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[Ray Replies]
Dear Lisa:
I can certainly understand your situation. There are maybe a thousand Christians churches teaching nearly the same things, however, different enough to call themselves by another name. I believe, however, that they all will take 10% of your salary and call it God's Tithe, regardless of what church YOU belong to.
There are lots of theories as to how one gets saved--what is required and what is not, what has been done away with and what has not. Usually people end up just picking a few things that they personally believe are important and try to stick to those. Maybe the one single most important physical ritual in all the Old Testament was "circumcision." The most demeaning thing that one could be called was an "Uncircumcised Gentile." Wow, how horrible.
Circumcision is the cutting of the foreskin of a boy when he is eight days old. It came to represent the purifying of the human heart. As though eight day olds could have their hearts purified. Flesh became synonymous with a carnal mind, and mind and attitude against God's will and commandments. It was just a physical ritual of cutting off a few centimeters of skin, but it was to picture THE ACTUAL CONVERSION OF THE HUMAN HEART AND TOTAL DEDICATIONS TO GOD. And mind you, the unfortunate female could not partake of this most revered ritual at all!
Well, don't you know, all Jewish babies were circumcised, as are all orthodox babies to this day, but there was a problem. They were all physically circumcised, but almost no one was circumcised spiritually in their heart, AND THAT IS WHAT IT REPRESENTED!
It was all the circumcised Jews in Jerusalem that crucified their own Messiah. The circumcised scribes and Pharisees were among the most hypocritical pack of lying, lusting, thieves on earth. Saul of Tarsus was circumcised the eight day as commanded--he also slaughtered many in Christ's Church and became the WORST SINNER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
I could go on and on. By the way, that pack of cut throat murders that chanted "CRUCIFY HIM, CRUCIFY HIM"--They were the ones that BELIEVED ON JESUS, WERE BAPTIZED BY JOHN, AND KEPT THE SABBATH DAY COMMAND EVERY WEEK!!!
Yet, I get emails every week, Lisa, telling me that we MUST "keep the Sabbath," we MUST "pay our tithes," we MUST observe the "Lord's supper," we MUST be "baptized in water," "we MUST "keep the ten commandments," etc., or we CAN'T BE SAVED!!!
Satan and his ministers APPEAR as angels of light! But Jesus said, "Satan DECEIVES THE WHOLE WORLD!" Do you think that just maybe professing Christians are part of "THE WHOLE WORLD?"
Do physical rituals, SPIRITUALLY SAVE A PERSON?
Most of Christendom and their highly schooled clergymen, have not a clue that we are under A NEW COVENANT, and that it is NOT PATTERNED AFTER THE OLD COVENANT! God said:
"I will make a NEW covenant with the [spiritual] house of Israel and with the House of Judah. NOT ACCORDING... [that's 'NOT according...'] ...NOT ACCORDING to the [old] covenant that I made with their fathers..." (Heb. 8:8-9).
Yet all of Christendom virtually teaches that the New Covenant is IN ACCORD WITH THE OLD covenant. That really, the New Testament to them is "Keeping the Old covenant BETTER than they used to keep the OLD COVENANT!!! Uncircumcised, unscriptural, HOG-WASH!!
Jesus said:
"Think NOT that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, BUT TO FULFILL"
Now follow this closely:
Did not Jesus say He came to "FULFILL" the prophets?
Did He in reality and actually, "fulfill" all the prophecies concerning Himself and His ministry?
YES HE DID!
Are those very SAME prophecies, therefore, still to be continuously fulfilled, over and over and over down through the centuries?
NO, JESUS HAS ALREADY FULFILLED THEM--ONCE FOR ALL!
Did Jesus also "FULFILL" the law? YES HE DID.
Are we then to continuously fulfill the law, over and over and over down through the centuries?
Contrary to all Christendom and the Supreme Court Judge of Alabama, NO WE ARE NOT!
WE ARE NOT, I REPEAT 'NOT' UNDER THE SAME OLD COVENANT LAWS TODAY!!! Jesus Christ and the Apostles SAID SO.
"In that He [Jesus] said, A NEW COVENANT, he has made the first OLD. Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to VANISH AWAY" (Heb. 8:13).
Will we believe these words or not?
Here is the real answer:
"For the LOVE of Christ constrains us because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were ALL DEAD: And that He died for all, that they which live should NOT henceforth live unto themselves, but unto HIM which died for them, and rose again. Where henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet NOW HENCEFORTH KNOW WE HIM NO MORE. THEREFORE if any man be IN CHRIST, he is A NEW CREATURE: old things are passed away; BEHOLD, all things are become new"!!! (II Cor. 5:14-17).
If you are IN CHRIST, then CHRIST IS IN YOU, and Christ will live a NEW LIFE IN YOU THROUGH THE SPIRIT OF GOD, and not through the carnal minded flesh of man.
THERE IS NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, THAT ONE CAN DO 'PHYSICALLY' TO GET SAVED 'SPIRITUALLY'!!
But what about all these 'physical things' of circumcision and baptism? Do we not have to be circumcised and baptized? YES WE DO! ABSOLUTELY. And here is how it is to be done:
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy [theological doctrines] and vain DECEIT, after the TRADITION OF MEN, after the RUDIMENTS OF THE WORLD, and not AFTER CHRIST. For IN HIM dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And YOU ARE COMPLETE IN HIM, which is the Head of all principality and power: In Whom also ye ARE CIRCUMCISED [how so?] with the circumcision made WITHOUT HANDS [or knives], in putting off the BODY OF THE SINS OF THE FLESH by the CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST: [notice, no period...] Buried WITH HIM [in 'WATER baptism?' No...] in baptism [how so? same way! 'WITHOUT HANDS; WITHOUT WATER, 'in putting off the body of the SINS OF THE FLESH by the BAPTISM OF CHRIST--there is but 'ONE BAPTISM,' Eph. 4:5!], wherein also you are risen WITH HIM through the faith of the operation of God Who has raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the UNcircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together WITH HIM, having forgiven you ALL TRESPASSES
... Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon or of the sabbath days: Which are a SHADOW of things to come, but the body [the SUBSTANCE, the REALITY OF THE SHADOW, the BODY OF CHRIST WHICH WAS CASTING THE SHADOW] is of [or belongs to] CHRIST" (Col. 2:8-13 & 16-17)!!!
At the conference at Jerusalem spoken of in the 15th chapter of Acts, Christian Pharisees were demanding that newly converted Gentiles must BE CIRCUMCISED AND KEEP THE LAW OF MOSES. Did the Apostles, elders, disciples, and the whole church under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit conclude that they should:
A. Be circumcised, but NOT to keep the law of Moses?
B. Keep the law of Moses, but NOT to be circumcised?
C. Be circumcised, AND keep the law of Moses?
D. NONE OF THE ABOVE?
It is, of course, NONE OF THE ABOVE. They ALL concluded in complete harmony with each other and the Spirit of God, that new Christian converts were not to be circumcised OR keep the law of Moses. Now everyone knows (don't they?) that the ritual of circumcision was the most important physical ritual in all the Old Covenant, and that that the Old Covenant itself WAS the 'Ten Commandments.'
"And He [GOD] declared unto you His [Old now] Covenant, which He commanded you to perform, EVEN TEN COMMANDMENTS; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone" (Deut. 4:13).
The TEN COMMANDMENTS were, in effect, THE OLD COVENANT! Read all of Acts 15 and see for yourself that the OLD covenant ten commandments and circumcision were NOT enforced upon NEW CHRISTIAN CONVERTS UNDER THE NEW COVENANT!
When we have JESUS CHRIST LIVING IN OUR VERY HEARTS AND MINDS AND SPIRITS, we don't need laws chiseled into hearts of STONY TABLETS! We must live a spiritual life FAR FAR ABOVE that of the legalistic Pharisaical hypocrites that thought that obeying physical laws makes a man SPIRITUAL.
One could KILL HIS ENEMIES under the Old Covenant. Well he can't anymore. Now a Christian MUST LOVE ALL OF HIS ENEMIES! One was to performed his oaths unto the Lord in the Old Covenant, but now a Christian is "NOT TO SWEAR AT ALL." You see NOT SWEARING is NOT the spiritual application of SWEARING. They are DIFFERENT. And the New is BETTER! One was not to commit the actual act of physical intercourse with another man's wife, under the Old Covenant. But now ... NOW, we dare not even "LOOK upon a woman to lust after her"!!!
Are you getting the picture? Are you beginning to hear with your spiritual ears and perceive with you spiritual eyes and understand in your SPIRITUAL HEART? GOOD! GOD BLESS YOU!
Peace and grace to you and yours, always,
Ray
P.S. God will give His Holy Spirit to those whom He has called and chosen. There are no physical formulas now that we know Christ no more after the flesh, we are COMPLETE IN HIM, which certainly includes His Holy Spirit.
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Topic: Col-2-13-17 (Read 12180 times)