist the Holy Spirit by allowing whatever circumstances, motives, or feelings to take over and dictate what we do.

It is hazardous to believe that just because one may not feel saved at a particular moment (due to fear, doubt, and sin) does not mean the person in question is an unbeliever (the crux of our argument and the main point we are attempting to make here). Many believers fall into fear about their salvation because they aren’t sure whether they belong to Christ, even though they know they have put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus and have shown a changed life. Satan loves to target believers this way because fear is often a manipulative emotion, paralyzing any person’s faith if they entertain this negative feeling for too long. It has a terrible tendency to make us do all kinds of irrational things, which can lead to more failure down the road.

It is often a huge struggle for many believers to believe they stand forgiven of their past sins (they let their feelings lead to doubt when they shouldn’t). They may have fallen into habitual sin for a time and now want to get out because they care about pleasing their Lord. They may struggle with fear and condemnation over their mistakes, which can lead them to doubt their salvation. They may figure, “since I feel afraid about my standing with God because of all my past or present sins, do I still belong to Christ?” These matters are between the individual and the Lord. But the believer should not assume that all that has happened was because they have lost their salvation (or that they were never saved at all).

If a person is a believer, they are saved (sin is not the issue because the believer’s sins have been atoned for and they have been redeemed by their faith in Christ). And believers who show this concern manifest an evident sign of their salvation because they are upset about displeasing God. Those with saving faith will not give their lives over to sin completely (1 John 5:18) but will eventually overcome it. That is not to say genuinely committed believers can’t fall into habitual sin and even go astray for a time, for that they most certainly can, do, and have. It isn’t uncommon (inexcusable as it is). As mentioned previously, the Lord may use fear to get a believer to stop sinning. That is a good thing in and of itself, but it is foolish to automatically conclude that feelings of fear and guilt indicate that one is no longer part of God’s family. Of course, the Lord never tempts or lies to us, meaning He will never tell us a lie. If anything, the believer is being disciplined by the Lord with mental anguish meant to correct their behavior. For we must remember that God disciplines only His children (Hebrews 12:4-11). He does not do so with unbelievers because they do not belong to Him. All believers receive discipline because we all stumble in many ways and have down periods. Satan, on the other hand, will use the lie (you aren’t saved) to discourage the believer. But God can use grief over our bad behavior to get us to stop engaging in what put us in the “hole” to begin with.

2.6 Public Pronouncements and Altar Calls

Another false teaching about the gospel is that a public proclamation is needed for a person to receive Christ as their Savior. This teaching is entirely wrong and has nothing to do with the process of salvation whatsoever. Nor does it matter whether someone believes in the Lord Jesus quietly in their heart or speaks it aloud. Faith is faith.

A typical proof passage that supporters of this teaching will often use is Romans 10:9-10.

The Greek word for confess is homologeo (ὁμολογέω) and means to acknowledge something, a profession of allegiance. Paul was not teaching that a public confession of Jesus is necessary for a person to come to Christ because the location does not matter. What matters is that faith comes from the heart, and by the mouth, we express that faith (see below).

However, our Lord expects us to make a public confession if the circumstances require it. A believer affirms his faith in Christ by presenting it before men when asked or needed to do so (Matthew 10:32-33). It is a sign to other people that we belong to God, but it’s not necessary for the initial entry into God’s family, as where our salvation occurred is unimportant, whether in private or in public. But believers do not hide their faith because confession is what one does with what they believe. This teaching is not “lordship salvation.” It is just a way of letting others know that one is a believer. Believers do not have to participate in an altar call or any other public church rally to receive salvation because a person can believe anywhere at any time.

2.7 The Sinners Prayer

There is no such thing as the sinner’s prayer in the Bible (although it depends on what a person means by it), nor are there any specific creeds one must cite to get saved. True saving faith is true saving faith.

2.8 Church Membership

Another false teaching holds that entering the kingdom of heaven is possible only by being a member of a particular church (such as the Catholic Church) or a specific denomination. But salvation is in Jesus Christ alone, not a building, congregation, or individual. The church rests on Jesus Christ, who is the very foundation of the rest of the “building,” consisting of all believers who have put their faith and trust in Him.

No person, building, denomination, or group can ever grant salvation. Such teaching does not come from the Bible but rather from men who suppress the truth. Simply put, this is a tradition that has no biblical basis because it was human-made and developed over time. If a person is a believer, then they are in Christ. And if they are in Christ, they are in His church as part of His bride or body.

2.9 Reasons and Motivations for Getting Saved?

Some within the church believe that people who got saved only because they didn’t want to go to hell aren’t true believers. It is not uncommon to hear of people who got saved to tell you, “I didn’t want to go to hell, so I cried out to God.” Is the accusation leveled against them true? The answer is an obvious no. There is no passage in Scripture that says a believer has to want to get saved for any primary reason other than to escape hell. This teaching borders on works-based salvation and adds another condition to the gospel beyond faith. Faith is faith. Anyone who desires to come to Christ for salvation may do so.

God can and does use multiple ways to bring believers to Himself, and fear of eternal death is not only rational but a perfect incentive for a believer to cry out to their Savior! All that matters is that a person comes to Him in genuine faith, and whoever does so will not be turned away. Whoever is thirsty may take of the water of life without cost. “Whoever desires” may come to Christ. There are no conditions (such as reasons and motivations) for that desire mentioned in Revelation 22:17. Either salvation is by faith alone, or it isn’t. You can’t have it two ways. All that the Lord asks us to do is come, and whoever does so will not be refused if they approach their Creator in saving faith.

2.11 Tongues and Other Sign Gifts are not Necessary for Salvation

The title speaks for itself. The miraculous gifts given by the Spirit during the early days of the church are no longer available today. They were never necessary for salvation (nor are they a sign confirming it), because the gospel has always been by faith through grace alone. Please see The Sign Gifts for more information.

Summary

1. Salvation is received by grace through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is a free gift, which means we can’t work for it.

2. Belief in Jesus Christ is not mere appreciation for the facts but a complete and committed faith and trust in the Lord Jesus.

3. Faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin (Acts 16:31). Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of action. This change of mind results in genuine faith, which produces works (James 2:14-26), for saving faith always has something to show for it.

4. Saving faith is a lasting faith. Believers must continue to believe until death because only believers are saved; unbelievers are not.

5. True faith reveals itself through works, though works can’t earn salvation because grace is received through faith alone. Faith working with the Holy Spirit naturally produces fruit in a believer’s life, indicating the genuineness of their salvation.

6. Water baptism is not required for salvation. This ritual was only for a specific time and purpose (to reveal the Messiah to Israel) and is no longer valid. Therefore, we do not need to practice this today.

7. Keeping the old covenant sabbath is not necessary for salvation. The new covenant sabbath is a twenty-four-seven, day by day, moment by moment, walking in the Holy Spirit’s power. It has gone from a physical to spiritual rest—from one day to every day.

8. Feelings or emotions play no role in the salvation process. Salvation is all about faith in Jesus Christ.

9.It is not necessary for a person to publicly pronounce Christ or answer an altar call to receive God’s grace. Faith is faith, and location plays no role in the process.

10. One does not need to recite the sinner’s prayer to receive the gospel because it isn’t found anywhere in the Bible.

11. Salvation has nothing to do with being a member of any particular church or denomination. Eternal life is found only in Jesus Christ and no one else.

12. Christ died for all men. Every person has free will, and God does not violate that.

13. The sign gifts mentioned in Acts and 1 Corinthians 12-14 are no longer operational today. Tongues and other miraculous gifts do not follow or precede a salvation experience. Not only is that not possible today, but those who believe it necessary to confirm their reception into God’s family are adding works to the gospel. Salvation is by faith through grace alone, and true saving faith will demonstrate itself in a changed life to varying degrees.

References

• Ichthys: Bible Study for Spiritual Growth
• Bible Academy - YouTube