Topics
Definition	The Exegesis of 1John 1:4–10	Case History: David's sin with Bathsheba
Charts, Maps and Doctrines
Scar Tissue/Grace Apparatus for Perception (GAP)	Links to the Doctrine of Rebound	A Summary of the Doctrine of Homologeô
The Importance of Bible Doctrine Links	The Results of David's Sin	False Systems of Spirituality
Doctrines Alluded To
Dispensations	Jesus in the Old and New Testaments	Messianic Prophecies
	Tongues

Preface: Churches teach a lot of things, but when it comes to mechanics, this is where the local church generally falls down on the job. Your minister might ask you to stand up and tell the person behind you that you love them; they might ask you to come forward at the end of a service to rededicate your life to Christ; you might have a group surround you while you lean your head back, let your mind go blank, and you are encouraged to make noises until you get the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues. The problem with these mechanics is, they are not found in the Bible—not by example and not by doctrine.

However, the most important mechanic for the new believer is either never taught or distorted greatly by emotionalism and/or legalism. What is important is, how are you filled with the Spirit and how do you quench the Spirit? How do you get into fellowship and how do you get out of fellowship? How do you walk in the light and how do you walk in darkness? If you cannot answer these questions quickly and with a simple mechanic, then you ought to reevaluate your Christian life and your growth. If being in or out of fellowship has profound meaning in the New Testament epistles; if being filled with the Spirit or avoiding quenching the Spirit is important, then why don’t you know how do to these things?

Let me explain a mechanic: it is simply what you do to achieve a result. For instance, let’s say that kicking a piece of furniture got you out of fellowship, the act of kicking would be a mechanic. Let’s say that the Bible told you that, looking over your left shoulder and shouting “Hooyah” got you back into fellowship; then the act of looking over your left shoulder and shouting “Hooyah” is a mechanic.

We were all saved by grace. We believed in Jesus Christ and God put us into Christ; God gave us eternal life; God imputed Christ’s righteousness to us (these are 3 of the 40 things which God does for us at the moment of salvation). If this has gone to a person who has not believed in Jesus Christ, then what I have written here is not for you. You need the gospel (good news). The gospel is, you are separated from God because you have sinned, because you have Adam’s imputed sin, and because you have a sin nature. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins on the cross, and when you believe in Him, these 3 barriers are removed and you are saved forever and you have an eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, a relationship which cannot be broken, nullified, or destroyed by you, by any person you know, or even by angels. That part of the Christian life takes only a few seconds.

The correct mechanic in order to be saved is putting faith in Jesus Christ. You may have gone to some evangelistic meeting; you may have raised your hand in a church service; you may have gotten baptized, you may have joined a church. All of these things are mechanics. However, the only mechanic which saves you is faith in Jesus Christ. For a very long list of verses about salvation, see http://kukis.org/salvation/Salvation.htm

Just as there are a plethora of false mechanics out there when it comes to being saved, there are a plethora of false mechanics out there when it comes to being filled with the Spirit. Since we were saved by grace, one might reasonably suppose our Christian life to consist of grace actions (or grace mechanics).

The church I go to calls the mechanic to be filled with the Spirit, to restore fellowship with God rebound. You quench the Spirit, you rebound, and you are filled with the Spirit. You get out of fellowship and you rebound, and you are back in fellowship. It is simply a word which describes the grace mechanics; like the word Trinity, it is not found in the Bible, but it stands for an accurate, Biblical doctrine.

I should note that I will cover this doctrine in only a few pages (16); and the bulk of this is addendum (over 40 pages).

I. Brief overview: Christians do a lot of goofy things in order to fix, spice up or enhance their spiritual lives. They will gather with a group of believers who want them to get the ghost and who apply psychological pressure for them to do so. They might assume various positions, lean their heads back, and make noises, hoping to get some sort of experience. The pastor may amble on by, touch their forehead, and, bam!, they are slain in the Spirit. These mechanics are never proffered by Scripture. However, after a few people read through the book of Acts, they have attempted to duplicate what they read there, and usually by doing things which have no Biblical basis. There are others who do more innocuous things, like, they raise their hands in a church service or they walk forward in some kind of a rededication event at their church. Again, these mechanics are never found in Scripture. No one walks forward, no one raises their hand, no one leans their head back and starts making noise, hoping there will be some kind of experience which approximates that of those in that particular church. The Bible does offer one very specific (and easy) mechanic: If we acknowledge our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9). That is what this rebound is all about.

II. God’s mandates: throughout the New Testament, there are a number of mandates which God lays out through the human authors of Scripture. As I list these commands, bear in mind, God does not command us to do something without giving us the mechanics or the ability to obey His command. Furthermore, the method should be grace; we were saved by grace, so we ought to live by grace.

1. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18).

2. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). Similar to this, we have 1Thess. 5:19: Do not quench the Spirit.

3. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25).

4. These are all commands. In the Greek, they are in the imperative mood, which means, that God, through Paul, was giving us an order. So, obviously, there is something or some things which we need to do which are related to God the Holy Spirit. Somewhere, in the Bible, we should be able to find the mechanics.

5. This is the second most discouraging topic to talk to Christians about. Ask a Christian who has been going to a Bible-believing church about the Holy Spirit, about quenching, grieving, walking by or being filled with the Holy Spirit, and most of the time, you will get a blank stare, or a list of things that we ought to do which are not found in the Bible. However, before I go into any explanation here, let me cover things which the Bible does not command us to do:

III. Things which we are NOT commanded to do:

1. We are never commanded to be indwelt by the Spirit: By the Holy Spirit Who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you (1Tim. 1:14).

2. To be baptized by the Holy Spirit. For by means of one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit (1Cor. 12:13).

3. To somehow go out and get the Spirit. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us (1John 3:24b). By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit (1John 4:13). Like the writers of the epistles, John wrote to believers. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, Who gives His Holy Spirit to you (1Tim. 4:8). Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1Cor. 6:19a; see also 1Cor. 3:16). And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (2Cor. 1:21–22). Bear in mind, in these last few verses, Paul is writing to the most carnal group of believers in the New Testament: the Corinthians; yet, they all clearly have the Holy Spirit.

4. See also Rom. 5:5 8:9–11 1Cor. 2:12 12:7 2Cor. 5:5 Gal. 3:2 4:6 Eph. 2:28 James 4:5 1Peter 4:14. The short explanation is, we do not have to do something in order to get God’s Spirit.

5. It is important to note that, once we get out of the book of Acts, there is not a single reference to some set of steps that we must follow in order to somehow get the Holy Spirit. In the book of Acts, there is never a set of steps given by which various believers got the Holy Spirit; simply that, during that time period, there were certain groups of believers who did not get the Holy Spirit at salvation (these are believers who were saved prior to the ascension of Jesus Christ). In the epistles, which is where Church Age doctrine is to be found, at no time does Paul, John, James or Peter say, “Look, you have this really pathetic group of believers in your church and I think what they are lacking is the Holy Spirit; so, here is how you can get the Spirit...” Jesus, when discussing the various churches in Revelation also makes no such command. The most carnal believers in the New Testament—the Corinthians—are said to have God the Holy Spirit, they are said to be baptized by the Spirit, and they are said to have their spiritual gifts. However, possession of the Spirit obviously does not guarantee that a person is going to live some sort of victorious Christian life.

6. It is important to note that there are mechanics in the New Testament, but that none of these mechanics include walking down an aisle, raising one’s hand, or doing odd things in order to get the Spirit.

IV. The mechanics: when God gives us a command, then we should expect that He will give us clear mechanics in order to fulfill this command. What follows is a brief exegetical study of 1John 1:4–10. At the end of this doctrine, I will exegete this passage word-by-word, so that there is no confusion about the meaning of this passage (the Complete Exegesis of 1John 1:4–10).

1. 1John 1:4: And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. John says we are writing these things; there were several Apostles who regularly kept in touch with congregations which they helped to found or taught at some point. The purpose here was to complete our joy, which would reasonably be the joy of those who write and those who read these letters (epistles).

2. 1John 1:5: This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. It is important to recognize that there are absolutes, and Christians do recognize these absolutes, for the most part, as they apply to others. However, absolutes apply to believers as well. We will either be in the light or in darkness; we will not wander around in the twilight.

3. 1John 1:6: If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. John amplifies the concept of absolutes: You cannot claim to have fellowship with God while walking in darkness. So, the topic of this particular chapter is, walking in the light versus walking in darkness; having fellowship with God or not having fellowship with Him.

4. 1John 1:7: But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. Here, walking in the light is closely identified with having fellowship with one another. Notice that all this talk about fellowship is all related to being cleansed from all sin.

5. 1John 1:8: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Here, sin is found in the singular, and it is often used this way to refer to the sin nature. If we claim to now lack the sin nature for any reason, we have deceived ourselves.

6. 1John 1:9: If we cite [acknowledge, name, confess] our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is the mechanic; this is what we call rebound. All believers sin. I have a cousin who used to send me web-linked articles about this or that believer who sinned, thinking that, somehow, this would destroy my faith because not only did some Christian sin, but he sinned big and, oh my gosh, it was in the news. To any Christian who is not self-deceived (v. 8), we know we have a sin nature and we know that we sin. Now, since this is the thrust of this doctrine, let me go through this mechanic phrase by phrase.

1) If we cite [acknowledge, name, confess] our sins,... The Greek word found here is used when you cite a fact in a court case. You may or may not be emotional—that is not really important—but you cite whatever sins you have committed. For some, this might be once or twice a day; for others, it might be once or twice every few minutes. We sin, we name our sin to God (not to a priest, not to some other person), and those are the grace mechanics. Note, there is no work here. We do not have to drum up some kind of an emotional state in order to rebound. We simply name our sins. We might be happy about what we just did; we might be mortified by what we just did; however, this is a grace mechanic—we name our sin or sins to God. What follows in this verse is what God does as a result of naming our sins to Him.

2) ...He is faithful... The word faithful means that God does this each and every time. You may think that you have discovered some sin too great even for God to forgive, but that is not what is written here. Every time we name our sins to God, He will do the same thing. This could launch us into a whole new topic—Gd’s faithfulness—but there are promises which God makes in the Bible, there are things that He says that He will do, and we can depend upon these words because, God is faithful.

3) ...and just to forgive us our sins... God’s character is perfect. He is perfect justice and perfect righteousness. At best, as unbelievers, we have relative righteousness. We are able to find someone else that most people can agree is much worse than we are. God, however, is perfect justice and perfect righteousness, and everything that He does must comport with His own righteousness and justice. God cannot just say, “What the hell, I like Charlie Brown, so I am going to forgive him for his sins.” God must act in accordance with His perfect character, and His justice is perfect and His righteousness is perfect. Therefore, when He forgives us our sins, He does so within the confines of His justice. All of our sins, past present and future, were poured out on Jesus Christ at the cross, and He took the penalty for these sins. God is therefore just to forgive us the sins that we have committed, because these sins have been paid for. However, what is occurring here is different from salvation. At salvation, we are forgiven all of our sins—past, present, and future—and given Christ’s righteousness (2 of the 40 things which God does for us at salvation). However, all of us remain alive and on this earth after God saves us. Our relationship with God comes to us in 3 parts: (1) phase I: salvation—we believe in Jesus Christ and we are saved; (2) phase II: our life on this earth; and (3) phase III, eternity—what happens to us after death. Most of the Bible is all about phase II, our life on this earth after salvation. At the moment of salvation, we are both given God the Holy Spirit and we are filled with God the Holy Spirit (2 of the 40 things that we receive at salvation). The first time that we sin, we quench the Spirit; we lose our fellowship with God; we begin to walk in darkness. For most believers, this occurs approximately 47.5 seconds after we are saved. We get back into fellowship by naming that sin (or sins) to God.

4) ...and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As a new believer (and even as an old believer), we do not know about each and every sin that we can commit. All of us do things which are sin, but we do not recognize these things as sin. When we name to God the sins that we know, those sins are forgiven but, also, all of our sins are forgiven. He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We may commit 3 known sins and 28 unknown sins over the space of say, 30 minutes, and we decide, I might as well get back into fellowship. We name the 3 known sins which we committed; God temporally forgives us for committing these sins, but then He also cleanses us from all unrighteousness, which includes the 28 unknown sins which we committed. A common unknown sin which people commit is guilt; they feel guilty about doing this or that. Once we name our sins, no matter how horrendous they were and no matter how much we shocked ourselves by our own debauchery, those sins are forgiven—and if we begin to feel guilty about having committed those sins, then we need to tell God “I feel guilty” and He forgives us that sin as well. However, for most believers, guilt is not recognized as a sin, so they do not confess it. However, God cleanses us from all unrighteousness, including each and every sin that we do not know is a sin.

7. 1John 1:10: If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. The final verse in this chapter makes it clear that, everyone sins. No person believes in Jesus Christ and then they never commit another sin. Those of us who claim to lead sinless lives make God out to be a liar and His word (doctrine) is not in us.

V. Synonyms for being out of fellowship and for the restoration of fellowship:

1. Walking in the light: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin (1John 1:7). Walking in light as opposed to walking in darkness, could also refer to salvation (John 11:10) or to spiritual growth (Eph. 5:8).

2. Walking in the Spirit: By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit(Rom. 8:3b–4).

3. Being in the Spirit: Eph. 6:18a (praying at all times in the Spirit). In fact, this is a little tricky: when we believe in Jesus Christ, 1 of the 40 things we receive at this moment is God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit is in us. However, when the Bible speaks of us being in the Spirit, this refers to temporal fellowship with God.

4. Being in fellowship with other believers and with Jesus Christ. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth (1John 1:6). See also 2Cor. 13:14.

5. Drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. This is being out of fellowship. The Corinthians were urged to judge themselves so that they would not be judged (which is rebound) 1Cor. 11:27–31

6. Yield (in the aorist tense) (Rom. 6:13, 12:1)

7. Lay aside every weight (Heb. 12:1)

8. Be in subjection to the Father (Heb. 12:9)

9. Lift up the hands that hang down (Heb. 12:12)

10. Make straight paths (Matt. 3:3; Heb. 12:13)

11. Arise from the dead (Eph. 5:14)

12. Put off the old man (Eph. 4:22)

13. Acknowledge your iniquity (Jer. 3:13).

VI. Parallel passages. One of the greatest problems which I have seen in Christian doctrine is, someone finds a passage, interprets that passage in a particular way, and then elevates this passage above every other. Rebound is probably the single most important mechanic found in Scripture (after believing in Jesus Christ for salvation, of course); therefore, it is reasonable that we should expect to find it elsewhere in the Bible.

1. Jesus illustrates rebound to Peter, and this is often lost in the English translation. Washing the entire body refers to salvation; washing the feet only refers to the restoration of temporal fellowship. Jesus was going to wash Peter’s feet, which, of course, Peter refused. Then Jesus told him, “If I don’t wash your feet, then you have no part with Me.” Then Peter, always misreading the situation, asked the Lord to wash him completely, and Jesus tells him that he has been completely washed already. John 13:5–11

2. “Remain [stay, abide] in Me” is a mandate (imperative mood) spoken by Jesus Christ to the Apostles, and this is related to the production of divine good in John 15:1–7.

3. One of the man problems in the Corinthian church was their practice of communion. The problem was, many of them were out of fellowship when taking communion, and, as a result, some became ill and some even died (divine discipline and the sin unto death). Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves correctly, we will not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world (1Cor. 11:27–32). Although, it is important for us to be in fellowship as often as possible, it is particularly important when taking communion. When we are out of fellowship, we are subject to divine discipline, which, for the Corinthians so impacted them that, some died. Paul urged each person to examine himself and to judge himself correctly (i.e., name whatever sins we have committed). If God needs to judge us for these sins, the result would be discipline.

4. Lifting holy hands in 1Tim. 2:8. It is not the physical gesture which is being emphasized here, but the lack of mental attitude and verbal sins (without anger and without quarreling).

5. In many cases, rebound is combined with spiritual growth (which occurs through the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ). Even some of the passages which are offered here are synonyms for being in fellowship and growing by means of the Spirit and grace. An example of this is Eph. 4:17–24: Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the vacuum of their minds. The word translated vacuum (also rendered futility, moral depravity, vanity) is the technical term mataiotês (ματαιότης). Paul is speaking to believers in this epistle, and obviously to believers who were walking as Gentiles did. Paul uses the word gentile to refer to a heathen unbeliever. When a person rejects Jesus Christ as Savior, their minds will suck in human viewpoint (that is the vacuum) and they will behave in depraved ways (walking as Gentiles). This means that they will operate in systems which are contrary to God’s plan for the human race. Because Paul is speaking to believers, this means that believers can also vacuum in human viewpoint and they can live in such a way as to be indistinguishable from unbelievers. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. As a believer’s soul goes negative, it rejects the truth and pulls in human viewpoint. This covers the soul in darkness so that such a person become alienated from the life of God, which means both being in fellowship and having a productive life. Paul is speaking of believers here, and this is actually very technical here. They have become callous [scar tissue buildup on the soul] and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity [they act like unbelievers]. But that is not the way you learned Christ—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self [to put off your old self means to lay aside your sin nature; this is they synonym for rebound], which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires [this is spiritual growth through being in fellowship and learning doctrine, which will certainly have an effect on your actions], and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Being renewed in the spirit of your minds means to both be back in fellowship, but to experience spiritual growth as well.

6. David spoke of being out of fellowship and being sick because of sinning against God. Psalm 41:3–4

7. In a passage which we will cover in more depth, David committed adultery, he had the woman’s husband killed, and then, in a later psalm, said to God, “Against You and You only have I sinned.” See Psalm 51:1–4

8. Laying aside every weight. Heb. 12:1: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [we are in the midst of the Angelic Conflict], let us also lay aside every weight [rebound], and sin which clings so closely [through rebound, we lay aside the sin nature, which clings so closely], and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. The final phrase is off point for our topic of rebound, but we are given a specific amount of time on this earth, and this refers to the time constraints.

9. The Jews were under the Law of God, but we are under the law of the Spirit of life (which is the principle of rebound).

1) The Law handed down through Moses was much more than the Ten Commandments. The Law of Moses can be broken down into 3 parts:

(1) Codex #1: The moral law, which includes the Ten Commandments.

(2) Codex #2: A complete Christology in shadow form. Jesus Christ and His death on the cross is taught over and over again in the Law of Moses, from the Feast Days to the sacrifices offered up by the priests; the priesthood itself, the Tabernacle and the articles of furniture all spoke of Jesus Christ to come. God the Holy Spirit communicated the gospel through these various things to the people of Israel (and those who came to Israel) and they were saved through faith in Jehovah Elohim.

(3) Codex #3: The social law. Given the time and place of Israel, and the social mores of that day, God delineated laws to govern Israel and the relationships between the people of Israel to one another and to those around them.

2) We are no longer under the Law of Moses. Rom. 7:6 Gal. 2:19 3:13

3) We are under a new law, which includes rebound, and the principles of which are laid out in Rom. 7:14–25 and 8:1–14

(1) The basic principle of the continued indwelling of the old sin nature and its conflict with the Holy Spirit is laid out in Rom. 7:14–26: What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Paul has already explained that we have been released from the Law of Moses, but this does not means that the Law itself was wrong or weak. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! The Law revealed to Paul that he was a sinner. It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. All believers have the indwelling of the sin nature. In fact, it is inherent in every cell of our being. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Sin in the singular often refers to the sin nature. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being [this is the human spirit], but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. The Holy Spirit within us controls us or our sin nature controls us. As long as we are in this body of sin, we will be subject to this inner conflict.

(2) Paul deals with this subject matter in a very large context, which is our relationship to the Law of God. He is explaining that we are not under the Law of Moses, but we are under a different law, which begins with rebound, which restores the filling of the Holy Spirit. Rom. 8:1–14: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. The Law of Moses condemns us. If we are under the Law of Moses, then we sin and we are deserving of death. We are now under the law of the Spirit of life, which means that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone—the foundation of our faith—and then we operate in the Christian life by means of God the Holy Spirit. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh [this is salvation by faith in Christ], in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit [this is being in fellowship as opposed to being our of fellowship]. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. When you are filled with the Spirit, you operate in one way; when you are controlled by the sin nature, you operate in a different way. From the outside, we may not be able to easily judge what is occurring, as believers whose sin nature has a trend toward asceticism, can appear to be very religious when out of fellowship. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh [the person controlled by the sin nature] is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot [you cannot, in any way, do that which is divine good when controlled by your sin nature; the best you can do is to act moral and/or religious]. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him [you are either a believer or an unbeliever; you have the Holy Spirit or you do not]. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you [this is living by means of the Spirit]. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Being led by the Spirit of God is another synonym for being in fellowship, for being filled with the Spirit, for walking in the light.

10. Eph. 5:14b: Arise, sleeping ones and stand up out of the dead ones, and Christ will shine on you. The context of this passage is fellowship (v. 11) and not unbelievers believing in Christ and being raised from the dead. When we are out of fellowship, it is as if we are sleeping or as if we were dead, as we have no function in the spiritual life.

11. Eph. 5:18 (Prov. 23:31): And "do not be drunk with wine," in which is debauchery, but be filled by the Spirit. In the same context is this passage, where we are exhorted to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The mechanics are not given, just the principle. The mention of being drunk with wine simply sets up a contrast between being controlled by wine or being controlled by the Holy Spirit.

VII. Rebound in the Old Testament:

1. In the topic above, I have covered some specific Old Testament passages which deal with rebound.

2. Trespass offerings in the Old Testament were about known sins; sin offerings were about unknown (or unrecognized) sins. Lev. 4–5

3. The bronze laver taught rebound (Ex. 30:18-21 38:8).

1) The bronze laver was a large bronze basin designed to hold water for the priests to wash their hands and feet. It was made of bronze hand mirrors which had been melted down.

2) The normal function of a hand mirror is to look at oneself.

3) In passages which teach by means of types, bronze portrays judgment.

4) Thus the bronze hand mirrors pictures the self examination aspect of Rebound; in order to confess our sins, we must examine ourselves to determine which, if any, sins we have committed.

5) In actual practice, the Word of God is the mirror through which we are able to correctly examine ourselves.

4. Rebound was also taught through the daily trimming of the wicks on the golden lampstand (Ex. 30:7).

1) The lampstand symbolized the Word of God which gives the spiritual light necessary for us to please God (compare PSALM 119:105).

2) When the wicks were trimmed, they were cleaned.

3) The cleaning of the wicks on the lampstand pictured our cleansing through rebound (as it relates to our understanding the Word of God.

(1) We must be filled with God the Holy Spirit in order to correctly understand and appreciate Bible doctrine.

(2) The lampstand portrayed the light of the Word of God.

(3) Rebound is the technique whereby we are filled with God the Holy Spirit.

5. National rebound is taught in Lev. 26 and Daniel 9.

VIII. The results of rebound:

1. You recover the filling of the Holy Spirit.

2. Your fellowship with God and other believers is restored.

3. There is the resumption of your spiritual life.

4. Rebound may or may not remove any ongoing divine discipline.

1) There are times when we sin that God does not discipline us before or after we rebound.

2) In some cases, God brings divine discipline upon us to move us toward rebound.

3) If we rebound, and this divine discipline continues, then it continues for our blessing.

4) There are also natural results of sin which can continue, even if we are back in fellowship.

(1) We might, for instance, gossip about Charlie Brown and his bad taste in shoes; and then, realizing that this is wrong, rebound. However, if this gets back to Charlie Brown, he may feel resentment and act upon it.

(2) When you break the law, you can name this sin to God and be forgiven, but you may still be arrested and serve a sentence for breaking this law.

(3) There are sins which build up scar tissue on our souls which make it easier to commit the same sin again. One common example is drug use—if we never use drugs, then our level of temptation is going to be nil. However, for some, if we use drugs, then the temptation to use them again is stronger. A common example of this is alcoholism—some people take themselves to a point with alcohol so that they cannot even have one drink, or it sets them off.

(4) Sexual sins, such as homosexual acts or adultery, can be more easily avoided if never done in the first place (this is assuming either of these to be among one’s proclivities in the first place).

IX. Rebound is not victory over sin or carnality, but recovery from same. Obviously, if we sin 15 seconds later (and some of us will), we do not have victory over that sin or group of sins.

X. Rebound, like salvation, must be a grace operation; that is, there are no works involved or allowed.

1. Salvation is faith alone in Christ alone. When Jesus was asked “What should we do, in order to do the works of God?” He answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6:28–29. There are many passages of Scripture which tell us that no works are involved in salvation; one of them is Rom. 4:2–8: For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but they are owed to him. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." (also Gen. 15:6 Psalm 32:1–2).

2. This is a logical conclusion when it comes to rebound. If, when we are unbelievers, can only come to God through faith, without any works; then logically, when we are temporally out of fellowship, we also have nothing to offer God in that state. Guilt, regret, penance, and promises logically have no place in restoring our fellowship with God. That means that there is something we can do, some work which we can perform, from a state of carnality, which impresses God so much that He just has to forgive us. God saves us on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross; God forgives us in time on he basis of Christ’s death on the cross; it is not logical for works to be excluded from salvation but not from rebound.

3. The key in salvation is faith, in and of itself, has no merit. The merit is what we have faith in. Every person has faith; about 90% of everything that we know is based upon faith. Even those things which we determine rationally and/or empirically have some basis in faith. A scientist knows that, when we add Hydrochloric acid to Sodium Hydroxide, we get salt water. This experiment has been performed over and over again millions of times in science classrooms all over the world; and every teacher expects the same result, because he believes that we live in an ordered universe, and universe which obeys a set of laws.

4. In rebound, there is also no credit or merit which we can take in the process. We simply name our sins and God forgives all of our sins, including the ones we did not know were sins. Our forgiveness in time is based upon what our Lord did for us on the cross; it is not based upon our promises, penance, or emotion.

XI. God coaxes us toward rebound:

1. When we sin, and get out of fellowship, God gives us warning discipline.

2. God allows natural results to play out, which are not necessarily discipline, but can be just as harsh.

3. If a person does not rebound, this discipline is intensified. Heb. 12:5–6 (Prov. 3:11–12): And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? We are disciplined because we are sons of God. "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline [the principle and act of discipline] of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines [warning discipline] the one he loves, and chastises [intensive discipline] every son whom he receives."

1) Allow me a tangent here: we may not like discipline very much when it is happening (that is sort of the point of discipline); but, to draw an analogy, I was spanked several times as a child. At the time, I did not care for it too much. However, in retrospect, knowing my proclivities as a child, I probably did not receive a tenth of the discipline which I deserved.

2) When my parents disciplined me, it was for my good, because simply talking to me did not always work (did it ever?), being the hard-headed child that I was.