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140 - THE FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW The dispensation of the Hypostatic union stands as line of differentiation between Israel and the Church. Christ fulfilled the Mosaic Law on one hand and set the precedent for the Church age protocol on the other [Romans 6:14, 7: 4-6, 2 Corinthians 3:7-13 and Ephesians 2:15, Colossians 2:14]. At the Exodus God founded Israel as a theocracy personally by the Second Person of the trinity. The whole thrust of the Jewish way of life was spiritual. Because God ruled Israel, every aspect of life in the nation had spiritual significance, and the Mosaic Law did not distinguish between spiritual and secular issues. Obedience to divine establishment was part of the Jewish believers, and observance of the holy days and animal sacrifices were required of all citizens, including unbelievers but such rituals were meaningful to OT Jewish believers only. There were distinctions between the freedom code, the spiritual code, and the establishment code as a categorical approach to communicating the wide scope of the Mosaic Law. But all aspects of the Law add up to one code for a unique political entity with a spiritual origin, a spiritual destiny, and a King who is God Himself. The entire Mosaic Law is an integrated whole [Matthew 5:18, Galatians 5:14]. The entire Mosaic Law is a particular expression of God’s eternal and holy character [Exodus 19]. He gave the Law to a distinctly defined group of people [Romans 2:17-20, 3:19]. It was designed for several explicit purposes and was effective for a limited period of time [Galatians 3:23-25]. The Mosaic Law regulated life in God’s unique client nation, exposed man’s sinfulness, and demonstrated his need of a Savior, and the most important purpose of the Mosaic Law was to anticipate the coming of Christ [Matthew 5:17]. The Mosaic Law was far more than simply a rule of behavior. It was superior to contemporary codes of any era in human history, but it was not primarily ethical but messianic. Therein lies its true greatness. Its mandates depicted the Person and work of Christ and protected the line of Christ until He would arrive in the flesh. The incarnate Jesus Christ achieved the ultimate purpose of the Mosaic Law. He fulfilled the Mosaic Law, once and for all. Anticipation was replaced by reality. This fulfillment is a tribute to the faithfulness of God. Since all parts of the Law functioned together as one code, the Law has been abrogated as a whole. The sum of the Law is no longer pertinent and no longer governs any tribe, people or nation [Romans 10:4, Galatians 3:23-25, Hebrews 8:13, 10:3]. The regime of the Mosaic Law has ended. The Church is not under the Law, but under the grace [Romans 6:14]. Jesus Christ has set us free from the bondage of the Law, and it is ridiculous to impose the obsolete code upon the believers. The Law has lost its power and authority. The Law is history. The end of the Mosaic Law does not leave believers or unbelievers lawless [Romans 6:15, 13:1-7]. A new code of divine mandates, which also expresses the essence of God, now defines the believer’s way of life. This code is called the divine Protocol Plan (for the Church Age). J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
141 - THE LAW OF CHRIST The divine protocol plan is an integrated whole, just like the Mosaic Law but it has a different objective that is to glorify the victorious Christ to the maximum. The protocol plan accompanies a different array of divine blessings for the believer. The protocol plan of God has a different thrust; greater responsibility placed upon each believer to think and apply Bible doctrine for himself in the privacy of his own priesthood. Many principles found in the Mosaic Law also appear in the protocol plan. The only reason for this is that, both come from the same source, from God Himself. The character of God remains unchanged even as He makes dispensational changes in human history. God was perfect before He gave the Law to Moses, perfect during the tenure of the Law, and perfect when fulfilled and rescinded the Law in Christ. The succession of dispensations reveals His changeless essence to man and angels. God expressed His perfect. Holiness to man in legal terms long before the Mosaic Law was existed, and He continues to provide ethical norms and spiritual instruction now that the Law has ceased to govern. Before, during and after the time in which the Mosaic Law was in effect in Israel, other expressions of divine law functioned among Gentiles to whom the Mosaic Law never applied [Genesis 26:5, Exodus 19:5, Romans 2:14-16]. In the Church age the operative divine law is not the Mosaic Law but the Law of Christ [1 Corinthians 9: 20-21].The divine protocol plan is also called the Law of Christ or the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [Romans 8:2]. Christ fulfilled the entire Mosaic Law in the power of the Holy Spirit in the prototype divine sphere. The Church Age believer obeys the new “law of Christ” by following His precedent; filled with the Holy Spirit in the operational spiritual sphere [Romans 8:2-4]. Since the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled and abrogated the Mosaic Law [Hebrews 8:13, 10:9], practices instituted for the nation of Israel are not included in the post salvation plan of God for the Church age believers. They do not contribute the Christian way of life. The church does not offer animal sacrifices, observe holy days or the Sabbath, or maintain the Levitical priesthood, worship in the sacred building, offer tithes, or have minute details of civic life prescribed by spiritual ordinances. There is now a new, universal priesthood of all believers [1 Peter 2:9, Hebrews 7:12, 8:1], a greater emphasis on individual responsibility [Galatians 5:1], and a separation of church and state [Romans 13:1-7, Matthew 22:15-22]. The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Testament Law and taught His current followers to live apart from legalism. He proclaimed His ruling platform for the millennial kingdom and He revealed the plan of God for the Church. Never was the Mosaic Law intended to be a means of salvation or a breeding ground for self-righteousness. The Law revealed the necessity for grace and the source of that grace, Jesus Christ Himself. Both the Law and the protocol plan reveal the plan of grace. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
142 - TRANSITION BETWEEN TWO DISPENSATIONS Three separate dispensations converge in the Age of the Hypostatic Union. This pivotal era is, therefore, a challenge to accurately interpret.
These three dispensations closely put side-by-side divine administrations as well as the presence of Christ Himself, which exhibit the grace, and wisdom of God in paralleled depth and variety. Each dispensation fulfills its own purpose in the overall plan of God. The close similarities are different in divine mandates. Divine policy for each of these dispensations differs significantly from the Mosaic Law. That is why, the Lord Jesus Christ in many occasions said; “You have heard that it was said in the Mosaic Law. But I say…” (Matthew 5:21-48). Christ proclaimed the kingdom of God to the Jews in terms of their Mosaic Law frame of reference. He used the Mosaic Law as the foundation and point of departure for explaining the way of life in the promised kingdom under His personal rule. He ministered to the needs of the Jews by strengthening and expounding the true meaning of the Law. He taught them how to live from the legalistic and ritualistic but degeneracy that was persistent during His time. The Jews misunderstood the Law as the means of salvation and the basis of their self-righteousness (Matthew 5:20, 6:1-18). Nobody can earn salvation by his or her obedience to the Mosaic Law. “Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (Romans 3:28). Man in his arrogance, deceives himself by boasting in his obedience to the Law without understanding that the Law brings nothing but sin and death. “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "You shall not covet" (Romans 7:7). The Law revealed the necessity for grace, and the source of that grace is Jesus Christ Himself. When Israel rejected the grace of God, the Lord Jesus Christ retracted His offer of the kingdom. He announced a new divine system the mystery doctrine for the Church Age (John 14-17). In the Millennial kingdom the spiritual and the civil will come under one power system. Christ will rule, not as God ruling over one nation (Israel) but as the God-Man over Israel and the entire world. Divine mandates in the Mosaic Law were imposed to regulate believers and unbelievers in the OT Israel. He deferred His kingdom platform for Israel and introduced another divine system, where the church and state separates are two distinct entities. Christ now controls history in a manner that gives each Church Age believer tremendous and marvelous opportunity (with great responsibility) for having spiritual impact in the world. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
143 - THE MOSAIC LAW IN THE CHURCH AGE Since the Mosaic Law belongs to the Word of God, therefore it has value for the Church Age. The Mosaic Law was subdivided into three sections. Codex I: Protected human life, liberty, property, privacy and divinely delegated authority. Unbelievers and believers alike of every dispensation can protect freedom by avoiding the destructive sins of mentioned in this Codex. This explains why every provision of the Decalogue, except Sabbath is also found in the Law of Christ. Codex II: Presented the purpose for which God gave man free will –to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The ritual provisions of the Law still have value because they reveal the Messiah as the only Savior. Codex III: Contains instructions in many fields that especially pertinent to Israel. Most provisions of the Mosaic Law have no value in other nations but they testify to the faithfulness of God in guiding his people in specific events or circumstances that were often very difficult. Most of these provisions are neither reconfirmed nor clearly taught or excluded from Church Age practices but they reveal the character of God. For example, the principle of capital punishment is given to the Church Age (Matthew 26:52, Romans 13:3-5), but its specific application in such cases of adultery, homosexuality, or juvenile rebellion is not reconfirmed (Leviticus 20:10, 13, 9). God has given the Church Age believer general guidance concerning divine establishment, in contrast to the hundreds of exact and rigid Mosaic laws that precisely defined life in OT Israel. Their only option was to obey. In the Church Age, God encourages the believer to think and apply the basic truths of divine establishment according to the legitimate processes of human government in his own nation. Because there is separation of church and state in the Church Age, every believer is free to think and act as a responsible person of his community and nation. God entrusts the application of divine establishment principles to each generation of the Church Age. The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the Mosaic Law; therefore, His Church is free from the Law (Galatians 5:1). The Christian freedom from the Mosaic Law is not lawlessness or lack of direction, but such freedom exists within the framework of God’s protocol for the Church Age (John 15:10-12, Galatians 5:13, 1 Corinthians 9:19-21). The Church Age believer lives under the new law introduced, announced, and executed in the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:2-4) inside divine power system. The perfect humanity of Christ grow and matured under this powerful system of divine assets and resources from the time of His physical birth until His death on the cross. Church Age believers also have these extraordinary opportunities to advance spiritually, but only inside this divine sphere. The believers of the Church Age therefore are the epoch of spiritual freedom, which adapt the divine establishment principles to their own circumstances, life’s objectives, and heritage of their nation. A believer who wishes his nation to prosper can learn much from the Mosaic Law without inflexibly and blindly superimposing its provisions and rules not applicable to other nation. The Mosaic Law was divine regulations for OT Israel under the reign of God as their “political”, “military” and spiritual Leader. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
144 - THE CHURCH AGE The Church Age is a brilliant advance in biblical history with marvelous perspective in the progress of divine dispensations. The Age of Israel ended with the Advent of Christ in his perfect humanity, greater things had come (Hebrews 1:1-2). The Church arrived on the scene as an amazing expression of God’s power and grace. The Church is a breath taking spiritual phenomenon. Never before in the history of mankind the believer in Christ help such position in relation to the Godhead (John 14:12) The Church is the unique body of believers, united with Christ by His spiritual death on the cross and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church is a body of extraordinary people who have received spectacular privileges from God through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church Age began in A.D. 30 on the day of the Jewish Pentecost and will terminate with the Rapture of all Church Age believers (physically alive) or resurrection (physically death). The Church Age era alone offers the greatest challenge to the individual believer in all human history. This is the era of the royal family of God. Every Church Age believer belongs to Christ’s royal family, founded as a consequence of His strategic victory at the cross and His rejection by Israel (1 Peter 2:9). During the course of the Church Age God is forming this body of believers for the maximum glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer of the Church Age received the new royal status of the resurrected Christ and extends the great power of the hypostatic union into great power of the Church Age. The position, assets and opportunity given to the Church Age believers are marvelous. The dispensation of the Church is the era of the royal family of God, founded as a result of Christ’s strategic victory at the cross and His rejection by Israel. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the Excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10). The adoption and acceptance of the Church Age believers into the kingdom of God is through the complete work of Christ, who received God’s mercy. The believers are the genuine recipients of God’s mercy. Divine mercy is related to the free gift of salvation, believed and received by sinners through their non-meritorious faith in Christ’s death on the cross on their behalf. The Church is the body of believers spread out around the world designed for maximum glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. God gives each Church Age believer the new spiritual status of the resurrected Jesus Christ, and also extends the power of the Hypostatic Union into the great power of the Church Age. Christ holds three titles of royalty, each with a royal family:
145 - THE ROYAL FAMILY OF GOD As the God-Man, Christ won the victory over Satan at the cross (1 Corinthians 15:57) and was granted a new royal title that may be considered His Battlefield royalty (Hebrews 1:3-4, 13). This third title is:
When the Lord Jesus Christ ascended in triumph to heaven (Ephesians 4:8), God the Father invested Him with the glories of battlefield royalty and seated Him at the right hand of the throne of God (Psalm 110:1). God the Father inaugurated the Church Age to establish a royal family for the glorified Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone who believes in Christ during the Church age is a member of the royal family of God, also known as the Body of Christ or the Church Universal (Galatians 3:28, Ephesians 1:22-23) The very presence of spiritual royalty on earth makes the Church Age unique in human history. During the Church Age every believer can live in the operational divine power system just as during the dispensation of the humanity of Christ resided in the prototype divine power system. Every member of the royal family can utilize the divine power and divine problem-solving devices that enabled the humanity of Christ to win His strategic victory over Satan, sin and death. We depend entirely on Christ, by extending the great power system. He equipped us to exploit His strategic victory and win tactical victories in our own lives. As we grow spiritually, the positive influence of spiritual royalty on earth spreads invisibly from the individual believer to other people, to organization, to nations, to future generations and to the angels. This powerful collective impact of the Church Age believers is one of the extensive, historical characteristics of the Church Age. During this dispensation God maintains a spiritual presence, not a political presence among mankind. God now works through gentile client nations. Israel was the client nation throughout the Old Testament time. The nation of Israel as God’s chosen nation was the recipient, custodian, and the communicator of the written canon of Scripture. God assigned the nation of Israel to proclaim and furnish the entire human race with the Word of God, but failed. Israel selfishly kept the Word of God for them, legally casting away the proselyte Jews and totally shutting behind the gentiles. They arrogantly cut all the possible access of the gentiles to the Scripture, but God unlocked the door they closed tied with religious hypocrisy. During the Church Age, the believers are commanded to proclaim the good news of the Gospel of Christ in their respective locality. The Roman Empire was the first gentile client nation where the Christians grow, nurtured, matured and launched the missionary work to other nations. The Church Age believers are the royal ambassadors of God to the world. They are the representatives of the Christ mandated to proclaim the Gospel in season or out of season. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Our spiritual nobility is for the purpose of communicating the Gospel and proclamation of Bible doctrines. We are not ordinary people; we are the royal family of God. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
146 - THE CLIENT NATIONS During the Church Age any gentile nation can serve as a client nation by practicing the following principles.
The client nation of the Church Age is significantly different from the Age of Israel. God entrusts the Christians with the preservation and communication of the written canon of Scripture. He blesses and protects the gentile nations as long as the nations uphold its client responsibilities. Israel is the only nation on earth in which God has sworn an eternal covenant. He will honor his unconditional covenants at the 2nd Coming of Christ (Romans 11:25-29). Israel is now under divine discipline throughout the Church Age and restricted from client nation functions. These are the times of the gentiles (Luke 21; 24), which will continue until Christ Second Coming. Today, God extends client nation privileges to non-Jewish nations. The Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul mandate the believers to uphold civic duty under the Roman Empire (Luke 20:21-25, Romans 13:1-7). God deals with the client nation in keeping with spiritual condition of its believers. The protection of human life and the privileges of privacy and freedom are the primary concern of a nation’s government. No government however is responsible to support the work of the Church. God deals with the client nation in keeping with the spiritual condition of its believers. Basically, the protection and judicial provision it grants to the Christians. Logistical grace blessings and blessings of spiritual maturity to advancing Christians overflow the nation. Divine discipline of carnal and unspiritual believers affects the nation as well. This explains the nation’s historical rise or fall. The book of Psalms has a lot to say concerning about this: O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous; For the righteous God tries the hearts and minds. My shield is with God, Who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, And a God who has righteous anger every day. If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready. Psalm (7:9-12) For a nation to enjoy divine blessing must maintain a strong circle of mature and advancing believers. The spiritual impact of these saints gives the nation its vigor and life. Weak and passive nucleus of Christians will result to the fall of the nation. The client nation is God’s principal missionary agency during the Church Age. Every believer contributes to the spiritual impact to his nation, and has a solid responsibility to evangelize those in his periphery (Acts 1:8). He is also responsible to support both the local and foreign evangelization, and the accurate Bible doctrine teaching. Such support may include prayer, service, financial contribution or some other form of and encouragement. The continuation of solid doctrinal teaching depends on believer’s responsibility to support such ministry from positive volition and understanding of God’s Word. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
147- PRE CANON & POST CANON ERA The Church Age is divided into two separate periods:
The pre canon is relatively short period in which the New Testament canon was being formed. The pre canon is documented in the Book of acts, which preserved the historical record of the early Church but does not attempt a comprehensive presentation of Church Age doctrines. Some phenomena found in Acts were required in initiating the Church Age but were no longer pertinent after their purpose was achieved and the Church Age doctrines were authoritatively and permanently recorded in the New Testament epistles The pre canon period was differentiated by temporary spiritual gifts such as apostleship, prophecy, knowledge, tongues, interpretation of tongues, miracles and healing (1 Corinthians 12-14). These temporal gifts have limited purpose needed during the pre canon period:
After God fulfilled these purposes, the temporal spiritual gifts were no longer necessary, and were step-by-step removed after the completion of the New Testament Canon (1 Corinthians 13:8). The pre canon period came to an end with the death of John (the beloved), the last apostle, sometime after he wrote Revelation A.D. 96. The pre canon is distinct from the post canon period in many ways.
The post canon period is the era of permanent spiritual gifts. Gifts like pastor-teacher, evangelism. Helps and administration are designed to preach or proclaim the Biblical doctrines of the written Word of God and carry out the spiritual functions of the local church (Ephesians 4:11-13). The spiritual gifts of the post canon period of the Church Age are designed to sustain and operate the royal family of God. The post canon Church Age believers lives by divine truth in their souls, without depending on the emotional stimulation of overt rituals, divine appearances, direct revelation from God, miraculous deeds performed by some highly visible Christians. Spiritual maturity is the objective of the Christian life in every dispensation and believers in this era possesses powerful spiritual devices & resources than any other era. Bible doctrine gives the believers inner power, and our spiritual victory lies in using these spiritual assets and resources resulting to progressive attainment of spiritual maturity, with all the mental and emotional riches. The post canon emphasizes:
J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
148 - ISRAEL DURING THE CHURCH AGE The Church Age is unique while being related to other eras or dispensation. Dispensation orients the believer to God’s plan for history. They unlock the wealth of the Scripture for personal application. Widespread ignorance of God’s Word confined believers to fallacious and erroneous religious impression. Some Church age believers thought that Christianity is a blend of the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, some portion of the Mosaic Laws, and some social ethics with no accurate idea how these diverse standards merge in the doctrine of the dispensation. These religious errors develop into exaggerated emotions in worship of God. Some religions integrate Scripture in an unsatisfactory manner assuming that God’s unconditional covenant with Israel have transferred to the Church and that Israel has become a spiritual entity with no national future. They sincerely but incorrectly believe that Israel and the Church are one people and that the true spiritual Israel is now the Church. Both the OT and NT clearly declare and identify the true Israel, the chosen and elect people of God in the OT, the recipient of God’s promises, is not only spiritually regenerate but also ethically Jewish. God’s magnificent faithfulness to the flesh and blood nation of Israel cannot be reduced to a spiritual or a figurative dimension only. Strong continuity does indeed run through the divine view of history. God perceives all events as one indivisible system; every parts of the whole are still distinct parts. Some theologians look at the whole and see unclear consistencies; others look at the same whole and see the distinctions. The doctrine of dispensations clearly and thoroughly integrates both change and continuity, both consistencies and distinctions. Some thought that Israel was merely a shadow of Christ and the Church, and the Church is a fulfillment of divine covenants with Israel; overemphasize continuity in the plan of God. They underestimate the implications of the changes God has instituted. Striving for an interpretation of the Bible that makes God’s plan organic and consistent according to their own views, they make God’s character inconsistent. These theologians wish to dissolve the ethnic definition of Israel and release God from His sworn obligation to honor His promises to His chosen nation. God keeps His promises. He is true to Himself, true to His Word, and true to all who trust in Him. Dispensational shifts or changes do not undermine the integrity of God or the stability of His plan. On the contrary, such changes achieve His unchanging purpose for human history. God is ever perfect and no changes or shifts in human history can make Him imperfect. God will fulfill His promises to Israel not during the Church Age but during the Great Tribulation and Millennial kingdom. Israel is presently under the divine discipline but God will never in anyway forsakes Israel. God will fulfill His unconditional covenants to Israel no matter how disobedient they might be. God cannot break His own Words. The changes in the dispensations are because human beings are unstable and ever changing. God included these changes in the divine decree, with due respect to human free-will (positive or negative) volitions. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
149 - THE CHURCH The Church is unique, and the Church Age believers are living under the divine system of privilege. They belong to a highly superior position and great opportunity; they are the nobility of heaven residing on the face of earth. Every Church Age believer holds the rights and privileges of heaven while living on earth. God has marvelously provisioned us and systematically instructed us to walk worthy of such privileges. These privileges are unique to the Church Age:
These privileges form a single balance whole. Each complements the others. As the believer learns what his assets are and how to use them, they begin to function together as an integrated system. Awareness and consistent use of these assets keep the believer moving in the Christian way of life. These privileges constitute the unique meaning of Christian life, purpose, and define the very designed God has for the Church. THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT The baptism of the Holy Spirit is once a lifetime experience of the Church Age believers. At the moment of salvation, God the Holy Spirit places every believer into permanent union with Christ (Galatians 3:1-5, 14, 26-27, Ephesians 4:4-5). This immediate ministry of the Holy Spirit is called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It occurs at the very moment an individual believe and receive the free gift of salvation in Christ. It creates an everlasting union with God. “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12; 12-13). The baptism of the Holy Spirit sets the believer apart from unbelievers and apart from believers of all other dispensations. Every Church believer is sanctified in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2, 30) for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:13-140. The baptism of the Holy Spirit created a new spiritual royalty, set apart for the maximum glorification of Jesus Christ. The purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is to link and unite permanently the Church Age believer to Christ and to make the power system of the Hypostatic union and the Church Age readily available to the believer. There is nothing mystical about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and there is no need for second experience. The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs apart from human manipulation and will. No human being can command God to make certain action demanded by men. The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs under the divine process of imputation of eternal life – the life of God to the believer. The baptism of the Holy Spirit creates the Trinity to reside in the believer. At the point of salvation, God restored the human spirit of an individual to be the residence of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), which guarantees the eternal security of the believer. In the OT Israel, there was no baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not permanently given to believers. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
150 - BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the filling of the Holy Spirit, just as it is not an experience or the work of grace after salvation, and it is not and never was, speaking of tongues. Those who failed to carefully distinguish the baptism of the Holy Spirit from spiritual gifts sincerely but inaccurately thought that the baptism of the Holy Spirit involves speaking in tongues. The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at the moment of salvation for all Church Age believers, while the gift of tongues operated only in the post-salvation experience of a few first-century Christians. The phenomenon of tongues was a temporary spirit gifts designed to warm Israel of impending national judgment (Isaiah 28:11) and evangelism. The listeners but not the speakers evangelized Jews in gentile languages understood. The gift of tongues practiced by few believers during the pre-canon period of the Church Age dramatizes the Jews failure to evangelize the Gentiles. The gift of tongues was a miraculous sign to alert Israel to her decadence, which is why, no one, has legitimately spoken in tongues since A.D. 70, when Jerusalem fell, and the purpose for this temporary gift expired. “If there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away” (1 Corinthians 13:8b). The gift of tongues ceased long ago, but the baptism of the Spirit occurs in every generation of the Church age, and it never involves human emotion or ecstatic experience, because genuine baptism of the Spirit has absolutely no relation to feelings. The believer may be elated or feel nothing at the moment of salvation. Regardless how a person feels in that initial instant of faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit unites him with Christ forever. The baptism of the Holy Spirit comes unnoticed and without warning. No human being can sense or detect the baptism of the Holy Spirit in any way. No senses (sight, hearing, touch, or smell) can confirm this spiritual event in the life of a person. The spiritual ministry of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation is known only through Bible doctrine, which the believer learns after salvation. No person has the authority or power to command or demand the Holy Spirit to baptize an individual or group of individuals. The Holy Spirit will never submit, obey, or listen to human pleading or begging under the guise of powerful prayer of cultic preachers. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is never earned nor deserved by the believer. God give this fabulous gift by grace, totally without regard for human merit or human good works. Eternal union with Christ is complete at the very moment of salvation, accomplished entirely by the grace of God before any believer has a chance to perceive his spiritual position in Christ or learn about this thing. Baptism of the Holy Spirit comes before spiritual growth, Christian service, or knowledge of salvation. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not progressive and cannot be improved, since the ministry of the baptism of the Holy Spirit has permanent and eternal effect. Never in all eternity can it be undone, lost, canceled, or render void by anything, and never does it need to be repeated (Romans 8:38-). The spiritual impostors have created their own “reverse version” of baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is fill with ecstatic emotions and mystical rituals. The primary purpose of baptism of the Spirit is to permanently link the saints to Christ, not to show off the “spiritual power’ of the cultic preachers. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
151 - THE PROTOCOL PLAN OF GOD The baptism of the Holy Spirit opened the door for the royal family of God to an extra-ordinary Christian way of life under the power of the Holy Spirit. We call this the protocol plan of God. Protocol is a rigid long-established code prescribing complete deference to superior rank and strict adherence to due order of precedence, precise and correct procedure. As earthly royalty lives by humanly made protocol. The refined behavior and high standards of conduct in a vibrant aristocracy are supported by a system of protocol. Each member of the royalty is thoroughly trained and to be familiar with the manner in which various activities are conducted. Each is trained to know his proper place in each royal activity. Protocol enables everyone to know what to do in a given situation and thus creates an environment of poise, graciousness and orderly system. Protocol resolves routine questions and frees the person to devote his energies to substantial issues or to enjoy the event in hand. Spiritual royalty is not less than the earthly royalty. Church Age royalty need never wonder what the Christian life requires of him. He need not stumble or feel awkward in any aspect of his relationship with God. Since he belong to a spiritual dynasty founded by the Lord Jesus Christ in which the standard of conduct follows the precedent clearly established by the humanity of Christ on earth. The entire royal protocol is available for every Church Age believer to learn and master. The protocol plan is clearly defined and taught in the New Testament. The spiritual protocol plan of God for the Church supersedes the ritual plan of God for Israel. The protocol plan of God is not new because it is long established in the mind of omniscient God. God knows the way of life He would unveil for the Church Age. The exactness of God’s code for spiritual royalty expresses His own perfection. God decreed one way of doing each thing, and that way is the only right way in the sight of God. We cannot define the Christian way of life in any way we please. God prescribes complete deference to the ends and means of His plan. The very concept of the protocol means that even a right thing becomes wrong when done in a wrong way. A wrong thing done in a right way is still wrong. A wrong thing done in a wrong way is wrong. Only a right thing done in a right way is right. This is precisely correct procedure. The right thing done in the right way is the protocol plan of God. The right way demanded by protocol is life under the divine power system divine sphere. The most basic concept of true Christian way of life is residence, function and momentum inside the divine sphere. The divine dynasphere or divine sphere is the believer’s safe secure, and spiritual palace. The perfect God can only devise a perfect plan for the imperfect Church Age believers. The protocol plan is a perfect plan, which the believers cannot execute through human ability, human power, human wisdom, human talent and human good works. God cannot accept any human contribution to His perfect plan because it would only corrupt the perfect plan. The justice of God guards the integrity of His protocol. This is called grace, where man enters the plan of God exclusively on the merits of Christ, and will continue in the plan of God by divine power. The believer lives the Christian life only on divine resources and divine power (Ephesians 4:20-24). J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
156 - MYSTERY DOCTRINE The Greek noun musterion originally referred to the secret doctrines of ancient religious organizations. Only those persons initiated into the group knew the mysteries. Their doctrines were well known among its members, but secret to the outside world, because nothing was disclosed to outsiders. Paul borrowed this well-known pagan term to communicate the divine truths of the royal family of God. Paul use the term musterion, where the initiates are the Church Age believers and the doctrines are those concerned with the Church. God did not disclose Church doctrine to the writers of OT Scripture, but these marvelous truths now are revealed throughout the NT epistles. Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever (Romans 16:25-27) “that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. And 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, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power (Ephesians 3:3-10) To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places (Colossians 1:25-29). “Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. “But holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience (1 Timothy 3:9). “But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; (1 Corinthians 2:7-8). The mystery doctrine reveals all the politeuma privileges of the Church Age believers, which set the Church Age apart from other dispensations. The mandate to “keep holding the mystery doctrine” identifies the most vital function of the royal family of God. That function is to continually learn, retain, and apply the doctrines of the Church Age. Hearing, meditating on doctrine, living by doctrine is the highest form of worship. The royal family of God has a unique potential to worship God because of the unprecedented extent of divine revelation in the mystery doctrine (Ephesians 3:18). The mystery doctrine of the Church Age is received, perceived, revealed, and metabolized into the souls of the believers by the resident Holy Spirit. The unbelievers cannot in any way perceive and understands the Word of God, because they do not have the Holy Spirit – the only Teacher. Pastors, preacher and Bible teachers are just the communicator of Bible doctrines. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
157 - THE INVISIBLE ASSETS The protocol plan of God set forth the royal way of life that God expects of the Christian because of the exalted position in Christ. The mystery doctrine unveils the Church Age with all its divine assets and mandates which define the Christian’s way of life. These three marvelous benefits of our heavenly citizenship are parts of a larger picture. They belong to a portfolio of invisible assets that God the Father designed in eternity past for every Church Age believer. The term portfolio refers to the holdings of an investor synonym for his riches. God has lavished the riches of His grace upon the believers, making each of us fabulously wealthy (Ephesians 1:3-8, 3:18, Philippians 4:19). The Church Age believer is a citizen, and that implies extreme wealth. Our citizenship (politeuma) is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), and our portfolio is described as including “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:13). This emphasizes the source of these fabulous blessings who is God the Father and the process or mechanic of receiving them (only through Christ. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3) “To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). These portfolios of invisible assets can be categorized by using worldly terms, which we understand. Ephesians 1:1-6 categorized these assets into primary, secondary and personnel.
The Church Age believer’s glorious destiny and immeasurable riches are exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask of think (Ephesians 3:20). The Bible reveals them in many glimpses and increments; they must be explained in numerous ways and from various points of view. The escrow blessings are designed to motivate the Church Age believers to aim for spiritual maturity. In escrow blessings, the Grantor is God the Father who in eternity past deposited in heaven vast wealth indented for the Church Age believers. The Lord Jesus Christ was designated as the Escrow Officer who will distribute the escrow blessings at Bema when the Grantee, (believers) reach spiritual maturity. The election and predestination assets guarantee the existent, function, and operation of the believer in the hostile world. It is designed for the growth and momentum of the believer inside the divine sphere. The positive volition of the believer is a tremendous assets when combine with spirituality. Negative volition on the other hand is great liability and a very dangerous enemy. Undeserved suffering is an asset with tremendous blessings for the positive volition believer. It accelerates and promotes the suffering saints right under the nose of Satan. We are going to study these tremendous assets in the following pages of this book. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
158 - THE EQUALITY FACTOR The election and predestination of believers bring tremendous advantage and blessing. Election & predestination are the equality factor. Every Church Age believer has equal privilege and equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God. At the moment of salvation, no one is superior and no one is inferior. No one has higher position than any other, and no one is disadvantaged. All human standards of superiority and inferiority are set aside by the election and predestination of each Church Age believer in the eternity past. Race, gender, intelligence, nationality, economic status, social status no one of these help or hinder the believer in fulfilling the protocol plan of God. Help lies entirely in divine assets and the only hindrance is the believer’s own refusal to learn Bible doctrine and utilize his invisible divine assets. Under the assets of divine election, each Church Age believer has equal privilege with every believer (Ephesians 1:4). Every Church Age believer represents himself before God. Also under election, every believer (winner or loser, carnal or spiritual) has the blessing of logistical grace. The logistical grace blessings are necessary for life support, personal security, and provision for learning Bible doctrine. Under the assets of predestination, every Church Age believer has equal privilege at the moment of salvation (Ephesians 1:5). All believers have the same position in Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The divine power system gives every believer equal opportunity to advance by executing the protocol plan of God. Each possesses his own operational divine sphere, which is his royal palace and powerful seat of power. The divine sphere is the Church Age believer’s royal palace, his magnificent but invisible seat of power. Spiritual growth, momentum and advancement is possible only inside the divine sphere. No reception, perception or understanding of Bible doctrine is possible outside. God cannot deal with any believer outside the divine sphere and no blessing from God will ever pour upon the believer when he is outside the divine sphere. Being outside the sphere means carnality. Equal privilege and equal opportunity for every Church Age believer in time means inequality in the eternal state. Each believer’s volition accepts or rejects the provisions of grace coming from divine sovereignty. The divine sovereignty provides the equality factor but the free will volition of man expresses individuality. Some believers respond to doctrine advance spiritually and reach spiritual maturity and become spiritual winners. The Christian winner keeps on using his privileges and opportunities. A winner is perseveres against all troubles until he becomes a winner. Others reject doctrine, enjoy the world and become spiritual losers. The perfect justice of God puts all the Church Age believers in the same level of equality and opportunity to make the flow of grace without partiality. The grace of God ensures all human superiority and inferiority. It has nothing to add or minus to the perfect plan of God. Man has nothing to contribute to the plan of God. Equal privilege and equal opportunity also reveal the reality of human depravity before God. Men enter the plan of God through His grace and can remain inside God’s plan only through His grace. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
159 - ROYAL COMMISSIONS Included in the fabulous package of blessing brought by spiritual royalty are the two royal divine commissions granted to every Church Age believer. Each Christian is a royal priest and a royal ambassador. A priest is person who represents him-self or other before God. During the dispensation of the Gentiles, the head of the household represented the family in the matters of worship. The family priest’s duties included presenting revealed doctrine and officiating in rituals and animal sacrifices (Genesis 4:3-5, 8:20, 14:18, 22:13). In the dispensation of Israel, God ordained the Levitical priesthood to serve on behalf of the nation (Number 3:5-10, Leviticus 8:1-20). OT Israel’s specialized priesthood taught Bible doctrine verbally and ceremonially through the rituals authorized in the Mosaic Law. The Levitical priesthood included only unblemished adult males from the family of Aaron in the tribe of Levi (Leviticus 21:17-21). Before the Church Age, membership in the priesthood was severely restricted to small minority among believers. In the Church Age, the priesthood has been extended to include every person in union with Christ (1 Peter 2:5-9, Revelation 1:6, 5:10). Because of the spiritual union with Christ, the Church Age believer belongs to the highest and most exalted of all priestly order under the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a royal priest, each Church Age believer represents himself before God, which is the basis for believer’s spiritual privacy, in which he lives his own life before the Lord (Romans 14:4 & 10, 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12). The believer’s priesthood is also the basis for offering effective prayer. The primary function of the royal priest is the faithful intake of Bible doctrine, which is the basis for spiritual growth and the attainment of spiritual priesthood. Spiritual growth is a result of the believer-priest’s divine protocol function before God. The setting for the royal priest’s duties is inside the divine sphere, in contrast to the service of earlier priesthood at physical altars or material temple. The believer is fully ordained priest at the moment of salvation, his priesthood becomes more effective as he attains successive stages of spiritual growth. The royal priesthood of believers does not imply independence from another believer. The priesthood and spiritual gifts create a balance. The priesthood emphasizes the individual; spiritual gifts emphasize the group. Spiritual gifts are related to royal ambassador’s function, they divinely given abilities that support the many necessary functions within the local congregation and in propagating the Gospel outside the local church. The spiritual priesthood emphasizes the believers’ responsibilities before God while the spiritual gifts emphasize the believers’ responsibilities before men. The believers are autonomous before God, but living in isolation from one another is not the will of God. Every believer Church Age believer is a priest, but not every priest has the same spiritual gifts. The Christian labor or service of individual believer-priests creates contact with others. The privacy of priesthood treats each individual with respect precludes sins; this permits human relationships to develop on a solid foundation of personal virtues. Here, privacy supplies the vital factor for rewarding relationship with others. Priesthood is privacy in personal relationship with God, and personal in the Christian way of life. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
160 - THE INDWELLING TRINITY At the moment of salvation, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit take up residence in the spirit of the Church Age believer. Never before the Church Age and never afterward does God indwell every believer from the moment of salvation. The indwelling is permanent, and it cannot be changed, remove, stop, or render void or suspended for even a second. It will continue uninterrupted throughout the believer’s lifetime on earth.
On the question “How can God indwell a believer?” here’s the explanation: God is omnipresent, which involves His immanence and His transcendence (Deuteronomy 4:39, 1 Kings 8:27, Psalm 139:7-8, Proverbs 15:3). Immanence means His entire essence is always present everywhere so that the whole of God is in every place (Jeremiah 23:23-24, Acts 17:27-28). Transcendence means He is wholly independent of the created universe so that no particular place is exclusively contains Him (Psalm 113:5-6, Isaiah 55:8-9, John 8:23). Immanence and transcendence exist in complete balance, so that the whole earth is full of His glory. God is wholly in every point of the universe, while at the same time He is exalted infinitely beyond the universe (Isaiah 6:1-3). If God is everywhere, what does the indwelling of the believer means? The combination of immanence and transcendence means that God is free to be local, to have His presence at a particular “place or location” (Exodus 19:20, 24:9-18, 40:34, John 1:14). God is never restricted by time and space, and His sovereignty can decide how He wants to indwell in these temporal and physical dimensions. God does not always have to be present in the same sense (as we human can understands). When God, indwells within the creation, He dwells by His own choice and in a manner of His own choosing. God’s sovereign decision in this matter is remarkable expression of His love and eternal purpose for the Church Age believers. The indwelling of the believer is God’s local presence in a more intimate relationship with the believer than has ever existed prior to Church Age dispensation. This marvelous and fantastic indwelling presence within the believer is astounding fact and basis for blessing beyond imagination. Each member of the Trinity has a specific purpose for residing in the believer. The indwelling of God the Father is related to the glorification of His protocol plan (Ephesians 1; 3, 12). The Father is the Author of invisible assets, the Grantor of escrow blessings for time and eternity. He is the Author of the protocol plan and the designer of the divine sphere. He is revealed indirectly through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. His indwelling confirms His personal ministry to every Church Age believer. It is necessary to understand the purpose of each member of the trinity for indwelling the Church Age believers and the distinction of each purpose. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
161 - THE AVAILABILITY OF DIVINE POWER In the OT dispensations the power of God was available to a few believers. The temporal endowment of the Holy Spirit empowered some Old Testament believers who held positions of unusual responsibility. God gave these selected and important believers access to His power to carry out their particular functions (Numbers 11:16-17, 27:8 -, Judges 3:10, 6:34, 11:29, Micah 3:8). In most cases, the endowment of the divine power was for limited period of time during the course of their function. In the Church Age, the protocol plan of God is executed through a power plan or structure available to every Church Age believer. The indwelling of the Trinity is extended to every member of the royal family of God. The ordinary believer is indeed extra-ordinary in this dispensation. The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit enables the individual believer to execute the protocol plan of God. The Holy Spirit operates the divine power system or divine sphere, and supplies the power necessary for perception and application of Bible doctrine by which the believer advances to spiritual maturity (John 14:16-17, 16:12-14, 1 Corinthians 2:9-16). The power of God the Son and God the Father was made available to every believer. Each Person of the Trinity exercises His absolute power in behalf of the Church Age believer. These magnificent resources become operational in the life of the believers only through the execution of the divine protocol. Spiritual growth and advancement toward maturity enhance the believer’s utilization of divine power. The available divine power is not mystical or magical in any sense but spiritual and designed to glorify the Lord. The omnipotence of God the Father is related to the portfolio of divine, fabulous but invisible assets. As the believer’s learns and obeys the Father’s plan, he begins to experience the “riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7-9). The omnipotence of God the Son does not only controls but also preserves the universe and perpetuates the human race (Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3). He controls human history by blessing nations that have a large enough pivot of positive volition believers and by judging nations with too large a spin-off of negative volition believers. The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit directly minister to each believer who has positive volition toward God and His Word. The Holy Spirit plays the busiest role in the life of every Church Age believer advancing toward spiritual maturity. The divine power available to every Church Age believer is not designed to make the believer famous for his faith or power, as if God is at his disposal and commands. The primary purpose of the indwelling Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ in the life of the believers and not to attract the attention of men toward the believers. Miracles are the least thing that God can do for the human race. God has done the most difficult thing for Him to do, which is to die in behalf of the sinful human race. Miracles entirely depends on the sovereignty of God, He do it without any help or contribution from any created being. The miracles recorded in the Scriptures are the work of God in His own way, in His own manner, in His own Time, apart from human intervention. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
162 - THE ABSENCE OF PROPHECY The post-canon Church Age is the only era in the entire dispensations in which no biblical prophecy will be fulfilled. The only prophetic events concerning the Church Age are its beginning, which was prophesied by Christ (John 14:16-17, 16:7-15, Acts 1:5), and its termination at the resurrection or Rapture (1 Corinthians 15:51-55, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). The only prophecies fulfilled in the pre-canon Church Age deal not with the Church but with Israel. The Bible is the mind of Christ and not a complete historical book of the future. The relatively few events it describes are selected to reveal Christ not the future events. Many prophetic events have been fulfilled in the past just as others will be in the future The Church Age stands between two periods rich in prophecy. Numerous OT prophecies were fulfilled during the Hypostatic Union and more prophecies concerning Christ and Israel will be fulfilled during the Great Tribulation, but the Church Age is a period of prophetic silence. No events of this dispensation are found in prophecy, except for its termination. The prophetic events following the Rapture concern the Tribulation. None of the geopolitical alignment events need to exist prior to the rapture of the Church. World conditions might seem parallel to biblical descriptions of the Tribulation; this does not indicate that the Rapture is near. Throughout the Church Age the doctrine of the imminence of the Rapture holds true (James 5:8, Revelation 22:7, 12, 20). The Rapture of the Church is the next prophetic event, but the time is not announced. Rapture was possible in the time of apostle Paul, tomorrow or a thousand years from now. Baseless speculation has no place in biblical doctrines. Advancing believers are growing in love for Christ and developing eager anticipation for His appearance (1 Corinthians 1:4-8, Titus 2:13), but such enthusiasm must be tempered by patience (James 5:7-8) and redirected toward fulfilling God’s purpose in this present dispensation. Unfulfilled prophecies and promises concerning Israel still belong to Israel and God will keep his promises to the Jews. However, the fulfillment of those divine prophecies will not be seen until the Church departs and the Tribulation begins. The issues for the Church Age are not to fix our attention to certain prophetic events but to focus on Bible doctrines. Christ directs our focus on more important matter the Word of God. He directs us to concentrate on the tremendous mystery doctrines. The Church possesses the completed canon of the Scripture given to sustain spiritual growth, which glorifies Christ. The Church has access to the same divine assets and resources that totally sustained the humanity of Christ. The Church was created with the capacity to have the mind of Christ (epignosis) in the souls. God excluded prophetic events from post-canon Church Age to emphasize the dynamics of Bible doctrine in the soul. Believers should learn the whole realm of Bible doctrine rather than specialize in prophecy. We need to study prophecy but such eschatological studies should never distract us from the most vital priority. The impact and influence of the church Age believers is invisible and generally indirect. Believers create the trends of history –anonymously. The absence of prophecy emphasizes the individual believer’s potential impact. Knowledge of eschatology helps us to interpret events and historical trends as they occur in his own generation, but the absence of prophecy stress his need to grow up spiritually until he can think with biblical perspective. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
163 - THE INVISIBLE HEROESEvery individual Christian has a major role to play in his generation of the Church Age. Believers can be invisible heroes or invisible villains, but there is no ordinary Christian in the royal family of God. When a Church Age believer advances to spiritual maturity, he has a positive impact or influence on history. He is the factor for prosperity in his locality. His spirituality functions as the salt and the light of his community. The negative impact of the royal family of God also comes from the individual believer who also rejects the will, plan and purpose of God brings suffering and divine discipline upon himself and becomes the source of adversity in his periphery and nation. The power system of the Church Age was to create invisible heroes. An invisible hero is a spiritual believer who advances to spiritual maturity and received his fivefold impact: PERSONAL IMPACT: People in the mature believer’s periphery, including his own family, loved ones, organization, company and closed friends receive blessing by their association with him. The blessing comes in form of logistical grace provision, protection and prosperity in various aspects. God is blessing the people around him, in his local church, his company or organization all because of the spiritually mature believer. God is protecting the community from various disasters and calamities because He is protecting the mature believers. God is concerned about the welfare of the mature believer not because of the people around him. The spiritually mature believer is the friend of God (James 2:23) under the super grace sanctions, and maximum blessings available to spiritual superheroes. HISTORICAL IMPACT: Every nation receives blessing through the mature believers who reside within its borders. The vigor, prosperity, and survival of a nation revolve around mature believers we called “pivot”. A pivot is a group of anonymous unsung, spiritually mature believers, which is the only solution to national degeneracy. Below a certain level of national decline, the spiritual pivot is the only solution and a nation’s only hope. Blessing to the nation is an escrow blessing our Lord distributes to the mature believers. The mature believers contribute positively and effectively to their nation. They do not crusade in the name of Christianity to remake or whitewash their nation in the image of their personal interest (Romans 13:1-7). They are good citizens (made better by their Christianity) whose presence in the community itself is more powerful than the political power play of the pseudo-Christians. The pivot of mature believers is more powerful than the greatest organization of the world that is constantly manipulating the world’s political system. The impact of the pivot is stronger than the most powerful bomb ever exploded on earth’s surface. INTERNATIONAL IMPACT: Nations are blessed by association with mature believers who come as missionaries from another nation. The spiritually mature missionary is an invisible hero, a source of blessing to two nations, the nation in which he serves and the nation from which he is sent. Spiritually mature believers are catalysts for blessings wherever they go. They are the spiritual assets of every nation. Carnal believers are liabilities. Nations that accommodate them are always at risk of experiencing something unpleasant. Calamities and disasters follow them wherever they go. Spiritual maturity is measured by Bible doctrines stored in the souls of the believers not by activity involvement. Spiritual maturity is never determined by length of time the Christians are member of a local church but by the amount of Bible doctrines resident in the soul, by their personal knowledge of God, knowledge of God’s will, God’s plan and God’s purpose. Most often, the most active in the church are the most carnal and ignorant of God’s will. Spiritual believers are the subjects of divine protection, wherever the go, as long as they are dong the will of God, whether they are full-time missionaries or overseas contract workers earning their living. God may use an evil government to protect the mature believers (like what He did for apostle Paul). Paul was given military escorts in several occasions to protect his life from religious murderers. His imprisonment was logistical blessings under the will of God:
It is always safe to be in God’s will. The most dangerous place in the world for the believers is outside the will, plan and purpose of God. Spiritually mature believers are always safe and secure in God’s hand. Carnality always jeopardizes the believer’s security in the world. In such cases, where the carnal believer is living for the world, his worst enemy is not Satan, OSN or the world but God Himself. “You adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God? (James 4:4). The carnal reversionistic pastors are the real troublemakers; bringing a lot of troubles to every home they entered. Like Absalom, they are stealing the hearts of the people away from God (1 Samuel 15:6). They are extremely dangerous saints (Jude 4-7). ANGELIC IMPACT: God will summon the spiritually mature believers behind the witness stand to testify about the grace of God in the appeal trial of Satan. The mature Christians are strong evidences of the grace of God. Not all Christians are qualified to testify because the testimony will come from the devils cross examination of the super-grace mature believers under maximum sufferings of evidence testing (Job 1:6-2:6, Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:11-12). Angels (both elect and fallen) are constantly observing the human race (1 Corinthians 4:9, Ephesians 3:10, 1 Timothy 5:21, 1 Peter 1:12), and the mature believer will pass such cross-examination only by using divine resources:
The spiritually mature believers have far-reaching impact among the people of the world, human history and angelic beings. You can contribute better things for your country through spirituality and maturity than politics. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
164- HERITAGE IMPACTThe loved ones and close friends of the spiritually mature believers receive blessings after his physical death. The spiritually mature believer can face death with complete assurance that God will care for those he leaves behind. He can rest in peace being assured that he need not worry about their welfare. His immediate family and close friends are blessed not necessarily because they are spiritual or matured Christians themselves but because of God’s high regard for the departed mature believer. Therefore, losers and carnal believers or unbelievers can receive heritage impact just as they receive personal impact blessing during the mature believer’s sojourns on earth. Heritage impact blessings do not impose any regulation or rule on the beneficiaries. The Christian’s privilege of having spiritual impact is being defied by passiveness and open neglect of Bible doctrines. Pastors and Bible teachers are neglecting their duty in teaching pure Bible doctrines instead they push their followers to be involved in futile, unsuccessful and ineffective ventures like:
Trends in nominal Christianity show signs of an imbalance that emphasizes the visible at the expense of the invisible, the material at the expense of the spiritual, the believer’s overt image at the expense of the inner dynamics of Bible doctrine in the soul. Ignorance of biblical doctrines is the root of these deep-rooted problems. Ignorance undercuts every human good intention. No matter how the Christian desires to make his life count for God, if he is ignorant of God’s plan, will and purpose, he will fail to glorify God. At best, his life is spiritually empty and lacking spiritual impact. At worst, his impact is for evil as he inadequately struggles in Satan’s cause to improve the devil’s world. The manner and extent of the glorification of God in the Church Age are left to the positive volition of the individual believer, hence the scope of the Christian’s influence is virtually unlimited. Believers create the trends of human history – anonymously. Since the invisible impact of the spiritually mature believers is not restricted, Satan is working double time to hamper the growth and momentum of every positive volition believer by every means. The Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly encouraged the Church Age believers to take initiative, advance spiritually, and pursue their spiritual destinies (John 14:13-14, 15:16, 16:23-24). Christians are not left powerless and incapable of gaining spiritual victory since God has already provided everything we need to grow and advance spiritually. We are not endowed with supernatural power for our own gratification and pleasure. What we received is the authority to utilize the power of God’s Word and the power of the Holy Spirit. Our authority to use the power of the Holy Spirit is never left at our own judgment or will but according to divine purpose. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Our authority for using the power of God is always related to our spiritual advancement and momentum toward maturity. It is not designed for mystical power play or building a super-faith image. What the world is seeing is the demonstration of religious power play from mystical sources, not the power of God in action. The power God left for the Church Age believers are designed for selective and exclusive purposes under the divine system:
It is ridiculous to claim that the power of God is responsible for things He declared no longer acceptable and allowed in the Church Age, like healing the sick, miracles, signs and wonders. God will not use His power for such things because they are not necessary and obsolete, since it belongs to another era or dispensation. Religious display of demonic power in many churches is blasphemous. God will never allow His power to be manipulated by such unregenerate or reversionist people. The perfect God will never put His power in the hands of sinful men, who will misuse or abuse it. The so-called miracles, signs and wonders are actually the work of the devil that is using his advocates to deceive the ignorant of God’s Word. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries 166 - ETERNAL IMPACTThere are three things in this world that has eternal value:
In the world, only the Trinity and the Word of God are eternal, they have no beginning and have no end. The souls of the believers received the eternal life of God, which is more accurate to call “everlasting life” because it has a beginning (the moment a person believed and received the free gift of salvation) but has no ending. In this planet, people (including believers) are deeply absorbed in the things of the world. They are trapped in the matters of the world and things of the world. Carnal believers at the point of their pseudo strength create different spiritual power that comes not from God but from Satan. God is glorified by His own power system, by His own perfection and never by human self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is human alternative for the perfection of God and His work for the entire human race. Self-righteousness is replacing the power of God with human power. It is substituting the finished work of Christ on the cross for the salvation of man with human incapacity to gain the approval of God with human works. Human good works cannot please God and have no access to God because it is not based on Bible doctrines. “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). God can accept only His own perfection and righteousness. There is no other way to be acceptable before God than through His perfect righteousness and we do not have that kind of righteousness. The grace of God means that Christ earned our merits before God. He earned our acceptance to God has already provided us that righteousness in Christ Jesus the moment we believe and accept the free gift of salvation. We live in God’s righteousness by constantly storing Bible doctrines in the souls. We can only live in God’s way by progressively and systematically studying Bible doctrines until we depart from this world. Christians cannot do the will of God unless they have knowledge of the will of God planted in their souls. They cannot obey the will of God unless they know the Word of God. They cannot love God unless they know the Word of God. They cannot serve God unless they know the Word of God. There is only one issue here, before we can love, serve, and worship God; we must know Him through His Word. For things to be acceptable before God requires several elements:
The issue is not doing great things for God but doing the right thing at the right time in the right way. God is not asking believers to aspire great things for Him but to do His small things accordingly. Most of the Old Testament believers listed in Hebrews chapter eleven simply lived for God on day-by-day basis. God is not asking the believers to do the impossible to have spiritual and eternal impact. He has provided unlimited possibility for us to glorify Him in time and in eternity by simply doing His will, one day at a time. Do not follow the mystical preachers who goad their followers to do great things in this world as expressions of their “spiritual victory’ in conquering the world for God. The duration of human life is divided into three segments: When a person is young, he is full of energy and has all the time in the world but has no money. Most Christians are wasting their lives for nothing during their younger life. They are wasting their most important possessions (time and energy) for thinking nothing except the things of the world.. The best thing a person can do for himself is to study the Word of God while he has all energy and the time to do so When a person is adult, he earns all the money he desires in the world but has no time for the most important thing, which is the Word of God. For most people of the world, life begins at forty, and so, they devote the rest of their lives for earning money. When a person reached his seniority his energy diminishes to do the things he wanted to do, though he has money and all the time. Human superiority and inferiority does not contribute to spiritual growth and advance toward spiritual maturity. Church Age believers are graciously provided with all the blessings vitally related to spiritual growth and maturity. There is nothing we need to add or improvise or contribute to divine provisions. The believers are capable and able to do and fulfill the plan, purpose, and will of God in any circumstances, in any situation or condition. Only carnality hinders the momentum and advance of the Church Age believer. Negative volition believer has the entire alibi not to do the will and purpose of God. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
167 - THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH The Church Age dispensation will close in a very dramatic exit of every Church Age believer by a forceful and speedy event called Rapture. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 gives us clear cut picture of this event: But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. The Rapture is the forceful and rapid evacuation of all Church Age believers still alive in the world regardless of spiritual standing before the Lord. The Rapture will signal the end of the Church Age and will activate the beginning of the Great Tribulation. God will remove every believer on the earth’s surface before Satan rule the world with his devious government. The Great Tribulation is the climax of God’s divine discipline for Israel, not for the Church Age. The seven years is designed for Israel to function as client nation. The rejected and neglected function of Israel in the OT as chosen people for God’s own purpose will continue under stressful conditions. Israel will proclaim the salvation of God through Jesus Christ in that era. The Rapture is the removal of all Church Age believers from the world before Satan rules over men in total wickedness. Spiritual standing is never an issue for the Rapture but blessed are those who are found sober (spiritually) when it occurs. The Rapture will come unexpectedly and speedily without notice. It was possible during the time of the apostle Paul; it is possible today, tomorrow or maybe 2000 years from now. Christ will not go down on earth but will stay and meet the Church Age believers in the clouds. It will happen at the same time or simultaneously all over the world without respect to geopolitical situation, weather or time elements. It will happen rapidly in almost no time without waiting for a drunken believer to wake up. The Rapture will test the mental attitude of every believer in relation to his or her eager anticipation of Christ’s appearing. The issue is not when the Rapture will take place but “how prepared the believer to meet his God face to face”. For those who are giving priority to their spiritual life, there is nothing to worry about. Believers will leave behind everything they treasure except the Bible doctrine stored in their souls and the indwelling Holy Spirit. The treasures of the world are no longer basic in the permanent and eternal residence of the believers in the presence of the Lord. Believers will leave everything behind for the unbelievers to greed and fight over. The Rapture is the forceful evacuation and removal of the believers from the face of the earth without the privilege to carry those valuables the immature and carnal believers love so much. It is absurd but true that some Christians will hesitate to leave because of their precious things. The wife of Lot looked back because she was grieved for the lost of her precious belongings. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
168 - THE GREAT TRIBULATION Two eschatological dispensations will occur after the Rapture of the Church: the Tribulation and the Millennium. Eschatology is the study of future or final events. They are prophecies yet unfulfilled to anticipate history’s finality. These two eschatological events will occur after the Church is completely formed and transferred to heaven, the eternal and permanent residence of all Christians. The eschatological dispensations are separated from the Church because they are presented in the OT (Isaiah 34:1-6, 63:1-6, Daniel 11:40-45), while the Church was undisclosed in the OT. The Tribulation precedes the founding of God’s promised kingdom on earth, which is Israel. These seven years of dramatic events will start immediately after the Rapture of the Church and will terminate with the second advent of Christ. The Jews called it “the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7). It is also called the time of Satan’s desperation because of the violent power struggle that will take place (Revelation 12:12). The first half of the Tribulation will be a time of relative prosperity and overt world peace. Satan will attempt to create his own “millennium” to prove that he is equal with God (Isaiah 14:14). Satan will simply used mankind to justify his rebellion against God. He will manipulate people to gain his own selfish interest. Behind the scenes, Satan will be pressing down the people to obey his ruthless rule. He will be clamping the human race in tyranny through power politics and religious manipulation, the worse kind of tyranny. It will be a ruthless form of government without respect for human life, privacy, freedom and personal property. Tribulation will be a period of total evil, unopposed and unrestrained by God. The outbreak of evil will reveal, through contrast the historical impact and importance of mature believers as channels for divine blessing. The absence of the spiritual pivot will give Satan free hand. At the beginning of the Tribulation, there will be no believers on earth. The restraining influence of the true invisible Church will be gone from the face of the earth As the devil is left alone to do his devious strategy, the world situation will turn grim. The false peace and prosperity of the first 3 ½ years will deteriorate into horrible disaster. The arrogance of Satan will be expose in his incompetence and it will become known that he cannot rule the kingdom he grabbed from Adam. The Tribulation will be an era of human and satanic failures. Satan will rule the world with total corruption and bad decisions. A larger portion of earth’s population will destroy itself because of greed (Revelation 6:1-). His utopian government will be marked with coercion, slavery and violence. He cannot create a politically and socially perfect world. He will be a total failure and but will insists on his desires. The last 3 ½ years of the tribulation will witness the unprecedented violence of satanic machinations disentangle and doomed to failure but still struggling to retain his rule over the world. Satan will obligate his united forces to exterminate all the Jews (Revelation 12:17), in order to eliminate the beneficiaries of God’s unconditional covenants to Israel. Satan will pursue this heinous policy in an attempt to prove God unfaithful to His promises. He will kill the Jews in the name of world peace. Satan is thinking that if God could not fulfill His unconditional covenants, His character would be flawed, and Satan would have grounds for demanding dismissal of all charges against him and the fallen angels. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
169 - THE MILLENNIUM The Millennium is the one thousand years reign of Christ over all nations after He returned to deliver the Jews from the hands of the united forces (Isaiah 5:26-30, 11:11-16, 14:1-3). He will come to establish His kingdom in fulfillment of the unconditional covenants to Israel (Daniel 9:20-24) The Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Son of David will destroy the forces of Satan (the United Nations forces) and depose the devil as the ruler of the earth. The Lamb of God will gathered anew all the dispersed Jews and rule the earth under a perfect government possible only under His leadership. This is the fulfillment of the magnificent prophecy concerning many nations of Gentiles coming to Jerusalem to entreat the favor of the Lord (Zechariah 8:20-23): "Thus says the Lord of hosts, `It will yet be that people will come, even the inhabitants of many cities. And the inhabitants of one will go to another saying, "Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts; I will also go.” So many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.’ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, `In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." The Millennium (a Latin term for one 1000 years) will commence with the Second Advent of Christ and terminate with the Last Judgment and complete destruction of the present universe, including your beloved planet Earth. This is the final dispensation under the human history prior to eternal state. The Church (the royal family of God) will accompany the Lord Jesus Christ in His return (Second Advent) who will reign with Him (Revelation 1:16). The Second Coming of Christ will mark the resurrection of all Old Testament believers and the Christian martyrs of the Tribulation (1 Corinthians 15:24). The survivors of the Tribulation will enter the Millennium in their natural physical bodies and joint the Church and OT Jewish believers in their resurrection bodies. There are four major participants of the 1000-year reign of Christ:
Following the Second Advent of Christ will be the restoration of the client- nation Israel, then the imprisonment of Satan and his fallen angels into the endless pit (Revelation 20:1-3). It will be followed by the removal of all unbelievers from the earth by Baptism of Fire (Ezekiel 20:34-38 for Jews and Matthew 25:31-46 for Gentiles), then the coronation of Christ. The Millennium will demonstrate to all created beings both human and angels the Excellencies of His grace in outstanding in leadership in a perfect government and perfect environment. After one thousand years, Satan will be released from captivity (Revelation 20:7-9). The devil will lead rebellious elements of the human race and his own fallen angels in a desperate conspiracy against the Lord’s perfect government. That rebellion is called the Gog and Magog Revolution; this final outburst of satanic violence will be suppressed immediately. Satan’s argument for the defense reduced to frantic violence and with God’s demonstration of grace completed, this will terminate the appeal trial of Satan. The purpose of the Millennium is achieved so human history will end. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
170 - VOLITIONAL ASSETS Volition is the freewill decisions of the soul, for or against God and His Bible doctrines. It operates in ignorance or cognizance of God and Bible doctrine. Positive volition is an active desire to know God. It is love for truth, which expresses itself in persistent learning the Word of God and constantly living by its teaching. Volition is a liability if the believer is negative to God and toward His Word. Volition is an asset only if it is being build up or strengthened by Bible doctrine in the soul. The more Bible doctrine a believer knows the greater his resources for comprehending additional doctrine. The believer with little doctrinal frame of reference will have slow moving comprehension. Knowledge builds on knowledge. Truth builds on truth. Your good decisions to learn the Word of God create options for further good decisions to keep learning. As your personal capacity or ability for doctrine expands, your love for Bible doctrine also increases because truth and wisdom are intrinsically worthy of love. Your capacity and receptivity for doctrine is sharpened by your invisible foundation of biblical truth. The mature believer’s intense discernment and progressive desire for doctrine may seem to be only a natural result of his expanding doctrinal frame of reference. The maturity of the believer’s positive volition is the invisible work of God. Our spiritual growth and maturity itself is a gift of grace. God can work freely only in the souls of positive volition believers. He assists the believers in spiritual reception, perception, and application of Bible doctrines. Advancement to spiritual maturity requires a consistent pattern of good decisions made from a position of strength. Good decisions are those that obey the mandates of the divine protocol. The position of strength is the divine dynasphere, in which the Holy Spirit makes the Bible doctrine understandable and use the believer’s stockpile of doctrine to fuel his spiritual advancement. There are two aspect of positive volition: the intangible & the tangible aspects. The tangible is the conscious aspect of the saint’s positive volition (like the decision to listen to Bible doctrine teaching. The Holy Spirit supplies the intangible, spiritual and the unfelt effectiveness of the believer’s positive volition. This true but invisible dimension, which the Christian does not experience, is disclosed only in the content of the Church Age doctrines. Knowledge of thee Holy Spirit’s unseen role gives the Christian Age believers sense of gratitude for increases in his desire for truth, comprehension of Bible doctrine, and personal love for God, all of which he does experience. Human intelligence, wisdom and IQ are not protection for making bad decisions. Experience affords very little help and no good advise or adviser can keep us from doing the foolish thing that we set our minds on doing. No one can escape the consequences of his decisions. If man’s decision has no effect, he would not have free will. Man has free will and his bad decisions will harvest its consequences. If not created by one’s own negative volition, suffering result from someone else’s volition. The innocent suffer with the guilty. Man manufactures his own problems that result to discipline. God manufactures solutions to human self-made miseries. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
The Church Age believer possesses fabulous advantages but his positive volition still lacks the power in itself to advance him spiritually (Galatians 3:3, Ephesians 4:20, 23, 30). Spiritual growth and maturity is a marvelous divine achievement. Desiring to grow does not produce growth, nor unquestioning devotion and obedience to religious formula, including rigid legalistic attendance to hear Bible teaching. Growth comes not by hoping or striving but a result of learning, thinking and solving human problems with Bible doctrines. The Word of God is the power of God (Romans 1:16, Hebrews 4:12). Even the keenest human intellect cannot penetrate the mystery doctrine and it is totally impossible to grow with out the grace of God. Once the grace of God meets the helplessness of man, He places us in an invisible position of strength – the believer’s invisible palace and power room. The power of God the Holy Spirit operates after salvation only inside the divine power system or divine dynasphere. The Spirit’s communication ministry aids in comprehension, assimilation, and application of the truth, but each individual believer has to make three major decisions from time to time: One. The Christian chooses to reside in the divine dynasphere and listen to doctrinal Bible teaching. The Holy Spirit makes genuine Bible doctrine understandable to the believer’s soul (1 Corinthians 2:12). Two. The Christian chooses to think about Bible doctrine, to believe the particular doctrine he hears, and to integrate the new information or doctrine with the truth he already knows. The Holy Spirit converts gnosis or academic knowledge into epignosis or genuine knowledge & understanding (1 Corinthians 2:13). Three. The Christian chooses to apply the Bible doctrines he learned in the circumstances of his life. The Holy Spirit aids in the recall of the truth so that the believer can walk (live) by means of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). In every stage of hearing, learning, thinking (meditating), and using Bible doctrine in solving the problems of his daily circumstances, the believer provides the non-meritorious positive volition and the Holy Spirit provides the unseen power, the spiritual IQ or the ability to understand the word of God. The Holy Spirit provides every vital aid for reception, perception, comprehension, assimilation, and application of Bible doctrine. The Holy Spirit’s communication work is powerful but deliberately invisible. The teaching (doctrine) is spotlighted not the teacher. The Holy Spirit never put himself in the center stage unlike some celebrated TV and radio so-called Bible teachers. The preacher or pastor is the communicator of the Bible doctrine but the real teacher is the Holy Spirit who operates in silent support of the normal, human learning process (2 Timothy 2:15). The believer’s conscious experience is concerned about his listening, thinking and applying of the truth. He thinks about the doctrine he hears, mulls it over, accepts what he believes is true and lives by the truth he accepted. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in the lives of the believers who obey the mandate to be filled with Holy Spirit by faith (Galatians 5:16-26, Ephesians 4:30, 5:18, 1 Thessalonians. 5:19). The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ rather than Himself (John 16:13-14). J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
The Holy Spirit illuminates the mind (thinking) of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:10-16). The Church Age believer “knows” the Spirit but “beholds” Christ in contrast to the world, which neither beholds nor knows the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-19). The Holy Spirit’s vital and indispensable ministry operates below the surface – silently. The doctrinally aware believer slowly learns to appreciate the invisible power that operate behind the surface and all the more appreciate the facets of the positive volition, which are discernible that without it his spiritual life will never advance. As he grows, his positive volition itself changes. Beyond simply opting to hear, accept, or apply Bible doctrine, his growing positive volition becomes an expression of his own spiritual autonomy. And when firmly grounded in truth, his doctrinal thinking pattern becomes his outlook on life. He acquires a scale of values in which his relationship with God has become his first priority. His confidence in God enables him to directly and honestly face his own questions in life, as an essential part of being receptive to truth. He fills every space of his soul with Bible doctrine, even his subconscious so that he develops the instincts of grace, gratitude, and true worship. He has trained his senses to discern good and evil by constant practice of learning to apply Bible doctrine to life’s situation (Hebrews 5:14). His positive volition taught him not to waste vital time for nothing like watching endless TV shows. He avails himself of every opportunity to learn Bible doctrine. He stretches forward with a goal to reach the highest level of spiritual maturity. He loves and desires truth more than anything else. Only in such condition human volition becomes an asset in itself. This asset (positive volition) becomes the driving force in his spiritual life. The increasing desire to know and worship God drives the potential spiritual winner toward his destiny. The advancing believer remains free (with his volition under his own rules), his old sinful nature (OSN) can still divert him to turn aside into error or indifference. But after positive volition is strengthened by the progressive intake of Bible doctrine, his frame of reference and his conscience operate in favor of God and His Truth. He has set his momentum to trust forward and his negative volition would go against his own grain. His negative volition will always defeat the fight against supremacy. Negative volition is dangerous foes of the believer that must be weakened by progressive intake of Bible doctrine. We must remember that volition is the decision of the soul not of the brain and the soul filled with human and satanic viewpoint can only produce negative volition. Positive volition is never automatic and any believer in any stage of spirituality can become dull of hearing (Hebrews 5:11). Growing believers are in danger of departing from the Bible doctrine after having built a foundation of elementary knowledge (Hebrews 6:1-6). In this passage, advancing saints are warmed of possible loss of momentum by ignoring dispensational distinctions. They have correct basic foundation or frame of reference of basic doctrines. At some point of their Christian life they began to neglect the basics they had learned. They were attracted to OT obsolete Jewish rituals, which halted their growth and momentum. Satan has all kinds of bait waiting to hook the ignorant believers. Beware! J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
171 - DIVINE ENCOURAGEMENT Divine encouragement is different from human encouragement and there is no point of similarity but only of contrast. Divine encouragement plays a vital and indispensable role in transforming the believer’s positive volition (Phil. 2:1). The invisible resources that God provides for every Church Age saints surpass the human imagination. As the advancing believer begins a trend of making right decisions, his spiritual assets produce their powerful results. He grows up spiritually. Pressures only accelerate his spiritual advance. He achieves spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and finally spiritual maturity. The results of executing the protocol plan of God encourage him to advance further as his confidence in God continues to grow and establishes in truth. This confidence from his own cumulative experience of God’s grace strengthens his determination with his positive volition to keep on fulfilling God’s very own purpose for his life (Philippians 3:12-14). As the believer is continually filled with the Holy Spirit and filled with the Word of God as result of his spiritual progress he is now qualified to take the series of spiritual board exams or testing called undeserved suffering for blessing aims to encourage the saint and not to destroy him. There are three major categories of sufferings in the world:
Self-made miseries are the results of bad decision from ignorance of God’s Word and or lack of relationship with God. Both believers and unbelievers experience self-made miseries when ever OSN in control. Believers faces divine discipline when ever they violate the laws of divine establishment or the divine protocol plan of God. Divine discipline is for the purpose of waking the believers from spiritual slumber (operational death or temporal death). Divine is just a wake call for the carnal or reversionist believers. The advancing believer is learning to apply Bible doctrine to solve his problems but in spiritual maturity his spiritual ability to use Bible doctrine in life’s circumstances will be tested severely. Each of the three stages of suffering for blessings are aimed to encourage the believer to advance further rather than to slow down. Suffering for blessings is God’s way of manifesting and pouring out his bountiful grace to advancing believers under fire. Believers will experience the brutality of the world the cosmic system and of the devil. The whole system of the devil’s world will be against him; he will be left alone with no one to turn to except God. Satan can use everyone against the advancing believer even the very people he cherished most. Everything can be used against him and so he needs the maximum Bible doctrine in his soul to remain victorious. The world will reject and despise the believer because of his faith in Christ. Satan will curse him to death. Advancing believers will fail several times before reaching the summit. The strongest believer, the apostle Paul failed in several occasions but he did not permit himself to be a loser. This phase of the Christian life is something that all of us must aspire, the glorification of Christ in time. Suffering for blessing is not only an asset but also a grand privilege and opportunity in the Christian life. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
172 - ASSETS FOR UNDESERVED SUFFERINGS The different categories of assets are example of continuity in the midst of changes. These assets demonstrate the immutability of God. The changes in human history are because of the ever-changing men, not because God is changing His dealing with men. God is never making any adjustment toward men. The superior God will never adjust to the inferior men. In every dispensation God uses suffering as a means of blessing the spiritually mature believer. God in His marvelous grace designed pressures for each stage of believer’s advance in spiritual maturity. The divine objective is accelerated spiritual growth. Genuine Christianity is not a religion of suffering, no matter how historians cropped up the distortions and forged the images they invented. Suffering is part of the Christian life, both for the carnal or spiritual. We are mortals living in the cosmic system with other mortals, all possessing an OSN. God frees the advancing believer from his self-induced misery by the doctrine he stored in his soul. As the advancing believer learns to use the Word of God to solve every human problem, God slowly adds in undeserved suffering into His plan of grace for the mature saints. At this point, God uses this type of suffering to accelerate the CA believer’s momentum. As the saint learns to use his divine assets, the horrible suffering for blessings loses much of its dread. God uses the right kind and the right degree of suffering to stretch the believer beyond his human resources, compelling him to rely utterly upon the grace of God. The succession of the undeserved suffering is designed to teach the believer the all-sufficiency of God. The believer might fail a test and collapse under pressure, but never is the pressure greater than he can bear if he uses the doctrinal resources in his soul (1 Corinthians 10:13). And if a believer fails is as near as the divine solution of rebound. Suffering has different purposes in each successive stage of spiritual growth. [Please see Bible Doctrine Book 4]. God does not administer any of these categories of suffering until the believer can handle the pressure and benefit from the experience. This suffering for blessing is never designed to destroy the growing believer but God’s rationale is to replace the Christian’s futile confidence in human resources with increased confidence in God. The pain is real and the purpose is also real real blessing. Therefore, suffering for blessing is necessary to intensify the believer’s use of divine assets. The Christian who fall short to reach spiritual esteem does not receive the assets for undeserved suffering. He still suffers (mostly from self-induced misery or divine discipline), but his pain is not designed for blessing. His bad decisions cause him to go through under the law of volitional liability or responsibility. God restrained and put the believer under divine discipline to alert him to his failure and to motivate his return to the only solution: the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. Suffering for blessing is different type of suffering since the pain is different from self-induced misery and divine discipline. The purpose is different from other categories of sufferings. The effect and result is also different from the rest of the sufferings. The believer can not request, demand or command God to provide him this asset for suffering because it is the result of spiritual growth and maturity of the soul. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
173 - PERSONNEL ASSETS Personnel assets are special categories of assets since they sustain the life and operation of the local church. They relate the individual believer to an organization or group of believers in which he plays an important part. Every Church Age believer possesses at least one spiritual gift (1 Corinthians 12:7). They are God’s given abilities related to the function of the royal family of God on earth. From His sovereign bounty the victorious Lord Jesus Christ initially distributed spiritual gifts to celebrate His triumph (Ephesians 4:7-13). Shortly after the Church Age began, the Holy Spirit took over the distribution of spiritual gifts as part of His ministry of glorifying Christ (John 16:14). Throughout the Church age, the sovereign Holy Spirit bestows spiritual gifts at the moment of salvation (1 Corinthians 12:11, Hebrews 2:4). Totally apart from human merit, ability, talent, or wisdom, the spiritual gifts operate on divine power, not on human energy. The spiritual gift, which remains unexploited, has begun to grow. When he reaches spiritual maturity, his gifts functions fully and effectively, even if he is unaware that his activities involve a spiritual gift. The only gifts that demand special preparation in order to function properly are the communication gifts, particularly the gift of pastor-teacher, and certain gifts of administration. Spiritual gifts are witnesses to the grace of God the Father and they are witnesses to salvation in the Church Age (Heb. 2:4). They are not dependent on human ability, morality, intelligence, talent, or human achievement, but are allotted solely by decision of God the Holy Spirit. At any point in the Church Age, each spiritual gift in every geographical area is necessary for the function of the Body of Christ in that area (1 Corinthians 12:27-31). All spiritual gifts function through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in and through the believer (Acts 2:4) and always function under the team concept, each a member of the whole Body of Christ. But the function of spiritual gifts depends on renovating the thinking with Bible doctrine (Romans 12:2-3) and they can only function to the fullest in spiritual maturity. There are two categories of spiritual gifts, the temporal and permanent: Temporal spiritual gifts (of the pre-canon era) are necessary for the communication of mystery doctrine until the canon of the Scripture was completed and circulated. The gift of tongues ceased in A.D. 70 at the fall of Jerusalem (1 Cor. 13:8-10). After the completion of the Canon, the gifts of apostleship, prophecy, healing, and miracles were no longer necessary and were terminated in A.D. 96 (Acts 19:11-12). Permanent spiritual gifts (of the post-canon era) include: pastor-teacher, evangelist, helps, mercy, giving and administration (Romans 12:8, Phil. 2:27, 2 Timothy 4:20). They continue to function after the completion of the Canon and throughout the Church Age (Romans 12:6-8, 1 Cor. 12:31). All spiritual gifts were given after the resurrection, ascension and session of Christ (Ephesians 4:8). The first batch of spiritual gifts was given on the Day of Pentecost, when the dispensation of Israel was interrupted and the Church Age began (Acts 2:1-). Except for the short transition in the pre-canon Church Age, each spiritual gift is distributed at the moment of salvation (Acts 2:1-, 8:14-17, 19:2-8). J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
174 - ABUSES OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS The apostle Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians deals with their compound spiritual problems including the abuse and misuse of spiritual gifts, in which the apostle Paul prescribed regulation and order for the exercise of gifts. The widespread carnality and apostasy of the Corinthian Church tried to find ways to continue the application of the sign gifts such as tongues and healing, beyond the closing of the Canon in A.D. 96. Anyone today who claims to possess the first century gifts of apostleship, prophecy, miracles, healing, words of knowledge is apostate. These are sign gifts given to Church Age believers before the completion of the Canon. Possession of spiritual gifts that put you behind the scene never indicates spiritual inferiority, and eye-catching gifts do not indicate superiority and must never be a source of splitting up in the church. There are no superior or inferior spiritual gifts. They are all from God but each has different angle of manifestation and service but with the same purpose. The temporary gifts of apostles and prophets were designed for several purposes:
After the pre-canon communication gifts were terminated in A.D. 96, the permanent communication gifts of pastor-teacher and evangelist were established. The pastor-teacher communicates the whole realm of Bible doctrine inside the local church, while the evangelist communicates the Gospel to groups of unbelievers outside the local church. The gifts of the pastor-teacher and evangelist are bestowed to men only (1 Corinthians 14:34-35, 1 Timothy 2:12, 3:1-7). There were ladies evangelists in the books of Acts, but those were under the pre-canon period not post-canon. Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. The qualifications of the pastors and preachers must be patterned to the biblical criteria, and not by criteria set by the local church council, or pastoral “hiring” committee. The pastors are not employee or hired workers but men called by God to set apart their selfish desires and aspiration to give their entire life for shepherding their local congregation. They are men on duty assigned to communicate the whole realm of Bible doctrine on seasons or out of seasons. Pastors are not contract workers left to the mercy of the executive committee of the local church. The pastor of every local church must be the most spiritually matured believer in that group not a spiritual novice. The local church is the very classroom for training pastors and workers not the seminary. Most seminary are like canned foods factory. They produce sardines, edible but not nutritional value. They provide your souls nothing but junk foods. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
175 - BLESSINGS FROM THE JUSTICE OF GODThe godhead had infinite glory in the eternity past and will have it in the eternity future. There was never a time when God was without His glory. At the cessation of human history God’s glory will be perfect as it was before the beginning of time. God is not in time but time is God. Human defectiveness does not stain the glory of God and His glory does not depend on created beings but we depend on His glory. Grace is born of the glory of God. Grace means that God does all the works which adds up to our blessings whether in time or in eternity. Divine blessings are all grace. The only things related to us that glorify God are what God Himself accomplished for man, and such accomplishment are of the grace of God. They are called divine imputation. Divine imputations clearly demonstrate the truth that the glory of God begins with the glory and will end with the glory. The doctrine of divine imputations erect the framework upon which is built all other doctrine pertaining to our relationship with God. They are the skeletons or the structure that gives strength to every principle and concept related to the Christian way of life. The definition of imputations is the story of grace, the story how divine integrity accomplishes the purpose for which God created mankind. But sad to say, that the doctrine of divine imputation is one of the most neglected and untouched teaching. Its full scope is not understood since it is left alone and seldom communicated from pulpits. Imputation is the function of the justice of God motivated by love in ascribing, reckoning, or crediting some thing to someone for cursing or blessing. Imputations fall into two categories: real and judicial. A real imputation credits to a person something, which belongs to him, something antecedent to him. There is an affinity between what is received and the one who receives it. Real imputation must have a place to go, a target ready and waiting to receive it. What is given in a real imputation goes where it rightfully belongs. Real imputations have affinity between what is received and the one who receives it. Real imputations have a home. Judicial imputations give emphasis to the Source, the justice of God and it does not have a home. Judicial imputation does not have a home in the person to whom it is given. It is not antecedently his own. Judicial imputation is when something is credited where it does not rightfully belong, where there is no affinity, where there is no direction. God must immediately take some form of judicial action to rectify the situation. Divine justice must immediately pronounce a verdict, whether of cursing or of blessing. Judicial imputations give emphasis to the Source –the justice of God, rather than any affinity between the giving point and the receiving point. There are seven divine imputations, five of which are related to salvation, two are real and three are judicial, the sixth and the seventh imputations are related to spiritual maturity of the Church Age believers. We must examine these divine operations if we are to understand how the justice of God functions toward us and if we are to see the tremendous advantage of having justice of God as our point of contact with God. All believer, whether he knows it or not, has already been involved in all five categories J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
176 - THE IMPUTATION OF THE SOUL LIFE The first real imputation from the justice of God occurs for every member of the human race at the moment of physical birth. God imputes soul life to biological life creating human life. Biological life begins at conception and is the means of transmitting the sin nature. Soul life is created by God at the physical birth and imputed as the means of transmitting the human soul. The combination of biological life and soul life becomes a physically alive human being. Inside the fetus, the sensory intermediate and motor nerves stimulate muscular action, called reflex motility. The fetus is totally mother dependent, its movement often sympathize with the mother’s emotional or physical condition. The development of the body inside the womb is not a human being with a life of his own until the sovereign God imputes soul life, resulting to human life. Only God has the power to create a human life and no human being is a biological accident. God personally created each one of us. The first imputation occurs when the viable fetus emerges from the womb. Human life begins when God imputes the breath or spark of life. This spark is called NESHAMAH in Hebrew, and is the same BREATH that God breathed into the nostrils of Adam, whose body God formed of dust from the ground (Genesis 2:7). Soul life always comes in the same way, directly from God, whether to Adam as an adult or to all progeny of Adam as infants. God gave the spark of life not only to Adam but also individually to each human being (Isaiah 57:16, Job 33:4). God always provides human life in the same way, by real imputation and always for the same purpose, for our happiness and blessing. As the body develops within the mother womb, there also develops within its cranial area the format soul. The format soul is the biological life, the material qualities of the developing brain. It consists of the genetic format for the mentality, inherited from the genes of both parents. The Hebrew word NEPHESH often translated as soul or life refers to the souls fully formed, immaterial essence, which is provided by God at the moment the spark of life is given. The breath of life transforms the fetus and its format soul into a living soul (Genesis 2:7). The format soul becomes the home for the imputation of soul life. The spark of life ignites the format soul, and only upon the ignition at the moment of birth does the fetus become a living human being. Human life can be imputed only where it has a home, and it is always a real imputation from God. This process is not subject for revision, or suspension but a permanent arrangement. The breath of life resides in the soul forever. The breath of life is eternal and so, the soul has become eternal as well. The soul life is immaterial, not mortal but eternal matter. Even when your soul leaves your body in physical death, your life is still in your soul; and your life will never be separated from your soul. If your whole body evaporated in bomb explosion, your soul will remain uninjured, and your life would remain intact in your soul. There is nothing in this world that can destroy your soul life, and there is no such thing as soul death or soul sleep. If you believe in Christ, the moment your soul departs from your body you will be absent from the body, and stand face to face with the Lord forever (2 Corinthians 5:8). J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
177 - THE IMPUTATION OF ADAM’S SIN In the same moment that soul life is imputed, the second real imputation occurs as a result of Adam’s deliberate sin in the Garden. Adam’s original sin is imputed to its home, the sin nature. This is real imputation because there is an affinity between Adam’s sin and Adam’s trend or sin nature, between his act of disobedience and the corruption that it caused in him. The result of this imputation is that we are all born physically alive but spiritually dead. This imputation makes the cross possible, it makes salvation possible, it lays every advantage each one of us will enjoy in time or eternity. Adam’s original sin plus a sin nature equals spiritual death. But these two factors come to us in different ways. Adam’s sin directly imputed by the justice of God at the moment of physical birth, his sin nature is passed down genetically through the male procreation. The genetically formed sin nature is the home for the imputation of Adam’s sin and the result of this affinity is spiritual death for all members of the human race except Christ Spiritual death is not only total separation from God and a complete lack of relationship with Him but also the first function of the justice of God in condemning the fallen man. Our initial relationship with the justice of God is spiritual death because justice must condemn before it can bless. God condemns sin. Hence God is not the author of sin, Adam is. To implicate God with sin is blasphemous. God is neither the source of sin nor does He sponsor sin, tempt to sin or ever failed to judge sin. A perfect God could create only perfect creatures. When God create Adam and Eve there was no sin, and no sin nature existed not until the fall of man. God gave the original man and woman everything they could have ever needed to remain in a sinless status. If Adam and his wife had not decided of their own free wills to eat from the forbidden tree, god would have continued to perpetuate the Age of Perfection indefinitely. Although Satan was the first sinner among all God’s creature, Adam was totally responsible for the fall of man. The immaterial soul that comes from the hand of God is perfect and that is true for the original couple and in us. The soul is instantly tainted only because it comes under the corrupting influenced of the old sin nature. In Adam, this contamination occurred at the moment he sinned, in us at the moment of physical birth. The creation of the human soul, their imputations to biological life, and its consequent corruption by the imputation of Adam’s original sin occur simultaneously. The human soul never preexists before uniting with the body. At birth, we became facsimiles of Adam at the Fall. We became slaves of the sin nature. Adam was the ruler of the world and the authority over the woman. He was the head of the human race as it existed in the Garden and consequently was the federal head of all mankind but he gave up such leadership because of the woman. Even though the woman was the first to disobey, it is his sin, not hers that plunges mankind into condemnation. Since we were seminally in Adam, through his own choice, he fell under the sovereignty of the sin nature (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). Adam was created first and assigned as the head of mankind. The woman was deceived while Adam knew exactly what he was doing when he sinned (1 Tim 2:13-14) Adam sinned deliberately and with a perfect knowledge of what he was doing.
Adam’s original sin becomes the sin of every human being. His condemnation becomes the condemnation of everyone in this planet. His nature after the Fall becomes our nature before spiritual birth. Sin nature or old sin nature is not part of the soul, but resides in every cell of our body (Romans 6:6, 12:7:7-18, 8:3-5, Ephesians 4:22). Men are spiritually dead not because of their personal sins but because they possess the old sin nature (OSN). We are all condemned before we sinned, and we sinned personally only as result of our spiritual death never as the cause. OSN condemned the human race. Our condemnation come at the moment we are born physically not at the moment we sin (Romans 4:8, 5:13). We are born spiritually dead; we are born candidates for the grace of God. God is able to save us before we sinned and He is able to save anyone who dies prior to reaching God’s consciousness. Our condemnation and human good works has nothing to do with our receiving of blessings from God. We do not have to impress God in anyway. There is nothing we can do by our own power and ability to change our status before God. God can accept only His own righteousness. We became sinners not by our own sin but by the sin of Adam. We become acceptable to God by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. The old sin nature is not endemic to the soul but resides instead in the cell structure of the human body. OSN is also called:
The sin nature is both material and immaterial. The material part is its residence in the cell structure of the body. The immaterial part is the function of its specific trends toward sin, toward human good and toward evil. We refer to these three specific trends collectively as Adam’s trend or Adam’s sinful trend. Everyone’s sin nature includes all three of these specialized trends that function in different combinations at different times. The specific trend toward sin tempts the believer to produce all categories of personal sins, mental, verbal and overt. The trend toward good tempts you the believer to produce human good, which includes all attempts to earn salvation or the approbation of God. It also includes all human production apart from the filling of the Holy Spirit, and all misguided efforts to improve the world for the welfare of man. The trend toward evil is the intensification of the other two trends good and evil. Good and evil is not only the policy of Satan as the ruler of the cosmic world system but also the function of the sin nature as the sovereign of human life. On the material side, the sin nature resides in the mortal human body, contaminating every cell’s structure or function. Every human chromosome also carries the sin nature and each microscopic chromosome in every cell is contaminated with Adam’s sinful nature. The only remedy is to get rid of this mortal body. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
178 - THE IMPUTATION OF PERSONAL SIN TO CHRIST The term ONLY BEGOTTEN of John 3:16 means UNIQUELY BORN SON, a term that refers to Christ perfect humanity. We are all born facsimiles of Adam after the Fall, that is why we share his original sin by real imputation and his nature by genetic transmission, consequently, we share his spiritual death. The Lord Jesus Christ was born a facsimile or type of Adam before the Fall. Adam was created perfect; our Lord was born perfect, without the corruption of the sin nature. The mother of Christ’s humanity, the Virgin Mary was born spiritually dead. She was not immaculate, sinless, or perfect. She is not the mother of God. God is eternal, has no source, and has no origin and no mother! Mary like every member of the human race was a sinner in need of a Savior. Her body was a body of corruption, her genes and chromosomes carried the sin nature. After Christ was born, Mary bore at least six other children by Joseph through normal procreation (Matthew 13:55-56). All were born spiritually dead possessing OSN, which they received through their father. Mary was not the miracle but the virgin birth of Christ. Mary did not remain a virgin. The miracle was that the Holy Spirit provided 23 perfect chromosomes to fertilize her normal and pure ovum. She conceived apart from the contamination carried by male sperm. Her pregnancy was a virgin pregnancy it was totally free from the corruption of Adam’s sinful trend. The real issue here is the virgin pregnancy of Christ not the virginity of Mary. Christ was born without a human father; Joseph was not even Christ’s stepfather yet he took the privilege of nurturing the Lord in the Word of God. When the fetus, as biological life emerged from Mary’s womb, God the Father imputed soul life to its genetically prepared home, Christ’s format soul. The result was a human life at birth, as it would have been with any other member of the human race. Christ was born true humanity, He was not just a true humanity but also a perfect humanity qualified to represent mankind before God. But at the same moment, when the justice of God would normally impute Adam’s original sin to a newly born infant, no such imputation was possible because Christ had no genetically formed sin nature. Adam’s sin had no home in Christ’s physical body. There was no affinity between Christ and Adams’ original sin because, through the virgin pregnancy, Christ was not seminally in Adam The birth of Christ was unique. He was born both physically and spiritually alive. He was the only perfect being born into this world. The other perfect being was created (Adam) in a perfect environment. Christ was born in the midst of totally depraved mankind. He was the only free Man ever to enter Satan’s world. Free from the devil’s dictatorship, free from sovereignty of OSN, free from the imputation of Adam’s sin, and totally free from the condemnation of spiritual death. The Greek word MONOGENES in John 3:16 is not “only begotten” Son but “uniquely born” Son. Christ is only person who entered Satan’s world in perfect condition. He has to be perfect since God can accept only a perfect sacrifice according to His own standard and criteria. He was without blemish of sin nature and without the spot of Adam’s trends. While the love of God motivated the gift of the Savior, the justice of God had to judge our sins in Jesus Christ as our Substitute, and the perfect righteousness of God had to find Him an acceptable sacrifice. Christ was perfect at birth but He also had to be perfect when He reached the cross, thus, our Lord could not commit any personal sin during His life on earth. In His humanity He could be tempted and could have sinned. In His deity, however, neither could He be tempted nor could He commit sin. He was TEMPTABLE BUT IMPECCABLE. Through His positive human volition He was able to avoid sin when He was tempted as a man. In his divine essence, the integrity of God meant sin was completely out of questions. HE WAS ABLE NOT TO SIN AND NOT ABLE TO SIN. Like perfect Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ could fail only in one way, and that is by committing an act of negative volition to the Father’s plan for the Incarnation. That is why; Satan intensified his efforts to prevent the cross by putting the free will volition of the Lord’s humanity repeatedly to severe testing (Matthew 4:1-11, Hebrews 4:15). He was tempted far beyond anything we will ever face. The recorded temptations are but a few of the traps and snares that Satan brutally and persistently laid in His path. Unlike the woman in the Garden whose ignorance of doctrine made her vulnerable to Satan’s wiles, Christ remained absolutely obedient to the Father’s plan all the way to the cross (Luke 22:42). He was the only Person in the entire history of man who did not disobey the plan, the purpose and will of the Father, a proof of His perfection. Jesus Christ is God’s gift to mankind. He is acceptable to the righteousness and justice of God. Adam’s original sin was totally foreign to our Lord and was not imputed to Him at birth. Our sins had no place in Him on the cross. Thus, when the justice of God the Father imputed our sins to Him, it was a judicial imputation. Each judicial imputation is incomplete until God takes action to complete it - judicial verdict always follow. When the sins of mankind were charged to the impeccable humanity of Christ, the justice of God had to take action; He judged the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s judgment of our sins in Christ, including Adam’s original sin, wiped our slate clean: we need only to accept this divine action in our behalf through non-meritorious faith in Christ who took our place. God the father loved the Son on the cross with a love beyond anything we can imagine. Since eternity past their love rapport never diminished. But for the sake of man, God forsook Christ on the cross. The cross was an act of justice. Love motivated the gift of Christ as a substitute sacrifice for our sins, then the justice imputed our sins to Christ: Righteousness rejected our sins, justice judged them. This was the greatest act that God could possibly have performed in demonstration of His matchless character. Satan thought he had scored a victory when man Adam in the Garden. Satan seized the scepter of the world but God finessed him out of every advantage by condemning the entire human race in Adam. By it we receive our so great a salvation (Hebrews 2:3) and God demonstrates the remarkable and fascinating wisdom of His justice. Much more, we are now in a position to be blessed in a phenomenal way, even in the midst of the devil’s world. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
179 - OUR POINT OF CONTACTThe contact point of Adam and ISHAH with God was the love and grace of God. All the blessing of the Garden came from this point of contact. Justice was not man’s point of contact with God for several reasons:
Adam and ISHAH were simply the perfect work of the perfect God, and they would stay that way as long as they did not reject God’s authority. Only one reference to the justice of God existed in the Garden. This was a warning that justice would become their point of contact if they ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The nature of this tree, like that of the tree of life, has been long misunderstood. The tree of good and evil embodied Satan’s plan. The connective “and’ is not a contrast, but a link of two similar concepts. Good and evil was and is the sum total of Satan’s policy for ruling the world and for proving himself to be as good as God: to eat from this tree was to agree and accept the demonic doctrine. Adam was the ruler of the earth during the Age of perfection. They were created and placed in the Garden to resolve the angelic conflict; they were protected from Satan’s influence as long as they had positive volition toward God and His doctrine. Now, the two trees in the middle of the Garden represented the opposing sides in the angelic conflict. Adam and ISHAH jointed the rebel’s group. Satan is the sovereign of the world (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2), and he rules through the policy, which he naturally calls “good”, but which God calls “evil” (Galatians 1:4). Evil is the sum total of Satan’s genius; it is his thinking totally opposed to the mind of Christ- the Bible doctrine. Every person born into this world (except the perfect humanity of Christ) is a natural citizen of the devil’s world. We are all born under divine condemnation: physically alive but spiritually dead. All because Adam rejected God’s provisions in the Garden and decided to eat from the tree of knowledge of Satan’s plan, and plunged the entire human race into spiritual death –under Satan’s regime. Every person born into this world is a certified enemy of God living in the enemy’s territory and also serving the enemy. At the fall, Adam and ISHAH came under a new system. No longer perfect, no longer sinless, no longer qualified to stay in a perfect Garden. Their point of contact ceased to be His love. Their new, depraved condition demanded justice, and justice immediately went into action. Righteousness is the principle of His integrity. Justice is the function. Love is the motivation of the policy of divine integrity: Righteousness demands righteousness Justice demands justice What the righteousness of God demands, the justice of God executes in love. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries180 - DEMANDS AND STANDARDS OF GODThe justice of God, His immovable strength of character is His system of dealing with imperfect man. There is no sentimentality, concession, altruism or any weakness in His nature. The inviolable righteousness of God stands guard over the justice of God, and the justice protects God’s entire essence from compromise when dealing with sinful man. Without exception righteousness of God demands righteousness, the justice of God demands justice. What the righteousness of God demands, the justice of God executes through Divine love. The principle, the function, and the motivation of God’s integrity are immutable and impartial; therefore His attributes are never violated. No imperfection in us escapes ultimate judgment; no petite sin in escapes His attention. No blessing comes to us apart from grace. No discipline comes to us apart from grace. What the righteousness of God accepts, the justice blesses through love and grace. What righteousness rejects, the justice condemns and the love provides a solution through grace. All cursing and blessing come from the same source; the inevitable, final result of every function of divine integrity is the glorification of God. In grace, God does all the work, carrying out the dictates of perfect righteousness. God receives all credits while we reap the benefits in a totally non-meritorious way. God’s standards are so infinitely high that no one can meet them but God himself. Only what God does reflect absolute righteousness. God cannot approve of or accept less than His own righteousness; He cannot bless anything less than His own standards. This is the meaning of righteousness demands righteousness. God designed man to be prospered and blessed and to share god’s own happiness. God possesses only the ultimate in happiness. His happiness is perfect, eternal and it cannot be diminished or increased. God is happy about always being entirely fair. His perfect righteousness is His glory. He recognizes His own perfection and takes pleasure in His own glory. God enjoys claiming all glory for himself simply in the interest of absolute truth. Perfect happiness is part of God’s character. It is impossible for him to be unhappy since thoroughly enjoys every facets of His own existence. For example; God is satisfied and delighted with His plan of grace. In grace, He shares His own happiness with believers through bible doctrine resident in their souls. God’s pleasure depends on His perfect character, never on human imperfect character or deeds. God cannot be happier than He already is, and nothing you can do, think, or say can make God unhappy. Man is incapable of adding or detracting from His perfect happiness. God is neither happy with our sins or negative volition nor indifferent with reversionists. His plan calls for believers to share His happiness, not for Him to depend on yours. God wants to bless us, but He cannot since we have no righteousness that meets His demands and standards. We are all condemned and He cannot prosper us no matter what we do. Just, there is no way we can please Him by our own. His integrity demands that He must bless His own righteousness. So He decided in eternity past to impute His own righteousness to us at the moment we believe in Christ. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
181 - THE IMPUTATION OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS The righteousness of God is the very root and center of God’s essence; it is the principle behind every action God has taken toward every man since the fall of Adam. The function of divine integrity has imputed to every believer the principle of God’s integrity. At salvation, you and I were dropped in the middle of the most exclusive relationship in the whole universe the relationship within the Godhead; between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The integrity of God is the magnificent object of God’s love, and now we have part of his integrity. As far as the love of God is concerned, we cannot work out our way in or force our way in, but once we possess God’s righteousness, He has made us the eternal objects of His love. God loves His integrity, we have the very principle of His integrity, and therefore god personally loves every believer. Justice saves us through grace and we shall remain under His grace forever. We never earn or deserve what God’s justice gives us in grace; there is no affinity whatever between the absolute righteousness of God and our status of total depravity. Divine righteousness is credited and imputed where it does not rightfully belong – the sinful men. In the same way, the sin of men was imputed where it does not rightfully belong the perfect humanity of Christ. That is what we called judicial imputations. The cluster of two judicial imputations might be considered an exchange: ALL THE SINS OF MEN GOES TO CHRIST, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD GOES TO SINFUL MEN. The first judicial action at the cross makes possible this second judicial imputation when we believe. Together they form ‘the greater” of salvation. God must pronounce a judicial verdict to complete this second judicial action of imputation. He must take action to rectify a situation where no affinity exists. He looks at us as possessors of the very principle of His integrity. From the bench of heavenly court, God pronounced each believer not guilty or justified before God. FROM ONE MAN’S SIN IN THE GARDEN, THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE IS CONDEMNED FROM ONE MAN’S WORK ON THE CROSS, THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE CAN BE JUSTIFIED. This is the judicial act of vindication that occurs at the moment of salvation when God the Judge sees His own perfect righteousness in us (Romans 5:16). Because of our total condemnation at birth for Adam’s one sin, plus the blotting out of all personal sins at the cross, the justice of God is now free to bless any member of the human race who believes in Christ. The first blessing we receive, the factor that turns everything around, is the imputation of the righteousness of God. At the Cross, God the Father made one divine pronouncement; one order from God which become the basis for his entire relationship with the believer (Romans 5:1), the pronouncement is what we called justification. God pronounced the verdict because Christ done a right act in the fulfillment of a legal requirement. From the judgment of many sins at the cross comes one act of justification. At physical birth, justice acts against us to pronounce us condemned before God. At spiritual birth, justice acts in our behalf to appoint us righteous (Romans 5:19). The later verdict gives us the potential for all other divine blessings. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
182 - THE IMPUTATION OF ETERNAL LIFEGod intends for the blessings of time to be permanent, and He makes them permanent by carrying them over from time to eternity. He parlays the blessings He gives on earth into even greater blessings and rewards in heaven. The real imputation of eternal life implies far more than that we will live forever. Every person will live forever but unbelievers will live forever in hell. The security of divine blessing is a major principle behind the imputation of eternal life. Eternal life is far more than it appears to be on the surface. Christianity is far above the born again cliché. God gives eternal life as a real imputation because there is an affinity between eternal life and the human spirit. God the Holy Spirit sets up this affinity at the point of salvation, when He creates the human spirit to be His home. Just as biological life is the home for soul life forming human life, so also God prepares the human spirit as the home for eternal life. In their origin, both the soul and the human spirit are creative acts of God. Both are unchangeable, indestructible facts of existence. When God imputes soul life to biological life its result is permanent and irrevocable. When God imputes eternal life that pact or arrangement is also permanent and irrevocable. Life can never be separated from its home when imputed. There is nothing we can do to break apart, cancel, alter or render void a divine imputation. Satan and all his demons cannot destroy either soul life or eternal life. Even God cannot undo what He Himself has done. The unbeliever in the Lake of Fire, with his soul intact and undamaged, will be completely and constantly aware of his terrible situation. The believer’s living soul will be in full operation in the midst of the glories of heaven. The fact that people are alive right now, both believers and unbelievers, is merely the present manifestation of the reality that they are alive forever. While still in the world, every living person has the opportunity to avoid the GWT or the Last Judgment by possessing the two vital requirements: First: His perfect righteousness and Second: His life. Both are imputed to the believer at the moment of salvation. Eternal life is God’s life, an attribute of His essence. Eternal life is the very life that He is. Imputed to us, it assures us a never-ending relationship with God. We have security in both time and eternity because of the imputation of eternal life. God’s life in us not only implies that we will live with Him forever, but it also guarantees that we will receive a resurrection body-minus the sin nature, minus human good and evil regardless of spiritual status on earth. That is ultimate sanctification. God is making us like his Son, and He accomplishes this in three stages:
183 - THE IMPUTATION OF BLESSING IN TIME The purpose of the five imputations that I have already outlined is for blessing the believers. Now the sixth and seventh imputations of time and eternity respectively from the justice of God are beyond blessing that we have known about (John 10:10). Every human being is the beneficiary at birth of the two imputations namely: the soul life to biological life and Adam’s original sin to old sin nature. When a person believes in Christ, he personally appropriates three more imputations namely: his personal sin imputed to Christ on the cross for judgment, God’s perfect righteousness imputed on him and God’s eternal life Every believer who has ever lived has been benefited by all five of these decisions of divine justice. But just as salvation carries the plan of God a stage human life and spiritual death, there is yet a stage beyond salvation. This is the realm of maximum blessing from the justice of God. For unbeliever is just a potential not yet a reality. In the same manner, the blessings of time are merely a potential for the immature believer. As human: you are alive forever, as believer: you are saved forever, but you may or you may not see the blessings of time and eternity. The blessings of time occurs when the justice of God pours blessings through His grace pipeline to the righteousness of God in the spiritual mature believer residing in the divine sphere. It is given only to the believer who, through Bible doctrine, possesses capacity for blessings. This is real imputation because there is an affinity between divine blessings and imputed divine righteousness. Two judicial imputations were required before there could be any such real imputation of blessing in time. By believing in Christ, we as it were, exchanged our sins for God’s perfect righteousness so that we actually possess part of the integrity of God. Only when we have His righteousness is there a home in us into which God can pour His blessings when we reach spiritual maturity. Righteousness in God demands His perfect righteousness in us. What God’s righteousness accepts His justice blesses. This axiom stands unbroken even when God blesses us. The justice of God can bless only the indwelling righteousness of God imputed at the moment of salvation. God is consistent and faithful; He prospers us only when, in doing so, He avoids all possibility of compromise to His perfect character. The blessings of time (exclusive for the spiritually mature believers) fall into six categories:
The blessings in time are the “much more” of Romans chapter 8. It is the “abundant life” of John 10:10 and the “greater grace” of James 4:6 reserved especially for the mature believers. Spiritual maturity is measured by the maximum Bible Doctrine in the souls of believers. Spiritual maturity is the beginning of the normal Christian life and the opening of the “windows” of heaven for pouring amazing blessings that comes from the justice of God. Blessings in time are different from logistical blessings for sustaining the CA believers in the cosmos diabolicus but designed for glorifying Christ. J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
184 - THE BLESSINGS IN ETERNITYWhen the Lord Jesus Christ evaluated the lives of believers and rewards them accordingly, He does so a Judge (John 5:22). He functions as Judge because all divine blessings and all imputations come from the justice of God. God is glorified through blessing man totally without compromise to divine righteousness. He is glorified to the ultimate by what He will give in that final imputation. The mature believer is the home or target of the final imputation. The mature believer’s hope becomes reality when eternal rewards and eternal blessings are credited to his resurrection body In order to anchor his confidence in this future reality, the mature believer must be familiar with the sequence of events leading up to and immediately following his final evaluation. The mature believer will not be evaluated until he receives his resurrection body. Real imputation of rewards cannot take place until a home or target has been prepared for them. No Church Age believer will be evaluated until the entire royal family of God has been formed the corporate completion of the body of Christ. Only then will the resurrection or Rapture take place. In that moment, each member of the royal family receives a body exactly like Christ’s resurrection body, free from sin nature, free from good and evil. The believer’s real self is his soul and human spirit and the body is a house or temporary residence for the real person. The departed Church Age believer’s soul and human spirit, with eternal life intact, are united with an interim body (Luke 16:19-31) to dwell in heaven with the Lord forever (2 Corinthians 5:1-6, 1 Thessalonians 5:23). Each individual is fully conscious, indeed, no longer limited by a mortal body, his perceptive ability is enhanced. He is fully recognizable and perfectly happy but as yet minus a resurrection body. At the Rapture, these multitude of CA believers, called “the dead in Christ” will accompany the Lord from heaven to a rendezvous in space above the earth, where they will be joined by the living CA believers. There, both the dead in Christ and the Rapture CA believers will receive their resurrection bodies (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. 1 Corinthians 15:51-54). Immediately after the Rapture, there will be a period of fantastic happiness and celebration, a grand reunion of the entire royal family of God, assembled for the first time in spontaneous collective and massive recognition of Christ (Romans 14:11). When the celebration reaches its high point, suddenly it gives way to momentous solemnity. The Lord Jesus Christ will convene court (Romans 14:12). The court of BEMA will evaluate every member of the royal family of God. This time of worship and of breaking into song will culminate as Christ leads the entire royal family of God back to heaven. As the era of the Church Age reach its completion, the interrupted Age of Israel will resume for its final seven years (Daniel
JR Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries
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01/24/06