Author Archives: Royce

Jan 5 2010

Church of Christ? What is it?


Church? What is it to you?

I ask these questions and challenge our thinking in the context of the churches of Christ, a fellowship I have enjoyed for almost a decade now. I have come to know and appreciate some of the most dedicated, humble servants of Jesus Christ I have known anywhere, and as in every group, some folks not so desirable.

It is common to hear someone say to another of a mutual acquaintance “He is a member of the church” or “She was not a member of the church”. This is not uncommon phrases but it takes on a different meaning than if spoken by a Baptist or a Methodist. In the circles in which I travel it almost always means not the body of Christ but more narrowly, the Church of Christ. And to make things more complicated many CoC people believe the body of Christ and the Church of Christ are one and the same.

Many of our folks will add the words “The Lord’s…” before church. This way of conveying the same thought makes it more definite what is intended, at least to other CoC people.

The inevitable end of this line of logic is that every other group on earth who claim to be followers of Jesus are not a part of “The Lord’s church” or the “True church” and are something other than genuine Christians.

Ideas about what others who claim to be Christians are ranges from “false prophets”, “lost sinners” to a kinder and gentler “in error” and “seekers”. And, there is the rather odd and completely unscriptural idea that some people are sort of saved, but not completely. You can never get anyone to say it this clearly but it is certainly what is implied. The truth is, one either has eternal life or he doesn’t. You know, either Becky is pregnant or she isn’t. Or a better illustration is either Uncle John is dead or he is alive, there is no in between.

Followers of Jesus are called in the Bible “disciples”, “the way”, “believers”, and as a group “the church”, “the church of God”, “the assembly of God”, “the church of the firstborn,  “the body of Christ”, and “the Bride of Christ”. These terms all are descriptions of the sum total of all believers in most cases.

There are also references to the earthly representations of the one body, local churches. They are mentioned as being tied to geographical areas or cities. Then there are those identified by the person who owned the house where they met.

I think it would be good if we (Church of Christ people) agreed on these facts.

Church of Christ, and other Restoration Movement groups are not the only ones saved. Remember the old phrase “We are only Christians but not the only Christians“? The RM fathers ideal was to unify ALL believers into one church. How could that have been a worthy goal if all the others were lost?

Every member of every Church of Christ is not saved. EVERY member of EVERY church would need to be saved for some of our outrageous statements to be true. I recently read a blog where the author was trying to make the case that only Church of Christ members are saved. That is a tough assignment!

The “church”, the universal body of Christ which includes all redeemed people from every age, is not the same as the local churches. The exact reason is that there are tares growing with the wheat. There are impostors who are no more than actors. Only believers are in the body of Christ, not make believers!

Perhaps the most odd, and the most compelling, evidence that people who embrace the sectarian idea that only their group is saved comes to us courtesy of many of our most “conservative” Church of Christ preachers.

They will quickly tell you that only those in “the Lord’s Church”, (the churches of Christ) are going to heaven. These same men will then insist that so and so Church of Christ is lost because they have musical instruments accompany singing on Sunday morning. And, there are perhaps dozens of other sins that will send a whole congregation of “The Lord’s Church” to hell, like raising your hands in worship, women speaking in church, serving communion from the rear of the auditorium rather than the front, having a kitchen, and teaching anything that brother Holier-than-thou disagrees with.

How can Church of Christ people be the only ones saved and at the same time some of them be lost? It is rather confusing isn’t it. The glaring problem for the people who teach such nonsense is that it cannot be defended in any coherent way.

What so you think?

Agape,

Royce

Dec 30 2009

Facing 2010 with Expectancy


2010 will mark my 65th year on planet earth. I’m getting old but I stand on the starting line with a twinkle in my eye, with a sense of expectancy, and with faith in my heart.

What will a new year bring? Who knows but God alone? I know that whatever it brings will come to me with God’s approval and for my good. It might be great blessing or it might be pain and suffering, or even death, but it will be filtered through His sovereign will. Of this I am sure and am content.

My prayers and my dreams are alike. I desire that my future, however long, be marked with increased holiness, a more desperate prayer habit, loving others more frequently and in tangible ways, and being a blessing rather than waiting for one.

I want to become one who loves God more than I love the approval of men (This is an admitted struggle for me all of my life). I want to place more emphasis on adjusting my life to the truth I know than seeking more truth. I want my teaching to be marked by more integrity, my love for my wife and family to be more generous, and my need for repentance less frequent.

If I could be granted but one wish it would be at this time next year God could say of me “Royce is my friend”.

An honest appraisal of this man who has been a believer for almost 50 years is not pretty. I love satisfaction at the expense of sanctification. Sometimes I spend more time on Face Book than in God’s book. I tend toward measuring myself against men rather than against the God-man. I am too negative and skeptical at the expense of being poor in spirit. And, perhaps worst of all, sometimes I try to rationalize rather than repent.

So, I lean heavily upon the arm of the everlasting One, wallow in His grace, and give thanks for His faithfulness. I am the chief of sinners but I know whom I have believed and am confident that one golden day break He will complete his work of making one helpless sinner into the glorious likeness of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God.

I will not live in Romans 7 forever. Sooner than later I will move to Romans 8. Count on it…

Happy New Year! Agape

Royce

Dec 28 2009

The Holy Spirit. When, Who, How?


“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Romans 8:8-10)

Here Paul is contrasting the believer and the unbeliever. The terminology is flesh vs. Spirit, a reoccurring theme in the New Testament.  It is unmistakable, if you do not have the Spirit of God you are not His. If you do have the Spirit of God you have life. There is no life (eternal) without the Spirit of God. Romans 8:11, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 2 Timothy 1:14 all teach the same truth that the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer. How anyone can deny this plain truth is difficult for me to understand.

The question then arises, “When does the Holy Spirit come to dwell in a believer”? Or, “When did the Holy Spirit first indwell believers?” Following are some passages that should point us in the right direction.

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:37-39)

This is a very important text concerning this topic. These truths are readily evident.

  1. The Holy Spirit will be given to those who believe in or upon the Lord Jesus Christ. “Whoever believes in me…” and “those who believed in me were to receive...”
  2. The coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell believers was tied to the glorification of Jesus. “The Spirit had not been given…”, “Jesus was not yet glorified“.

Yet another important passage is also found in John’s gospel.

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:16-18)

That the Holy Spirit would come to be “in” the believer is without question. He who is the “Spirit of Truth” (“I am the way, the Truth…), “will be in you“, “I will come to you“. So Christ himself would live in the believer by means of the Holy Spirit. (“Christ in you the hope of glory”)

The “If” is clearly answered. What about the “When”? Jesus himself said it would not happen until he was glorified (John 7:39). So we ask ourselves “When was Jesus glorified?”. The answer is when He died and was raised from the dead.  (John 12:23, John 13:31)

Jesus’ glorified body was one that was recognizable, it bore the scars of his crucifixion, he ate and drank with his followers, walked with them, and yet could just appear in a closed room at will. He came out of the grave in the same glorified body in which he would ascend to the Father and now sits at this right hand. It is a different body, but a body. And, we who trust him are promised a body like his.

Not many days after his resurrection from the dead John recorded this event.

“Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:21-22)

I can find no reason to believe the disciples did not receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at that moment. If the one who spoke things into existence said “Receive the Holy Spirit” how can I doubt it happened?

Notice also that it was only after the Lord had risen from the dead that the disciples really believed and understood that He was indeed Lord. Peter, who was fearful and denied the Lord was never the same, becoming a fearless preacher of the good news about Jesus and His resurrection.

So, against conventional wisdom and common teaching, I believe those who believed on Jesus were first indwelt after his resurrection and before Pentecost. There is a difference between the Holy Spirit being “in” and “upon” a believer. Jesus said of the events leading up to, and including Pentecost and beyond, these words.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

The purpose of Pentecost was Holy Spirit power for witness, not so believes could be indwelt. He said “You will receive POWER”, that the Holy Spirit would “come upon” them, and they “Will be my witnesses…”. At Pentecost they were “filled” with the Spirit and then were filled again and again after that. In Ephesians, believers, those already indwelt by the Spirit, are commanded to be “filled” with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

Peter himself gives clear testimony as to when he first received the Holy Spirit. First in Acts 11 when he made his defense of baptizing Gentiles he declared:

If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17)

Peter says here that he received the gift of the Holy Spirit, not at Pentecost, not when he was baptized, but when he believed.

Then when Peter was opposing the believing Pharisees who were demanding that Gentile believers be circumcised he said to the elders of the church in Jerusalem these words:

“And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:8,9)

Peter was very, very clear. He gave the Gentile believers the Holy Spirit “just as he did to us“, “He made no distinction between us and them“, he treated them all exactly alike, He “cleansed their hearts by faith” and they like Peter received the Holy Spirit when they believed.

I know this goes against the grain of common teaching but it is what it is and I didn’t make it up. Peter should be as good an authority on the matter as you could want.

In some sense the people of God, from time to time had the presence  of God “in them” for purposes of revelation or some other task. Peter gives us  the record of one of those instances in 1 Peter 1 where he recorded:

“Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.  It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:10-12)

It was the “Spirit of Christ” in them who was unfolding revelation about the wonderful grace that would be ours.

The conclusion of this post is that the promised Holy Spirit lives in every person who puts their trust in Jesus and is ready to empower us for witness when we meet the conditions of complete surrender to His will to reach the lost and are willing to wait upon Him in prayer.

“the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:26-28)

for Jesus,

Royce

Dec 25 2009

Christmas, What Does It Mean?


“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

The Christmas narrative in the Bible is the unfolding of God giving that one and only Son. Trust Him and you will live forever.

Merry Christmas!

Royce