NT Framework - A Progressive Church

Not Progressive Socialism. Not Progressive in the sense of always seeking something new or adopting new philosophies. We are part of a Biblically progressively revealed church.

More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com 

This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).

Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner. 

Transcript

Welcome And Big Idea Preview

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas. Here's a hint of what's to come.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

And it says that we are seated in Christ in the heavenly places. In other words, it marks out that we have a position. And that position is in Christ. And we ask then the question well, how did we get in Christ? And this is what is the baptism ministry of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

We understand about progressive revelation. How what Adam knew is different than what Noah knew, which is different and lesser than what Moses knew. Which is different and lesser than what King David and King Solomon and the prophet Isaiah knew. You get the point that God was progressively revealing more and more of his plan to his creation throughout time. And looking back, we understand this. But it seems we don't want to apply the same thing to the church. We want clear, distinct changes. And yet the book of Acts is a slow, progressive revelation of this new thing called the body of Christ, the church. Is it just for Jews? Is it just for Gentiles? What about the disciples of John? What about those near and far? What about the Samaritans? We are now all in Christ. And as far as nationality or heritage or tradition are concerned, it's of no consequence. It's not irrelevant, but it's of no consequence to our salvation. All that matters is in Christ. Are you in Christ? Today we look at this slow, progressive revelation of the mystery church. That beautiful, glorious group of people that we are a part of.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

We'll be quite busy with some things in Acts, and in particular, the gradual realization of the church. So this is a part of our study in the framework as we're studying the church itself, that particular event, and then the doctrinal repercussions of that event, which will be the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. So we'll finally get to look at the third member of the Trinity, right? And uh today we'll deal with some important issues about how the church was realized in the early period of the book of Acts.

Fellowship With God And Confession

SPEAKER_01 2:47

So before we do all this, let's have an opportunity to get in fellowship with the Lord if we need to. This is required for all believers as part of their sanctification, their spiritual growth. 1 John 1 9 is important if we confess and forgive our sins, that He is faithful and just and forgives us our sins. So whenever we sin and thought the word or deed, we are out of fellowship with God. That doesn't mean we're out of the relationship. The relationship that we have is secure. Nothing can separate us. But inside the relationship, we can lose fellowship. That's closely, and we know this even by our family relationship. Everyone's born into a biological family, and you can't get out of the family, but you can get out of fellowship with membership. And so in the Christian family, we can get out of fellowship with the Lord. And so to get back in fellowship with the Lord, all we do is we get back to the Greek word homologo, homo meaning same, logo meaning to say. And we are then saying the same thing about our sin that he's agreeing with it. And when we do that, he towards us fellowship, fellows with this. So let's have an opportunity for prayer and an opportunity for fellowship and then a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you so much for your grace because it is what sustains us and enables us in every area of life to do something productive in this world for you. It's it's not in our strength that we are able to do this. Certainly not in our flesh. But as we depend upon the Spirit of God, we're grateful that He produces the life of Christ through us and what is technically godliness. And certainly the world needs godliness. Without it, they have no picture of you. And the church is the pillar and ground of all truth and is supposed to carry the testimony of you, which is your son, to the world. So help us to understand better how to live the Christian life more consistently and walk by the Spirit. And show the world the difference that it makes. Different in our very being than every other person who's an unbeliever. And uh this is a change that of course only you could bring when you regenerate. Thank you for these truths that we get to study now in the church age related to the Spirit of God to help us understand these things and uh help us never get tired of them. And always find uh new and interesting details that we may not have thought about in the process. So teach us by your spirit. We ask these things in Jesus.

The Four Pentecosts In Acts

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Okay, let's get into the realization of the church because last week what we did is we spent time basically looking at the four Pentecosts. The four Pentecosts, I mean Acts chapter two, the Jewish Pentecost, when Jewish believers were baptized by the Spirit. We mean Acts chapter eight, the Samaritan Pentecost, when Samaritans believed and were baptized by the Spirit and brought into the body of Christ. We mean the Gentile Pentecost in Acts chapter 10, where Gentiles were baptized by the Spirit and brought into the body of Christ. And then lastly, the fourth Pentecost is Acts 19, where the disciples of John the Baptist are baptized by the Spirit and brought into the body of Christ. And these four Pentecosts then are tracing the movement of the gospel to Jews, Gentiles, you know, let's just say Jews and Gentiles, right? But so that these four groups don't form separate churches that compete with one another, but they form one church, which is known as the body of Christ. And the New Testament has a great emphasis on the importance of the unity of the church. And when we study the Holy Spirit, we'll get into spiritual gifts, which Christ has gifted his church by means of the Spirit. And these churches, these spiritual gifts are given for unity, they're to unite us, not to divide us. And yet in the 20th century, when which is known by the way as the century of the Holy Spirit in the church because of the charismatic movement that began in the early 1900s. And what ended up happening is a division in the center. And so this is not a good thing. We want unity. Ephesians 4 3 says, make every effort to preserve unity in the bond of peace. We should want unity with other believers, but of course we can't compromise proper theology in order to have unity. That would be ecumenism. Everybody just holds hands and oh, we all just get along because we believe just who knows what. Whatever doctrine just gets so diluted. So um there's a careful balance here, and what we want to do then is always make every unity to preserve every effort to preserve unity. But if we can't, after making all efforts, then of course the New Testament tells us we also have to separate. So um we're trying to stay with the text of the Word of God. That's why I said, okay, this morning we're going to be in the Bible. Because that's God's word, and that's where everybody needs to be. So we have the beginning of the church then in the book of Acts, but what's interesting is that the realization of the nature of the church actually took

Unity Without Doctrinal Compromise

SPEAKER_01 9:30

time. And the reason we have to discuss this is because some uh Christians hold that the church did not begin in Acts 2. Some hold that it began in Acts 9 with Paul, when Paul was saved on the Damascus Road. That's called Pauline dispensational. We have others that believe it didn't start till Acts 13. That's when Paul begins his first missionary journey. And so again, they're connecting the beginning of the church to Paul, but not his conversion, rather his first missionary journey. These people are called mid-acts dispensationalists. And then you have people who are ultra dispensationalists, and they don't believe the church began until Acts 28. The very last chapter of the book of Acts, when Paul is in Rome in prison, discussing with Jews there, and most reject him while he's in prison, and he says he's gonna go to the Gentiles. So, because of this, it's important to understand that the church had actually already begun on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, but the realization of it did take time. So the question becomes: does the church begin when man realizes it, such as in Acts 9 or Acts 13 or 28, or does the church begin when God began the church? I mean, which which is it? Man's realization or God's formation? And obviously, you already know that I hold that the church had already begun. It's based on when God actually began this work of baptizing people by the Spirit and not man's realization of it, which took time. So let's look at some of the reasons that we hold that the church had already begun, but it had to be realized through various events and new revelation given by the Spirit. So Luke, first of all, who wrote Acts well, wrote Luke and Acts, in hindsight, he's writing the book of Acts in about AD 63, so 30 years after the cross, he confirms that the twelve apostles who are the foundation of the church were already present on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. So in hindsight, he's looking back, and of course, he sketched the choosing of the 12th apostle, right, in Acts chapter 1. Many people doubt that Matthias was really supposed to be the 12th apostle, but in my discussion of that, I pointed out that the very reason this is here is to show that the foundation of the church was laid before it could begin, before the building could begin. And that's true for a construction project, and it's true for the church, which is a construction project of the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, I will build it, my church. So the foundation has to be laid first. That happens in Acts chapter 1, and then in Acts chapter 2, the building can begin to be built on that foundation of the apostles. And you see it there in 2.14, but Peter taking his stand with the 11. So Luke at least recognized that Matthias was the 12th apostle because here you have Peter and 11 others, which equals 12. So he's understanding that. After that, um after the Ananias and Sapphira incident, you know this story, and over in chapter 5, where those two are contrasted with uh Barnabas. Barnabas had some property on the island of Cyprus. He sold that property, gave all the proceeds to the early church for the widow relief fund. Um but then you have the contrast, you have Ananias and Sapphira, right? And they say that they sell the property for such and such a price and gave all the proceeds to the church, but they lied. And at the conclusion of that, you see in verse 11, great fear came over the whole church, Ecclesia. It's just a word that means a gathering. It's not a technical term, meaning it doesn't always mean what we think of as the body of Christ, the believers from the day of Pentecost up to this present day. It can just mean, like in Acts 19, it is used to refer to a mob that gathered to attack Paul. Um, it's a gathering. And there's a pagan gathering. So let's just call it a pagan church if you want to. But the point is to show it's not a technical term, it just means a gathering or assembly. But there are particular usages, such as here in Acts 5.11, that are referring to the body of believers, right? So uh Luke recognizes the

Did The Church Start Later

SPEAKER_01 14:10

church in hindsight, 63 AD, was present here in Acts 5. In other words, it had already begun. That's what I'm trying to get across. It was at least in Luke's point of view, it had already begun. And he has the point of view of the Spirit. After the martyrdom of Stephen, which is Acts chapter 7, the close of that chapter, in chapter 8, verse 1, we are told that Saul was in hearty agreement with putting Stephen to death, and on that day a great persecution began against the what? The church. The church in Jerusalem, and they were scattered. And then verse 3, but Saul began ravaging the church. So again, uh anachronistically, you know, speaking backwards in times, so to speak, Luke recognizes that the church was already there. Now, the people who hold that the church didn't begin until Acts 9, 13, or 28, they're saying that there were two churches actually in the book of Acts. So I've thrown a level of complexity into the situation, but what they want to say is that the body church didn't begin until Acts 9, 13, or 28, but the Jewish church had already begun in Acts 2. Um, so they have in their theology two churches. Um I'm I'm never very interested in views that say there's two this is or there's two that's with the same name. Because it's just not convincing. You're really going to tell me the Holy Spirit has two churches going on in the book of Acts, and he both called them a church? Why couldn't he call the first one something and the second one something else so we'd know that there's they're not the same thing, right? It's like some people say there's two new covenants. And I'm like, that's just not very convincing. Um Jeremiah 31 is where that language of the new covenant begins. And when Jesus talks about that at the last supper, right, and he says, you know, this cup is the new covenant, my blood. Well, I mean, if you know the Bible, you're thinking this new covenant has got to be the covenant that he's talking about in Jeremiah. Uh at least that would be good Bible study. Right? And uh then to come along and say that, well, when Paul talks about the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 3, he's talking about a different new covenant. That's just not convincing. Some people get convinced by it, but I mean, people will believe all sorts of things, won't they? Um so to say there's two churches, and this is just talking about the Jewish church, and later with Paul you start the body church, that just doesn't, that's just not convincing. Um we have that reference to the church, two references there in Acts 8, all before Paul, right? Saul just got mentioned, but um, he hasn't been converted yet. It was this event, the persecution there after Stephen that forced the church to scatter into the regions of Judea and Samaria, just as Jesus had commanded earlier, right? Acts 1.8, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria into the remotest parts of the earth. So it's scattering out. So in order for it to scatter out, it has to have already begun, right? How can it scatter if it doesn't exist? So what we're seeing in Acts chapter 8 here, where church is mentioned twice, is what Jesus commanded them to do in Acts 1.8. So Luke wasn't talking about two different churches, and if he had, he would have made that clear. Uh look at Paul's experience in Acts chapter 9. This is a critical text on understanding the background of Paul's realization of the church, the nature of the church, what the church is. Uh Saul, of course, gathered some letters so he

Luke’s Evidence The Church Already Exists

SPEAKER_01 18:04

could go to Damascus to um arrest, you know, believers in Damascus, modern-day Syria. And as he was traveling, verse 3, it happened while he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Sometimes we read the Bible too quickly and we don't think about what's being said. But so if we slow down here and we really ask what is going on with this question, it reveals something about the nature of the church. Now, we know that the voice that came from heaven was the Lord Jesus Christ, right? We learned that verse 5. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But again, how in the world is it that Paul is persecuting Jesus? When Jesus is in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, how is he actually persecuting Jesus? See? I thought he was persecuting believers on earth in the area of Damascus. So Saul, because he is a theological genius, right? He is. He's a theological genius. I'm sure he thought about these words. And he began to realize that the believers on earth were somehow connected to the Lord Jesus who's in heaven. Somehow there is a mystical union between the two, such that by persecuting believers on earth, he is persecuting the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. And this gets developed in the New Testament, doesn't it, as the body of Christ, with Christ being the head. The incorporation of believers on earth, in Christ, in the heavenlies, to the extent that the book of Ephesians is all about believers in Christ. It uses the expression in Christ or in the Lord Jesus Christ or in him 39 times. And it says that we are seated in Christ in the heavenly places. In other words, it marks out that we have a position. And that position is in Christ. And we ask then the question, well, how did we get in Christ? And this is what is the baptism ministry of the Holy Spirit. So we're going to get into the ministries of the Holy Spirit some today. But this is the ministry of the Spirit that marks off the church from believers prior in the Old Testament, which was primarily Jews, but also Gentiles could be saved in the Old Testament. I mean, think of Rahab, think of Ruth, think of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, think of the Ninevehes or the Phoenician sailors. So Gentiles could obviously be saved in the Old Testament just as well as Jews. Primarily Jews were being saved. But these believers in the Old Testament were not in Christ. And the reason they weren't in Christ is because Christ had not come, been crucified, resurrected, ascended, and sent the Spirit to do this particular ministry of baptism. So we're gonna we're using a word now. It's a Greek word, it's baptism. At the time of the Reformation, when when people started to translate the Bible into other languages, I mean, you had people like Wycliffe the more early morning. Morning star of the Reformation, but then you've got people like William Tyndale who wants to translate the Bible into English so that everybody can read the Word of God for themselves because it was in Latin and people didn't know Latin anymore. And so you're going to hear a Latin Mass in a Roman Catholic Church and you don't even know what's being said, nor do you have a Bible you can study for yourselves, because only people who were educated and had access to Latin could actually study Jerome's Latin Vulgate. And so you're dependent on them to tell you what it means. And I hope they're getting it right because you can't check. You've got people like Martin Luther translating the Bible into German around 1522. Because why? Because he wanted Germans to be able to read the Word of God in their own language. And if God divided the languages at the Tower of Babel, would he not make it possible that we could translate his word into every language so people could have access to him? That's the God of the triumph God of the Bible and the God of history and the God of the universe. In Islam, they say, you know, you can't, if you really want to know the word of Allah, you have to know Arabic.

Saul Learns The Body Of Christ

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Can't translate it and have anything of any accuracy. Well, that really is a actually stating that Allah is limited, right? He can only speak one himself about himself in one language. But the God of the Bible can reveal himself in every language. That's not a problem for him. And I'm very thankful for that, and you should be too. We have some of the greatest translations in the world in the English language. Much better than Spanish versions of the Bible. Just think how many versions we have. It's too bad now that they have been corrupted in many cases by gender, you know, conflicts and things like that. We're going to retranslate the Bible, God's a she, and we're not sure who we are anymore. It's really sad that that's all happened. But we have a lot of great translations. I mean, no language has near as many translations as we do. And no language has access to more information to study the Word of God than the English language. We just really have something special. So Paul began to realize that there was this mystical union between the two, so that persecuting believers on earth was persecuting the Lord Jesus in heaven, to whom they were somehow connected. And as I said, Ephesians is all about this in Christ, Jew and Gentile in one body in Christ. This wasn't like Israel, like Old Testament saints. This is something different where those who are in Christ have equal spiritual privileges. That's the main difference. That's the main difference. We have equal spiritual privileges, whereas in the Old Testament they did not have that. Okay. So Paul is catching his first glimpse here of the concept of the church as the body of Christ, which was also revealed to other apostles and prophets like Peter. For example, Acts chapter 10. Peter was getting a glimpse of this, right? We studied this last week. He said he had the vision of the sheet coming down, being lowered down, and it's got all this kosher and non-kosher animals in it, right? And he was told to rise and eat, and he said, No way. I've never eaten that stuff in my life. I mean, this is the most grotesque menu I've ever seen. You can't mix those things together. And so he had to have this vision three times. Then he's comfortable going to Cornelius' house and stepping across the threshold of a Gentile's home. Because he'd become convinced that what God had declared clean, no man should call unclean. And as he preaches to them, as he's speaking the word and he speaks the gospel, he speaks about the death of Christ, he speaks about the resurrection of Christ, it says, while he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and they began speaking in tongues, signifying that they had received the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit, and yet they were uncircumcised. This is all the Jews were amazed. Like, how can this be? Well, it's because God does not require anything in addition to faith in order to be acceptable to Him. And they were learning that lesson. So Peter was getting insight into this new truth of Jews and Gentiles in one body. It wasn't just Paul who received this revelation. So take a look at Ephesians chapter 3, verse 5 and 6. Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians was written really close to the time Acts was written. Just a year or two here. In between, somewhere early 60s, 61, 62, somewhere in there. Ephesians chapter 3, he's talking about this mystery that had been revealed to him. Verse 3, that by revelation there was made known to me, Paul says, so that's Paul, the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. He's talking about verse, uh chapter 2, verse 11 through 21, where he'd already spoken about this truth, but now he wants to elaborate more on what he calls this mystery, which is the idea of Jew and Gentile in one body. Co-equals. So he says, by referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men. So he's saying this truth that he's about to tell us about the church, the body of Christ, was not known to previous generations. They didn't know anything about it. So the church is not in the Old Testament. And you can't find it prophesied in the Old Testament. It's just Israel. You know, it's just Israel, Israel, Israel, and the kingdom's gonna come, the Messiah's gonna come, set up his kingdom. That's the kind of stuff you get in the Old Testament. So whatever is here is what he called in verse 3 a mystery, meaning a new truth is being revealed that had never been revealed in the history of the world before. That's why we're talking about the it's a gradual realization of the church beginning in the book of Acts because new information is coming and they they've got to grasp what's happening. But it was a mystery before. And so he says it in verse 5, it wasn't known or made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets. See, it's not just Paul who got this, right? It's not just Paul did get it, verse 3. There was made known to me the mystery, but it's more than Paul, right? According to verse 5, because it was also revealed to his holy apostles and prophets. So multiple people received this revelation, and they received it, it says by the Spirit, to be specific, and here it is the mystery that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So Paul by this point obviously realizes the nature of the church. He's revealing it to us here. And it was the same, you know, thing that had been revealed to Peter. I say this because some, again, some people want to say that the church began exclusively with Paul. In Acts 9 or 13 or 28. That's just not the case. This revelation was not made exclusively to Paul. It was made to Paul, but it was also made to other apostles and prophets, including Peter here, right? Peter had the experience at Samaria in Acts chapter 8 when he went down there and Simon the sorcerer was there. Anyway, even Simon believed. I mean, my goodness. But uh Peter went, and when he went, he laid hands on them, and there was some visual thing to identify that they had been baptized by the Spirit too. And so he saw Samaritans come in. He had the experience in Acts 10 at Cornelius' house. They had the same tongues' experience as the Jews in Acts 2. And all this must have been showing Peter that Jews and Gentiles are co-equals in the same body. God is no longer, you know, distinguishing,

Peter And The Gentile Breakthrough

SPEAKER_01 30:09

right? And he must have, or perhaps he recalled when Jesus said, I will build my church, right? Matthew 16, 18. I believe that's the first reference to a church that's a reference to what we would think of as the church. Not just a general usage, like assembly or gathering, but a special usage, referring to Jew and Gentile in one body. Jesus said he would build it. And Peter was getting to be a part of that, right? By going to Samaria, by being there on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, and also now at Cornelius' house, Acts 10. So Peter's a very prominent individual in the early church. And Peter is, uh Paul is the other prominent individual. But they both got this revelation. Okay. Certainly by the time of the Council of Jerusalem, Peter is siding with Paul. These two are together on the issue of Gentile salvation. They both say it doesn't require circumcision or being under the law of Moses. That's not required. It's just faith. So it's always worth looking at Acts 15 because some have actually said in the study of the book of Acts that this is the crucial chapter. This is, and they just say this is more important than Acts 2. I'm not sure I would go that far, but this is considered to be super important. Acts 15, the first church council there in Jerusalem, and the big issue there is described in verse 5. Some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed. So they're believers, right? They're Pharisees, but they have believed. And it says they stood up saying, It is necessary to circumcise these Gentile believers and to direct them to observe the law of Moses. That's the procedure for becoming a proselyte to Judaism. And they're still trying to use that. But what do what does Peter say here? Well, he says in verse 8, Peter stands up, of course, and he's he says, Hey, God chose me to be the mouth to the Gentiles. And they adhere the word of the gospel and they believe, verse 8, and God knows the heart. He made no distinction between us Jews and them Gentiles, cleansing their hearts by faith. So why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? I mean, why do you want to try to tell them they have to be circumcised, which introduced you to keeping the law? Why do you want to put the law of Moses? Uh put them under the law of Moses. But he says, verse 11, we believe that we are saved how? Through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they are also. Meaning saved by grace, independent of circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. Because just like he said in verse 7, the end of the verse, what did they do? They heard the

Mystery Revealed To Apostles And Prophets

SPEAKER_01 33:12

word of the gospel and they believed. And he says, that's it. So he's getting a glimpse of something is new and something is different here. This is a part of the gradual realization of this new thing called the church. We also have, as I mentioned, revelation in the New Testament epistles begins to develop the in Christ concept that believers have in the heavenlies. Ephesians 1. Always good to look at Ephesians again. Again, in Christ, or in him, or in the Lord, or in the Lord Jesus Christ, is used 39 times in this epistle to stress our incorporation into Christ in the head-body metaphor that is used to describe us. And you'll notice in verse 3, blessed be the God. Well, let's back up to verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to the saints who are at Ephesus in, there it is, in Christ Jesus. Okay, there's the first of the 39 usages. We've been incorporated in him. We are in union with him such that if we are persecuted, guess who else is being persecuted? The Lord Jesus Christ. Because he's in union with us. Grace to you and peace from God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. Where? There's the second usage. In Christ. I mean, why do we have blessings? Because we're in Christ, the blessed one. That's why. So we've been incorporated into him, and this again was not true for believers prior to Pentecost, which is Acts 2. Now, that all said, okay, something new is going on in the book of Acts with this thing called the church. Formed on Pentecost, gradually realized as days went on. But believers before Pentecost were justified by faith, and justification is always by faith. What do I mean by justification? Justification is a legal term. It means to be in the right, to be right. In the days of Job, if you study the book of Job, one of the questions that's asked in that book is how does a man get right with God? It's the most important question for every human being. How do I get right with God? The answer is it's a legal issue. You have to be legally justified. And the way that happens is always by faith, from Genesis chapter 3, where you have the fall, all the way to the end of time. There is only one way to be right with God, and it is by faith. Even in Hebrews 11, 6, it says, without faith, it is what impossible to please God. Um Romans 14, 23, whatsoever is not of faith is yeah, you just get to fill in the blank. It's easy, right? Apparently, this is not so easy. Apparently, you know, this is all confused in Christianity. I mean, you go back to the Reformation though, right? You got your Savonarola's,

Acts 15 And Salvation By Grace

SPEAKER_01 36:56

you got your Martin Luther's, you got your John Calvin's. These guys early on in the Reformation, they're saying, Hey, justification is by faith. You know, we don't have to keep the indulgences of the Roman Catholic Church, none of that stuff, you know. It's just by faith, right? Oh, they didn't like this. Um the Jesuits. This is when the Jesuits formed. I don't know if you watch basketball, Loyola, you know, known for the school, the Jesuits. But um that school, these super scholastic people who were formed at that time as an entity that would stand against the reformer and come up with a counter to their argument the justifications by faith. And so their argument was this if you tell people that you can be right with God just by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, that it's just by faith alone, they will use that as a license to go raise hell. Well, if I'm already saved, it don't matter how I live, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, to whoever I want. And that was the argument that the Jesuits made. And the Protestant reformers, this was a strong argument. They obviously didn't want people to go live that way. So guess what they did? They responded to the Jesuits by saying, okay, okay, we hear you. So it's we're gonna say this it's faith alone that saves. The faith that saves is never alone. In other words, you have to have faith work. If you don't have work, you didn't have the right kind of faith to begin with. So they moved, they they moved the focus. Early on, the Protestant reformers saying the focus is Christ, the object of our faith. Believe in Christ. But later, the focus was make sure you have the right kind of faith. So no longer am I looking at Christ, I'm looking at my faith and trying to evaluate whether I had the right kind. And so the Jesuits, their counter-argument at the time of the Reformation really fumbled things up. Uh, and we live in the wake of all that today. But originally, you know, they were saying justification is just by faith alone, right? It's not about you know different kinds of faith. There's not different kinds of faith. Either you believe in Christ or you don't. It's that simple. Um there's not certain works that we're now gonna go evaluate to make sure we had the right kind. Um we'll be in continually introspecting ourselves if we do that. Did I really believe? Did I did I have the right kind of faith? Well, how do I evaluate that? Well, if you want to see some people who really did, just study the Puritan. It's it's it's basically all they write about, right? Is making sure it's it's an introspective theology. It's not looking at Christ, it's looking inside of yourself. The problem we all know, I think if we're honest with ourselves, is if we if we're constantly looking in, we're constantly going, you know, it's a mix. There's some good, but there's a lot of bad in there. And so how can you ever have assurance if that's the way you live, right? Because you certainly never get to the point where you say, I'm perfect all the time, I never sin. You know, I am like God's golden child, something. No, nobody ever gets to that point unless they've totally deceived themselves. Um we're not perfect, we're mixed bags, right? We're in process. Um, so that's not the issue. What kind of faith did you have? But did you have faith in the right object? The crucified, risen Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible says if you believe in him, you have everlasting life. We don't have to then sit back and go, am I really saved? No, of course you're saved. How do you know? Well, Jesus said it, and Jesus is the authority, right? He created the cosmos out of nothing. So if he says it, it's 100% true. I don't have to question that, right? So justification has always been by faith. Romans chapter 4 is the key chapter. Look at Romans chapter 4. It's great that Paul does this. He gives us two examples of justification by faith in the first uh eight verses. He gives us who? Two famous people. Who are they? Abraham and then David. Are these important guys? They're very important guys in the Bible. Well, first of all, Abraham. What's the difference between Abraham and David that's sketched out in this passage, this little section? There's one main difference that Paul is pointing up, and this

Justification By Faith And Assurance

SPEAKER_01 42:12

is the difference. Abraham lived before the law. David lived after the law. Right? And that's true. So what about Abraham and his justification? Because the question becomes well, do we have to keep the law to be justified? Well, here's a guy who lived before the law. So obviously, if he was justified without ever being a law, then you know you don't need the law. Verse 2, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, right? You do something, you get something in exchange. But not before God, he says, for what does the scripture say? Well, Genesis 15, 6, Abraham believed God, it was credited to him as righteousness. Nothing about works there, right? Just Abraham believed. And he was justified or credited as right with God. Now, to the one who works, if you work, right, your your wage is not credited as some kind of grace or favor, but that work is given payment for what is due. I mean, your boss owes you if you work, right? But to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. Now, this is the legal concept of justification. And notice it's not based on any work. It's not work, but it's believing. And so is work, I mean, is belief a work? Uh no. No. It's not working. Who did the work? Christ. Christ did the work on the cross. And we receive that or believe that. Those are synonyms in John 1 12 and 13. He who receives him, he Who believes in him? So you receive his work on your behalf, or you believe in him that he paid the penalty for your sin, and then what? Well, then you are justified. Okay. Your faith is credited as righteousness with God. And then that's that's before the law, right? That's Abraham. Now, what about after the law? Did anything change? Well, verse 6, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. Okay. And here's the guy who lived after the law. Obviously, they're supposed to keep the law, but not for justification, right? Not to be right with God. So he quotes there from the Psalms Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. That's a legal word, not take into account. So it's not considered. You're just viewed as righteous. Well, okay, verse 9, is this blessing then on the circumcised or in the uncircumcised? Well, we say, for faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. Well, how then was it credited? Was Abraham circumcised or uncircumcised when he believed? He was uncircumcised. Not while circumcised exists, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, which is a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was uncircumcised. Why? So that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised. How do Gentiles get they're talking about that in Acts 15, right? They're asking that question. You know, can a man be right with God without being circumcised? Well, Abraham was. I mean, you'd think the Jews could catch on to this, right? Like, I mean, this is Abraham for crying out loud. The patr the patriarch. I mean, have you not read Genesis 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17? Have you not read these chapters, Jews? Well, of course, it's hindsight for us. We're we're looking at 2020, but they they didn't see it yet. So Paul's having to write on. So even Abraham testified technically as a Gentile. He's just a Gentile who later gets circumcised and becomes, verse 12, the father of the circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but also who follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, which he had while uncircumcised. So he becomes the father of us all. Right? Jew and Gentile who have faith. And guess what? This doesn't make us Jews. Why not? Because he wasn't a Jew. Was he? No. He was not a Jew. He was a Gentile that God called. He lived in Ur of the Chaldees, Babylon, Persia. God created the Jewish people. They are a creation of God. And this guy becomes the father of all who have faith. And it's pointing up that this is something that never changes. Okay? Justification is always by faith. Verse 16. For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the law, that would be the Jews, but to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, which would include Gentiles. As it is written, a father of many nations have I made you, that includes Jews and Gentiles, in the presence of him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. So he becomes the father of all who have faith. Okay. Now that's something that never changes, justification by faith. But something did change on the day of Pentecost, because only after Pentecost are those who believe said to be in Christ. Okay. And so we have a new position that believers during the Old Testament didn't have. And this is a result of the ministry of the Spirit called baptism. Okay, so I started to talk about this word earlier, so I'll finish now. Baptism. They didn't, you know, the reformers they wanted to translate in their own languages, right? They they didn't translate this word. This is a Greek word. Baptizo, bab baptize, there's you know nouns and verbs in the Greek language that use this word. They decided not to translate it because there was too much controversy over the mode of baptism. The mode is like how do you baptize someone? Do you do you dunk them? Do you sprinkle them? Do you pour? You know, like what do you do? So do you do b babies? Do you only do adults? You know, these were the kinds of issues they're dealing with in the Reformation. And so they said, ah, forget it. Let's let's not any any translation we put on there might lean toward one mode or another. So let's just let's just put the Greek word there. So you may never have studied Greek, but you do know at least one Greek word. Um baptism. There's also eight baptisms in the Bible. Some of them are dry and some of them are wet. Usually when we think of baptism, we think of you know water baptism, that type of thing. That is what John's baptism. There's John's baptism in Matthew 3. People are coming to the Jordan, he's baptizing them. The wet baptism. Jesus' baptism. Obviously, for a different reason than other people that were getting baptized

Spirit Baptism As Identity Change

SPEAKER_01 49:46

there by John. So yeah, that's a separate baptism. Jesus' baptism, it's a wet baptism. What about Noah's Noah's baptism that's spoken of in the New Testament? Did Noah get wet? Or did Noah say dry? Oh, so that's a dry baptism. Uh what about Moses' baptism? Spoken about in the New Testament through the Red Sea. That was called a baptism. But did they get wet? Or did they say dry? They say dry. It was the Egyptians that got wet. Um, so you have wet and dry baptisms. Okay, all the wet baptisms are what we call rituals. I mean they're just ceremony. They're they're illustrating something, they're they're teaching us a lesson. All the dry baptisms are real baptisms. Something real is actually happening there spiritually. So when we talk about baptism by the Spirit, this is a dry baptism. The moment you believe in Christ, you are baptized by the Spirit. And this is this is his ministry that puts us in Christ. It's an identification ministry. Um baptism is a word that essentially means to dip something so as to change its identity. We can use it outside of a water baptism context very easily because it's a secular term back at the time of Christ. People Lydia, for example, Lydia, Acts uh 16, somewhere in there. Um Paul goes there, he meets this lady. Um, she was a dyer of purple fabric. Right? So she had there was a special mollusc out in the Mediterranean that released a certain chemical, and it would dye fabrics, this rich purple color, which was used by royalty and things like that in the House of the Caesars and so forth. So she made these fabrics, she would take these fabrics and dye them. So the process was basically to take the fabric, some probably white, whitish type color from wool and so forth, and dip it into the dye, and then take it out of the dye. And now what was once white was purple. So it's to dip so as to change the identity of something. And um, so we know essentially what the word means. It means a change in identity takes place. That's the basic concept. When you believed in Christ, an essential identity change happened for you. You're no longer in Adam, but you are in Christ. And this is what gives you your position of being incorporated in Christ in the heavenlies, right? And Romans 6 talks about it. So we're in Romans 4. Let's just flip the page and we'll finish here for today. What shall we say then? Okay, now he's just got done talking about justification by faith. That's chapters 323 through 521, or 321, 521. All this stuff about justification by faith. Okay, well, he says, Well, what should we say then of these things? If we're right with God, what shall we say? Now, are we to continue in sin? Okay, if we're right with God, this is the same thing that the reformers were saying. Uh, and the counter-reformers, the Jesuits, they were saying, okay, now if we tell people that you're justified by faith alone, they'll go out and raise hell. And Paul already addressed this in Romans 6, centuries before the Jesuits were ever thought of. Okay, or the reformers for that matter. He says, Are we just now to continue in sin so grace may increase? I mean, because we're right with God anyway, so does it really matter? We go on sinning, he says, May it never be, right? How shall we who died to sin still live in it? I mean, the moment you believe in Christ, you die to the penalty of your sin nature and to its power. You're not supposed to live in it anymore, right? He says, or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, this is spirit baptism. This is a description of spirit baptism and what happens. It's a dry baptism, it's a real baptism, and this is what happens. He says, Do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? So the moment that you believed in Christ, the Spirit baptized you or identified you with Christ's death. Okay, meaning your old person in Adam is dead. Therefore, verse 4, we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So there's the burial. That old man is buried, who you were in Adam, that identity is dead and buried. So that, for what purpose? So that as Christ was raised from the dead, he's using an analogy, a simile here, as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. You know, live a new life, right? For if we become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be with in the likeness of his resurrection. Our old person was crucified in order our body of sin might be done away, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin. So this is talking about what happened the moment you believe. The spirit baptism is the idea that your old person, who you were in Adam, that identity, was crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, and you were raised a new person in Christ, right, to live a new life. And that's what the baptism has done. It's given us a new identity in Him. So Old Testament believers didn't have this. Okay.

Romans 6 New Life In Christ

SPEAKER_01 55:56

Things are different now, and that's what we're gonna get into with the baptism of the Spirit. But in order to do that, what we have to do is we have to back away from the whole picture a little bit, and we have to say, okay, now wait a minute. Um, first of all, the Holy Spirit is one of the members of the Trinity, so we got to look at that, right? But before we do, what we're gonna do is just quickly talk, you know, next week about the Holy Spirit and his ministries down through history. Because they haven't always been the same. And um, you know, it's it's illustrated this way. Some people say, well, when the rapture of the church happens, the Holy Spirit leaves. Well, no. I mean, he's omnipresent, right? When we say Christ departed in Acts chapter 1 at the ascension, and in Acts chapter 2 the Spirit arrived, we don't mean that in Acts chapter 2 Jesus is not there. I mean, obviously he's omnipresent. We mean in his humanity, his humanity ascended, and his humanity is located in heaven at the right hand of the Father, right? But in his deity, I mean, where is Jesus? Well, he's completely here, he's completely there. He doesn't go places, he is places. He's inside the universe, he's outside the universe. He's in all places in space and time. If you can wrap your mind around that. He says, before Abraham was born, I am, not I was. We do not know all that God is, except to state that he is way beyond us because we can only be at one place in time. But he's outside of all this created order. He can be before Abraham, before Abraham was born. And he can be there when he's in that New Testament gospel. And we say, but I don't understand space and time. That's right. We don't. I don't either. We don't entirely understand it. If we could, we could bring God and put him under our mind and we could figure God out. But as my seminary president Mal Couch would always say, You ain't gonna figure God out. Meaning

Next Steps On The Spirit’s Ministries

SPEAKER_01 58:05

he's ultimately incomprehensible, right? He he's more than you ever imagined. Um so we have to look at at what the Holy Spirit, he he's always been here, he's not gonna leave at the rapture, but he he has certain ministries that he that do differ in history. And he's not always been baptizing people, but we do want to ask what was he doing, right? What were his ministries during the times of Genesis 1 through 11 when the everybody spoke the same language, right? What were his ministries to Israel? Okay, what are his ministries to the church? What will his ministries be during the kingdom? These are all you know valid questions to think through and um evaluate the scriptures and see what it says. So that's what we're gonna do. And then we'll get into detail into these ministries. And uh there are some great ministries. There's just some fascinating things that he does in our life.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spoke and Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.