The religious man is often led into error because he tries to understand spiritual things according to the rules of the flesh. Think of alligators looking at the shadows of birds in flight and trying to make sense of the shadows. Alligators are so heavy and close to the earth that the concept of flying is beyond their ability to even dream about. So also are truly spiritual things beyond the ability of the flesh to conceive. 1Corinthians 2 compares the wisdom of man
to the wisdom of God
and the Spirit of power
. The chapter is summed up in 1Corinthians 2:14 which says But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
The only way that an alligator could understand flying is to believe what a bird told him, and even then much of it would be beyond the alligator's concepts. If the bird tried to give the alligator an allegory by using the alligator swimming, the alligator might understand so long as he didn't try to make the allegory (See definition below) fit exactly to his experience swimming and kept in mind that it was only an allegory and not an exact description. The same is true about the religious man and spiritual things.
In John 6, Jesus tried to make the religious man see that His statements had to be understood spiritually and could not be made to fit exactly into the physical religious concepts. The religious men did not understand His allegories because they insisted upon trying to fit them completely into a religious frame of reference. Jesus gave one allegory after another with each one making perfect sense from a spiritual point of view, but each becoming more ridiculous when forced into a religious frame of reference. He finally said in John 6:53-56 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
Think about it. eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood
absolutely can not fit into acceptable religious concepts of ' good godly behaviour'. However, when you take He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him
from the point of view that this is a spiritual allegory, then eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood
becomes an allegory for dwelleth in me, and I in him
and from a spiritual point of view, we have Jesus saying that unless we abide in Him and he abides in us (spiritually speaking) ye[each and every one of us personally] have no life in you.
There is a whole lot more in this chapter and verses that I am not going into at this time. The point is that here is one place where it should be obvious that what the Bible says is totally ridiculous if taken from a religious point of view and only makes sense if taken from a spiritual point of view. As mentioned before in 1Corinthians 2:14, we must receive the Spirit of God before we can truly understand the spiritual things of the Bible. Only the Spirit of God can take the allegories of the Bible and make us truly understand them spiritually. Even after receiving the Spirit of God, we must be willing to listen to the Spirit and reject any religious interpretation for the Spiritual when there is a conflict between the two.
So, the above leads to an obvious question of: 'If it takes the Spirit of God to understand the Bible, how does someone without the Spirit get it?' In this same chapter (in John 6:63) Jesus says It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Religion is of the flesh (what we do in this physical world) and does not profit spiritually. According to Jesus in this verse, we receive the Spirit by accepting God's Word as He spoke it. We must believe that God said what He meant and meant what He said. The Bible calls salvation life
(God's life in us) and uses the term born again
( John 1:12-13; John 3:3, 7; 1Peter 1:23; 1John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18). Since God is a Spirit ( John 4:24), then the life that comes from God at salvation is spiritual life ( John 1:12-13). We physically only get born once but need daily nutrition after that to maintain life. The same is true about God's Spiritual life. We have to receive life from God or we do not have His life ( John 1:12-13) and if we die without His Spiritual life in us before our physical death then we can't enter His personal home called Heaven. However, once we receive His Spiritual life, we need to nourish it and allow God to cause it to grow. The allegory between physical life and spiritual life separates on the word eternal
. All physical life ends. Several places tell us that the spiritual life from God is eternal
oR everlasting
. Just like the alligator can get messed up if it tries to equate his swimming too closely to a bird's flying, so also can the religious man get messed up when he tries to equate his physical life too closely to spiritual life. The truth is that every religion that claims that people can loose salvation are basing that claim upon people not keeping a set of religious rules. The difference between religions comes down to what set of rules the particular religion claims have to be kept, but all claim that people have to keep their rules to stay saved. There are more details on this below.
The Bible teaches truth about salvation, which is receiving personal spiritual life from God and becoming His child ( John 1:12-13). The Bible warns us that the devil uses subtil creatures ( Genesis 3:1). He got religious people to put too much emphasis on part of the truth of salvation and neglect another part. He then got other religious people to try and balance the wrong emphasis by emphasizing the part neglected by the first group and neglecting the part they emphasized. Once a disagreement was started, the devil got more and more religious people to take one side or the other and encouraged them to become more extreme in their view until a split in doctrine resulted. The devil also got 'good godly people' involved and now most religious people are on one side or the other because they are following 'good godly people' and are not checking what the Bible actually says. People of each side call people on the other side hypocrites and liars.Each side points to the truth that they have and tell people that their truth can not be denied while they try to deny the truth held by the other side. Yes, what each side has is part of the truth, but not all of the truth. In the end, a half truth is a lie and each side ends up fighting for a half truth lie.
God wants His people to have all of the truth about salvation and works. I often show this truth with Ephesians 2:8-10 which says For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them
.' Grace is defined as 'unmerited favor'. You can not earn grace. It is absolutely impossible to merit (earn) unmerited favor. See Romans 11:6 for more details on merit verses works. As it says here in Ephesians, salvation is Not of works, lest any man should boast
. However, it also goes on to say For we are his workmanship... unto good works' we should walk in them
. The word For
means 'here's why'. God gives us His unmerited favor ( grace
) through faith
(you have to do the acts of faith to get to the grace
) and God does it so that He can make us his workmanship... unto good works
. You see, one side is shouting ' grace' to the point that they deny any works after salvation, even those done by God through the saved person's life. These people emphasize 'It's all done'. The people with the other half emphasize the works to the point that they deny that it takes grace to get saved in the first place. They are too busy emphasizing that if you don't have works then you aren't saved to recognize the initial grace. In addition, they forget that the works are supposed to be his[God's] workmanship
and not our own religious works. The entire book of Galatians was written to correct this error. Also, there are times that God works in my life and others don't see it and these people get caught up in seen religious works instead if unseen spiritual works. Just because no one sees God working in my life, that doesn't mean that God isn't doing so. Of course, there are people on one side or the other that aren't as extreme as some. However, the Biblical truth is still where God put it and not on one side or the other.
Here is the truth. Those who claim to be saved because they said a ' prayer of salvation' but go on living their life for sin and God never changes their life are just as lost as those that claim to be saved because they have lots of religious works as evidence of their ' salvation' but never received God's Spirit in the first place. Think about it. God uses Seed' as an allegory of His Word that gives His life/salvation ( Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 1:55; Luke 8; etc). Born again
is an allegory of salvation. Birth is not possible without the male's seed and, as we know through DNA, that the exact male who is the father can be determined. The DNA that marks life comes from the father and is the same throughout all of the child's life. Just as DNA positively identifies the father of physical life, so also are there markers that identify the father of spiritual life. God is the father of true life and the devil is the father of false spiritual life.
For most of men's history they couldn't read or understand DNA. The best men could do in use inaccurate evidences of physical parentage. Men still can not positively identify spiritual parentage and the best they have are inaccurate signs. The devil can and does imitate signs of true salvation and God didn't give men the ability to read ' spiritual DNA'. The best that men have are inaccurate signs. That's why we can't know for sure if someone else is saved or not. In Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43 we have the parable of the wheat and tares. The tares are a weed that looks like wheat but doesn't produce fruit
. In Matthew 13:38 we are told that the wheat are the saved and the tares are the imitation saved (lost). In Matthew 13:30 we are told that God lets them grow together. In Matthew 13:30 and 39 we are told that the harvest, when they are separated, is at the end of the world and that the reapers are the angels. When religious men start trying to separate truly saved from the imitation saved, they are trying to do a job that God did not equip them for. God gave that job to angels. It would be easier for a male to birth a baby than it would be for men to do the job of angels, but religious men keep trying. We can't know if someone is truly saved or not saved unless God tells us or unless the Bible tells us.Since the time that God finished the Bible, the God of the Bible isn't telling anyone who is or is not saved except the individual. Anyone who says that God told them about the salvation of anyone besides themselves and those in the Bible is listening to another god (not the God of the Bible). We can say that someone does not show the evidence of salvation, and therefore do not follow their example. But that is not saying that they are positively lost. Any parent knows about disobedient children. God also has disobedient children that act like the lost and Satan has very good liars who can fool the 'elect' ( Matthew 24:24; Matthew 13:22). We have indirect inconclusive evidences of salvation but the God of the Bible deliberately made it so that there is no physical evidence that positively says that someone is or is not saved. The Bible says that those who teach otherwise are heretics and specifically, Philippians 3 says that those who have confidence in the flesh
(religious
' proof' of salvation) are the enemies of the cross of Christ
. The Bible teaches that the truly saved have a personal walk with Christ after salvation. Those who never have any walk do not meet the Biblical definition of true salvation. In addition, those who ' walk' according to a set of religious ' laws' instead of through a personal intimate relationship with Christ through the Holy Ghost are not showing true spiritual life. Think about this. The Bible uses marriage as an allegory of salvation. Any person who has a functional marriage should understand how ridiculous it would be for them to let some outsider come in and tell them that they are going to regulate every intimate detail of their marriage relationship. This outsider claims to know the 'right' time and way for each to talk to each other and the ' right' time and way for the other to respond, etc. That is what Paul is talking about when he in Galatians 5:4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
True salvation is a personal relationship just like marriage is. Trying to control salvation be religious rules is like trying to control the intimate parts of a marriage relationship by rules. When we claim to be saved by keeping religious rules we are doing what the Bible calls being justified by the law
. Paul says that Christ is become of no effect unto you
(when people claim to be saved by keeping religious rules) because Christ can not cause any good or bad consequence ( no effect
) through a personal relationship that allows Christ to work differently in my life than He works in your life. That means that Christ can not teach the person anything because we each need different personal lessons on how to deal with the problems of life that are affecting us but not others at any given moment. Truly saved people have been lifted from the role of servant to the role of child of God
by God's grace (unmerited favor) at salvation. God took a personal interest in teaching the saved person how to become a child of God
and these ' law keepers' tell God 'NO'. Instead of being a child of God
, with all that provides, they want to be beggars who barely make it into Heaven by ' earning' what can only be received as a gift. There is a parable in Matthew 20 about workers. In has been preached that the ones who negotiated according to the law (a day's wages for a day's work) at the beginning of the day were very upset to find that they earned far less per hour than those who worked for whatsoever is right
( Matthew 20:7). So also will the truly saved who work to ' earn' salvation (or blessings after their initial profession) be upset to find out that they receive far less than those who serve a loving God for whatsoever[He decides] is right
.
Those that are truly Biblically saved are saved because they trusted the promise of God ( Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6) to make then His children ( John 1:12-13). There is no faith in saying 'God has to let me into Heaven because I kept some religious rules' ( Ephesians 2:8-9). Salvation is only to those who come to God by faith like Abraham did.
As for those in the Bible who were not saved, we are told that Judas Iscariot was not saved ( John 17:12) and that he was a devil
even though he was chosen by God ( John 6:70). Judas is not an example of a saved person who lost their salvation because he never was saved to begin with. His fake spiritual life came from Satan. He is an example of how good of a job Satan can do when he makes his agents pretend to be saved. All of the other apostles were fooled. If they were fooled, we also can be fooled by the agents of Satan. Yes, Judas did miracles, but the magicians confronting Moses also imitated the first few miracles that God did through Moses. Also, other places in the Bible tell us that Satan does miracles through his agents. Yes, Judas was chosen of God to fulfill the role of betrayer, just as God chose pharaoh to abuse the Jews and He chooses who gets saved. However, God never takes away free will. Each could have personally refused the role that God let them take. If they had done so, God would have found another. There are always lots of people who are willing to go to Hell if they receive the appearance of power in this life. God does not force salvation or damnation on any man but lets each of us choose for ourselves. God lets men choose to go to Hell and He will not take away their free will choice top do so. God provides opportunities and some people choose to accept evil roles in life while they also choose to ignore the costs. God is responsible for pharaoh and for Judas just as much as God is responsible for making the ' Law of Gravity' that kills some fool who chooses to jump off of a high place onto a hard surface. Yes, God makes the law but God also reveals the consequences and the individual chooses to ignore those consequences of their own free will.
Some people are all worried about how they are going to know who is saved and who isn't and who they can trust and who they can't. But those are two different questions and are not really related. The unfortunate fact is that you can't trust a lot of saved people and should have limited trust for most, if not all, who claim to be saved.The fact is that God expects His people to spiritually mature to the point that they can take any spiritual claim to the Spirit of God and expect the Spirit of God to use the word of God to show the child of God
what is the will of God for that individual. Yes, on ' small' issues God uses men in positions like father, husband and pastor. But for something as critical as salvation, our trust should rest exclusively upon the word of God as revealed to us personally by the Spirit of God. Yes, God uses men to show us the truth in the Bible, but God expects us to put our final trust in His Word (not in the word of the messenger) because He personally backs His word. Our salvation isn't dependant upon the messenger that brings us God's Word but upon the God who wrote and preserved His Word.
We can argue about if Judas was or was not saved for the rest of our lives and it would not matter. We can argue about if the Bible says we do or don't have to do something and it wouldn't matter. In John 5:39 Jesus said Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
If God says that ye think ye have eternal life
, that means that salvation is not in the scriptures (Bible). Satan believes every word in the Bible ( James 2:19) and he could keep every word in the Bible and still not be saved. The same is true for any man. Notice that Jesus said ' they are they which testify of me
. The Bible points us to the person of Jesus Christ. Those who rely upon the Bible have not gone far enough to be saved because they have not gone beyond the Bible to the person that the Bible testifies of. Salvation is received by receiving the person of Jesus Christ ( John 1:12-13) through believing the promise (found in the word of God) which is backed by the person of God Himself.
A banker can tell you all about the money of Bill Gates but the banker can not give you any of the money that belongs to Bill Gates. So also is it with the Bible. Salvation is not in the Bible but in the person of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ tells me that Judas Iscariot was a lost devil, I'm not going to run around telling everyone what a liar Jesus Christ is and then expect Him to take me to His personal home called Heaven. Whenever anyone tells me something is in the Bible, the first thing I do is ask myself how well does their claim match the person of the God who loved me and died for me to make me His child. I then ask myself if believing this thing require me to put more faith in Him or does it make me trust myself or some man more while I depend upon His leading less. I said earlier that ' Some people are all worried about how they are going to know who is saved and who isn't and who they can trust and who they can't.' I also said that we can't know if other living people are saved or not saved, but it doesn't matter. What really matters is who I can trust and who I can not trust. I don't trust anyone who tries to tell me that I have to depend upon their interpretation of the Bible. I trust those that point me to Jesus Christ by saying 'the Spirit of God will use the word of God to show the child of God
what is the will of God and God said what He meant and meant what He said in the word of God'. Pray for the Spirit of God to show you the truth and read the word of God believing it as it is literally written.