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Done. Yes, But…. (Part Two)
Part One [Also a Previous Post I Forgot I Wrote]
Two Religions in the World?
A common modern aphorism, very catchy, you will read from many sources: “There are only two religions in the world.” Men say they are “do” and “done.” That’s what Cary Schmidt says in his book, Done. He’s not the only one or even the first one to say it.
I googled “only two religions in the world” and got 41,900 hits. Then I searched google books and the first find was a book in 1884, The Life of John Calvin, by T. Lawson. Lawson indicates the division between eighteen your old Calvin and his cousin, Olivetan. This takes this language at least to the 16th century. Lawson writes:
“There are two religions in the world,” we hear Olivetan saying. “In the one class invented by men, man saves himself by ceremonies and good works: the other is that one religion which is revealed in the Bible, and which teaches men to look for salvation solely from the free grace of God.”
At the start of the next chapter, Lawson distinguishes the two religions as “Human Authority or Divine Revelation.” That’s different than “Do” and “Done” and is a little broader, if one would divide everything into two categories only.
More Than Two Religions
I disagree with the two religion adage. Someone could divide into “do” and “done,” but not two religions. Free gracers would agree with Olivetan and Schmidt. Jude called their false gospel (Jude 1:4), “turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” This turns religions into at least three different categories, instead of two.
Someone might slot Schmidt into a third category. A person may say it’s just a lacking or wrong definition of “done.” Schmidt would say he is “done.” Someone taking his identical position might agree that he’s done too. According to scripture it’s only done, however, if a person repents and believes in Jesus Christ. If not, it isn’t done yet. He’s not doing for salvation, but neither is he done.
Dividing all religious categories into “human invention” and “divine revelation,” I can agree with that. That’s not how men like Schmidt and others categorize it though. It’s just “do” and “done.” I get the problem between do and done: human effort versus divine grace. Those two contradict each other. But people then also pervert or corrupt grace. They turn grace into something less than saving grace.
Excluding Repentance and Lordship of Christ
Schmidt in his book excludes repentance and lordship of Christ. I would contend that Schmidt’s faith isn’t even true faith. He constructs different prerequisites for salvation, putting the emphasis on a prayer, asking for salvation. This falls short of saving faith. It’s either intellectual or emotional, fitting into a stony ground type of faith (Matthew 13:5-6). It almost might be worldly, where the world swallows up a shallow faith (Matthew 13:7-8).
Part of the attraction of Schmidt’s idea of “done,” which I would call human invention, is someone doesn’t count the cost or give up anything. He can go on his sweet way. Sure, God does everything. A person doesn’t even really believe in Jesus Christ and God still does everything. This really is the broad road that Jesus talks about in Matthew 7:13-14.
No-repentance goes very nicely with American revivalism and evangelicalism. I especially say American, because it relies heavily on fleshly allure and marketing. Barnum and Bailey style. Even the very tidy, Done, goes along with that sentiment. It markets “done” especially to a people that want to keep going the same direction, yet receiving heaven in the end. It’s a very short book for an easy or even easier believism.
Spreading Around the World
The densely marketed Christianity from America reverses truths of scripture. It makes worship palatable and pleasurable to the worshiper. It orchestrates feelings and entertains. The purveyors calculate almost every aspect of the church experience for the attendee. In that way, this is “doing.” The professionals “do” church for those attending, starting with a fleshly or mystical reason to come. So much of everything is a show for churches like these.
In many locations around the globe, this other false religion which I address in this post generates a greater bad influence than the “do” religion. It blinds people especially in a more affluent world. They want a stimulating and thrilling religion that is done for them. Its advocates get the life they want on earth plus eternal life. They really also form or envision a Jesus of their own choosing.
We don’t have two religions in the world. More than two exist. More than three do too. I don’t know how many there are, but “do” and “done” aren’t all of them.
God the Highest and Its Ramifications
Our Father, Which Art In Heaven
The model prayer of Matthew 6 and Luke 11 begins with the words: “Our Father which art in heaven.” Very often, I will follow this model and pray something like the following: “Dear Father, I ask that you will be praised. You are high and far above us.” What does this describe?
Separate from Sin
That God the Father is in heaven says that He is separate from sin. He is far away from anything sinful, because the third heaven, the location of His heavenly throne room, is at least as far away as the furthest space, which we know is many light years away.
The Highest
That God the Father is in heaven says that He is the highest. “Highest” is a scriptural name and description of God the Father.
Psalm 18:13, “The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.”
Luke 1:32, “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.”
Authority
God the Father’s highness relates to His authority. He is over everything. Numbers 24:7 says,
He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted.
“His king shall be higher than Agag.” He has greater authority than Agag. Psalm 89:27 also states this truth:
Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
He is better. He has greater authority than the kings of the earth. Highest means the highest authority.
Immutability
That God the Father is in heaven reflects James 1:17:
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Nothing can effect God the Father’s perfection. Without anything able to effect Him, He is immutable. Everything is relative to Him, but He is absolute. Whatever comes from Him is good. It is untainted.
Majesty
That God the Father is in heaven reveals His majesty. Majesty relates to His holiness. He is separate by being the highest. However, He is not common or profane. God the Father is distinct. He shows forth the perfections of all His attributes, manifesting His glory. Everything about Him is greater.
Judgment
God is judge. That God the Father is in heaven gives Him a vantage point. He can see everything. God perches above all. If God is higher and better, than something can be judged to be so. With things higher, better, and distinct, God requires judgment. He will judge, but so should we.
The Ramifications of God, the Highest
When God is highest, He is higher than anything. That is the automatic enemy of egalitarianism. God is of the highest value. Nothing is better than Him. He is far above anyone and everyone.
For people to do what they want to do, it helps if no one or nothing is above them. It is a Satanic version of utopianism. Every man is his own god. No one is better, greater, or higher than anyone else. No one wears a different uniform. Gender or sex doesn’t exist.
Karl Marx said, “Religion is the opium of the people.” God is incompatible with communism, because He is the ultimate authority, higher than everyone. When people judge according to God, this act overthrows communist thinking.
If one individual cannot be better than everyone, then he at least wants no one to be better than anyone else. Everyone has his own truth, his own goodness, and his own beauty. Every standard is relative to himself. Nothing is absolute. Of course, all of this is a lie.
John the Baptist’s Diminishment of His Own Water Baptism in Matthew 3
Matthew 3 provides the New Testament introduction of the forerunner of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist. While John preached in the wilderness of Judea, the Pharisees and Sadducees came out to him for the purpose of baptism in the Jordan River. Matthew 3:7-12 read:
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
The Desire of the Pharisees and Sadducees for John’s Baptism
“To his baptism” in verse 11 may sound like a dative of direction or destination. It isn’t. It is the Greek preposition, epi, with the accusative noun, baptisma. The BDAG lexicon says the following about this usage of epi:
11. marker of purpose, goal, result, to, for, w. acc. . . . . baptism=to have themselves baptized Mt 3:7
John’s reaction to the Pharisees and Sadducees shows that he knew they were coming out for baptism by him. How he uses the Greek word, echidna, translated “vipers,” indicates that he referred to the vipera ammodytes, the sand viper. Because of very dry conditions, brush fires will begin and spread in the Jordan River Valley, pushing these poisonous reptiles toward the water. This is the picture John paints of the Pharisees and Sadducees. This elucidates their purpose.
Sand vipers slither to the Jordan River to escape brush fires. The Pharisees and Sadducees came for the purpose of John’s baptism. They thought it might provide another possible escape from future judgment of God. These religious leaders were quite willing to try one more religious ritual as another fire insurance policy. John wouldn’t baptize them. His baptism would not deliver them.
The Preaching of Repentance
John preached repentance. He immersed only the repentant. The Pharisees and Sadducees were not repentant. Their lives did not show the fruit of repentance. Repentance was a change of heart, conversion of the soul. It was more than token ritual so favored by false religion.
Later in verse 11, John says to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance.” “Into” translates the Greek preposition, eis, which indicates identification, such as when Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:2, “And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” “Unto” is again the preposition eis. The children of Israel were not placed in Moses. Through their baptism in the Red Sea, they identified with Moses. John’s immersion in water identified the repentance of the recipients.
John the Baptist is saying, my baptism doesn’t save you. Baptism would not result in the salvation of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It would just be another ritual for them. If they repented, God would save them, and then John would immerse them. He baptized only previously truly repentant people.
The Natural Quality of John’s Baptism
If someone thinks that baptism will deliver him from hell fire, like the sand vipers slithered to the Jordan River to deliver them from brush fires, he was wrong. John makes that clear in the following verses. Using other metaphors, John says that God would cast them into the fire without repentance. John baptized, but he diminishes it before his listeners as a means of salvation. This should give strong pause to those adding baptism as a salvation requirement. John the Baptist himself didn’t do that.
Further, John contrasts what he does with water baptism and what Jesus does with Spirit and fire baptism. John represents his baptism as solely natural. It’s water. Water doesn’t make any kind of supernatural or spiritual change. He characterizes baptism with water as inferior to baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Those are greater than the baptism John performed. Jesus Himself would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
The Supernatural Quality of Jesus’ Baptisms
Compared to John’s
The Holy Spirit and the eternal fire of Hell are both supernatural. The two media with which Jesus baptizes are superior in quality and character to the one medium of John’s baptism. John was just a man. He could water baptize, but he couldn’t baptize with the third person of the Trinity like Jesus could and did.
In Jesus’ day, slaves would carry the sandals or shoes of their Master or Lord. John was so low compared to Jesus, he says, that he was not worthy even to do that kind of slave work for Jesus. Sure, he could baptize with water. That was a baptism suitable for his doing. Only Jesus could do such supernatural baptisms as the Holy Spirit and fire.
Holy Spirit baptism corresponds in John’s preaching to gathering the wheat in his garner. The garner was heaven in John’s figure and the fire was Hell. Anyone in John the Baptist’s audience that day he invited to repent, so that Jesus would gather them into His granary. If they did not repent, therefore not being a good tree that could bring forth fruit, Jesus would axe them down and toss them into unquenchable fire.
Later in Matthew 3, Jesus then shows up in the wilderness, bringing an entirely different situation for John the Baptist. When the Pharisees and Sadducees showed up, he didn’t want to baptize them. They needed to repent and they hadn’t. When Jesus showed up, John the Baptist didn’t want to baptize him either. Why? He only baptized repentant people and Jesus had nothing for which to repent. Instead then, John asked Jesus to baptize him.
The Characterization of Jesus
If anyone should repent, next to Jesus, John was the one who needed repentance. Jesus should baptize him and not John baptize Jesus. John’s desire not to baptize Jesus diminished his baptism in comparison to the work of Jesus. Through Jesus, you could receive the indwelling Holy Spirit. John’s baptism just identified its recipients with what mattered most, their repentance. Mere identification is lesser than the much greater transformation of a life through Christ’s redemption and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The Lord Jesus could and would also judge in the end with fire. The fan, the winnowing shovel, was in His hand. In the end judgment, He would divide the truly saved from those who are not. That is way above John the Baptist’s pay grade. John’s baptism was not salvific. It was not supernatural. John was just a man. He wasn’t God like Jesus was.
John was baptizing. When he compared himself with Jesus in John 3 to persuade his followers to follow Jesus instead, John argued (verse 36):
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
If you believed in Jesus Christ, you received everlasting life. If you didn’t, you received the wrath of God. Nothing John could do would provide everlasting life or the wrath of God. Belief brought everlasting life, not baptism.
Thought Experiment
The Pharisees and Sadducees came to John for baptism. They saw it as a fire escape, another ritual that would put more weight on the side of their own righteousness. It might ameliorate themselves against future judgment as an impressive deed.
As a thought experiment, let’s say John welcomed their desire for baptism, praised them for it. Their trek out to the Jordan River manifested their expression of need. They were admitting trouble for themselves, perhaps some need for cleansing. So John instead said, “Well done. In light of your recognition of deprivation, let me baptize you!”
Baptizing the Pharisees and Sadducees would play right into their hands. It would give them the wrong impression and false sense of security that baptism would save. John sent the message that baptism did not save. It was a symbol. It didn’t do anything like repentance and then Jesus’ baptism with the Holy Spirit.
John’s unwillingness to baptize the Pharisees and Sadducees because they did not show fruit unto repentance teaches against any saving effect of baptism. It is not a washing of regeneration. It is mere outward identification. Jesus later says it is also a righteous act of obedience. It wouldn’t save anyone, including the Pharisees and Sadducees. John was clear on this.
Sermons Available for Listening
Sermons Online
I love listening to preaching. In addition to reading the Bible, I also like hearing preaching in audio. My goal is to read through the OT once and the NT, Psalms, and Proverbs twice this year. I did that last year. The year before that, I went through it all twice. I also like to hear others sermons regularly. Usually, yes, I do that when I’m doing something else. If I’m doing low-intellect physical labor, I’ll often listen to preaching while I do.
My wife and I live now in the Midwest in Southern Indiana two hours and fifteen minutes from where I grew up. I’m preaching there. You can listen to our preaching here. The website adds two to three sermons every week, depending on what I’m doing. Again, click on the link here.
A Gospel Presentation, Books to Purchase, and Essays to Read
Gospel Presentation
You can also watch the gospel at the church website. You could add the link to a phone text so that people you know can hear the gospel. This is a good way to evangelize. Send this gospel presentation. Click on the link here to get the youtube version (it might be easier to share).
Books at Pillar and Ground Publishing
While you are at it, maybe you might consider purchasing or encouraging someone else to purchase one of the three books at this website. It is pillar and ground publishing. You can get the three books at paypal. It’s helpful if you buy them there. You can get them at Amazon, but it’s better for me if you buy them on paypal at our pillarandground website.
A Free Essay Every Week
One more thing. Every week, I write a short essay, called “From the Pastor’s Desk.” Feel free to read these. Click on the link here.
God and the Bible Are Dispensational (Part Six)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
History
One of the biggest criticisms aimed at dispensationalism is the scant historical evidence for this system of interpretation. Opponents call John Nelson Darby, 19th century Anglican clergy member from Ireland, the founder of dispensationalism. They say then the early 20th century evangelical Bible teacher, C. I. Scofield, popularized it in the notes of his Scofield Reference Bible.
If dispensationalism originated in the 19th century, I would find that troublesome. Yet, it’s not how I explain the history of dispensationalism. God intended literal interpretation of the Bible, which is premillennial. You can read that in the Bible itself. For that reason, I say that premillennialism started with the apostles. From there, you can read their influence on several early patristic writers. Irenaeus reports that Papias (AD 60-130) said that “there will be a millennium after the resurrection from the dead, when the personal reign of Christ will be established on this earth.”
Systematization of Interpretation
Darby among others systematized premillennialism and a literal interpretation of scripture. Scofield and others picked up his mantle with their explanation. This could easily have been a counter to the systematization of amillennialism by covenant theology. The system of covenant theology preceded the system of dispensationalism, but premillennialism precedes amillennialism. Scripture doesn’t provide a system. However it is premillennial.
In the first century, no one spiritualized the Bible as a type of interpretation. A literal interpretation was the intention of Jesus and the Apostles. That’s what they did. Spiritualization, the warp and woof of covenant theology, didn’t occur until Roman Catholicism said that the church fulfilled Old Testament Israel.
Seven Dispensations?
Scofield introduced seven dispensations. I can agree with his seven divisions of the Bible and history. However, I would not characterize, explain, or label them the same as he did. One might add a few more divisions for clarity. As I wrote earlier, dispensations indicate the continuity and discontinuity of the workings of God in His world.
God Himself doesn’t change. That is continuity. Both out of His love and justice, He works in different manners during different periods. That is discontinuity.
As a description, I don’t like “age of grace,” speaking of the era in which we now live. Salvation always came and comes by grace. What Scofield called the age of grace, like others, I would call, the church age. God worked through Israel in the Old Testament age and in the church in the New Testament one, the latter from Christ to the rapture.
Bad Dispensationalism
Just because someone is a dispensationalist does not guarantee correct belief and practice or even right exegesis of passages. Dallas Theological Seminary probably did more to spread the system of dispensationalism than any other institution. It also though disseminated a weak or false gospel and doctrine of sanctification.
Dallas for the most part produced the free grace crowd that cheapens and distorts grace. This poses as a dispensationalist view because of its source. Cheap grace bled into independent fundamental Baptists and their anti-repentance and non-lordship teaching. They became more enamored with the soteriology of the free-gracers than historic Baptists. This fit nicely with their pragmatic church growth philosophy, pretending to be revival and the power of God.
Longtime president of Dallas, Lewis Sperry Chafer affected many with his eight volume Systematic Theology. He took his dispensationalism to an extreme, perhaps in reaction to covenant theology. He pushed his discontinuity too far. Chafer presented salvation by works in the Old Testament and by grace through faith in the New. He took Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and applied it to Jews in the Millennial Kingdom.
Holding and Teaching a Right Interpretation of Scripture
Whatever bad influence Dallas had with classic dispensationalism, it does worse in recent many years. It doesn’t require dispensationalism of its faculty. Instead, it uses its clout to sway people away from inerrancy. Dallas once pumped out serious eschatology to build a pretribulational, premillennial belief in church leaders and their churches. Now it doesn’t care if you’re premill, amill, or postmill, promoting unity with any aberrant position of eschatology.
Biblical churches and pastors must preach and train in a literal interpretation of scripture. Spiritualization and allegorization are easy ways to conform the Bible to whatever someone wants it to say. Easily, the woke churches use the Bible to teach their critical race theory, employing these means. The Words are God’s Words, but what comes out in the teaching are man’s words. Satan was fine using the Word of God to teach his will (Genesis 3, Matthew 4).
Churches need evangelization, preaching a true gospel. They also must make disciples, teaching new converts to rightly divide the Word of Truth. This requires teaching them a literal, grammatical-historical, dispensational interpretation of scripture. God and the Bible are dispensational.
God and the Bible Are Dispensational (Part Three)
The Bible did not come in one neat tidy package. God delivered it progressively through men over a period of 1500 years during history in real time, even using forty different men as human authors. As God revealed scripture, it did not come with a separate interpretive handbook and glossary for defining terms. He expected and presumes people will get it through plain reading.
As God imparted scripture through inspiration, people understood who were hearing in that day. The Old Testament audience did not need the New Testament to ascertain the writings. When He delivered more, past writings become better understood in a fuller way, bringing even greater knowledge of God’s message.
God’s Word has one meaning, yet many applications. People knew the meaning as God revealed scripture. He required the original audience to believe and practice what He wrote.
Satanic Attack on Dispensationalism
From the very beginning, Satan directly and then through the world system attacks scripture in several ways. He does this in one key manner by corrupting the meaning of God’s Word. Satan twists and also confuses the meaning. He does not want people to know with certainty what God says. Change of meaning abolishes or invalidates the authority of scripture.
Satan wants people to think and act in a different way than what God said. He does this in an incremental fashion, where people drift or move further away from scripture. The doctrine and practice of the Bible changed over the centuries through a modification of its meaning. By changing its meaning, it becomes at first a slightly different book and finally a very different one. This fulfills what Satan wants, but also satisfies the innate rebellion of man.
Changes in the meaning of the Bible relate to contemporary events and movements in history. Rather than adapting to what God said, people conform what God said to their desires or will. In a plain reading of the New Testament, churches were autonomous assemblies under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ through His Words. Satan and his system attacked them in vigorous and violent fashion.
Individual churches were vulnerable to fear of the fierce opposition of the Roman Empire. This disposed them toward reorganization favoring extra ecclesiastical hierarchy. Many moved toward greater cooperation and confederation. Prominent churches took on more dominance and authority for their leaders.
Philosophies of Men
In Colossians 2:8 Paul warns against philosophies. The New Testament addresses various heresies arising from human philosophy. Preserved early Christian writings trace the invasion of extra-scriptural thinking into the church. Doctrine and practice changed through intertwining neoplatonic philosophy with scripture. The church became something bigger than local.
The church at Rome at the center of the Roman Empire took on enormous prominence. Emperor Constantine I gave Christianity legal status in the Empire with the Edict of Milan in 313AD. When Constantine became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire in 324, Christianity became its official religion. Christianity became a state church for the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380AD. This is the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Empire was Catholic or Universal, so its state church became Catholic too.
Allegorization and Spiritualization
For a true church, local only, to become universal, allegorization or spiritualization of scripture must occur. This developed over three centuries with a unique influence, it seems, from a theologian, Origen of Alexandria. This allowed for modification of meaning to allow change in doctrine and practice. About a hundred years after Origen, Augustine further systematized allegorization of scripture, now known as covenantal theology. The Bible could become a vessel in which to pour ones own doctrine and practice by allegorizing it.
Allegorization or spiritualization gives a lot of leeway with interpretation, making it highly subjective. Someone can read what he wants into the text of scripture. This affects the authority of the Bible.
The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was led by men raised as staunch Roman Catholics. They reformed Roman Catholic doctrine, however, still preserving much allegorization and spiritualization. More than Augustine, they composed a hybrid of allegorical and literal interpretation, now still referred as covenant theology. The immediate spiritual offspring of the Protestant Reformers further systematized an approach to the interpretation of scripture. Their system of interpretation justified a state church, something not seen in the Bible. They could find it by spiritualizing the church.
Amillennialism
In the main, the church could become an actual kingdom through spiritualization, a view of the future called amillennialism. The theologians of Roman Catholicism removed the distinctions by unifying Israel and the church. The church replaced Israel. They adapted the Old Testament prophecies of Israel and the kingdom for fulfillment in the church. Instead of a future fulfillment of the New Testament prophecy of Revelation, they spiritualized it as fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.
Liberal theology easily proceeded from amillennialism. Liberals take the same approach even further, making almost everything in the Bible to mean what they want. They see now and in the future a spiritualized kingdom, a progressive social order. Jesus, the cross, the resurrection, and the gospel all take on their own meaning, most often related to advocacy of social issues. Modernism dovetailed easily and nicely from covenant theology.
Growing In and Out of Favor
Even though God and the Bible are dispensational, dispensationalism grew out of favor in mainstream teaching. In recent times, institutionalized theology portrays dispensationalism as of recent origin, arising with Darby in the 19th Century. Premillennialism, a literal interpretation of Christ’s kingdom, traces to the first century with the apostles. However, believers responded to covenant theology with a systematization of a literal interpretation of scripture in the 19th century. The Protestant system of covenant theology itself is of historically recent composition.
I contend that the rising popularity of covenant theology above dispensationalism traces to its allure to human pride. Men ascertain from God’s writings their secret meaning. This allows for a wide variety of contradictory belief and practice. Men like it when they’re free to do what they want, justified by what “God said.”
More to Come
The Watershed Moment in the Decline of the American Church: Distinction Between the Sexes
The Beginning of the Bible
When you open your Bible to the first chapter of Genesis, you read in verse 27:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
As if that mattered, God repeats this in Genesis 5:1-2:
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
Male and female. That’s it. God created male and female, two different sexes. When I read scripture I notice also two different genders for mankind, communicated by he, him, his and she, her, and hers. “It” never refers to a member of mankind, only the masculine or feminine genders.
God Designed
Furthermore, God designed distinction between the sexes. He gave each a distinct kind or type of body and emotional make-up. God also differentiated a separate, distinct role for each sex. Each role complements the other. According to this truth, God forbade same sex coital activity and marriage.
God also mandated the preservation or keeping of the designed distinctions between male and female. He banned or outlawed masculinity for women and effeminacy for men. God never rescinded any of that. He repeated the regulation in both the Old and New Testaments. God also instructed on it with varied statements intended for compliant application.
The fall of mankind in Genesis 3 resulted from abrogation of the male and female roles. The curse of sin on mankind then instructs also in Genesis 3 concerning the future disorientation of sexual roles. God prohibits men and women from changing or exchanging roles. He also requires them to preserve clear symbols or marks of distinction in appearance.
Rebellion
The rebellion against God starts with the man abrogating headship. It continues with the woman usurping male authority. Mankind perverts the God designed and created hierarchy.
Mankind follows role rebellion with role and then sex confusion. A person becomes his sex at conception. God ordains parents to train the conceived and then born male to continue a man in every way; likewise the female to be a woman in all manners.
The animus between male and female in Genesis 3 continues. People must support God’s design. They must also oppose all manner of role confusion. God especially demands this of true churches.
Long ago churches began relinquishing their responsibility to distinguish between sexes. The world started this decline, but churches followed. Churches accommodate role rebellion now in numbers of ways. Some churches take some stand against the decline, but nearly every church capitulates in some manner out of fear, convenience, or pragmatism.
Rick Warren and Southern Baptist Convention
In a very obvious, public way, the Southern Baptist Convention battles right now who can lead their churches. Will they be men or men and women? So-called “America’s pastor,” Rick Warren, fights for the egalitarian, role confusion in the Convention. He threatens the departure of thousands of “purpose-driven” churches from the convention over the issue.
Transgenderism, surgical sex changes, and gender neutral bathrooms make the headlines. This ship started sailing long ago. Conservative evangelical John MacArthur preached a standard exposition of Ephesian 5 on the two distinct marriage roles. Women in mass rose and left the auditorium in protest.
Sixty to seventy years ago, every woman wore a dress or skirt in church, let alone at home. Of course, every man wore pants. This was (and still is) the only symbol of sexual distinction. It’s why transgender “women” wear dresses like Kaitlyn Jenner. It’s also why transgender “men” wear short hair and pants.
Anecdotal
In the first month after my wife and I moved to Indiana, I went to a junior boys basketball game at the elementary school. A blue jean wearing woman coached the boys team. She stomped and yelled like Bobby Knight on the sideline. No one flinched at her antics. Just another day in rural, red-state Indiana. This, my friends, is the new normal.
The next night my wife and I went to an ice cream place and started up a conversation with some professing Christians there. We continued in pleasant interaction. Then I told the story of the junior boys game, its four overtimes, ending with sudden death. I described the coach something like in the previous paragraph. They met my story with no response. They went mute silent with pained expressions on their faces. After an awkward moment of hearing the crickets in the background and feet shuffling, subject changed.
For the Future of Churches and America
Maybe at one time in the United States, leadership fires a woman for behaving like a man. Today, leadership, maybe even female leadership, fires a man for criticizing the woman. This fits into the contemporary battle of first amendment rights. According to the Declaration of Independence, these inalienable rights come from God. The country banishes God from public conversation. Government and society in general prevent speech from and about God.
If you visit a business promoting transgenderism today, you could say the following. “I will be back when you stop pushing your left wing religion on me.” It is a very dogmatic religion established by the state today.
Churches will die with concession on sexual distinction. The Democrats famously booed including the name of God in their political platform in 2012. Will churches boo sexual distinction? Have we reached a moment when this is even an unwelcome subject matter?
To stop American decline, judgment must begin in the house of God. Churches must stand on the designed distinctions between male and female. They may say they support supernaturalism and young earth creationism. Will they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator? If creation means anything in a practical way, it means male and female created He them.
John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus and Sending Authority in Matthew 3
Paraginomai Versus Ginomai
The Greek verb paraginomai appears only three times in Matthew, an intense or emphatic form of a common verb, ginomai. All three occur in Matthew 2 and 3:
2:1, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.”
3:1, “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea.”
3:13, “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.”
The magi, those kingmakers from a powerful far eastern nation, came with royal authority and bringing kingly gifts. Herod recognized their authority. It troubled him. John the Baptist, the forerunner and herald of the King who would sit on the throne of David forever, came heralding or preaching. The King Himself, Jesus, came to begin His work in an official capacity.
Luke 7:20 uses the same unique verb, paraginomai, to describe John the Baptist ascending to his divine task, parallel with Matthew 3:1. The only usage in Mark, 14:43, sees an official, governing body of chief priests, scribes, and elders with Judas coming to arrest Jesus. The Apostle Paul uses paraginomai in 2 Timothy 4:16, saying, “At my first answer no man stood with me.” He described no one joining him in an official capacity in public court. It’s an obviously technical word to denote the function of a person who came into court to defend the accused (John Phillips, Exploring the Pastoral Epistles, p. 454).
Official Capacity
The only use of paraginomai in Hebrews (9:11) reads:
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
This verse describes Christ, the anointed one, come an high priest, so again in a high, official capacity, so with authority. In the New International Commentary on Hebrews, Paul Ellingworth says concerning Hebrews 9:11, The use of paraginomai instead of the usual ginomai suggests “an official public appearance” (p. 449). So also Harold Attridge in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, commenting on the dramatic nuance of the word (paragenomenos, participle of paraginomai), says, “He has arrived on the heavenly scene as High Priest” (p. 245).
John the Baptist was a man sent (apostello) from God (John 1:6). That verb (“sent,” apostello) is also very technical, expressing the nature of an envoy or an ambassador. Jesus asked (Matthew 21:25), “The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?” The implication in Matthew by Jesus (cf. Mk 11:30, Lk 20:4) was that God authorized the baptism of John. He got it from heaven.
The Lord Jesus came like John with sending authority. Jesus said, “As my Father hath sent (apostello) me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). God also expects sending for all His workers. It’s more than reading the Great Commission, saying you’ve got it because you read in Matthew 28:18-20. That command went to a plural, “Go ye.” One should assume that “ye” meant people in the group. It did not imply that anyone or everyone could go with His authority (“power”). “You” is also plural in John 20:21.
Romans 10:15
The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 10:15,
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
The word “preach” is kerusso. This is the same word applied to John the Baptist and his preaching. The kerux is someone to announce the Lord’s coming, to give His message, and to prepare the way for Him. Again, Romans 10:15 asks of the plural, “they.” Who “sends” (apostello) “them”? Christ sends as Head of His church.
John the Baptist “came” in an official capacity. God “sent” John in an official capacity. The New Testament uses the same terminology for every believer. How shall they hear without a kerux? How shall they kerusso except they be apostello? God the Father sent John and Jesus directly. Jesus then sends true believers by means of the church. He heads the church. God sends believers only through true churches.
A Special Cast of Characters
Ones Christ sends constitute a special cast of characters and yet not one, not one because it applies to everyone. Every one bringing glad tidings or the gospel of peace should be and must be sent. That should be every member of a church, a member of Christ’s body with Him as Head.
As a personal example, individual churches sent my wife and I. A true church sent us in 2020 from California to Oregon. The same true church sent us in 2021 from Oregon to Utah. In 2022, a true church in Utah sent us from Utah to Indiana. The church in Indiana sent us for a few months to England at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 Since February 22, 2023, my wife and I function as heralds with authority of or from our church in Indiana. We requested and received letters, which we possess, from three total churches in all this (California, Utah, and Indiana).
God sent John. He came. Sent and came are unique words of sending. God sent Jesus. He came. The same pattern applies to the work of every true believer.
How serious would you take the sending of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States? If the United States of America authorized you for a legitimate task, would you acknowledge the honor bestowed? Can you recognize the greater honor of the Lord Jesus sending you through a true church?
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